Pranesh

pranesh from johnson and sir

Private Deputy Pranesh Guptarani
Age: Older than everyone except for Officer Struthers and Commander McWeenie.
Race: Human
Gender: Male, mostly. Sometimes doesn’t have a gender.

There are more secrets to discover about this guy, but to find out more, you gotta pledge to the Johnson & Sir KickStarter – the secrets are revealed in the book!

More character sketches are coming next week, along with more dinosaurs, Spaghetti Noodle Monsters, mustaches, and other silliness.

If you want all this silliness, there’s always Johnson & Sir – it’s what they do everyday.

Thank you for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

Superhero Ladies eBook: Coming Soon

There’s no review today (I’ll have a new review for Review Day Tuesday next week).

Instead, I wanted to give you an update on my Superhero Ladies series of sketches.

I already wrote post after post about them, even one featuring Malarkey Maddie, a superheroine sketched for the series.

Well the good news is, there are now 31 sketches done, which is more than enough for the eBook!

I still have to spot check quite a few of them, but I can show you some of the finished ladies in the series.

superhero ladies sketch series by kelci crawford

jen cho nagatana superheroine original character art

malarkey maddie superhero lady sketch by kelci crawford

superhero ladies superheroines sketch series by kelci crawford

And here are some snapshots from my camera of some of the looser, sketchier ones.

superhero ladies sketch series by kelci crawford
This one was actually named by one of my Twitter peeps. Thanks, @JN_Monk!

superhero ladies sketch series by kelci crawford

That last one is a trans girl because I realized towards the tail end of this project, “Crap! I could have incorporated more trans girls in this line up!” I’ll see if I can muster up at least one or two more, because I want this collection of characters to be diverse and inclusive, just like ladies IRL.

Although that reminds me of how I was going to add at least a few magical girls in this line up, as well, but in the end I really only got one. Oops.

I have to give a HUGE shout-out to the Random Superpower Generator and the Superpower Origin Generator, because without either of them I would have been so stuck on this project.

The next step with this series is to make a sketch or two more, touch them all up, and then format them into an eBook so y’all can get a copy of this awesome collection for yourself!

I’ll announce when the book is ready.

Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Updates on Superhero Ladies and Women Warriors

jen cho nagatana superheroine original character art
Jen Cho, aka Nagatana (click to enlarge)

The Superhero Ladies project is coming along nicely! I have 17 ladies already drawn and the month of January isn’t even over yet. Hopefully I can keep up the good work and have lots of awesome superheroines by the end of the month.

There’s a few characters in the project that I’m thinking of branching off into their own stories, or maybe even comics. So who knows?

Another project I’m working on is one I’m reviving from hiatus.

The Women Warriors Project.

I put it on hiatus for a few reasons.

  1. At the time, there was a lot of freelance work going on and I couldn’t update it consistently.
  2. It was hitting an artistic wall, where I felt like every piece I made for the series was getting worse.
  3. I wanted to experiment more with tools like watercolors and acrylics, and I didn’t have the resources or time to do it at the time.

But I’m bringing it back! With a few changes.

Firstly, there will be a new finished painting every month. Acrylic, watercolor, doesn’t matter. It’ll be a painting.

As progress is made on the paintings, I’ll be posting them on the Women Warriors Project blog. The intention is to make a chronological series of posts, showing a painting from initial sketch to finished piece. Tonight I made a sketch to develop an idea for the first painting, so expect to see it on the blog soon!

Know any cool historical women warriors? Leave their names in the comments below!

Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Outside of My Comfort Zone…In Sketches

Earlier this week, I updated my blog with the following warm-up sketch:

warm up sketch of nautilus and riley, original characters

I then looked at it and went, “Man, I need to practice more variety in body shapes and types!”

That prompted me to sketch THIS:

warm up sketch of galileya, original character

Her name is Galileya. She’s an agent of a super secret organization that destroys planets and does other intergalactic missions. I want to write a story about her and her coworker, Agent Sinclair:

Agents Sinclair and Galileya
Agents Sinclair and Galileya

The problem is I have no story for them that has anything resembling a plot. So they’re still a work in progress.

Back to this week.

After I drew Galileya, I was like, “But man, I need to practice drawing things that aren’t people! What can I draw?”

Well, one morning my cat was on my bed, grooming herself. So I got out my sketch pad and my ink brush, and got to work:

warm up sketches of cat grooming

That was tricky to do, since she kept moving on me.

I should probably just wait until she holds still, like this:

gray cat bree bree

BUT EVEN THAT IS FLEETING BECAUSE CATS DO WHATEVER THEY WANT.

So I went, “Dude, I gotta practice drawing things that hold still! But I’ve drawn most of the objects around me twenty times. What’s new on Pinterest that I can use as a reference?”

I found this image:

If you took this picture, please let me know so I can give you credit!

And I went, “PERFECT! I need to practice landscapes so I don’t have crap that looks like this”:

JamieRobertsEnvirons1

So I took the reference image above and drew this (with some artistic license in rendering certain things):

landscape practice sketch from reference

 

I still want to practice landscapes and environments, though. Because

a) It would make my current comics projects even better, and

b) the projects I have in mind for the future are sci-fi/fantasy works that require a LOT of visual development and technical know-how, which I don’t have a lot of yet.

So what do you draw for practice? Let me know in the comments below! And if we keep the conversation going, I think we can find new things for us to practice drawing so we don’t get too comfortable.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you on Tuesday.

P.S. I actually drew MORE than this stuff this week, but those other sketches are exclusive to Patreon subscribers only. If you’re interested in supporting what I do, go to Patreon! There are tipping plans for as little as $1 a month.

Also, I am aware that the Patreon page is under Christian Beranek’s name. It’s our joint effort under the umbrella of Validation. Any money raised there is split evenly between the both of us so we can both keep producing the comic.

If you want to go the more direct route or support my other work, there’s also a tip jar over at Johnson & Sir‘s page.

Ok, that’s it for now! For real this time!