This skull was painted with oil paints. A vibrant red background was used to help create contrast between the somber grey tones of the skull and drapery.

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This drawing of three interlinked faces was created with pen, ink, and watercolor.

I started with some pen and watercolor for the upper right face. After feeling like there was no frame around the face, I started sketching in the lower left corner. A new face emerged, so I transitioned into a new face. Each face gets slightly more abstract, but I hope to incorporate more of these elements in future drawings.

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This drawing of a human face was sketched with pen and watercolor pencils.

I started sketching an interesting pair of eyes, and then expanded some shadow down to the cheek bones. At that point I was close enough to the semblance of a human face, so I added some watercolor pencils for color. After a few washes I let the water dry where it may. Here is an extreme close up of one side of the face.

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The little purple frog man face was drawn with crayon, watercolor, pen, and marker.

I was thinking about previous drawings I created with a line of color flowing down one side of the face. It’s striking, and adds a tribal feel, like that of a warrior. I like the way the crayon picked up the texture of the paper. The watercolor and marker smoothed out the hard edges, and the purple crayon around the frog mans head blends him into the page. The dark black pen helps to pop lighter areas forward.

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This character study with red eyes was created with a variety of artistic mediums which include watercolor, pen, ink, marker, crayon, paint pens, and colored pencil.

I was thinking about anime style art when I began sketching this character’s face with a pen. I initially washed over it with some watercolors to see what forms would pop out. The shape of a nicely formed skull started to become more pronounced, but I wanted more contrast. So I started to use all types of paint, crayon, and markers where I thought shadows and highlights would go. The skull faded into the background, and I was left with a much more energetic and stark image, even though color remains pervasive. Here is a detail of this character’s red glowing eyes.

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This facial study was created with pen, ink, watercolor, and paint pen.

I tried starting with a skull drawing behind the face, and built up layers of dark and light, with energetic lines and splashes of color. Many washes of watercolor were also used throughout the process. Here is a detail of the facial study.

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This facial study was created with paint, markers, pen, ink, watercolor, and wite-out to achieve an energetically layered piece of art.

Here is a detail of the character’s face. The layers, shapes and colors are more evident, and the close up increases the intensity of the drawing / painting.

This facial study went through a variety of phases and over paintings. It started full of thin lines, muted colors and washes, and a lot of white highlights and splashes. After deciding it could be worked further, I reworked the painting with more color, more washes, and added thicker lines with markers and paint pens. At one point I was completely lost in thought, working and reworking every area all at once, whipping my hand around the page. Eventually after enough color and medium changes, I settled on the face staring back at me, and now you.

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Here’s a quick pen and marker sketch of what I thought Baby Kratos would look like. (Kratos is a charcter in the PS2 game God of War and God of War 2.)

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This character face study was drawn with watercolor, pen, marker, and crayon.

This blue face with red eyes was a striking image to see staring back at me when I finished the drawing. I was concentrating so hard on energetic line work that I didn’t step back to view the entire drawing until the end. Here is a detail.

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This portrait / character study was created with watercolor, markers, pens, and crayon.

Here is a close up detail of the face. I think I like the close up details more than the full size images. For one, the detail is better, and the compositions are more eye catching too.

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