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Annie, the organizer, also arranged for a new venue this week: the Sun Dust Gallery in downtown Mesa. A very nice location with a room sufficient in size to hold our large group, it was a nice change of pace from the usual (and also very nice) large-but-quiet location we’ve been meeting at. They also have an awesome basement gallery space that makes me think there should be a giant steampunk Boneshaker machine in the corner for drilling under the downtown Mesa neighborhood and releasing zombifying gas… but maybe that’s just me.

Of course another wonderful aspect of the meetup was our model, the pulchritudinous terpsichorean muse Madame C of the Provocatease performance group. She’s graced our meetups several times, always bringing something new and unusual in her costumes and musical accompaniment, and today was no exception. She stood balanced expertly upon a rather high stool to allow a good view to the entire audience, wearing a sari-skirt and holding a lotus with a serene smile and mischeivous twinkle in her eyes:

My amazing wife was also there, taking photos which should soon be available to view soon on her own site or the meetup page. I had a bit of moral support present (thanks TJ!) but was a bit sad more of my artistically-inclined friends weren’t able to make it out. Hopefully at some point I’ll be able to do this kind of thing again, and until then there are plenty of meetups and open sessions around where we can get together to get our art on. For example, there are the Doctor Sketchy’s Anti-Art School sessions which happen monthly, of which one will be coming up this Tuesday. If all goes well I will be making an appearance there as well.

I also sold one of my drawings from the previous session I attended, also of Madame C. Prior to delivery though I felt some improvements needed to be made so I’ve put a little work into refining the drawing. Here’s the more polished version:

I think it turned out pretty OK, and I actually sold the original to a fellow Sketchy Doodlist, Carol!

So thanks again to everybody who turned out, and special thanks to my life drawing teachers at Mesa Community College,  Gingher Leyendecker and Jim Garrison, for getting me back into life drawing and playing with charcoals and paint again.

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I made up a bit of backstory for him as I was drawing:

In my mind, XIII comes after the troubled but optimistic 12th incarnation (played by Chewitel Ejiofor). Too trusting of his last companion, he is betrayed, captured and partially converted by the Cybermen before barely escaping to the TARDIS, which has finally grown fully sentient. The TARDIS is able to save him, at the cost of his final regeneration, by grafting him with its own systems to combat the Cyber-implants, which now fight a constant, painful battle for control of the time lord’s body. The Doctor’s TARDIS also creates a new K-9 to serve as his protector, as it believes if he dies, it will die as well. The Doctor does not take kindly to this over-protective guardian, doing everything he can to baffle, annoy, and get rid of his “Nanny-bot”. The other time lords, led by reinstated President Romana, are hunting him across time and space, believing him to finally have reached the incarnation of the Valeyard, which combined with the possibility of control by the Cybermen makes him the greatest threat to existence they have yet faced. Meanwhile the Daleks, long thought destroyed in the Second Time War, have resurfaced: in a neighboring dimension, The Alliance Daleks, corrupted by Davros in the wake of the disappearance of the Mentor, are, with the help of the Renegade Triumvirate (The Rani, The Master, and Rassilon) preparing a fleet of dimension-travelling, heavily armed SIDRATs to invade New Gallifrey and destroy the Time Lords once and for all, relieving them of the final obstacle to their conquest of the Multiverse.

So basically, this is the Doctor having a Very Bad Day.

At least he’s finally ginger.

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And some 20 minute poses:

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This week there was a last-minute cancellation of the original model, so we didn’t get started until 40 minutes after the meetup had begun. Still, our substitute model was fantastic: The awesome Madame C, who you can see in her bellydance outfit in my last post. This time she was in a sort of retro Mardi Gras ensemble, and the opportunity for a full two hour pose from her was just wonderful. I hope I did her justice here:

Click for Embiggenation

In all it’s been fun and helped keep me sane. The people there remain really nice and friendly, and there’s a good sense of artistic camaraderie you don’t get in a lot of places. I still highly recommend anyone who’s interested to check out the group’s meetup site.

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I have attended a local meetup group the last couple of weeks called Sketchy Doodle, run by a lovely and kind soul named Annie. I found out about this group through another local online artists’ group I’m a member of, Tiny Army, which is run by the illustrious Dan Davis of SteamCrow and Monster Commute fame.

