Just a quick post for a fun painting I did the other week. Done with sepia ink on a wood board.

Here’s a bunch of stuff that I was or am working on. They’re all sorted into their appropriate places in the galleries section of course, so you can check ‘em out there. But then again you might be saying to yourself, why doesn’t Nadir just post a bunch of stuff in the blog section? I mean, it’s not like he’s reserving this space for anything else, right?

Right. Enjoy!

The other month I was playing around with another Halloween themed photoshop so here’s my beginner level tutorial:

Step 1: If you’re going to do a portrait start with a mirror or a photo for reference. This will make everything easier. Because lets face it, you’re hopped up on caffeine and your memory has never been that great to begin with. What’s your composition going to be? I chose a ‘comin at ya’ face shot for this one for intimidation purposes. Start with a neutral background and blob out your basic forms. This is the easiest part, just keep dabbing. You’re just playing around until you find something you like. I decided to make my skin tones pale/greyish, ‘cuz that’s in right now.

Step 2: Start refining your image. This is going to take a while. Keep at it. Start adding some more detail and highlights to the skin, as well as building up the rest of your image. This is basic stuff so it’s really the easiest part. No major consequences at this stage, keep playing. Squint at the image and imagine its finished. Does it have enough in there to keep you interested? If not think about introducing some new features. Remember sharks, mermaids and Unicorns are fun, but don’t go there unless you’re completely out of other ideas. You know what else looks cool? Fire! Let’s go there.

Step 3: Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. The smoothing and refinements are coming along, so now start focusing on skin texture and shines. Sell it! Also start adding depth and light to the background. Think about the remaining parts of your composition and play with the elements. The hard work is almost over so relax, this is the easiest part of the piece. Maybe throw some new features into the mix. I decided to add some facial glowy things at this stage. That’s always a good idea.

Step 4: This is it. The final stretch. Make those facial elements glow and shimmer. Throw in some drippy blood. Everybody loves that. Sell the eyes and refine the beard hair. Don’t skimp on the detail, it’s all coming together, this is the most fun and easy part of the piece! Are you done? are you happy with it? If not, throw in some glowing orbs for good measure! Good job!

Dames! Drinks! Drawing! BIKES!

If you don’t know about the Dr. Sketchy’s live drawing scene you should definitely check it out, it’s a ton of fun. Here’s the Tandem Tootsies poster I did for this months New Haven, CT chapter. Sort of a mash up of Mucha designs and pin-up girls.

‘Dr. Sketchy New Haven celebrates the month of romance with babes on bikes! The lovely ladies of the Pink Cycle Skirt bike team strike pin-up action poses on some hot vintage bicycles on Sunday February 28… plus: art games, artistic camaraderie, and great prizes from Baby Tattoo Books.

Donate directly to the Pink Cycle Skirts here: http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?pg=team&fr_id=12790&team_id=184869

Christopher Joe, a great comic art collector and creator of Epsilon Realm recently asked me to do a pin-up for his book. I accepted, and since this wouldn’t require a logo up top I filled the top portion of the page with fire and a jumping character. Well, when Chris saw the pencils he liked it so much he decided to use it as a variant cover, which would mean, yeah, logo. No worries though, I had decided to do the colors myself so I was able to play around with the background composition and the character up top will be placed above the title logo, which actually worked out looking pretty appropriate and deliberate (I guess it’s just a force of habit to leave a bit of space up top for logos).

Here are the final results, and unless I’m much mistaken this will be my debut double-credit on a comic cover as penciller and colorist.

Inks were done by the always amazing Mostafa Moussa – - respect!

Although I don’t usually worry about coloring my artwork I do, on occasion, enjoy splashing around the old virtual paintbrush and have, again on occasion, tried to look up a new technique or tip from a tutorial. I find it entertaining that much like the old ‘how to draw’ instruction booklets from my childhood, these new online photoshop tutorials are pretty useless if you’re not capable of doing most of the work already. I remember having a ‘How to draw dinosaurs’ booklet as a kid and it was all: Step 1: Draw a circle, Step 2: draw a smaller circle, Step 3: connect the two circles with an oval, Step 4: draw a Brontosaurus. (Ask me to draw a brontosaurus one day. I’m really good.)

Anyway, despite all this I somehow managed to learn how to draw, paint, sculpt, count and fly. So to show my process of doing a little photoshop dabbling I figured I’d make my own cliche photoshop tutorial.

Step 1: Start with a drawing, doodle, or scribble. But really, a drawing would be best, because this is the most important part, you want to establish your basic composition and tone.

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Step 2: Build off of your drawing by slapping on some color. This is the most important step, you are establishing your color palette. For this piece my inspiration was Lady Elaine Fairchilde from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhoo. Usually building color up from the background first is the best method. Building front to back (like I did with the elephant below) is the advanced difficulty method, sometimes called the ‘why aren’t these colors working?!’ method.

Step 3: Finish up by smoothing rough areas and clarifying your piece. Pay attention to detail because this is the most important step, the final product! Add flair and SFX as necessary. OK, Congratulations, you’re finished!

I recently gave an interview to Marie Claire mag (int) and was asked to do a piece for them relating to my work and also women’s fashion. This seemed natural to me since I’m known as something of a fashion icon around here (North America). I’ve rocked the always-in-style shaved head and have exclusively worn Khakis with unadorned grey t-shirts (from Isaac Mizrahi’s ‘Blasé Collection’) since 1999. Before that I used to wear jeans, ugh, how pedestrian.

This piece came up right as I was leaving for a week of vacation; to swim with dolphins in the gulf and watch mermaid shows at Weeki Wachee springs, and I had to come up with something on the heels of my vaca. I pumped out the pencils quick enough, no big, but I’m not really a colorist by trade. I felt the urge to have a go at it anyway and to make a long story short after flying down the coast, visiting water parks and feeling generally exhausted from sushi and liquor, I stayed up all night coloring this thing… with a mouse. It was tedious but I got it done well before their deadline. So what happens next you ask? Well they bump the interview several months back. Such is the publishing world.
Here’s the final piece.

Here’s a quick sketch I did for a side project I’m working on. I really have a thing for sepia tones, and muted tones in general. Which is surprising for a comic artist since as a kid I was attracted to comics precisely because of all the bright colors. Perhaps it’s a maturity thing, like that one teenage day you woke up and discovered you actually do like the taste of mustard and beer…

*Editors note* This image was recently used as the cover to the Greek translation of Professor Stephen Mithen’s book The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science. It wasn’t originally drawn for that purpose but when it was requested it seemed to fit the bill, not only of the subject matter but my areas of interest as well.

Don’t forget to periodically check back in on the galleries pages. I upload new pages every now and again even when I don’t blog

So a few months ago I was trying to watch Eragon. Emphasis on trying . I kept falling asleep. The only thing it had going for it was that Jeremy Irons’ performance was crushing the main character. All I could think of was the Irons periodically busting out screaming “I’M JEREMY IRONS YOU LITTLE #%@!”

So I decided to go ahead and draw him. But it turns out he’s a very difficult man to capture. He’s a chameleon; he changes his appearance constantly and therefore seemingly doesn’t have a quintessential look. However, after much market-research and wads of paper in the trash the consensus was that the above sketch was the correct Irons look.