Buck’s Ruckus

4" x 6" sketchbook

2011-06-02T15:13:00.000-07:00

Hey! Here's a few pages from a little sketchbook I've been doodling in lately. Amongst these pages you'll find some Eowyn And The Nazgul ideas (didn't have time to complete this ArtOrder challenge), some D&D doodles, some Space Marines, monsters and a bearded Robocop? These pages are quite small, and I'm drawing with a marker, hence the occasional crapiness.

Spacesuit design explorations

2011-02-17T20:32:00.000-08:00

Gamma World robot design

2011-02-16T20:23:00.000-08:00

I hope the Ashley Wood influence isn't too obvious. Check out World War Robot now! It's seriously awesome. Mr. Wood taught me that robots look cooler when wearing army-style utility pouches!

Also, notice how the pencil drawing is done over top of some photoshop scribbles. And note the guide-lines drawn through the centre of all the major ellipses - they're there to help me draw the circles in the proper perspective, and to help with positioning the ellipse template. If anybody wants to know more just ask. I don't know if you're here to learn or just want to see some sketches.

Practice

2011-02-16T06:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick 30-minute painting in photoshop. Used photo-reference. Nothing special. This is just practice.

Gamma World roughs

2011-02-15T12:52:00.000-08:00

Gamma World: Legion of Gold cam out today! Here are a few roughs I did for the monsters. As you can see I drew some in pencil and some in photoshop. I've taken to drawing the initial rough directly in photoshop. It lets me make corrections very quickly compared to pencil. I always struggle with proportions, so this way its easy to scale a body-part up or down in seconds. Also note, the base for some of the robots was a sketchup model.

Sketchbook book Orders

2010-04-26T09:49:00.000-07:00

Okay! For those of you wanting to order a copy of my sketchbook, send me an email at:
mike@mikefaille.com with 'Sketchbook' as the subject line. Please provide your mailing address.

I'll respond with a paypal address. Or, if you'd prefer to mail a money order or check, just let me know.

Prices (including shipping) are:
US$15 to U.S.
C$10 to Canada
US$20 to everywhere else.

I've kept the price at five buck. Sorry the shipping is such a kick in the pants. What you'll get is one copy of my sketchbook book, signed and doodled on. One bonus copy of my self-published comic entitled S.P.U.M.E.! And possibly some other surprises (while supplies last). Check out this earlier post for a preview.

Dwarf Avenger pencils

2010-04-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

Here is the pencils for the Dwarf Avenger illustration. I included two silly reference pics I took to help me out with some tricky parts. Taking your own reference photos doesn't have to be a complicated matter involving lighting setups and costumes. For this one I just needed a few extra clues with the face and hands. I just used the camera on my macbook.

(Just gimme one more day to get you guys shipping prices for the sketchbook. Sorry!)

Sketchbook book

2010-04-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

I've been getting loads of requests about my Sketchbook for sale, and I told everyone I'd make a detailed post about prices and order instructions last week!

Sorry everyone! I'm sick, and have a major illustration deadline coming up. Just gimme a few more days!

I can tell you it will still be 5 bucks plus shipping (that's what I need to figure out). For that you'll get the 38-page black and white sketchbook, with an original quick sketch/doodle on the inside cover, and a copy of a self-published comic I did a few years back. I will be accepting paypal.

Please stay tuned for more into. Thanks for waiting so long!

Dwarf Avenger Roughs

2010-03-31T20:43:00.000-07:00

Hey there!
Here are some Dwarf Avenger roughs for an illustration appearing in the march issue of Dragon Magazine. The art description was very simple: draw a dwarf with a big magic hammer, displaying the symbol of Moradin on his clothing somewhere. This is the initial file I sent to art director Jon Schindehette for approval. I don't usually give this many roughs to choose from, 2-4 being more common.

Luckily for me, Jon picked one of the better roughs for me to work up! If you subscribe to Dragon Magazine, perhaps you already know which one. I'm going to keep it secret for a day or two. In the meantime, I'd love to know which ones are your favorites and why! Please post a comment - I love those!

Return to Zombie City 1

2010-03-11T21:07:00.000-08:00

I took a day off from my Gamma World monster duties to work on a private commission for a friend of mine. This is still in the early stages. After scribbling down some thumbnails (sorry, can't seem to find those now), I built a quick and dirty sketchup scene of cars and buses in a mad traffic jam. Then I drew in details and figures. Then I quickly threw down a rough value scheme in photoshop. I still have more things to add, like luggage and discarded items left behind and maybe more dead drivers stuck in their cars. It's a long-dead freeway underpass clogged with the cars of people trying to flee the zombie hordes in the city. Everybody had the same idea when things got bad: head North or to the country. Now, a few years after the undead have overrun the city, a small group of brave (or desperate) survivors are returning. Maybe they're looking for medical supplies, food, or their loved ones. They've been cleverly using ladders to get up where the zombies can't. But now they're stuck with a pack of 'em behind them, and a long, dark tunnel ahead of them. What would you do?!

I have to put this on hold now. I expect to resume work on in late april. So look for an update on this around then!

Monster paint

2010-03-11T00:20:00.001-08:00

Here's a photoshop quicky. Painted in about 2 hours. No pencil sketch or underdrawing. I'm sure the speed painters out there could pull this off in 5 minutes, but I'm still learning. It's really fun for me to do art that doesn't rely on line, but light and shadow to define forms. Very tricky for me, but I'll keep practicing. Aww. He's a nice monster. Just misunderstood.

Giant coconut crab

2010-03-08T14:46:00.000-08:00

Shame on the world for not informing me sooner that there's something awesome out there called a "Giant Coconut Crab"!!!!!!!!! I need to know about things like this! Here's a random pic of one from the internet. Google it to find many more pics. These guys are HUGE! They crack coconuts with their giant claws.

All hail the Giant Coconut Crab!

Sketchbook book

2010-03-04T22:09:00.000-08:00

Hey followers! I made this sketchbook book to sell at Toronto ComicCon one year. It sold poorly compared to the guy next to me selling home-made knockoff anime buttons... but I'll leave that for another post.

I've still got about 40-50 copies left for sale. Its bound and sized like a comic. 40 pages of unedited pages from my sketchbooks at the time. Lots of straight-to-pen sketches. Some brush marker drawings. Some ink wash stuff and a few pencils. Some robot drawings. Zombies. Orks. A few boobies here and there. Anybody out there like to buy one of the remaining copies!? Please? I'll throw in a copy of my only self-published comic, plus I'll sign and doodle on the inside cover. Five bucks plus shipping (I'll have to figure out what that will be when the time comes).

Post-Apocalyptic Monsters!

2010-03-01T19:58:00.000-08:00

Well, that's what I've been working on for the last month anyway. I can't show them to you until about mid-October. I just finished the first batch of 25, and I have 24 more to do this month! I'm neck deep in mutant, radio-active freaks of nature! If you want to get in on some post-apocalyptic monster art yourself, head over to ArtOrder for an awesome art challenge. The deadline is April 14th, so you have plenty of time! I may be totally sick of mutants by then. But who knows, I just might enter myself. I'm a glutton for punishment.

Ooh! I've got lots of D&D art coming out soon! I'll be in my first official game book! SO excited. And some more Dragon Magazine illustrations too! I can't wait to show you guys some snazzy pencils! Stick around!

In the meantime, here's a random marker sketch I did a while back. I like that mutant-alien-insect wasteland traveler, the rest I could care less about. Enjoy.

Giant Blob pencils

2010-02-22T22:58:00.000-08:00

The blob is giant. The pencils are regular size. Just thought I'd clear that up.
This is pencil (and later photoshop) over a printout of a 3D model. I built the model long ago in Adobe Dimensions. Yes, they had a simple little 3D program that suited my needs perfectly. Ie: easy to use and exports paths to illustrator. Dimensions is long gone, so don't bother searching unless you run and ancient PC. Nowadays Sketchup is the only way to go for the casual 3D modeler. Sometimes I have fun building a complicated, detailed model for my illustrations. Check out my Krieg Macharius illo for example. In this case however, simple cubes piled on top of each other was all it took. Then I printed it out lightly and drew all the details by hand over top.

Random drawings I found

2010-02-21T22:55:00.000-08:00

They're a few years old, I think. But some parts are not too bad so I figured I'd post 'em. I'm still super, super busy right now. Working on stuff I can't show yet. I'll post all the roughs and pencils for my D&D work as soon as I'm allowed! Thanks for hanging in there ...

