Robin

here's my contribution the the "Brave & Bold" cartoon theme... Robin!

Booster Gold w/ Skeet!

Hey geekz...

Here's my offering to this month's theme of Batman: The Brave and the Bold... BOOSTER GOLD with Skeet! Had a lot of fun drawin' this feller, even if I did make him look somewhat of a gay disco icon. Eat you're heart out K.C. and your Sunshine Band!

Green Arrow

Hi guys. Jenn here!

I unfortunately didn't think to save the progression of my piece like JB did. I started out on regular ol' sketch paper in blue lead, just a really quick sketch. After that I got online to make sure I wasn't remembering his old-school costume incorrectly (totally was), cleaned up the sketch and started inking with black Prisma-color ink pens. I normally ink with Microns but my art supply store stopped carrying them. I do like these though. They lay on paper good with little smearing if I get careless and move my hand across fresh inks.

After that I scanned it, cleaned up the lines in Photoshop and slapped some quick cel-shades on it. I'm still learning how to color digitally. Definitely not my niche but I slowly getting the point that it's not nearly as scary as I thought it was.

Ollie is easily my favorite comic character. He's fun, he's got personality and really... how bad ass do you gotta be to fight crime with a bow and arrow? Thanks for lookin!

Behind the Scenes :: Booster Gold Lineart!

So here's the first round of inks I'll put on this thing before colors. Decided to try my hand at inking this entire thing with a Faber-Castell Brush Pen. I really like how fluid and easy to use it is...it's just a matter of getting use to applying proper pressure and angles for line weights.

I normally ink everything with Micron pens, and getting the desired line weights with those is easy! While I love Microns, though, sometimes I think it's easy to spot something that's been inked with a pen, and something that's been inked with a brush. And while I doubt serious inkers would consider a brush pen to be like inking with a real brush, it's one step closer. Baby steps Bob...baby steps.

From here I'll color it (usually using my vast assortment of markers and shapries) and then ink it one more time, because usually erasing the pencils from the inks, and then the addition of color, the lineart will become muted. Adding a final second layer of ink really makes everything pop.

Whelp, I hope you enjoyed checking these different stages of my process out for this piece. Unfortunately I won't be able to post anymore until the final piece comes out. I'm expecting it to be a real doozy! Hopefully I'll be able to bug some of my group mates to come in and show you some of what they're doing...although I can make no promises!

-JB

Behind the Scenes :: Booster Gold's Graphite Polish

Hey geekz! Dropping by again to give you another peak at what I'm doing with my Booster Gold submission for the PNGz first project.

As you can see, I've added his little robot buddy Skeet, a background, and a logo (of sorts). Now, for this project I'll be losing the logo and the background, and just using the figure, as I'll be putting all of our single characters into one nifty collaborative piece. That being said, I still plan on adding the background and logo to the finished character later, so that it's a nice little stand alone piece that I can post in my gallery on deviantART.

Normally the finished pencils wouldn't look this blue, but I had to do some adjustments after scanning it in, because the bristol I'm using for this is actually almost ten years old. I've gotten into this need to dig up old art work that I've abandoned (no matter how old it is) and salvaging the paper by doing new work over the old. Because of the age, and the wear on the paper, when I scan it in normal, there is a big yellow stain toward the top of the figure, and it's just plain ugly. Here, take a look...

Pretty ugly, eh?

I've really been enjoying "rescuing" old paper for new projects. I throw next to nothing away, so over the years I've accumulated piles of paper of varying qualities and thicknesses, it would be a shame to just toss it all...not because I'm some kind of tree huggin' hippy--cause I ain't--but because I paid good money for it, so I might as well use it the best I can.

Hope ya'll enjoyed this second look into how I do things. I know, it's lots and lots of the same stuff you've seen everyone else do. What can I say...I like attention.

Take nothing for granted,
-JB

Behind the Scenes :: The Brave & the Bold

Hey peeps, it's JB here to give you a little "behind the scenes" look at the making of my part of the PNGz first projects, The Brave & the Bold.

The Brave & the Bold is the name of both a DC comic book and animated cartoon currently running on the Cartoon Network. It features some awesome characters, great voice work, and better yet--incredible art style.

For this project, we decided to choose one of the many characters that populate this particular universe (emphasis on the animated version), and give them our personal touch. My character is none other than everyone's favorite showboat, Booster Gold! Here's a look at what I'm cooking up with the guy...

As you can see, with this project I've decided to start laying everything out using non-repro blue lead. Only reason it's showing up here is because I scanned it in as a color image. If I chose lineart or black and white, it wouldn't pick up. Upon closer inspection you'll see some inconsistencies in places regarding the costume. While I'm familiar with the character, I've never drawn him before, so trying to draw him from memory proved to be difficult. After grabbing a reference, however, eveything started falling into place.

You can really tell where I started making changes at the top of the sketch. I adjusted the style and direction of his neck flaps, I put a more defined line around his ear (to signify that it will not be exposed when I start the next step), and I added reflection lines across the goggles over the eyes, to show that in the finished version they won't be visible.

As with most of this types of sketches, I like to thumb out a pose in the corner before I start working on the actual image. In the bottom right hand corner, you can see just that. The image came to be quickly, as I know the nature of the character, and wanted something that would capture the cheesiness of him, yet still look powerful.

My tools:
11x14 Bristol Board
Orange Zebra 0.5mm Mechanical Pencil
Loaded w/ Non-Repro Blue Lead

Thanks for reading!
-JB

What is pencilneckgeekz?

pencilneckgeekz is a little art group I've cooked up, with the purpose of working on different projects (the plan is around one a month) with a small group of artists. Sometimes the projects will be jams, sometimes they will be collabs, sometimes they will be something completely different.

My hope is that through this group, we artists will help push and guide each other further down the road to becoming better, more well-rounded creators.

Right now the group is invite only, and will remain so until further notice. If you'd like to be considered for the group, feel free to get in touch with me via email, and I'll do just that. Do not post comments asking to be apart of the group, as they will be deleted. Otherwise your comments and critiques are more than welcome, so long as they're constructive and not destructive. Destructive, derogatory comments will also be deleted.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look at what we do.
Junior Bruce