Steampunk Fairies:from prelims to final

So this project comes form a story on called clockwork fairies I think. The story is a steampunk tale about a female mechanic who makes clock work faries and has a fiance who is a dandy and kind of a racist dick who wants her to be a socialite a quite her work. If you interested the story is on tor.com 

 And this is the final art! I switch to a pink because the blue I was using was too deep a color. I like how it turned out. Definetly the pink has a metalic glitter to is so when I finished it at night and went to photo graph it, the way i lit it the ink looked straight up silver. I'm keeping that little bit of info for a later project.

 This is the final color study I did it straight over my final sketch

 these are little studies for the color final because i was doing it on toned paper so I waned to se what paper made the best midtone. This is with acrylic ink

 this the final sketch. I played with the symbolism involed with the subject matter. the background is in a honeycomb pattern because the maincharacter's family crest is a bumblebee, the fiances crest is two inter twined serpents which I put on his glove for a second read effect and the main character is represented by the fairy.

after i did my thumbs for compositions (which are not here)I tried to get a good reference photo in order to head into my final sketch. My little bro was nice enough to pose for it. 

Christopher Walken portrait final

It's finally finished! and it tured out pretty good if I say so my self. I need to go back and lighten up the eyes a bit and the the neon goache didn't photograph as bright as it actuall is but hey I've been good this year may I'll finally get photoshop for christmas WOOOOOOOOOOO!

Christopher Walken portrait: prelims and process

so I currently have a work in progress portrait of christopher Walken. I'm from finished but here my preliminary work so you can get a glimpse into my process

i work mostly inks and watercolors sometimes mixed media. The thing about watercolor is that it doesn't allow much room for correction. You have to anticipate what your going to do or else pieces can easily look over worked. 

In this project after i created the final sketch i transferred the line work with seral paper and then inked the face  

 after that i took all the dancing Walkens and foot prints cut them out from the tracing paper and put rubber cement on the back so that when i put in the first coat to get a general feel for my color pallet the silhouettes would remain when i took off the tracing paper with a rubber pickup.

 hear are my early ideas for composition and layout. My goal was to show the lighter side of Walken. I had an initial idea were i put him in a funny outfit with his favorite foods (spaghetti and ice cream) as a wall paper design in the back but that idea didn't pan out. so the idea i went with was to take images of him dancing form fatboy slim's weapon of choice music video and use that as a design element in the back ground.

 i really loved the final sketch for this project though my bulbasaur likes to stay at a cautious distance (ever since he saw sleepy hollow he still gets nightmares)

my color study... looks a little sunburnt hmmm.

Experimental comic

So I'm currently developing a lighter project on the side were i'm taking sketches and random doodles and arranging them into a loose comic narrative with in Indesign. The work is a departure from what i usually do but this is just for fun. It's still a work in progress but I do have a fair amount of the sketches done for you to check out!

Street Justice preview

So this is a 7 page preview of my latest complete comic project STREET JUSTICE! The whole thing is 24 pages and with a 2nd issue in progress. Hope you enjoy and tell me what you think. 

Start Off With a Bang

Let's start off with a bang! I know i should be keeping my file sizes smaller but the first ones always free. so here's a big ass high quality pic for you internets. use it wisely... or... something. but in any case this piece play to wards my sense humor, a kind of a random jumble of oddities. I got a fair amount of these paintings on wood block done... they don't represent my full skill set but they're fun and accessible :)

Welcome kind faced stranger!

Welcome kind faced stranger to my humble blog! I am  Colin Andersen an artist and illustrator and within this blog I plan to post my professional, sketch book and preliminary work as well as my opinions on various things in visual culture. My interests primarily focus illustration and comics! In my opinion there is no medium better for expressing new narrative and abstract ideas visually than in comic (i'm really unapologetically nerdy when it comes to comics and graphic novels). I try to draw form the dynamism of comics in working on my illustrations. but enough ranting for now... it's time to sit back and enjoy the finest self promotional ego trip the internet has to offer!