The first time I went, there was a series of short poses by a fantastic model: Madame C of Provocatease, a local burlesque/dance/fire performance troupe. She was really great, getting into interesting poses quickly and holding them perfectly for the time needed (5,10, and 20 minute poses in this case).

This was a great session, and Madam C’s tribal/burlesque music was FANTASTIC, I really want the playlist from her iPod. The only down side was there wasn’t time for a long-form pose with her!

Yesterday there was another session in the same location, this one was a long two hour pose, with another model, Teresa, A.K.A. “T Dreams”, who was lovely as well:

I arrived about 20 minutes late that day, so I only got about an hour and forty minutes of drawing time in, less a few short breaks. I would have liked to polish this up a bit more, but I generally don’t touch my charcoal drawings after the pose is over, so this is complete enough for me!

The feel of these meetups is very open and friendly, there’s a lot of good communication and good humor in the group, and Annie, as I said before, is a delight. Some folks there expressed an interest in my drawing style so I may be doing a demo for the group sometime soon.

Also just for fun, here’s a whiteboard drawing I did in dry-erase marker for one of my co-workers after I got back in the office:

As a great woman once said: “Meow.”

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Yes, it’s completely shameless cheesecake. But there is a story behind it… it’s a response to the most recent storyline of the (totally rad) webcomic, Between Failures. This character, Carol Graves, is a strong, curvy redhead (hmmm, wonder why I would like her) who had to bind her ample bosoms to fit into a slightly-too-small shirt she was wearing as a disguise. In the most recent comic, she’s giving her new boyfriend Thomas the opportunity to assist her.. but you only see her from the back. Of course, the comments section was filled with pleas to have her turn around! And one commenter, Nick Wright of www.treadingground.com, made the brilliant assertion:

Gentlemen.

This is what fanart is for.

So who am I to disagree?

Between Failures is completely fantastic, and I highly recommend reading it from the beginning if you’re a fan of things like Questionable Content, Shortpacked, or LICD. It’s got great art and writing, superb characterization with a large ensemble cast, and a creator who’s not afraid of putting a bigger girl in as a sexy, romantic lead.

Also re: her speech balloon; no this isn’t a bondage comic. She’s just referring to putting her Ace bandage back on. But I doubt the character would shy away from a good double-entendre if the opportunity presented itself.

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So in any case, here’s Melinda in her full punk regalia. This was a lot of fun to draw, hopefully I will get the chance to do more costume poses in the future.

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The model, Erzhina, was excellent! She had a really interesting look, with purple hair. Too bad I wasn’t working in color! She stayed amazingly still and got into exactly the same pose after every break. I don’t know how these people do it without their butts falling asleep.

One more session on Friday, another costume pose, and then Gingher will be gone for two weeks! I’ll have to find someone else to draw in the meantime…

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There will be two more sessions this week, I’m planning on making it to both, barring health ickyness. So keep an eye on the blog here for more pretty pictures! Oh and I will be making an Official Announcement this week as well.

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I shared a table in Artist’s Alley with Emma of emacartoon.com. Here we are in mid-convention geekery:

Photo by Dreamstalker Films

Exhibiting at Comicon was actually a lot of fun, and I think it was a decent first convention as an exhibitor. I really learned a lot of what to do and what not to do there. The digital sketches were pretty popular, I’ve actually added a whole gallery page just for them here. Here’s one of my favorites, a doomsday robot for my friend James Stephan:

I also saw and met a lot of awesome people, and even made it out to part of a panel: The Wil Wheaton/Felicia Day Guild panel. I also got to shake Levar Burton’s hand and got my landspeedr signed by Wil:

Read the link and you’ll know why this is awesome. (He even wrote on it right-handed so it would look like Little Kid Wil handwriting.)

There were also some great costumes floating around at the con. I met one fellow who had the best Davey Jones costume I’ve ever seen, complete with a matching crewmember. I gave him a copy of the Tentacle Family print.

Photo by Eric Fiallos

In all it was a lot of fun, even if I was feeling more than a bit worn out by the end and missed out on Rock Band and Geek Prom. I’m definitely going to be there again next year, lessons learned and with a lot more stuff available.

Thanks again to Emma for putting up with sharing the tiny tiny table with me all weekend, and to everyone who came out, helped, or sent their love our way.

P.S. – I got mentioned on the Touching the Monolith geek culture podcast by the handsome and loquacious Bob and Lejon! Go check it out here.

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