Copic Blog

A while back Copic approached me about doing a Guest Tutorial for their blog! I was so excited and delighted of course I did it! SO here it is for you to enjoy and the art! (Blog restructure is still happening, I just got sidelined with dental issues)

Guest Tutorial – Airbrushing Comics by Marker Guru

Leaellynasaura - copic blog by `guruubii on deviantART

Lots of love this week

So I didn't win the deviantART San Diego Comic Con Sponsorship but I'm not at all surprised, only slightly disappointed.  I wanted to win for the validation of winning and someone saying my stuff was good. I'm the only person who pats me on the back. I never had an interest in a mainstream company picking up my work, and in retrospect I believe that's what they were canvassing for.
Working for one of those places (DC, Marvel) is actually one of the few art related jobs that makes me cringe.

Having said that, I had a lot of nice stuff happen this week that helped boost my spirits and this time, from a Company that I really like and respect.
Copic marker featured me on their new Copic Social Network - Copic Color In fact, it's been 2 days I've been up there and I'm still the "featured Created".
On top of that, they've been tweeting the heck out of me as well, and as a result I've gotten a few new followers.
I also was featured my submission on their Tumblr account! I was pretty please about that.
I love Copic as a company their PR is great, products are amazing and ...ya. I want to work for them! LOL

So we've also got a lot of convention lined up! check out Gurukitty Studios blog and see where we will be and when!

Marker Sketches

Kinda experimenting with some skin tones, and some accents....In reality I just wanted to colour Victor with his moustache. It gets a little hard on a person to be drawing cartoony stuff all the time, every now and then I want to bust out some drawings of my more....real characters. not that these guys are real looking at all...

Side note, I'd like Aaron Ekhart to play Victor in a TV movie of Conflagration

Drawing B.C.

So, I've posted Page 8 today (which is technically Page 9 because I didn't post the illustration page online) you can check it out here if you like. I really enjoyed colouring this page, but it got me thinking about how potentially monotonous my comic could become. B.C. is pretty renowned for its gorgeous scenery of tree's and mountains, and when you're driving through the rockies you can't look away from all the amazing, but once it comes down to illustrating a drive through the rockies, there is a real danger of being boring. hopefully I've avoided this fate so far in my comic (I hope you're reading it).

Every Monday from now on I'm going to colour the latest comic page live before its posted. It takes me around 2-5 hours each page to colour it, but I've been told its interesting to watch so, maybe you'll tune it. I'll try to download them after and post a fast motion version on Youtube as well.

Watch live streaming video from guruubii at livestream.com

SO I've got 3 more commissions to work on, and then if I have time before the staff meeting I'm going to sketch the next page, or work on some more character design tweaks for Conflagration. But first... a shower!!! :p

Dino Riding commissions - 5 days left.

for a limited time I have opened commissions for Copic Sketch cards of you/your character riding a dinosaur of your choice.

YOU HAVE UNTIL APRIL 10th to Order them!

Fill out THIS ORDER FORM to order a dinosaur riding commission! After you submit it I will send a paypal request for money to the address you provide me. Once I receive your payment, I'll work on your Dinosaur!

Because they're sketch cards I can add a simple Background like the examples in this blog post: [link]
please note! Sketch cards are 2.5"x3.5" small! there is a limited amount of detail that can be obtained in this! you can specify shirt colour and pants colour, IF I can get that it.

Each sketch card will cost $10!

Payment is due before I even start your card, and you must pay before the 10th of April. Any payment received after the 10th will be refunded and I will not do it! 

Here are some examples of the sketch cards:

 

Hello, Albertosaurus - Production Diary -colouring

So I've spent a great deal of today working on Hello, Albertosaurus. It's been fun. I've got a full page coloured and I'll finish the second page here in no time. Once I've got a few pages done I'm going to start posting them online to view. The first chapter will be viewable online while the rest will be available to purchase either through our shop or at Conventions. Hopefully by the end of this week I'll have some pages started to go up :)
Here are some little teaser pictures:

LiveStream Colouring again

So I took the opportunity I created by being organized in the morning to Live stream another couple quick marker drawings.
I coloured 2 images. They were sketches I drew at Vancouver Comicon in January, and I kinda liked how they turned out, so here they are. As usual I love the rough sketches more than the completed images but I like how Stacy turned out especially. I used a very limited palette with her and I think it turned out well.

