Slacker Cats

Man, I'm such a slacker sometimes. Okay..  most times. Finally finished up the pencils for these Thunder Cats sketch cards. Now they only need to be inked and I'm not sure when I'll get around to that, with school starting next week. I'm really happy with the Mum-Ra card and may be keeping that one for myself. 

For those that care about the specifics: used a .5 mm mech pencil with 2B graphite and a .3 mm mech pencil with 2H graphite. Tech pens for the logo and a crow quill dip pen for the rest of the inking.

Strip 2

This was a fun picture to draw, especially the Lion. I kind of based his hands off of Chewbacca's hands. Thought of panel at work, while zoning out in the heat. Trying to crank these out quickly. I probably spent a couple hours on this one. Cheers!

Digital Strip 1

Trying some things out with my new Wacom Bamboo tablet and Manga Studio. I'm going to attempt to crank out some quick single panels. The word balloons were my first attempt at adding them ever, digitally. 

Gilligan's Island Practice Sketches

I know I haven't shown them all yet, but I've been working on a set of 12 Thundercats sketch cards. While working on that project, I came up with the idea to make a set of Gilligan's Island sketch cards. Well, here are some practice sketches I threw down last night and touched up today, so I could post something. This piece is all pencil and I probably won't ink it, it's just a practice sketch.

Digital Coloring

I've finally started coloring digitally!! I picked up Manga Studio the other week and have been watching tutorials ever since. After a little time, I was able to color this piece and I used a mouse to do it. I have a Wacom Bamboo on order from TigerDirect and expect it soon, but I couldn't wait. Hopefully I'll be cranking finished work out now and I've even started plotting out a little story I want to put out in manga form, just for the heck of it. Cheers!

Sketch Cards

I was listening to a podcast the other week and they were discussing sketch cards. The concept really caught my fancy and I ordered a set of 12 to try them out. The cards were a lot smaller than I thought they'd be, they're 2 1/2" x 3 1/2". Here's the first three in my ThunderCats set. I don't have a license and I'm not even trying to sell them, so I hope I get a pass by the owner. I started inking the outline of Cheetarah, but everything else is raw pencils. I will make a post with all 12 finished cards when it's all said and done. The logo is the most difficult part of the whole process. I actually cranked out all 12 cards in one night, sans logo, the letters are very curvy.

Harley Q How Do You Do?

I feel the lines I laid down weren't up to snuff. I figured out how to keep the crow quill tip clean and am eager to go at it again with the new tips I bought. This picture started with the face and I liked the face so much, I just had to do the rest, unfortunately, I don't think the rest of the body matches up to the face. Meh, on to the next one.

Coloring with Copic Markers

Original art by Humberto Ramos, I love that man's art style. Looking at the original, I sketched this out and then inked with a dip crow quill pen, which has become my preferred method at obtaining lines. It's very easy to go from thin to thick with the quill pen tip, which puts more life into the line. The logo is a tight pencil that I will probably ink with tech pens, or the crow quill for the character's name and a pen for the word 'Planet'.

I don't have very many Copic Sketch markers, as they are 7$ a pop at the only store around here that carries them. I have seriously considered ordering them online at BluelinePro, they're just a little less at that site. By the end of coloring this up, my Cool Gray No.5 started to really dry out on me, refills in the mail to me now. The drying is why the left arm is very light.

Going to try to post up a lot of work today, because I'm at home and not at work, being sick *cough*

WW by Adam Hughes

I can only dream that one day I will be able to crank out originals like this, Adam Hughes' Wonder Woman he had done as a commission for Wolfgang Bertram http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=34392. Included a link to Mr. Bertram's gallery.

I really like Hughes' simple, yet very effective, line work. Not sure how the grays were laid down, maybe watercolor? I used a Copic marker, some ink fine liner pens and a red Sharpie to finish up this humble rendition of some great work, by the one and only Adam Hughes.

Mike Hoyt Illustration

Some quick lettering work I finished up tonight. Used a couple fine liners and a
Sharpie.

Alien w/ Gun in Gray n Black

One of those aliens from the Resistance game.

Zombified

Sketched this piece up a few months back, as I watched my first episode of The Walking Dead. I remembered hearing something about Marvel Zombies, but I never read it, so this is my take on what that might of been like. Needs a little more penciling, but basically ready for some digital inking I'd like to try out. Purposely not inking this.

Heads n Graffiti

Whew, glad Monday is over. I was sick as a dog and could hardly muster up the energy to even draw, now that's seriously sick!
I did manage to make it to work for a few hours however and chatted with my buddy Spencer about my new blog. Talking about the blog and the desire to be discovered inspired Spencer and his desire for art, mainly his passion for graffiti style lettering, which I have always found to be very cool. Spencer drew up a name he thought would be awesome for a website, should I ever start one up, and I have been thinking about it. I think the name sorta implies I do tattoos or something, but that isn't so bad, I've wanted to do tattoo designs before and have been approached to become an apprentice under a local tattoo artist, just never took the following steps in that direction. Perhaps I will make a separate page on my site, dedicated solely to tattoo designs? You never know.
The heads above Spencer's design were originally done by Chris Bachalo, another favorite artist of mine, currently working on the new Wolverine & The X-Men series, which is hailed as the best X book at this time. Bachalo's style is unique and I love how it varies from very loose to also being tight and technical.

Snake Eyes by Humberto Ramos

So I didn't want to wrestle with the roomie's scanner today, because it's a big pain in the rear to move all the stuff around the scanner. I took this photo with my iPhone camera, just to say I did something today.

This picture of Snake Eyes was originally done by Humberto Ramos, a big influence to me. Ramos' style really stood out to me for reason last year and recently looking him up on Wikipedia, I found he's actually been around since the early 90's. The only artists that stuck out for me back then were Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and Todd MacFarlane and then I took a long break from collecting comics. I found this picture on ComicArtFans.com and then copied it to the best of my ability. All props to Humberto Ramos.

Experiment in Toner Paper

I did this piece sometime in 2010. I had all this Japanese toner paper, used in shading for manga, in one of my longboxes of comics and I decided I should finally use it up. Recently finishing the Samurai 7 anime, I decided to use one of their posters. Penciled out, inked by some primitive means and finally applied with toner, which I have decided is one of the most difficult ways to shade any kind of work. Maybe one day, I will attempt to find more toner to work with, but for now I'll be working on improving my crosshatching!

To all the true believers, lovers of original comic art and enthusiasts of sequential art, welcome to my blog!! My name is Michael Hoyt and I am an aspiring artist. Aspiring to be a true professional in the field of sequential art, come with me on my journey as I post some pieces on here. Feedback is always welcome and I will try to answer any questions or criticism I might receive on my blog.

For the remainder of today, I will be making a concerted effort to add a bunch of content that I scanned in. Some pieces are original pencils by myself and others may be pictures I drew, while looking at another artist's work, attempting to assimilate their style. Isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery? This could actually be a future topic on my page, as I have noticed that many of my favorite artists today got their start by imitating some of the greats, like, Jim Lee and Todd MacFarlane.