Orks Pencils

2010-02-03T03:27:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long delay between posts. Been very busy lately. I don't expect the pace to slow down for a few months. So I can't promise daily blog posts right now. I'll do my best though. Here is the pencil work for an older piece - but it remains a constant favourite on deviantART, so here you go! The orks were drawn separately at a larger size and pasted on top in photoshop. The Dread' drawing is actually quite old now, and I can spot several perspective issues, but since when did orks build things straight anyway! These WH40k orks are reminiscent of an older edition of the game. Very much inspired by my favourite fantasy artist, Paul Bonner. Google him! The orks in the current edition of Warhammer 40,000 are huge hulking beasts! I guess they have to make all the alien races beefier to keep up with the ever exaggerating Space Marine armor sizes!

Markers

2010-01-24T15:14:00.000-08:00

I got into a short marker drawing phase after I purchased 'MECHANIKA, Creating the art of science fiction with Doug Chiang'. I found the book so inspiring that I just had to go buy some markers and give it a try. These are my first, and only, maker drawings. I just had to get it out of my system I guess. If you like these at all, then I highly recommend this book. Doug's drawings are way better.

Ha ha ha ... really? You really want me to draw that?

2010-01-21T20:39:00.000-08:00

I'm posting this 'cause I thought it was hilarious, not 'cause it's a good piece of illustration. I did this a while ago for a national Canadian newspaper, for the financial section. They asked me to draw 'inflated' heads of these four world leaders. It was for an article on big business, or inflation or something. So I drew this real quick and showed the editors.

They ended up not running it in the paper (smart choice!).
:)

Earthquake Dragon roughs 4

2010-01-20T10:45:00.001-08:00

Here is the last batch of roughs for the dragon piece, including some of the Illustrator steps. I still do all of my linework and base color-scheme in illustrator, then bring it into Photoshop to add all the bells and whistles. The first image below is a composite of all the rough pieces and some placeholder photos to get an overall sense of the composition. There is no photography in my final art, but I did trace over that rocky cliff quite faithfully.

Handy artist's tip:
If there is ever something you're having trouble drawing, or something that is too complex or time-consuming to draw, go ahead and take a photo, massage it into place using Photoshop, then trace over it. I'm serious. I don't care if your mom thinks it's cheating. Besides, who will ever know (apart your loyal blog readers)?

Earthquake Dragon roughs 3

2010-01-19T14:56:00.000-08:00

Earthquake Dragon roughs 2

2010-01-18T20:37:00.000-08:00

More dragon roughs. Again, these are all out of order. I hope you'll notice that for complex illustrations, I don't nail the image right away in one drawing. I'll draw the same thing over and over until I get it right - or part of it right. Then I'll take the part I got right into a new drawing and try again. I could use an eraser more, and simply erase until I get everything right. But I like to keep even the failed drawings handy. When I go back to them I can sometimes find little bits that were working. Or at least they'll remind me not to draw something the same way twice.

Earthquake Dragon roughs 1

2010-01-17T18:14:00.001-08:00

Here are some sketches for another ArtOrder illustration I did last year. The challenge was to produce concept art for an "Earthquake Dragon". I'm not a concept artist (yet), I'm an illustrator. With that in mind I decided right from the start that I wasn't just going to design a dragon. I wanted to put him on a stage with some supporting actors; I wanted to tell a little story. That story ended up being quite simple (which is fine for an illustration): basically, a bunch of dudes get out of their rowboat and are ambushed by a dragon!

My dragon design wasn't the best of all the contest entries - not even close! But that's ok. I was actually more interested in drawing a D&D style dragon that was up to their standards. I've done a bunch of ArtOrder challenges now, and if ever the criteria doesn't quite interest me, or suit my needs (i.e. I don't need dragon concept art in my portfolio), I'll change the parameters slightly, or add my own secondary criteria.

Anyway, here are some initial sketches, in no particular order (because I can't remember what I drew first). This first one seems quite close to the final in terms of composition. I wish I had kept that big statue on the left that I was hinting at, and I really like the wavy water. The dragon is ass, but the forgeround structures seem pretty much bang-on.

