SKETCH DUMP: NOVEMBER 7, 2013

This series of sketches was done ramping up to this October and in the early days of October--most of which were done for Outcast Studios' Daily Sketch Challenge.

(It's always good exercise to sketch a little something each day to keep up your skills and further develop them.  Or, at least that's what they say.)

Here we have Marvel Comics version of Bram Stoker's eternal enemy Dracula from the longest running comic book series starring a villain, TOMB OF DRACULA.  Nearly completely done by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, it was full of gothic atmosphere which I tried to covey a little bit of here.

(Click these for Enlargement)

Swamp Thing contemplating knowledge and how it can be both a good thing and a bad thing.  Just me having some free time at work with ballpoint pen and cardboard.

The Atom punching a guy in the face and Panthro of the Thundercats on a jaunt. 

Crusher Creel, AKA The Absorbing Man between absorbing something--

I really like this sketch and I'm not sure why.

Etrigan, The Demon, Jack Kirby's horror based fantasy hero--a demon from hell damned to do good by Merlin the Magician.  I don't really like this one.

The daughter of Dracula: Lilith. 

This is from Marvel as well--their attempt to tap the Vampirella market, apparently.

Profile shot of Mephisto, Marvel Comics' version of  the devil.

THE COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN: DAY 14

(But getting back to ME!)

I'm a member of a group of comic book fans and aspiring artists called OUTCAST STUDIOS, it has branches that extend over to deviantART and Google+ and even Facebook and perhaps even Twitter--I'm unsure about Tumbler, but I think we'd be perfect for that.  It's a group that has seen better days, frankly.  But then again haven't we all?

EC Comics' the CRYPT-KEEPER, but this is what he became at HBO years later.

All month long we're doing horror and Halloween themed sketches for our Daily Sketch and Weekend Sketch Challenges--I call it "MONSTER MONTH".  It's been an ambition of mine to do this for the group for a while, so I'm glad to finally see it pan out.

Now I used to be a regular, every-day sketcher when it came to the DSC--for a few straight years I rarely missed a day of it and it really helped me get back into drawing again after about a five year hiatus from taking the skill seriously--but these days I'm stop-and-start about it.  I'll do a few here and there but can rarely keep up the pace for even a week.

Nonetheless, it's been fun to contribute to the subjects day-to-day, especially in this month of October.

Here are some examples from the month so far:

(These are all ballpoint pen on cardboard, except the monster, who was pencil on cardboard)

Above is Mephisto with his evil giggle as he watches some poor soul suffer in the Marvel Universe as he seems to be in charge of that reality's Hell.

Jack Kirby's Demon from Hell, Etrigan!  Doomed to battle the forces of evil by being bound to the human Jason Blood by the wizard Merlin.

Lilith, the Daughter of Dracula, was made a vampire through the magic of a Gypsy witch so that she would torture her father for all eternity!

This redesign of Frankenstein's monster was a hard one to resist and yet a hard one to get very creative with, so I tried to simplify it a bit.

Gossamer is the name of the huge hairy beast that chases Bugs Bunny around an old castle until Bugs outsmarts him and does his hair and nails.  He's fun to draw.

Well, there you have it!

MONSTER MONTH continues all month over at OUTCAST

And now a nifty Halloween greeting card: