Re-designing old characters: Mr.K

I'm thinking to re-edit the old project Le secret de l'Horloge, this could be a good option for Mr.K (you can see the previous version here, scrolling to the last character).

Disclaimer, someone suggested me a couple of new names for Mr.K.: Gonzalo Patadepalo or Lalo Patapalo, given that I'm not going to use those names for this character, I'm thinking to recycle them to a new one... stay tuned.

In the meanwhile, please, let me know if you like this new version of Mr.K.

Digital colour experiment #1

Busy period again and I've been away from blogspot for a while. But sometime I manage to find the time to spring out again.

This time I tried a mix of techniques, this is the first attempt and I am quite satisfied with the result, but not enough satisfied to make a step by step post: let me refine the techniques and I'll provide you a proper explanation for every step.

Since I was mostly experimenting I had to look for a not too elaborate draw to work with, so I picked up the old sketch for a character you still don't know, but I hope I'll introduce you very soon: in these months things are going on and I hope to share with you some good news soon (fingers crossed).

In the meanwhile here there is my little experiment.

K-17

No more pages, but we still go on with the preparatory works for our project. Here there is the steampunk wreck vehicle I told you about.
This is the 'car' designed and created by our Mr K. who, in the meanwhile, has gained a proper name and is, in fact, mr Keppeln now (if you don't know who mr K is, please check the last character of the page here).

So, ladies and gentlemen, behold the magnificence of Keppeln-17 aka K-17 (I guess that the 16 prototipes before that had simply exploded).

The K-17 is a glorious two seats vehicle composed of pieces of this or that device: the driver's seat is an old armchair, the passenger's one is a wicker chair with a nailed belt and a tin-plated footstool. The front wheel is a bike wheel while the rear ones are presumably taken by a wagon. The shafts are pipes. The bodywork is composed of pieces of several devices like boilers' doors and tin-plates. The motor is composed of two big boilers and a complicate system of pipes. The handlebars ends with a control knob at one side and with a tap at the other. The headlight is a gas-lamp and last but not the least, the K-17 has a gorgeous polyphonic horn composed of three small trumpets.

I hope you like it just like Sara did, in fact her comment had been: "what a disgraceful banger!"

About me... well, I'm looking forward to draw our Mr. Keppeln running around the city with this miracle of steampunk engineering.

Skin tone exercise 2

In Italy it's very hot in this week, so I decided to take a day off from the project, but, since there is no rest for the wicked, I did some graphic art all the same.
Here there is another skin tone exercise.
This time I focused on a different skin tone in the moonlight.

Skin tone exercise

Lately I am not posting very often, I am sorry, but I have a lot of pages to draw and not time enought to make some complete illustration for the blog.

But today I was very tired of grey scale drawing and I took a day off to do some exercise with colours.
In the last few days I had the fortune to have some pieces of advices by Sara Spano, who is, in my humble opinion, one of the best Italian illustrators (take a look to her portfolio, you will not regret), so I spent my day studing and doing exercises.

This is the result: the exercise was about the light effect on the skin, so all the rest it's a bit rough but I hope you will enjoy all the same. And, to keep an eye always on my project, the character I choose to draw is Marie.

And, for whom is wondering about this, yes I suppose I will be computer screen tanned at the end of summer!

Pierre's shop WIP

Here there is another study for our project, this time it's up to the toys shop owned by Pierre and his "little" brother Zacharie. I'm not totally sure the illustration is plain, but you can see two rooms: the real shop and the laboratory where Zacharie, Pierre and Marie make their experiments with mechanical engineering.

This one too (as Marie's room) will be digital rough coloured but I don't know when.

Now it's time to come back to my pages. Next time it will be villain's time :)

Sloth and snake

Just a quick test-sketch required by a potential contractor.

Fingers crossed ;)