Tutorial Tuesday: Drawing the Eye

A photo posted by Ian D Walker Art (@idwalkerart) on Mar 22, 2016 at 10:07am PDT

Drawing the eye is something really simple for you to do. But only after studying and learning the fundamentals. This means examining the shape of the eye, the planes, the way the light hits the eyeball, and lids etc...

What I like to do is draw the lifelike version of a thing. After doing that, then I go ahead and study more to learn the simplicity of what I'm drawing. I feel that once you do that, you can be more efficient as an artist. This is especially true when drawing at conventions in an artist alley. You don't have the time to learn to draw the eye and try to get it right. You have to be able to look at something, get the overall shape, and then just move in and go for it.

So in this weeks tutorial, I have a very simple process for drawing the eye. You can apply this process to any eye shape that you come across or study. Again, be very careful to still do observation of the planes of the eye, and the over all shape of the eye. This is very important to catch the likeness. Once you get it, then you will be able to draw and recall from memory the best way to apply the drawing.

Follow the diagram I have created above to draw the eye that I made above, and then continue from there. Nothing is a better substitute than drawing from life or photos to get and understand the real anatomy of the eye. DO NOT TAKE SHORTCUTS! That will screw you over in the end. Take your time, learn, then simplify. Thats all for this week. Until next week.

Leave your questions or comments below!

Ian W.

Free Comic Book Day... DONE!

So yesterday was an incredible day in Santa Rosa at my local comic book shop Comics FTW. Its a store run by my good long time friend Kris B. I set up a table there with a couple of other amazing artists and we had an incredibly successful day.
Adding to it was the coolest cosplay of my good friend Julie Hartley who came as the stunning Poison Ivy. She really knocked it out of the park with that costume.
On top of that I met some really cool new friends and hung out with old ones as well. During my new career path I am making it a goal to get to know people and build connections and networking. The amazingly talented Jessica Lynn was one of these awesone new friends that I connected with and I can see her and I hooking up to do shows together in the future.
I personally had a successful day and made a good chunk of change, all of which will be going to my projects and to do other comic shows. So next on the list is the Santa Rosa Toy Con, which I will be returning from Monterey to attend as a guest artist. By then I will have a ton of new art and again looking to build more contacts.  So for now thats it. Until next time everyone!

Ian W.

Countdown to Big WoW Con Blog Series - Part I

Convention Banner, Lines n' Dymes

So this blog over the next 18 days will be my chronicling of the days leading up to Big WowCon in San Jose CA, on May 18,19 2013. I'm going to be showing some drawings and some behind the scenes stuff regarding my preparation, and hopefully some of you will be able to use some of what is in this blog series to help you prepare for a convention that you have to go to this year. This will be my third convention that I will attend, and I am really excited. Big WoW is slated to be one of the newest and biggest cons in California, and I wanted to make sure I jump on this bandwagon because when it goes live, I want to be able to say I was there. Nothing wrong with that, right!?

So anyway, to start off this post, I have a pic of my convention banner that I got for myself. Can you believe that this banner was only $80!? It was a great buy for my first convention banner. I know that I may be changing it soon considering that I will be going into pinups and illustration in the next few months, but this is great. Finally makes me feel really official as an artist.

Another thing that i will be debuting at the Big WoW Con is my newest sketchbook Lines & Dymes - Volume 1, which is a collection of lineart sketches, greytone, and full color pictures, and pinups of various female character artwork that I did. I lay it all out in here. The good and the bad. There is no sparing anything in here. Anyone that purchases this will see the growth and hopefully appreciate what is contained in it. There will be a limited run of this sketchbook of only 50 copies! After these are gone, that is IT!!! I'm doing the brown cover so that I can do a head sketch of a female character on the cover of the book. These books are 28 pgs. and will be sold for $20 a pop! So be sure to stop on over and grab one!

So this week I'm going to make sure I get to Kinkos and get these covers printed up and then following the next day, maybe get the pages redone, and printed up as well. I'm thinking of doing a video blog but we shall see. Anyway guys, that's what I got so far. Talk to you all tomorrow!

Talk to you later!

The Spectre

The Spectre...  

Buy it here...

Finishing up commissions... Part 1

So I have been taking the time to finish up some long overdue commissions that I have been busy working on. After this, I will be doing some new sales to help me get my new place hopefully within the next 6 months. All will be custom artwork and really fun. Hopefully a sort of a one of a kind type piece/product.

So far though, I have 2 pieces left to go for one client. Two original character pieces of Star Wars characters for another, and two original pieces for another client. All together I need to finish a total of 6 more commission pieces. I undercharged a lot for these in the hopes to get a lot of business, but ended up using a lot of it for shipping. Took a HUGE loss on these. Gonna fix that next time I take commissions!

So here are the two pieces that I did today. 6 more to go!!!

Asaaj Ventress Sketch

Thought I would do a sketch a few days go. Practicing some marker techniques w/ my Copics, and I am really glad how this turned out. This is for sale on my art site right now for $50 if you are interested in it. Click the link above, or the link here... Asaaj Ventress Marker Sketch

Let me know what you guys think about the sketch here. I definitely plan on doing many more soon!

Dr. Who Warmup Sketch

A new warm up I did of good ol' Dr. Who w/ floating TARDIS! This was a fun one to draw as I have never drawn Dr. Who before. Done on 8.5 x 11 high quality bristol, and Copic Markers w/ Pentel ink brush. Who fans, can get their hands on this one for a decent price over at my Big Cartel store! Let me know what you guys think of it!

http://iandwalkerartsales.bigcartel.com/product/dr-who-original-drawing

The Swaggernauts

This started out as an idea for a team name for some colleagues of mine at work. The team leader named us The Swaggernauts. I'm not one for the word swag, or any variation of it, but even I had to admit that this was a cool name. After trying to figure out what a Swaggernaut would look like, I then took my vision further and came up with what you will see below.

I have been studying movie posters for B-Movies, and came up with this idea. I think it came out really good. I am going to be taking this idea and running with it, and turn it into a daily comic strip really soon from Obsidian Studios soon. Thinking about something to do with life. We shall see when the time comes. In the meantime though, let me know what you guys think and enjoy!

Chill N' Sketch - May 2012

So I got together with a bunch of local talent where I am here in Santa Rosa, and decided to put together my own little drink and draw style get together which I call, Chill N' Sketch. It's where we... You guessed it! Chill and Sketch!

We all met up at the Aleworks in town which is a local bar and restaurant, and I reserved part of the upstairs area, and all 10 of us in attendance ordered food, sketched out some great artwork, and had an AMAZING time. For the first event, it was a really good turn out. Below are a few of the sketches that were done. I'm going to be putting up a blog post every month when we have these events, and hopefully they get bigger and bigger with even more artwork.

The Black Dame... Coming in 2012

She's coming back for 2012... The Black Dame. 

More information to follow. Stay tuned...

Zatanna Process Video

Because it was Creator Owned Day yesterday, I didn't put up the new process video I did for my new Zatanna piece. But here it is right now so you guys can enjoy. Remember to subscribe to my YouTube page, and comment please! Love to have feedback so that I know what other vids you guys may enjoy!