Sketched on really smooth Claire Fontaine paper with my Drafting Pencil.
Stacy is the pouty one, and Pehny has the braid.

Now here is the video of the colouring proccess. it's about 50 mins long.

Watch live streaming video from guruubii at livestream.com

And here are the completed images seperately


Pehny Portrait by `guruubii on deviantART


Stacy Portrait by `guruubii on deviantART

Colouring Edlyn

Sketched in my Puggys best sketchbook! LOL

So I had a productive day so I thought I'd spend a little time colouring a image. I liked the sketch.

I decided to do it on live stream; forgot how much I missed it. I realized I didn't have many good pics of Edlyn so she was on my colouring block.

 I  wasn't entirely pleased with how it turned out in the end, but no matter. it's still ok.

Heres the video:

Watch live streaming video from guruubii at livestream.com

And here is the final image.

Sketches, classes

 I've got one BUSY month going on! 

My Copic Class starts tomorrow! There is still time to register! I'm a little nervous, but then again... I'm not. I've had such a good response to my blog, and my many tutorials out there I'm sure I can make it worthwhile for the students. 

I am also teaching a second class through my work. I'm going to be teaching Acrylic Gel transfers In North Vancouver. If you're a card maker this is a really neat and unique way to add some dimension and texture to a card! Check out the information on the class here.

After these classes are all done, I'm going to try to get my natural life rhythm back! If my work schedule can be more consistent that would be much easier but I wont hold my breath on that one, or I'll turn blue and die.

I'm going to go back to working on my Comics consistently, and occasionally throwing out a free bee to you guys, though they won't be with the regularity they were in the past.

So I've been sketching here and there:

Here's a page of hand sketches I did in my new sketchbook.

Rough hand sketches. Blue ColourEno pencil.

Also, and Kitty might kill me for sharing this image before her, but I coloured it so... whatever :p

Kitty drew this sketch and I was itching to play with my markers so I did some skin colour testing on it for her. Here is what we came up with. 

http://gurukitty.com/batp for more information on this comic!

I'm going to go rummage for some food, and play my Wii a little bit before diving into the colouring and making some more examples for my class!

penelope in winter - markers

Hey! Phew, I finally finished this one at last. It took a little while, and was a little nerve racking with the red over top of such a light background since red is such a strong colour, a little smudge would pretty much be permanent. LOL.

I did the background first with a series of Cool Greys, layering in all the trees and snow, then I took a colourless blender and dotted the while bg, to give that dense snowy look (I showed this technique before), then coloured Penelope, that way I didn't have to worry about accidentally dragging red out into the bg when I tried to colour it. I then couldn't decide on the birds colour, so I scanned it once Penelope was nearly done, and then coloured the little bird roughly a few different colours:

Seeing which bird would look the best!

It was pretty clear to me after seeing this that the red bird would be best. it complimented her dress well, and still stood out!

So, then I finished colouring it, and then I put copper leaf on a few of the beads in her hair, and on the birds longest tail feather. The original looks way way way better than online, partially because of the copper leaf looking so special in real life,but also the yellows didn't scan well, so the warm light casting on the snow between the trees just kind of... died...

Anyway, thought I'd share my little drawing!

(crosspost from markerguru)

Penelope - wip

Here is a little work in progress of the sketch I posted before.

RED IS HARD! it doesn't erase, and I have a SOMEWHAT limited pile of reds in my Copic arsenal, so I'm jumping all over the reds finding sets to blend with. I think this is going well though. Got sort of a watercoloury look right now.

