Sketchbook Rampage

Even though this Vanrtto sketchbook is kind of a piece of shit (the binding is falling apart), I've enjoyed trying to fill it up with random doodles. Here's another batch.

 

Raven's Dojo Fanart

Every once in a while I get in a mood and want to draw fanart of other peoples' characters. I did that recently with Raven's Dojo, one of the longest-running webcomics of all time. It is an adults-only comic, so beware of that.

Raven Perez is fantastic. 

Dornail the dragon

Rodney, little hero.

Sadie the Princess of Darkness, daughter of Satan.

Here's the bw original of Sadie.

Bodé's Sunpot Fanart

In 1977 Heavy Metal Magazine launched. It was the American version of the French Metal Hurlant. And it included a Vaughn Bodé comic called Sunpot, which was about a spaceship with pot leaves on it.

Here's a little fanart of the Sunpot, for fun.

Brush pens, Posca markers, alcohol markers. Some bits bled black into gray. I find that the tools I use don't bleed much but when they do they really do. Hard to predict it. The only way to fully avoid it is to let the shit sit and dry for hours. But I tend to go from inks to colors within a few minutes, which is why I prefer using ink that dries fast and is water resistant.

But alcohol markers are not water and they behave a little differently.

Here's the original page by Vaughn Bodé that inspired me to doodle this. BTW, even though Bodé has an accented "e", Mark Bodé (Vaughn's son) says it is pronounced "BOH-dee"... which is how I have always pronounced it anyway so that's cool.

 

Sadie of Hell

I did a drawing of Sadie the Princess of Hell from Raven Perez's webcomic Raven's Dojo.... one of the longest running webcomics in history. Raven was on my Artists I Like list way back in June 2024!

Ok... if you're a casual, be warned that Raven's Dojo is naughty as fuck. Like, ultra naughty as fuck. And Sadie gets down to some business. I'm just sayin'.

Here's the original art from my sketchbook, in black and gray ink.

Here it is colored up digitally.

Groo Fanart

Here's a bit of Groo fan art, for fun and giggles!

 

Silver Surfer

I like drawing Silver Surfer, although I never owned a single issue of his comic nor any comic in which he appears! Amazing.

Silver Surfer from a sketchbook, colored with markers.

Inked with a brush pen, of course. And a Micron.

Another Sketchbook

Another little sketchbook filled with some fanart doodles and other nonsense. 

Cobalt 60

Been on a kick lately of doing fan art. Here's my take on Vaughn and Mark Bodé's Cobalt 60.

The Expert Dwarf

I drew this Bill Willingham D&D dwarf while playing Top Secret. Go figure.

You'll know this guy from the first page of 1981's Basic D&D book. He's smacking a dragon around with his adventuring pals. I don't know if Willingham named him, but I like to call him Zipsmasher Busterchops.

I should do more fanart from the old game. It's fun to explore how another artist works and when you're drawing one of their characters you pick up on a lot of details. Willingham and Jeff Dee, for example, both obviously had tremendous super hero comic book inclinations. I actually like that they both had their stamp on this version of D&D because as an old comic book guy myself it resonated. I saw D&D characters as larger than life and not just pond scum struggling to become epic. While I love the zero to hero aesthetic that the OSR has cultivated (see DCC RPG), I also know it sucks to sit down to play an adventure game and be virtually powerless (reminds me I might need to do another Magic-User rant soon).

The original Bill Willingham art kicks much ass, natch.

I made a character sheet for Zip. I figured he was a strong dwarf, so 14 Str seemed realistic, assuming the player rolled 3d6. I could have went higher... maybe I should have. Ole Zip's got guns.

Here's a timelapse of the drawing for those who enjoy that sort of thing.

Bean! Fan Art

I did a bit of fan art for J. Freels' Bean! the d2 RPG. I love that game and I love Freels' cartoon art style. Go check it out.

Fawn Rules! (Old Art XXIX)

Fawn Rainchild RULES!

Eowyn (Old Art What Clawed Up From Grave XIX)

This was some time after I watched the second LotR movie and I just thought we needed a busty pin-up Eowyn. So I did one.

And here's a colored version. This was colored by a dude named Sean Loftiss. I know nothing more about him as it's been many years since I interacted with him at all. But it's a neat color job. A little heavy on the airbrush FX, but not quite so much as to be a negative. Nice work.

Colors by Sean Loftiss

Wonder Woman Action (Old Art XVI)

Another old favorite. Did this one soon after a bit of a rebirth of my creative soul. I went through a somewhat darkish time in 2000, a long slump. I came out of it creating art like this. Rather like discovering you can draw even though you'd been drawing for years.

Wonder Woman (Old Art XIV)