The third drawing down is neat. At this point I already had the composition locked in, and I was just trying to draw a dragon head that I liked. I printed out the rough dragon lightly and drew over top of it until I got one I liked. You can see a faint photo of rocks behind the head. I took that myself. The city I live in has a long escarpment, and there are plenty of cliff faces and cool layered rocks to use as reference.

If you haven't already seen my final dragon illustration, go see my website! Anyway, this post is too wordy, and not drawy enough. So quit reading and scroll down to look at the pictures! I'll post more tomorrow.

More life drawing. What?!

2010-01-15T16:39:00.000-08:00

Yup. More life drawing. I can't show you what I've been working on recently because of NDAs. But as soon as the images are released, I'll post all the rough work here. In the mean time ...

Something different

2010-01-14T20:45:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd post something a little different for no reason at all - other than I don't feel like scanning in any more drawings tonight. This is a piece that I did for the National Post. It was a cover to the Arts section a while back, for a story about department stores.

I love isometric view! I've been thinking for a while about creating a portfolio of iso maps and diagrams for RPGs and other fantasy games. I just haven't found the time yet. I don't think its hard to imagine, say, a D&D dungeon map laid out in this perspective. I mean, throw a battle grid on this illustration, give it to your DM, and have your adventure party raid the mall! (I'm a nerd)

2010-01-13T22:24:00.000-08:00

Hopefully you really like life drawing, 'cause I have tones of these to post.

Gnomes

2010-01-12T17:12:00.000-08:00

Here are some gnome character designs I did. The client had a few changes, so you can see differences in their relative heights, expressions and a few added details here or there. It was a fun and quick job to do. The final has some photoshop textures and tones added in. I hope to put together a pencil drawing portfolio sometime in the future. I'm just not sure how many game companies see pencil drawings as a marketable form of art these days.

Some Life Drawing 2

2010-01-10T09:39:00.001-08:00

D&D Environment - Part 1

2010-01-09T23:40:00.000-08:00

I just re-worked another piece from last year. It's yet another image created for the ongoing contests at ArtOrder. Those worked out wonderfully for me. Practically all my current portfolio pieces are ArtOrder pieces. If you'd like to see the final art, go to my website or deviantART page! I have many more rough pencils for this piece that I will post soon. But I found these two drawings that I thought were particularly nice.

I hate it when I like the pencils more than the final art! But that happens all the time, and lots of artists suffer from this chronic problem. Pencil is just such a simple and responsive medium. It's incredibly versatile and responds to every movement of the hand. The Wacom tablet, though a crucial part of my art arsenal, works nowhere near as well for me.

Some Life Drawing 1

2010-01-08T08:21:00.000-08:00

Here are some random life drawings from last year. They took between 1 and 10 minutes each. I don't know what else to say about these. Probably every decent artist ever will tell you how important life drawing is, so you don't need to hear it from me.

My good friend Kagan Mcleod (amazingly gifted/hard working artist) occasionally hires life models and invites his art buddies over to draw. I find it much more enjoyable than the local life-drawing events - which are often too crowded.

When I draw from a live model, I don't worry about having a good finished piece after every pose. Sometimes I'll just pick one part of the body that looks interesting, and render it out. Or I'll practice proportion and composition, and try to fit the entire figure on the page (really hard to do!). I always work on improving my drawing speed and decisive mark-making.

And remember: don't sign every life drawing like you can't put a mark on a sheet of paper without it becoming a masterful piece of art! You pompous ass! :)

Dai-Bakemono Process

2009-12-30T10:30:00.000-08:00

Here are some roughs for an earlier piece in my fantasy art portfolio. Looking at it now, it seems a bit flat, and could use some better lighting and textures. I might revisit the final piece soon and fix those problems.

I started with a small thumbnail. The first two images here are only about 2.5" wide. I then enlarged the second one in photoshop, fixed any issues I noticed, and drew a tighter drawing over top.

I then decided to add more background to the piece so I printed out the characters and drew it in. Then I drew the Kwahis (little ninja goblin dudes) separately and pasted them in.

Then I fed the whole thing into the computer, hit the 'render' button and voila! JK. Sorry I don't have more process shots of the digital stuff. If you want to know more about that aspect of my work let me know!

Claus couple

2009-12-24T08:21:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays everybody!

Krampus - day 4,5

2009-12-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

My Krampus image is done. You can see the final, and all the other entries, at ArtOrder on Tuesday!

The only bit of sketching I had left to do was the kids. I ended up losing the third kid - didn't like how he looked too scared. I made them D&D style kids - an Elf and a Dragonborn. I wanted them to look scared, but not totally terrified and helpless. Below is the final illustrator image before I brought it into photoshop. Here I'm just concerned with the linework and local color. The colors just serve as a rough guide. If you check out the final on Tuesday, you'll see it has a very different color scheme.

I ended up putting in 16 hours in the last two days. 6 more than expected! That's nuts. Things always take longer than you expect. It was a weekend well spent, but I should probably go spend some quality time with the gf now!

Krampus - day 3

2009-12-18T22:45:00.000-08:00

Made a lot of progress today. But I'll have to increase the pace to make deadline. I've got another day and a half to finish. Having a feel for how long things will take is valuable to any illustrator. I know, based on how much I got done today, that I'll need to put in at least 10 more hours to finish this. I can split that time up between now and Sunday.

If I miscalculated, my backup plan is to omit the children from the bottom of the image. I hope it doesn't come to that though. When doing these contest illustrations, I often give myself criteria beyond what was asked for in the brief. For example, in this one I decided to try and make an image that is very creepy and gritty, and has children in it. Basically those are two elements that I feel are missing from my portfolio, and this is my chance to fill in the gaps.

You may notice that I drew different elements on different pieces of paper. That's just because I only have an 8.5 x 11 printer - I print out separate pieces of the image at an increased size and do a tighter drawing over top. I can piece everything back together in photoshop.

As I drew the tight version of Krampus, I had all my rough drawing in front of me. I just picked out elements that I like best from all of them. The cool thing about designing a character for an illustration is that it only has to look good from one angle, in one pose. If I was concepting Krampus for a video game or something, I'd have to flesh him out a lot more, and make sure he looks cool from every angle.

I've also started the illustrator/inking phase - probably too soon, as I haven't finished all the pencils yet. But I felt like skipping ahead a bit for fun.

Krampus - day 2

2009-12-17T22:54:00.001-08:00

I had some more time to work on this today. The final is due Sunday at noon, so I'll have to speed up if I want to make deadline. After two more pages of thumbnail sketches and rough character designs, I banged out a composition that I'm reasonably happy with.

Nothing is finalized yet. I started a quick color paint to get an idea of what it may look like, but I won't hesitate to throw that color-scheme out the window if it doesn't work for me.

My next step will be to print out the pencil drawing lightly, and do a tighter drawing over top. I may have to repeat that process a few times 'till I get everything right.

Krampus for ArtOrder - day 1

2009-12-11T22:34:00.000-08:00

Hey again. I just finished up some illustrations for D&D, so I have time to compete in the next ArtOrder challenge! The due date is Dec. 20, so there is still time to do one yourself! The subject is simple - draw Krampus, that's it!

Here is my first few pages of sketches - two in ballpoint pen, one in PITT pen and one in pencil. I mixed up the media on each page to keep things fresh. I'm thinking of making my Krampus a post-apocalyptic character or something to be different. Not sure yet. I'll post more on this piece each day I can, leading up right to the final illustration.

If you see a rough design that you like, let me know! You might just help steer my illustration in the direction you want.

From crappy sketches to pretty good illustration

2009-12-10T22:19:00.001-08:00

Here is all the crap drawing that led up to my contest entry for ArtOrder back in June. The brief specified two D&D vampires - a male and a female, in a deep rectangular composition. The first two pages are just pure shit warmups. I almost didn't post 'em they're so bad, but I wanted to show that by sticking with it, and drawing the damned thing over and over, you can go from a terrible first sketch, to a pretty bad-ass final piece (if I may say so myself).

The most noteworthy page here is the third one. I really smartened up there. I printed a bunch of rectangles of the exact proportions and made notes to off all the elements the art director (Jon Schindehette) requested. Some of those compositions look pretty cool to me, in hind-sight. But I rejected them because I wanted to show both characters up close, and give them equal attention.

