Chris Howard's Writing & Art

Doodling between chapters

Here's a quick pencil sketch from my journal while I was reading Caitlín R. Kiernan's Threshold.  Did this a few years ago and came across it tonight.

 

Drawing demons at lunch on the iPad

I drew this in the Brushes app over lunch, doing some sketching for a new set of panels for the Saltwater Witch graphic novel.

[illustration] Friday Wallpaper

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "shadows". I painted this one of a pensive Kassandra from my book Seaborn for the background of my web site SaltwaterWitch.com, but it makes a great background for any desktop. I've cropped it and reduced it to a variety of standard resolutions for a variety of devices.

Pick yours, download it, and set it as your wallerpaper!

Links below the image to sizes.

1600x1200
Seaborn-Wallpaper-1600x1200.jpg

1280x768
Seaborn-Wallpaper-1280x768.jpg

1280x960
Seaborn-Wallpaper-1280x960.jpg

1024x768
Seaborn-Wallpaper-1024x768.jpg

768x1024 (Portrait - iPad/tablet)
Seaborn-Wallpaper-768x1024.jpg

320x480 (Portrait - Phone)
Seaborn-Wallpaper-320x480.jpg

Here's the 320x480 image:

 

Drawing over lunch

I spent an hour getting my sketch drawn and complete on a sheet of 13x24 inch birch plywood.  It's coming together so far.  I'm going to continue with some ink and colors tonight.  I'll post when I have more--with better lighting!  In the meantime, here's where I am at the moment, shot with my phone in terrible light. Here's my original sketch.

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Seaborn Family Tree - and some free elements

I've been playing with the idea of doing a fancy version of Kassandra's family tree for a while--it was a scribbled on page in my journal for a while, and then a quick colored version of it in photoshop, but here's the result of trying to make it look good. (This all comes from Seaborn and Sea Throne if you're wondering--and, hey, if you're wondering, go buy the book--available in print, Kindle and iBooks!)

Want to make your own tree?

Family Tree Elements in PNG and PSD format.  Get'em while they're hot!

Seaborn Family Tree Elements:  PSD (4.4mb) or PNG (1.6mb)

(Click on the PNG link above to see what the template looks like)

Here's Kassandra's Family Tree--click for the full view:

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Moonlight fight

...and some creepy guy's shadow--he's waiting to see how things go with the combat.

Click this one for the full view:

Here's my original line art:

 

comic line work, coloring and shading on the iPad

Took a couple hours last night to sketch and paint this out on the iPad.

Here's a character study for a project I'm about to start, two of the main characters--art below and video showing progress below that. The video shows how I color and shade in the Brushes app on the iPad.  I usually use Sketchbook Pro to do the rough sketch, bring it into Brushes to refine, color, shade, outline.  I usually finish up in Sketchbook Pro--also using some filtering tools to adjust overall lighting, tinting, contrast.

To finish up, I brought the image into the Filterstorm app, dropped the contrast way down, and darkened it up, also brought the warmth and sat up.

 

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Saltwater Witch Chapter 11 is up!

The first page of chapter 11, that is.  Hope you like it--and you're ready for more!

I'm continuing the art style, layout plan and page size (768x1024 pixels) from the first chapter. I still think the graphic novel would be so much better if I could repaint everything in between, but...time, time, time.

New to Saltwater Witch, or ready to read more?  Read it here.

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Goofing ...

Nanowhere character studies

I'm working on a special edition of my book Nanowhere--amazing that I started writing it 7 years ago. I'm doing a bunch of illustrations, some maps, and other material--including some new character studies below. Also working on a handful of limited edition custom bindings with my daughter Chloe--I'm going to give or raffle these off.  More on this, including some radical design pics when I have time.

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