Once more... from the top!

Well, it's been a couple years... but we're back by popular demand. This time we will be meeting the FIRST Wednesday of every month at the excellent Hurley's Heroes comic store in downtown Joplin (824 S Main St) from 7-9pm. Bring your favorite art supplies!

Also, you can join the Facebook group here.

Invite other artists you think might be interested... let's see how many of us we can get there!

SKETCH NIGHT 2.0

Joplin Sketch Night is changing! Since we were just meeting at my house, we've had to keep it to a small group of people that we know. But now for the first time, it will be open to anyone who wants to show up and draw. We will be meeting at Hurley's Heroes Comics & Games (10th and Maiden Lane) from 7-9pm on the second Wednesday of the month. (Sometimes it might have to be the first Wednesday, but we'll post it here if that's the case.)
So if you're in the mood to hang out with other artists and maybe tackle a sketch challenge or two... see you there!
Also, make sure you check out the Joplin Sketch Night Facebook page for updates, etc.

More splatter drawings!

At the last Sketch Night, we did some more ink splatter drawings (inspired by the incredible Daily Monster blog by Stefan Bucher). I was really happy with the creatures that sprang out of the ink this time! My wife Laura even joined in and did the two below! Fun stuff... I highly recommend it, if you haven't tried it yet.

Creature Jams Redux and Steampunk

Top: Brad/ Middle: Shane/ Bottom: Dusty/ Inks: Seth

During April's sketch night, we tried a new type of creature jam. This involved folding the paper into three sections. One artist did the head/shoulders, and passed it on to the next who did the arms and body, and then on to the last artist, who did the legs. The trick was that by folding the paper, you had no way of seeing what the other artists had already drawn. Once they were all done, we unfolded them and got a tremendous laugh out of how crazy they were (and yet they made some sort of twisted sense).

Top: Randy/ Middle: Dusty/ Bottom: Shane/ Inks: Seth

Top: Shane/ Middle: Randy/ Bottom: Brad

During last month's meeting, we decided to do steampunk versions of established characters. Here's my take on Hobgoblin:

The Return of Sketch Night!

We're back! We took a few months off to prep for conventions, but things have settled down and people have been clamoring for more Sketch Night! So, we'll be meeting the last weekend of every month once again... starting Saturday, April 24 @ 8pm.

We've got a great new drawing challenge to try out this time that should be a riot... hope to see you there!

Halloweenified

Well, it was just Randy and I at the last sketch night (the Saturday before Halloween) and we decided to draw each other as classic monsters. Above is my Frankenstein Randy and below is his rendition of me as a werewolf. Typecasting, I think.

Evil Ain't Easy on ZUDA!

In case you haven't heard... my comic Evil Ain't Easy is currently in this month's Zuda Comics competition! For those of you who might not know, Zuda Comics is an online division of DC Comics. Every month ten comic strips are chosen for the international competition, and votes from online visitors to the site determine the winner. This winner is then rewarded a year-long contract with DC Comics to create 52 more strips for the site.

Evil Ain’t Easy is my humor strip that tells the story of a maniacal scientist bent on world domination who is constantly thwarted by the everyday annoyances of life. He is accompanied by the laid-back henchman he created and a moody, little, old landlady.

It’s quite an honor to even be selected for the competition! So far, readers seem to enjoy the humor of the comic. It’s pretty light-hearted compared to a lot of the other comics on Zuda. I hope that uniqueness appeals enough to people to get their vote, as there are several great comics in this month’s competition.

So anyway... I need your help! Please take a few minutes to read the comic, register, and VOTE for it (registering is quick, easy, and spam-free)! Please also rate it, favorite it, and leave a comment... all these things will help it win.

Evil Ain't Easy will only win if we can really spread the word and get people to vote for it! I've setup a production blog at evilainteasy.com to help promote the comic, and there you'll find lots of sketches, downloads, and more! We're going to be running a few different contests to promote the comic, so stay tuned to that blog for details... and you might win some free stuff!

Thanks in advance for anything you can do to help out!

Realistic to Cartoony and vice versa

A bit late in posting these, but at the last sketch night the challenge was to take a realistic character and draw them in a simplified, cartoony way or vice versa. Some people took the challenge, and some did there own thing...

Animal, by Seth Wolfshorndl:


Marvin the Martian, by Seth Wolfshorndl:


Thor, by Randy Rustin:


Man-Spider, by Randy Rustin:


Various sketches by Darian:

ALSO... Note the date change on our September meeting (top right).

You look like a Dick Tracy villain.

Our challenge this last week was to make up our own Dick Tracy villains. His rogues gallery was always known for crazy facial features, so we tried to create some weirdos that would fit that style. It was fun to just focus on faces for once.

By Clayton Milliman:

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By Brad Shipp:

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By Seth Wolfshorndl:

Monster jam leftovers

A couple more of our monster jams that I just finished inking...

DARIAN: Right arm | SETH: Big head, torso, inks
CLAYTON: Layout, legs, left arm, small head, chest | MATT: Tree, glove
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DARIAN: Left arm, chicken | SETH: Head, mouth arm, top right arm, eyes, inks
CLAYTON: Layout, tail, top arm, top left arm, nose | MATT: Right arm

Name Brand Weirdos

For this sketch night, we redesigned famous name brand characters. It was fun thinking about how many are out there... and trying to remember them all. McDonalds and breakfast cereals seem to have the most colorful characters.

There should be more posted on here eventually from Darian and Dusty.


By Seth (with much input from Dusty):

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By Randy:

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By Seth:

More Monster Jams

We revisited the Monster Jam challenge last week. It was interesting because Clayton Milliman and Darian Holtsman were not here last time, so they definitely added a new flavor to these twisted creations...

(Body parts are labeled from character's perspective)

DARIAN: Layout, guitar, speakers | SETH: Head, body, right leg, inks
CLAYTON: Arms, left leg
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SETH: Layout, right arm, feet | MATT: Head, left arm
CLAYTON: Club, ear, body | DARIAN: Bloomers, inks
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SETH: Layout, right arm, first two tentacles, inks | MATT: Torso, last two tentacles
DARIAN: Left arm, neck, third tentacle | CLAYTON: Head, 4th tentacle, left hand
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DARIAN: Layout, background, left arm | MATT: Right leg
SETH: Head, Left leg, right arm, tail, inks | CLAYTON: back
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These last two were actually mostly drawn back at our August 2008 meeting. I finished up the inks finally...

DUSTY: Layout | SETH: Right arm, head, inks
MATT: Toenails, background, cow
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MATT: Layout, arms, legs | SETH: Head, inks
AMBER: background, tentacles, claws