One more silly one!

Actually there is one more silly drawing from the original Gods series. In Greek myth there is the story of Cupid and Psyche. Cupid falls in love with Psyche and kidnaps her and comes to her under the cover of darkness to hide his identity as a god. Over time Psyche falls in love with Cupid and sneaks a look at him when he is sleeping. He wakes up, gets pissed off, and the whole deal is over.

My juvenile mind immediately jumped to a bad visual pun. Enjoy.

Gods & Monsters 6

This is the last of the original drawings from 2007. They have been really fun to color, so I may jump in and do some more.

This is Hermes, also drawn by Tim Fish and inked by him as well. I colored using Painter and Photoshop. I'm getting better at Painter by the day - in this drawing and the one previous I discovered the blending tool - which is invaluable at creating subtle gradations.

I still haven't dabbled too much into the other brushes...perhaps in the future.

Hermes was colored in about an hour and a half (by comparison Mars took almost a full day - mostly to correct errors and learn how to use things).

Gods and Monsters 5

The last two drawings were done, like Mars, collaboratively between Tim Fish and myself. For Phaeton here, Tim did the drawing, I inked it and then colored.

Phaeton is the son of Adonis - the sun god - who asks his father if he can drive the golden chariot across the sky just once. Cause, what could go wrong, right?

Well Phaeton almost immediately loses control of the chariot. He swoops too low and scorches the earth, flies too high and illuminates the night and eventually one of the gods strikes him dead to stop the chaos.

Despite Tims great drawing skills there is one little error. See if you can find it.

Gods & Monster 4

Mars. Here's where you can see Tim's far superior comic skills. Tim drew the pencil, I digitally inked the drawing in Painter and then colored it in Painter as well. I really am loving the techniques available in Painter. Too often colored comics look like Disney movie gels, with super slick colors and even tone. Painter allows you to get dirty and messy.

I used flat colors in the backgrounds and then went in with techniques like dry-brush, pen & ink and wet acrylics on top. I left the Multiply layer on to see the inking, but in the future I may try to incorporate the inking into the actual painting layer.

Also, the metal bits on the double sword are a little meh for me. I need to study some other techniques and see what happens.

Gods & Monsters 3

Here is Eros. When I drew him I was aiming for an impish twink. Because his head is big and his waist is small he ended up more impish than twink. This was drawn with the other two posted so far and my sense of proportion has gotten a lot better. Just out of caution I added a jock to our Eros.

For coloring I used Painter, which gives much richer and textured effects than Photoshop. However, there are some things painter cant do, so I went into PS afterward and added the clouds and some lighting effects.

Gods and Monsters Pt 2

Here is the second Greek god from 2007. This is Neptune, the god of the water. Like my drawing of Pan, Neptune has some anatomy issues. His feet are a little wonky and his body is incredibly narrow in the waist.

I really like the coloring on this one, which was done in several layers. I especially like the way his left hand turned out (holding the Trident). The underwater stuff is a little juvenile. Overall I like this piece and I was really proud when I did it.

Gods and Monsters Pt 1

Back in 2007 I started drawing Greek gods. The subject matter is rife with gay and male imagery so I thought it would be fun. Tim also joined and drew some gods and if he grants permission I'll post them here. This is the first one: Pan.

As you can see I have some issues with anatomy and coloring. Pan turned out a little green with a slightly oversized head. Still, I like the background coloring and this was an a big jump for me in terms of Photoshopping skills.

I also like furry guys so I may revisit this theme.