Mail Bag

Here's an email I received recently and my response. I do get this question from time to time, so I thought I would post this in case there were any readers who might find it useful:


I'm a really big fan of yours! Your style is just so amazing, and I love it. But, uh, I know this sounds dumb, you probably get a ton of questions on this, but...To emulate the colouring style, and just the basic outline of it all, how would I manage that? I'm assuming it's digital, which is cool. But I really like the grainy textures and smooth, vectorish looking figures. If you have any tips or anything, that'd be wonderful! Thank you.

Hi, and thanks for the compliments!

You are correct, I create all of my art digitally, and I use a Wacom tablet to create my drawings in Photoshop. If you don't have a tablet, I highly recommend looking into one if you are wanting to do digital illustration. You don't need a fancy one; as the difference between using a mouse and using any tablet whatsoever is like night and day.

Even though I do a lot of smooth "vectorish" line work, I always use Photoshop rather than a vector program like Illustrator. The reason is that I just find it more user friendly for my purposes. In Photoshop you simply take the brush tool and draw whatever you want wherever you want, like a real life painting. In illustrator I find that it is much more about fidgeting around with lines to get them exactly right, which personally I find a bit cumbersome when trying to make an organic drawing.

As far as the different textures used in my work, it basically boils down to different brushes in Photoshop. For smoother lines I use a brush that emulates sort of a pencil line, so that it is smooth but still has an uneven natural quality to it. but for more grainy or blurry lines (like when I'm doing "shading") I use a brush that has sort of a chalk look to it. I have created my own custom brushes after years of whittling down what I like and use the most. Beyond that it's just lots and lots of practice!

A while ago I did a series of posts explaining my process which you can find here: http://albinoraven7.blogspot.com/2010/10/proccess-part-1.html
At the top of each post is a list of links to all the other parts, 1 through 5.

-Glen

A Tribute to Judd Apatow

Here's my piece for Gallery 1988's Tribute to Judd Apatow that opens next week with a reception hosted by Judd himself.

I decided to base this piece on the cult animated series The Critic, for which Judd was a producer before he hit it big with his own films. I went back and watched the whole series while working on this design and I forgot how fantastic it was. I mean I remember it being good, but it's downright hilarious. It's interesting that it got tossed from network to network and then cancelled after only two seasons, while nowadays network animated shows not even half as funny get renewed year after year.

I thought I would mix it up a bit and make this piece a papercraft toy, since they are a ton of to design but I don't get the chance to make new ones very often. If you build this particular toy you will have a little Jay Sherman to act as your very own personal critic! I think this is the first time I've designed a Papercraft with "moving" parts.

This morning I was very excited to see this print featured as part of /Film's preview of the show!

Black Friday Artwork

This Black Friday I'll have some artwork on display in Charleston, so if you're in the area please come check it out!

First, you can come see the guy pictured above at the Clay Center museum as part of their Traditions art show and Holly Day event. It's a layered wood sculpture that I based one of my previous drawings of the Grinch (my favorite Christmas cartoon.) It was a nice change of pace from illustrating to cut something out of wood, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Hopefully I can grab some slightly more professional photos of it at the museum.

The Clay Center gallery will be open from noon to 4 pm on Friday, and the show runs until December 30.


Also, I will have a dozen prints on display and for sale at The Purple Moon, debuting as part of Friday's Artwalk. The response to the first showing of my work at the retro-themed store was amazing; all of the pieces sold and people have been asking when they would see more. I have to thank the folks at the Purple Moon and everybody who either dropped by or bought a piece for all the support!

The ArtWalk will be from 5pm to 8pm on Friday and of course will have lots of great work from local artists.

Tank Girl

I took a few photos at the last Dr. Sketchy's figure drawing session so that I could use them to create some more finished drawings later on. For whatever reason I almost never base my drawings on actual photo reference, so I thought it would be good to try something a little different.

This drawing was based on model Lavender Menace at the Tank Girl themed session.

Bad Dads Art Show

This is my piece for Spoke Art's "Bad Dads" gallery show which features art based on the films of Wes Anderson.

I decided to combined two of my favorite things that Wes Anderson has given us: a stop-motion rat and naked Natalie Portman! To tell you the truth I think The Life Aquatic may be my favorite of his movies, but I've seen so much great artwork based on it that I felt like I needed to do something different.

Here is a photo of opening night which I borrowed from Spoke Art's Flickr page. If you check out the rest of the photos you can see all of the amazing artwork as well as a ton of fans dressed up as their favorite characters.

Spoke Art is located at 816 Sutter Street in San Francisco, CA. This show runs until November 24th.

Just a goofy anecdote, when I saw the latest Anderson film Moonrise Kingdom in the theater a middle-aged woman in front of me remarked that it was "the worst movie she'd ever seen," which my friends and I couldn't help but laugh at. She clearly had no idea what she was getting herself into. She must have thought it was something staring Julia Roberts that ended with a wedding.

My Sesame Street Shirt is here!

The Shirt I designed for Threadless' Sesame Street design challenge is now up for sale!

I'm so excited to be a Threadless alumni and have an official piece of Sesame Street merchandise under my belt.

It comes in mens, womens, kids, and babies' sizes; and I can't tell you how much I love the kids shirts and onesies. If anybody buys one for their little one PLEASE send me a photo, I would love to see it in action.

Some of the sizes look like they are going quickly, so please go here to buy one!

Dr. Sketchy's update Part 2

A continuation of yestrday's post, here are some more drawings from the last few sessions of Dr. Sketchy's Charleston, the monthly art event that combines burlesque and figure drawing.

Vampirella session:

Tank Girl session:

Mermaid session: