October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 31 - Jack O

 Day 31 - Jack O.

Here's the pumpkin I carved tonight. Happy Halloween! This year's Monster Madness has come to an end. But that's not all, as Frosty says...I'll come back again some day. Wait.....Frosty? Christmas? Hmmm..... To be continued....

Artist Notes - Carved the pumpkin. Took a picture of it with my Motorola Xoom. Used Sketchbook Mobile Pro to erase everything else that was in the picture. Exported it to DropBox. On my Dell Windows 7 Laptop, I used CorelDraw X5 to fit it to the size I wanted. Added a background and signature. Then topped it off with the words "Happy Halloween" using the font "Dock".

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 30 - Vampire Bat

Day 30 - Vampire Bat.

It's the penultimate day for monsters in the month of October. I will be closing out this year's October Monster Madness tomorrow. I've been uploading these to my Sketchblog and Facebook. Not sure what the stats on Facebook, but on my blog I've had a considerable increase in foot traffic. On my Sketchblog, the previous four months have had an average of about 500 pageviews per month. This month there has been almost 1,300 visits! Thanks for coming by and checking the sketches out.

Artist Notes - This one was done completely in CorelDraw X5 on my Windows 7 Dell Laptop.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 29 - Frankenstein's Monster

Day 29 - Frankenstein's Monster.
After a grueling process of science and madness Dr. Frankenstein raises his monstrous creation during a lightning storm. Does his feat of organized chaos work?

Artist Notes - Pencil sketch with a 2B Derwent Graphic pencil on Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper (28 lb, 100 brightness). Captured on my Motorola Xoom in sepia mode. Then uploaded on Dropbox for access.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 28 - House Ghost

Day 28 - House Ghost.

And the house guest that you can't get rid of, the House Ghost!

Artist Notes - This one was a mix of mediums. First the background of the room/house was done in CorelDraw X5 on a Dell Laptop running Windows 7, as well as the picture frame. In Sketchbook Mobile Pro on my Motorola Xoom I created the man in the portrait and the man in the top hat. The portrait was merely exported as a png and imported into CorelDraw. The man in the top hat was exported as a psd file, which retains the transparency around the edges, then imported into CorelDraw X5. I inserted the man in the portrait into the frame then placed the man in the top hat in front of the scene and made him transparent. I converted it to a bmp and used the image adjustment lab to lower the saturation and made the temperature warmer. This gave the image more of an aged look. And then I exported the whole piece as a png.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 27 - Werewolf

Day 27 - Werewolf.

This is an image that I thought of yesterday and last night hammered it out fairly quickly. The thought of a werewolf howling in silhouette in front of a full moon was appealing.

Artist Notes - Sketched using Sketchbook Mobile Pro on my Motorola Xoom tablet. The nice thing about Sketchbook Mobile Pro is that you can create things in layers and then if desired merge those layers together. I originally had the werewolf higher but since it was on a different layer than the moon or night sky, I was able to lower him (and the hilltop) to a point that I thought was more visually pleasing.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 26 - Jack Painting

Day 26 - Jack the Pumpkin Head painting.

Here's a painting I've been planning on all month and finally got around to doing it. It's a painting of Jack from my book Jack the Pumpkin Head. It's available on Amazon, iTunes and the Barnes & Noble Nookstore.

Artist Notes - This a painting on a black canvas using acrylics.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 25 - Monster Within

Day 25 - Monster Within.

He sits a docile innocent kitty. What lurks underneath? Behind his large doe eyes and his adorable smile? Could it be a monster within this little one?

Artist Notes - Pencil sketch done with a 2B Derwent Graphic pencil on Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper (28lbs, 100 brightness). Captured in mono on my Motorola Xoom. Uploaded to Dropbox.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 24 - The Mummy

Day 24 - The Mummy.

This is one mummy you won't run crying to when you stub your toe!

Artist Notes - Sketched with a 2B Derwent Graphic pencil on Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper (28lb, 100 brightness). Captured with a monotone filter on my Motorola Xoom tablet. Uploaded to Dropbox and cropped in Windows Live Photo Gallery.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 23 - Big Bad Wolf

Day 23 - Big Bad Wolf.

Off of the old song, "Lil' Red Riding Hood" by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs comes the Big Bad Wolf. "I'm gonna keep my sheep suit on, til I'm sure that you've been shown, that I can be trusted, walking with you alone." That ol' wolf has been menacing Red and the Three Little Pigs for far too long!

Artist Notes - Done in Sketchbook Mobile Pro on my Motorola Xoom tablet.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 22 - Alien

Day 22 - Alien.

