Yapra City

The final Yapra city for Star Lost

Hudspeth Games

Cover Art for Do

The cover for Do is coming together! Keep up with the process on Daniel's Flickr, Here is where it's at right now!

For those who don't remember, "Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple" is a co-op gaming book I illustrated for, the line art for the cover is mine, but it is the magic of Daniel that is coloring it and making it come together! WOW! This is going to look GREAT!

Bunny Bride

Second in my animal head series, this is trying to be fashion illustration here, imagine that? This bunny is wearing the wedding dress I wish I had! Yes, I am a sucker for the big butt bow, I can't help it!

See it bigger on Flickr - clickity click.

Comments always welcome!

Green Leopard

Trying out something new, I've really wanted to draw people with animal heads, ideas bumping around.

Click for big on Flickr

Scanner is OK!

False alarm on the scanner break, it's A-OK! My cat sat on some buttons in the middle of the night and woke me up - I looked and what the heck the cat was scanning pictures. Sometimes I really wonder about the world.

Ok, it's late but here is what my cat scanned for you to celebrate:

Scanner Blues

Well my scanner stopped working, it just thinks and thinks and never does anything. Time to break out the money for new scanner. :( This one lasted only a year, what a pain.

Blue Self Portrait

Working on this new portrait for my... resume, yes!

Yes it is a bit more flattering than the last, but I'm having fun with the silly eyes :P

Click for big on Flickr!

Yapra City Sketch

The sketch for the next Star Lost illustration - a Yapra city. Click for big.

Oldies but Goodies!

Hop on over to my Flickr photostream to see some "oldies but goodies" I just uploaded!

Yapra Executive Office

Another alien from Star Lost - these are the Yapra, a species of corporate fat cats similar in appearance to humans. The males treat the females of the species like slaves and have extreme inequality.

Star Lost is a Quentin Hudspeth game. Find the author of Star Lost at his blog here: www.hudspethgames.com

House Girl Sketch

Click for big!A quick sketch- the 17 year old girl from the last episode of House - I really liked her sweater, just had to pause and draw it!

Belle of the Ball - Friendly Reminder

Here's a friendly reminder to keep up with Daniel Solis on Flickr to see Belle of the Ball developed. My drawings are beginning to show up on cards - neat!

Paint Party - Surreal Zebra

My friends and I like to use "Paint Parties" as an excuse to get together sometimes. We break out a bunch of small canvases and paints and do whatever comes to mind. This is one of those paintings, I thought it was particularly interesting. Acrylics and Sharpie, with just a little photoshop touch up.

Click for big (Flickr)

Portrait - Practice with Inking Hair

Sketch of the day again, this time I used my brush pen to practice the lovely swirling hair of this woman.



Picture originally from ShahStudio's Photostream, special thanks to them. Find the photo at the link below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shahstudios/280770888/in/faves-25961674@N08/

Pretty Girl in Blue

Playing around with markers and my new brush pen.

Credit to Brent Gambrell for the photograph I used to sketch this from. Thanks Brent, your photography is lovely.
Original Photo Here

We moved URLs!

This blog has changed URLs! The new address is http://lizradtke.blogspot.com/

Image via WikipediaSalvador Dali Anyone?

So if anyone here likes Salvador Dali, then you surely know one of his more famous paintings "Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumblebee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening." OK, in case that doesn't ring a bell, this is the painting below:





And this below this text is an image I made entirely using stock photos...



Fun! The woman alone is 9 people stuck together, if I had the time, money and will it'd be cool to shoot the exact photos needed but as it is it's fun to collage.

This was made entirely with free stock images (except for the gun, I ended up needing to photograph that myself.)

Thanks to the following Flickr Common's photographers:
belgianchocolate rich115 S Baker
permanently scatterbrained
babasteve
suneko
kevindooley
claudiogennari
Millicent_Bystander
EuroMagic
Cliff1066
buntalshoot
aliwest44
stickywikit
wolfgang staudt
audreyjm529
John-Morgan
Mara1
ejhogbin
stig nygaard
Xerones
*Micky

Also used:
Wikimedia Commons
MorgueFile
Image*After
stock.xchng
photoXpress

I've branched out into baby hats... Just kidding, I've only made this one... My good friend's lovely daughter Andie is modeling this chic acorn hat I made...



It's crochet, you can probably tell it was the first thing I'd crocheted in months from all the uneven stitching, but it turns out it's just as freaken' cute with this little girl wearing it!

I did a quick SpongeBob sketch to try out my new PITT brush pen for inking. I love the line variation, and it holds up well under long strokes- no problems with bleeding or drying and the flow is great. However I'm going to have to get used to controlling the thing, the slightest shiver in my hand and I got a wobbly line - BUT that's my problem, not the pen's, so I'm going to keep practicing on that. Overall, I'm very satisfied with the pen.

And then I was bored so I colored it...


As always, click for bigger!

Check out my new photos on Flickr, a "Texas X-mas" - CLICK HERE!

I had a cold earlier this week, I feel much better now except my voice started going Friday night and now my highest speaking level is low whisper. I feel like I'm perpetually telling secrets.

Brian has been wanting a tattoo for a while and finally settled on a subject. He wants a SpongeBob SquarePants that is made to look like an exaggerated Brian after work at Long John Silver's, commemorating his time spent busting his butt in the food industry.

My instructions are to make it look as gross and grizzly as possible...

OK so with that in mind, here is the first preliminary sketch for Brian's tattoo...


This is being heavily influenced by the awesome find of Robert Ryan Cory's flickr page filled with SpongeBob production art... NEAT!

Click Here

Pretty Face From Lou

Sketch of the day, sometimes I just like to sketch pictures of lovely people.


This picture brought to you by Luciano Noble II - Lou O' Bedlam's Photostream is a nice place to see lots of pretty faces that are great to just practice sketch with. http://www.flickr.com/photos/louobedlam/

Original Photo Here

After getting frustrated with my micron pens one too many times, I decided to go out and find the new pen for me. I was looking for something to give more delicate detail control, but with a nice variation in line. I also need something waterproof, because I love to use watercolors over pen.

I quickly stumbled across a variety of lovely professional brush pens, these seem to be the lead runners in the world of inking:

Kuretake Brush Pen
Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.

From some extra research however I found that the Pentel has trouble with drying out, especially with long strokes. I'm still keen on trying the Kuretake, but the price is a bit prohibitive at the moment. A bit more in the price range is below:

Uni-ball Pocket Brush Pen - Fine
Zebra Disposable Brush Sign Pen

But before I sprang the "big bucks" ($12) for these beauts, I decided to check out the local art supply store. To my fabulous surprise, I found this little number:


The Faber-Castell PITT artist pen, in black 199 brush tip (B). It's waterproof, light-fast, india ink with a soft (solid) tip. It creates very delicate lines, and bold calligraphy swooshes, and even hold up on flow for those extra long lines. I'm going to try this bad boy out a few times, see if it's pleasant features hold out over long, hard use, but for now I'm quite delighted!!

Starting off the new year with a new Flickr Photostream and a new self portrait here to kick start us... click for bigger.





Visit My New Flickr PhotoStream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/57882967@N06/