All the pencil work is done with black col-erase, and the ink is a PITT artist pen (brush marker) from Faber-Castell. The final was inked in illustrator and photoshop.

Skeleman process

2009-12-09T16:17:00.000-08:00

I drew this bald, bearded guy in my sketchbook. I was trying to draw 80's style wrestlers with cool gimmicks. I later flipped back through my book and decided I liked this guy enough to make a full-body character illustration out of him. I scanned it in then printed it out very lightly and started drawing in some legs.

Can't remember where I got the idea to make him half skeleton. I just thought it was awesome and hilarious so I went with it. I have a 1/4 size plastic medical skeleton in my studio that I used for reference. Cost about $50 - good investment. There is no reason why I used purple pencil. It offers no advantages over black - I just like to mix things up now and then.

I scanned that, printed it out light again, and drew a tighter drawing on top. If at any point I see some issues with my drawing, I'll cut and scale/rotate bits in photoshop until things look better to me. You can see in the second-to-last step some white lines on the dude's face. That's just were I cut and repositioned his eye and nose slightly. I erase lots as I draw - until things are looking the way I want. But if I draw the perfect head, for example, only it's just a tad too big, I'll make a note on the drawing to remind me to scale it down later in photoshop.

Finally happy with the drawing, I took it into Illustrator and inked it. I can explain that process a bit one day. If anybody cares, just ask. Notice the last-minute change to his elbow. I caught that by flipping the image horizontally to double check it. You should flip your art as you work on it - it always reveals mistakes in your drawing! If you work with traditional medium, hold your piece up to a mirror once in a while. Or, if your paper is thin enough, flip it over and place it on your lightbox (or up to a window).

And there you have it! Skeleman in all his pants-less glory. The final colored version is on my website and on my deviantART (links below).

Mike

Illustration process

2009-12-08T21:55:00.000-08:00

I did this illustration a few months back for a challenge for ArtOrder. Here are some of the steps I took from initial rough to final. Let me know if you want any of the steps further explained. I use a black col-erase pencil for all the sketches. I draw small initially, then scan, enlarge and print the image out lightly, and then draw it again. The linework and tone are done in Illustrator and the polish in Photoshop.

2 more paintings

2009-12-08T21:06:00.001-08:00

That was a good episode of Dexter. Here are two more paintings that I meant to post earlier. One digital and one acrylic. Just more practice.

Lines or no lines

2009-12-08T19:20:00.000-08:00

So, if you are familiar with my current illustration portfolio, you can easily tell that every piece is a colored line-drawing - not a painting. I've started laying on textures, and getting more elaborate with shading and lighting, but holding everything together, and separating one object from the next, is a solid black line.

The more I shade and model forms the less use I have for lines at all. In fact, if I turn the line layer off in photoshop on some of my latest pieces, the work hardly suffers at all. I'm going to keep them in my art for now. I do think my linework is quite badass, and it separates me from the huge pack of talented painters out there. But I know the day will come when I drop lines altogether and adopt a more painterly style.

I've been practicing secretly for that day. Here's an example. I'd post more right now but my girlfriend is bugging me to watch the latest episode of Dexter. This one I did last night. Took me about two hours. Mostly photoshop, but brought it into painter and artrage as well.

First post! Just a few words to pop my blogging cherry.

2009-12-08T13:55:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone. I'm going to try and keep a sketch-blog. Let's see how far I get! I intend this to be a place where I post process sketches, concepts, speed paintings, doodles, and any experiments that don't make their way onto my portfolio web page (mikefaille.com).

If you don't know who I am (and why should you), I'm a freelance illustrator working in Canada. I've been doing editorial, magazine and some package/advertising illustration for several years now, and have a part-time position at The National Post - Canada's national newspaper. I've also worked for The Globe And Mail - Canada's other national newspaper. At the Post I do information graphics and illustrations. I don't really want to get into that right now, but I may post some cool news graphics I do now and then.

Starting at the beginning of 2009, I began changing the focus of my illustration portfolio and the direction of my career. Basically, I want to draw monsters. Also warriors, babes, robots... Yes! I'm talking about Fantasy and Science Fiction illustration! I'm still figuring out how to break into the industry, and I'll pass along any useful tips I learn along the way. Okay, that's all I want to say for now. I'll post some drawings soon.