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 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 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 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.

Lightning Bug

This evening we saw a lightning bug in our backyard. It was the first of this year. I think that is the true sign of beginning if summer. Here's a sketch I did of it after I had the inspiration from seeing it.

Piggyback Curriculum - Exodus Kid's Series - Egyptian Woman

Here is another pic in the initial creative process of creating the new Exodus curriculum.  This is a try at a generic egyptian woman.  I didn't want the egyptian princess that we might first think of (ie Cleopatra, etc...), but went for a more normal average egyptian in her surroundings.  To do this, I have to do much study, biblical and historical.  Questions, I have to ask include: What kind of dress did they wear? What color fabrics did they have? Was there a rich, poor and middle class or just rich and poor? How did having the Jews as slaves impact the economic stature of the egyptians? What materials did they make their pots out of? Lamps out of oil, candles or what exactly?

Some might think that I just throw a drawing together, but I put much more into it than that.  What do you think of this and the other concept art?

Gone Camping

Here is a background scene that I made.  Click on it to see the full picture, it is apparently too wide to view on the main blog page.  I saw something the other day with a similar scene, so later that day I sketched in my moleskin sketchbook then worked on it CorelDraw.  After I finished it, I thought it might make a good Father's Day card.  So I made it into one, converted that to a pdf and am including that here so that other's can print it out and use it.  If you use cardstock it will even look better.  Let me know if you use it!!

Get your printable Father's Day card version by following this link: http://www.thecrossers.com/projects/happy_fathers_day_card_2010.pdf

October Monster Madness 2008 - #31

And finishing off the October Monster Madness is monster #31, the Wolf Man. Aawoooooooooo!

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Technical details: I used two Pilot Precise Rolling Ball pens, one V7 fine and one V5 extra fine. I didn't use any pencil, choosing to sketch with the pen. It creates a more improvisational line. Then I scanned them in and colored them using CorelDraw X4.

October Monster Madness 2008 - #24

Aaargh, ahoy is monster #25, a ghost pirate. Working on this one, I had one of those happy accidents. I made a shadow of the ghost figure then colored a ghostly blue. My plan was to place it behind the ghost, but then in moving it I accidentally put it in front, which subdued the ghost and made the glow that much more effective. I liked it so much that I used it for another upcoming monster afterwards.

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Technical details: I used two Pilot Precise Rolling Ball pens, one V7 fine and one V5 extra fine. I didn't use any pencil, choosing to sketch with the pen. It creates a more improvisational line. Then I scanned them in and colored them using CorelDraw X4. I used a shadow colored ghostly blue made from an outlined ghost pirate, then I moved it in front, giving it the glowing effect.

October Monster Madness 2008 - #20

Coming in at #20 is today's monster, it's the Invisible Man.

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Technical details: I used two Pilot Precise Rolling Ball pens, one V7 fine and one V5 extra fine. I didn't use any pencil, choosing to sketch with the pen. It creates a more improvisational line. Then I scanned them in and colored them using CorelDraw X4.

October Monster Madness 2008 - #19

Not every monster is a classic one. Monster #19 is actually a big ol' bullfrog. And to an ant, that bullfrog is one of the most terrifying sights it could come across. Monsters depend on perspective.

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Technical details: I used two Pilot Precise Rolling Ball pens, one V7 fine and one V5 extra fine. I didn't use any pencil, choosing to sketch with the pen. It creates a more improvisational line. Then I scanned them in and colored them using CorelDraw X4.

October Monster Madness 2008 - #18

Did anyone ever hear this little bedtime diddy....

Good night,
Sleep tight,
Don't let the bed bugs bite!

Well, here is monster #18, Bed Bugs. Did you know bed bugs are real??? I don't want them in my bed, that's for sure.


Here is a weird little clip of a snail saying the quote from above about bed bugs...
http://cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/snailshalloween-25.m3u

From the CD at:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/snailshalloween

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Technical details: I used two Pilot Precise Rolling Ball pens, one V7 fine and one V5 extra fine. I didn't use any pencil, choosing to sketch with the pen. It creates a more improvisational line. Then I scanned them in and colored them using CorelDraw X4.

October Monster Madness 2008 - #17

Here is a halloween classic. A witch riding her broomstick with a full moon.

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Technical details: I used two Pilot Precise Rolling Ball pens, one V7 fine and one V5 extra fine. I didn't use any pencil, choosing to sketch with the pen. It creates a more improvisational line. Then I scanned them in and colored them using CorelDraw X4.

Halloween Children's Book - Update Inked & Colored

Here is the opening page of my new story, Jack the Pumpkin Head. There won't be any words on the page, and I may or may not do some final touch ups on the page in Corel Photopaint.