This months "13 theme" is dogs.

Well it's a new year and time to kick it in gear.

I've decided to challenge myself this year by picking a subject for each month and posting 13 images on the 13th day of the month.

This month I am posting 13 portraits from a freelance job that I finished in December of last year.

They were created in Adobe Illustrator CS2.

I also colored some of them so that they could use them as poster art.

Not sure what I'll be posting for February.

I turned my comic story into a nook book.
It's great for kids of all ages.
I'm not a salesman so I'll just straight up say I'd love to see it sell a few copies.
So check it out if you're interested and/or tell some one who has an e reader and either has kids who like funny stories or like funny stories themselves.

It's on Barnes and Noble here...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/step-by-step-robert-snyder/1106355593?ean=2940013218901&itm=1&usri=robert%2bsnyder

Step By Step Page art

The art below is ©2011RobertSnyder

Step by step cover art

Step by step cover art

Cover version A

Cover version B

Painted window art

This is the window art that I painted for Locks of Fun in Valparaiso Indiana.
They asked me to combine two of the drawings that I sent them.
If you find yourself downtown in Valpo go take a look at it in person.
Locks of Love is on Lincolnway across from the Centier bank.
If you know of anyone around the Valpo area, who would like to have their window painted let them know about me, or me about them.
My info can be found at my website   www.robertsnyderillustrates.com

Close up of the scarecrow.

I enjoyed painting the window.

The hardest part is thinking backwards when painting.

Meaning I had to paint the highlights and shadows before the main body colors.

Window roughs

Bear in leaves

Boy and Dog

Girl with Pumpkin

Scarecrow

New digital art

I have been working on new samples for my portfolio.
I am going to rework my portfolio site to be broken into specific sections.
Traditional art
Digital art
Hybrid art - combining traditional and digital methods
and
Product design

These are examples of the Hybrid style.
They were hand inked and digitally colored.

Business cards

March of the sketchbooks day 25

I don't know why I'm drawing skulls in March, but I don't question the sketchbook and it's motives.

I'm going to continue to work this up by adding a lot of black so they look like they are flaming.

March of the sketchbooks day 24

The Easter Bunny is trying to cultivate a new kind of carrot.
He's trying to mix carrots with jellybeans.

March of the sketchbooks day 23

I am beginning to figure out how to draw Toulouse Lautrec for my next artist in a series.
These are the first explorations.

Zombunnies and critter pirates.

I finished the color for the Zombunnie art last night.
Here's the process.

The rough drawn in my sketchbook.

The inked art in my sketchbook.

And finally the colored version. Digital.
I scanned it in to Photoshop and saved it, then put it on a layer in Illustrator.
I set the inked art to multiply and locked the layer.
The color was added on several layers below the inked layer.
Once I was done with the color in Illustrator I opened the file in Photoshop.
I created a noise layer over the top and reduced it to about 12%.




After constructive criticism I made some changes to the coloring of the image.

I brightened some of the color, and added a little more contrast.

March of the sketchbooks day 22

I filled in the rest of this page from yesterday.

I heard today that Cap'n Crunch cereal won't be advertised to children anymore and will probably stop being made.

March of the sketchbooks day 21

This page is only partially filled because I spent most of the day working on a chicken coup.
No I don't live on a farm. It's for 4H. My son is raising chickens as his project.

Nothing special. Just playing a bit with the puppet
theme and then the big hairy guy showed up.

March of the sketchbooks day 18

Another day of subbing and drawing Kermit the Frog without reference or concern of staying "on model."

I've always liked drawing puppets as animate objects with personalities so I'll probably continue in this vein for awhile, but you never know, sketchbooks are fickle and things change from day to day.

March of the sketchbooks day 17

The march goes on.

This is what you get when I grab a reptile magazine at the library to flip through.

I penciled most of these yesterday and inked them today while subbing at a local high school. 

Kermit just kind of slipped in there today.

I was still subbing when I sketched this one.

And this one also.
Kermit came back with a vengence on this page.

March of the sketchbooks day 16

I spent a good part of yesterday tightening up the pencil sketch and inking this page of my sketchbook
I used Micron pens with the intention of getting line work that looks like a linoleum block print.

When I started the sketch I knew I was going to use it for the Illustration Friday site this week.
The word of the week is "Stir."
So what you see is a group of animal pirates trying not to stir up the water as they sneak past the night guard of their enemies.
I'm going to add color today to create a moody night scene.