I did the bg first this time, because knowing there was going to be reds in the foreground I never wanted to risk smudging it out, cuz it never goes away. also I wanted to be a little sloppy, and just erase the greys on the areas I wanted to keep clean anyway.

I like it so far, I hope you do too. Going to try to finish it tomorrow.

Copic Classes

In early 2011 I will be starting Online Copic marker classes on the CDAC. I will strive to make them universally applicable to all purposes not just illustration or crafting. They will be entertaining, stimulating and informative, and I think they're a pretty unique angle for markers.
For the most part classes will be affordable, 1 month long, have at least 1 assignment, free digital images, and a give away at the end of the class. you will receive a completion badge for your blog or website as well.

if you think you'll be interested in the classes please feel free to fill out this short form to be informed when enrolment begins.
You will not be emailed for anything but Copic classes hosted by myself.

Please help me by spreading the word to your friends for me, I'd really appreciate it!
I'll be cross posting this to all my blogs, so I apologize if anyone watches more than one blog, you'll be bombarded. 

Nakia Marker Drawing

Copics on Blending card.
Side note: I hate how this embedd code adds text links below it (which I removed). It's so slick until *Boom*, nasty text. the text within the embed is enough really.
I needed to do something other than little noodle apendaged potato cartoons. LOL

Opus Christmas card contest

At my work, Opus, Every year they give us this really tiny deadline to get in a Christmas card contest entry. I know I wont win because it's not christmassy enough. At the same time they preach being neutral because of our heavily mixed culture, but I know they want christmassy. I'm going to Cross post this to my marker blog, sorry for those who watch both, you'll get it twice
Anyway, this is my little frog entry:

It's frogs. Yup.Even though frogs wouldn't be out in winter.
I was kinda making a jab at the mild winters here. 
Okay the rules state Opus logo must be present in the card so I hope mine's not too hidden. 
The frogs ate glow bugs in the opus logo colours, and they're tummies are glowing and the Opus logo is the coloured reflections in the water.
I think it looks cute so even if I don't win I think the logo isn't SO obvious it can't stand on it's own as an illustration.
I may fiddle with the text and placement a little but meh, I kinda like it.

Hello, Albertosaurus Colour

Here are some cute coloured model sheets for the 3 players in Hello, Albertosaurus, as well as a little scenery drawing of Dinosaur national park! A little idea of how the comics are going to look!

Daddys nasty yellow nicorette gum, HAHA!

The layers of colour in the hoodoo's was one of my favourite things.

Buttons on hat vary from picture to picture HAHA!

Not happy with how over-saturated this one turned out. Bad editing. its quite earthy in real life.

Andre

I live streamed the colouring of my Andre picture today. I think it turned out well.

Oh, side note, I've gotten very close to completing the screenplay. just a few more final sequences and I think it will be all hammered out :)

Watch live streaming video from guruubii at livestream.com

Andre- rainy morning by `guruubii on deviantART

Demi Finished

Every single thing doesn't need to be a masterpiece. I enjoy the good qualities in this one, and learned from the bad qualities

Gift for ClockWorkSky

Clock work sky did 2 drawings for me recently, so I thought I'd do at least one for her. Seemed only fair, right? This is my Abade and her Agapi. 

Thunderstorms

I coloured this live on Livestream today. I posted on Marker Guru with the embedded videos, so I wont do it again here.

More art - Penelope (not work safe)

I did a couple marker sketches today of Penelope. She's probably one of my most under appreciated characters. She's stunning and has a nice costume design ( in my opinion) and she's sleek and fun to draw.

I almost never draw my characters nude, and while I was originally going to colour a waterfall, or shower or something behind her, I opted for something more abstract since I didn't want that classic tahitian beauty stereotype. LOL
The other one of her sitting was just me experimenting with a curvy animation style in a sketch and decided to colour her since I had so few coloured pics of her. it's very similar to a drawing I did before of her, so it's kinda like a redraw.
changed her shoes too.
anyways, thought someone might like em :)