Here's a quick alien reminiscent of one of the alien races from Star Trek.

Artist Notes - Done in Sketchbook Mobile Pro on my Motorola Xoom.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 21 - Slither

Day 21 - Slither.

Here's an eel that you wouldn't want to come across, no matter how colorful it is.

Artist Notes - Sketched completely on my Motorola Xoom in Sketchbook Mobile Pro.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 20 - Abominable Snowman

Day 20 - Abominable Snowman.

Here's another of my favorite legendary monsters. The Yeti, Arctic Bigfoot or the Abominable Snowman. Here's a link to learn more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeti.

Artist Notes - Pencil sketch done with a 2B Derwent Graphic pencil on Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper (28lb, 100 brightness). Camera captured onto my Motorola Xoom and uploaded to Dropbox. Then I used Windows Live Photo Gallery for some light editing (crop here, brightening there).

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 19 - Slimey

Day 19 - Slimey. I just started sketching and this little squirmy guy came out.

Artist Notes - Sketched with a 2B Derwent Graphic pencil on Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper (28lb, 100 brightness). I used Windows Live Photo Gallery to do some light editing.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 18 - Dragon

Day 18 - Dragon.

Here's a little dragon that came to my mind yesterday. Sometimes I forget the original image in my mind. So to attempt to retain the image, I took out some paper and sketched a quick image closing my eyes and drawing some of him, so I could remember the first image in my head.

Artist Notes - Original sketch on paper with a 2B Derwent Graphic Pencil. Then captured it onto my Motorola Xoom and used Sketchbook Mobile Pro to trace the image and color it.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 17 - Cyclopsme

Day 17 - Cyclopsme.

This is a pic of me as a cyclops.

Artist Notes - Done in CorelDraw X5 and Photopaint X5 on a Windows 7 Dell laptop.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 16 - Jekyll and Hyde

Day 16 - Jekyll and Hyde. As soon as Hyde drinks his cursed potion, he sees his future in the mirror and immediately regrets his impulsion.

Artist Notes - Done completely in CorelDraw X5 on a Windows 7 Dell Laptop.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 15 - Skeleton

Day 15 - Skeleton. What monster round up would be complete without some kind of skeletal frightful imagery? So, here he is scaring some poor guy out of his wits!

Artist Notes - This sketch was done completely in Sketchbook Mobile Pro on my Android Honeycomb enabled Motorola Xoom. I did a quick sketch of the guy and the skeleton on one layer then traced them in other layers. At the end I deleted the layer with the quick sketch. Also, important tip is to save a bunch! I usually save each sketch as a copy several times during my progress. Then uploaded to dropbox for cloud access.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 14 - Big Foot

Day 14 - Big Foot. He's one of my favorite monsters, which makes it even more peculiar that I hadn't done one yet.

Artist Notes - Created using Sketchbook Mobile Pro on a Android Honeycomb enabled Motorola Xoom tablet.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 13 - Hook Man

Day 13 is the Urban Legend Hook Man. Everyone's heard the story of the escaped lunatic convict that had a hook for a hand and the couples he would stalk that were out of gas on the side of a lonely highway. Here's the Hook Man himself. Maybe Scooby and the gang could catch him.

Artist Notes - Pencil sketch done with a 2B Graphic Derwent pencil on Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper (28lb, 100 brightness).

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 12 - Lizardo

Monster 12. Okay, here is a "flat" image of a lizard-like monster named Lizardo.

Artist Notes - Done completely in CorelDraw X5 on a Windows 7 Dell Laptop.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 11 - Gremlin

Growing up there were two kinds of Gremlins (besides the model of car, that is). There was a one you didn't feed after midnight in the movies and there was the one that was immortalized in cartoons. That gremlin came from WW2 airplane mechanics. If something weird went wrong with a plane, they blamed it on invisible creatures called Gremlins. Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was one of the original creators of the cartoon Gremlin. In fact, there were discussions with Disney into making the cartoon gremlins into a feature film during the early years of Disney Animated Movies. Alas, this is one of the shelved Disney projects.

Here is a photorealistic version of what a gremlin might look like if they were real. Don't look at this before going to bed!

Artist Notes - I used a photo I found off the internet for the face and added a nose, fangs and bottom jaw of a bear. I used CorelDraw X5 and Corel PhotoPaint X5 to combine the photo elements and add color.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 10 - Cyclops

Monster 10 is a Cyclops.

Artist Notes - I started this with a BW pencil sketch. Then I captured it onto my Motorola Xoom. Then I used Sketchbook Mobile Pro to trace it and color it.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 09 - OU Players

Monster #9 is an OU football player, because to a Texas player they are monsters! This is in honor of OU's 55-17 win over Texas yesterday in football, simultaneously making my day and moving the Sooners one step closer to the National Championship.

