Au Naturale

I haven't posted in like over a month...and that's mainly due to my life taking a drastic change.  On May 7, 2014, my father passed away, and it was...and still is...very hard on me.  I miss him so much, and its just been tough adjusting to life without him, and especially seeing how his absence has effected everyone around me and not just me.  I lost my motivation to draw...and I had to force myself to do so because I was doing commissions amidst all of that.  But these pictures below that I'm posting were done before my time with my dad was cut short.

I was drawing a series of women of color sporting natural hairstyles, and I had no idea how many I was going to make...and I still plan on making more.  But my series was interrupted by real life happenings.  Hopefully I can return to this soon.  I wanted to make them look like posters but with a very limited color palette and see how that would work.

Like I said, I plan on doing several more of these.  If you would like to purchase any of these as an 11" x 17" print on high quality semi gloss cover stock paper, you can do so at Illumistrations.storenvy.com.  I'm also doing a sales promotion currently where you can save 15% off of your total purchase by using the promo code MOVE15.  Please help me with my moving expenses to a new city and a new job!

Never take anyone for granted and cherish all of the moments that you have with someone, because you don't know if that will be the last time you see them, the last time you can hold and touch them, the last time you see them smile, or the last time you can tell them that you love them.  Life is precious.

Stay blessed.

Without Wax,

-Charles

World Wide Woman (Wonder Woman)

That's a lot of W's in the title.

A looooong while ago, I drew this Wonder Woman image in like the spur of the moment and didn't do too much with it, just a quick sketch with colors on it, and it will not go away.  Everywhere I look online, I'm always finding it...and without credit or link backs...mostly because both my signature and watermark were and stay cropped off of it.  It keeps getting passed around in email blasts, flyers, facebook posts and profile images...all without my consent.  I guess I would be cool with it if people hadn't cropped out my name and all...but mostly since I drew it a while ago, I definitely do not like it.  If you're not familiar with it, here's the image:

I definitely do not like this image and it just won't go away.  So what better way to bury this image than to do a better one?  That's the thought anyway.  Plus, I feel as if I can draw much better now than what this image showcases.  So, I went on with the sketch:

It still has the same vibe, but with a more updated (very much updated) look to it.  

And then the inks and colors:

Also included, more watermarks and in a place where it would be difficult to crop out.  But doing that, it probably means that it wouldn't get shared as often as the previous one was.  I guess its better to have my name out there so people know who the artist is though.  Its very disconcerting to go online or to different blogs, or facebook/tumblr/twitter to see your image all filtered up and with your info cropped out.

As always, this illustration can be purchased in 11" x 17" size on glossy cover heavyweight paper at my Storenvy site.

So, lets share this image and help me in my quest to make all of my old sub-standard art die!

Stay blessed.

Without Wax,

-Charles

Young Justice

I LOVED the Young Justice cartoon that used to come on Cartoon Network.  It was like a grown up, more serious take on the Justice League and the Young Justice team.  It was sad to see it go before its time and to have less than stellar replacements...but then season 1 found its way onto Netflix, and I fell in love all over again.  So...this happened:

Wonder Girl, Bumblebee, Miss Martian, Supergirl & Batgirl

I usually just draw one or two characters in a semi static pose, so it definitely was a change of pace to do something action-y and with more characters, even though I definitely wanted to fit more in there.  I think the next piece that I do with more characters, I want to do it big, and to have it be like a 2 piece poster type thing...but I'll have to look into the logistics of that working out print wise.

After the inks and the colors, here is the final image:

As always, this 11" x 17" print is available at my Storenvy site.  I'm hoping that Young Justice pulls a Family Guy and comes back due to the demand of fans...but given the direction Cartoon Network is heading, I won't hold my breath.  Be blessed.

Without Wax,

-Charles

Supergirl

Last year I drew a sketch of Supergirl that I originally wanted to ink and add a background to it.  I was in the process of inking it, and the whole thing just seemed real boring and static to me.  So, I just scrapped the whole thing.  This happens a whole lot actually...there are so many unfinished drawings that I have because I'm just displeased with them.

So I started over.

I wanted there to be this unseen emergency offpicture that has Kara dressing ready for action...showing that she's always ready for any situation.  

I initially finished this with a background that's based off of the initial sketch, but I still wasn't all that happy with it (plus I sort of messed up the perspective...something you can't do with backgrounds).  So I started the background over and came up with the one below:

This one I liked much better, plus I threw in links to other DC Comics universe related cities.  The one you can't see off the page is Central City, where Flash is from.

I initially posted this to Tumblr where its been very popular, but an unknown was finding out that people would repost this image without my signature or watermark and just completely crop it out altogether.  That irritates me because I've found so many people who love this image and wanted to know who the artist was...and if my stuff wasn't cropped out, they would know.  This is a much bigger issue, and something that I've been plagued by a lot lately.  I don't want to go full out and throw my watermark all over the image, and I even made it bigger and bolder than what it originally was, but I guess I'm going to have to find a way to put it elsewhere in the image.  It sucks that I have to do that for a.) recognition of my own work and b.) preventing people from finding my work and claiming it as their own.  

But I digress...

Anyways, as always, this print is available for purchase (as well as my old previous ones) on my Storenvy site in 11" x 17" aspect ratio.

Be Blessed.

Without Wax,

-Charles

Spring is Here, Finally.

I'll be honest...I could have sworn that I posted both of these images on this blog already, and just looking at it now, I see that I haven't.  Thats a shame.  Both of these pics were drawn while the calendar said that it was Spring, but it was clearly snowing outside.  And now that the calendar and Mother Nature have shown parity...I guess its time to share these on this blog.

Beach Bike

Outside the Bistro

Normally I post the sketches that went along with the final images, but for both of these, I kept the sketch pretty rudimentary and honestly, its just not visually pleasing, especially since I had no rendering on them at all.  It did cut some time out of going from sketch to final, but when I render the sketch, it gives me an idea as to where I would want the light source to be and how shadows fall, so I had to do all of that in the coloring phase.  Doing either way isn't necessarily better than the other, its just different.  

And yay for warm weather finally!

As always, if you would like to purchase this or any of my other prints, you can do so at my Storenvy page.

And get outside and enjoy that warm weather!

Be blessed.

Without Wax,

-Charles