Pink Moon (2024)Started traditional with ink and dragonfruit juice on two A1 sheets. Later did a digital overhaul to bring out the colors and character. The calligraphy says: 'fall seven times, get up eight,' and is a Japanese proverb. It was a commission for a friend.
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Night Market (2022)I had really liked how the black and white version of this came out, but I wanted to get back into collaborating with other artists. So I reached out to a few to help me color. It's dark, it's moody, and it's exactly what I was looking for in a tone setting concept illustration.
Original size: A4. Materials: brush pen, copic markers (N2, N6), and ballpoint pen. Digital pass by Tomiwa Olu (instagram: @12_da_artist). |
That Little Dot is the Sun (2019)An exploration in charcoal.
For a while I've been flirting with developing a comic with this character. In 2019 my attempt began with a scene of this girl in space. To fill a large space with black quickly, I used toned grey paper and charcoal. For the highlights I used chalk. I only managed a dozen panels before my crazy schedule pushed this attempt to the curb. I rather like this picture that came from the attempt, though. The color was tweaked digitally. Size: A4. |
Outnumbered! (2019)A lizard samurai fighting a group of dragons by a shrine in the forest. He didn't seem to think this one through...
This is a totally digital picture. I wanted to practice hard blacks and variation in line width, but I filled the colors in too dark so the effect doesn't really come through. |
The Little Magician (2018)This is the third of a set of three collaborative art pieces I did together with Natalie Lee.
At a friend's insistence, I had just read Harry Potter for the first time. Flipping through the pages of the first book got me seeing the world in a more magical way, so I drew a little magician. Natalie (the artist I collaborated with) added a twist with these two sneaking a peek at the little guy's show. We traded a Photoshop file back and forth: one week I added a few brush strokes, the next Natalie added a few. You can see the process in the Gif below. |
The Fuzzy Hedgehog (2018)This is the second collaborative art piece with Natalie Lee.
The girl can't see anything right now, so the world can seem a bit confusing. She experiences once familiar objects by their touch and sound: a rug feels wooly like a sock, a clock ticks like clattering forks and knives. But with or without sight, her fuzzy hedgehog and her ukulele are always something that makes her happy. You can see the process in the Gif below. Natalie and I took turns working on each frame. |
The Snake Witch (2018)This is a collaborative art piece with Natalie Lee. I wasn't too sure what to expect, since I haven't worked much with collaborations. Since we're on separate continents, we worked digitally. We traded a Photoshop file back and forth: one week I added a few brush strokes, the next Natalie added a few. It was fun trying to keep to her style, and her trying to keep to mine. It was fun to see a story emerge organically from a simple sketch of a castle in the woods.
You can see the process in the Gif below. |
A Long Way (2021, 2018, 2009)
This is a new take on an old picture. In the original, I had just discovered I could light a scene with colors. It became my stylistic marker for this storyline. Roughly ten years later, I had gotten better at computing what yellow light on brown skin with blue and red lights competing should look like. And, I had a neater set of supplies too.
The original picture was utilitarian: it served as a wedge to keep my story notes together. And in 2021, I had another need for yet another binder for my story notes. Finally, I decided to take another whack at the same image--this time without the fancy supplies. This time, with the very same ball point pens, colored pencils, and even the same tiny paper dimensions. It was fun to see how far I've come.
The original picture was utilitarian: it served as a wedge to keep my story notes together. And in 2021, I had another need for yet another binder for my story notes. Finally, I decided to take another whack at the same image--this time without the fancy supplies. This time, with the very same ball point pens, colored pencils, and even the same tiny paper dimensions. It was fun to see how far I've come.
Gothic Man (2017)This one's kinda scary. But I have a good friend who's into goth. I made this for him. It's way outside of my comfort zone, but sometimes you have to try new things. What is this one about? I don't know; embracing that dark and scary things can be oddly beautiful, maybe.
Materials: colored pencil and Copic Markers on coarse, white paper. Bristol paper would have been better, but I didn't have any in this size. Some digital retouching. Size: halfway between A1 and A2. I cut it a bit square, so it's not exactly A series dimensions. Oh! This is the inspiration board I used for this drawing.
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Closed Heart (2017)I've got quite a few friends who are Deaf. Most of their parents never took the time to learn a sign language (ASL is American Sign Language. Germany has a totally different sign language). It's the same story everywhere: hearing parents can't communicate with their Deaf kids. ASL is a full language, meaning it takes effort to learn. But that roughly 90% of parents of the Deaf don't learn sign is appalling.
The figure, Nia, is signing "closed heart" in ASL. Materials: chalk, charcoal, red and blue colored pencil on coarse, light brown paper. A tiny bit of digital retouching. Size: A1. |
Hoping (2017)I found an art store down the street from where I live. Like a kid in a candy store, I bought a bunch of paper and supplies. I didn't really sketch this one out. I pretty much went straight to drawing!
It's a girl looking through a window across the sea. There are two moons. You can see a time-lapse video of the process here. Materials: Colored pencils, graphite sticks, charcoal, chalk on coarse grey paper. Size: A1. |
Copyright 2015-2018 Morgan Randall. All rights reserved.