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Artist Notes - This sketch was done with a 2B Derwent Graphic pencil on Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper. Then captured onto my Android Honeycomb powered Motorola Xoom tablet. Then uploaded to Dropbox.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 08 - Who's the Dummy?

Here's Monster #8, a simple ventriloquist dummy. I actually like them, but I know many people that find them creepy. This is for you. In either case, if you walked down the hall and something about two and a half feet tall was peering around the corner at you, then you'd probably pass out. Especially if you thought you were the only one in the house.

"Where's Bobby?"

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Artist Notes - This was sketched with a 2B Graphic Derwent pencil onto Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper (28lb, 100 brightness). Then captured onto my Android Honeycomb powered Motorola Xoom tablet and uploaded to dropbox.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 07 - Mermaid/Siren

Monster #07 the Mermaid/Siren. From the depths of the oceans, seaman feared this creature most than any other. The beautiful dreaded siren with a call to men that could not be rejected. Here is my interpretation of one.

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Artist Notes - Sketched with a 2B Derwent Graphic Pencil on Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper (28lb, 100 brightness). Then colored with Prismacolor colored pencils. After that, scanned onto my Dell Windows 7 laptop and prepped for upload in CorelDraw X5. I also added the fangs and claws in CorelDraw. Below is a list of the Prismacolors I used:

Mermaid:
Metallic Gold
Rose
Black
Peach
Light Peach
Goldenrod
Light Aqua
Dark Brown

Mermaid's Tail:
Metallic Gold
Light Aqua
True Blue
Chartreuse

Water:
Ultramarine
Light Aqua
True Blue
White

Sky:
Light Cerulean Blue
True Blue

More NOLA Article Art

As mentioned in a previous post, A Study of New Orleans, I wrote an article for our organization's annual magazine entitled TELL. My article was on a mission serving in the New Orleans area and I have been working on various contributing artwork for it.  Here's a few more.

I took the two I recently made and combined them as a combo seen above. Maybe I'll add in the trumpeteer that I had recently done so I can have a silhouette jazz trio.
Artist Notes - these were pencil sketches with a 2B Derwent Graphic pencil on Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper (28lb, 100 brightness) then scanned onto my Dell Windows 7 Laptop into CorelDraw X5 for coversion into silhouette.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 06 - Son of Frankenstein

Didn't know what this one was going to be at the beginning. I kind of threw him together. Come to think of it, Dr. Frankenstein probably didn't know what his "creature" was going to be either! So here he is in all his gory detail, the Son of Frankenstein, otherwise known as Francis.

Artist Notes - This monster was created completely in CorelDraw X5 on a Windows 7 Dell Laptop.

October Monster Madness - Day 05 - Snakes Alive

This is the entry for day five. I call it Snakes Alive. I wonder what's in that belly of his? Click it to see the full size.

Artist Notes - Pencil Sketch on Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper with a 2B Derwent Graphic pencil from England.

Jonathan Project logos

For a few weeks I have been working on a logo for Jonathan Project, which is a missions initiative for training people in the least reached areas of the world.  Here are a few of the logos variations.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 04 - Old Drac

And day four brings an aging classic monster, Dracula.

Artist notes - This was a pencil sketch then captured onto my Xoom tablet and inked and colored in Sketchbook Mobile Pro.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 03 - Hairy

Here's the monster for day three.

Artist notes - done completely on my Xoom tablet with Sketchbook Mobile Pro.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 02 - Snooglesnort

Today's monster addition is something I call a Snooglesnort.

Artist Notes - Completely done on my Motorola Xoom android powered tablet. I used Sketchbook Mobile Pro and exported it as a PNG.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 01 - Jack the Pumpkinhead

I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but in 2008 I took on a personal challenge that for the month of October I would draw a different monster sketch every day and upload it. I've decided to do that again this year. Last time I used mainly one method, which was sketch it, scan it, covert it in CorelDraw, color it and finish it. This year, I hope to utilize a variety of methods - tablet sketch, black and white pencil sketch, CorelDraw, painted, maybe clay - we'll see what I end up with.

To kick things off, here is my first one for October. He's the main character of a children's book I wrote and illustrated called Jack the Pumpkinhead and you can get it at www.lulu.com/mcrosser.

Artist Notes - Done as a pencil sketch in a Dentist Office waiting room - maybe a dentist could be one of my monsters, hmm. Then I scanned it onto my Xoom tablet and traced it and colored it in Sketchbook Mobile Pro.