Sketched, cleaned up and colored in using Photoshop CS4 and a Wacom Inutos3 graphics tablet.

This week’s cartoon monster character art “Green Grimace” was sketched, cleaned up and colored in using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet with Photoshop CS4.

“Cap’n Clobber” is this weeks creature for Monster Monday. A gorilla pirate with a skull for a head, complete with glowing eyes. Obviously he needed a peg leg and some swords.

This week’s character arose from a quick sketch. I wanted to work on a full body character, and wanted to add some personality outside of just the face and a hulking body. I started with the skull (which originally had an eyepatch, but it wasn’t reading well once I got to the color art stage so I ditched it).

I started working on ideas for the body, and thought I would give him a gorilla body, and as I worked on it for whatever reason the idea to give him the pegleg came in mind so I went with the pirate theme.

He kinda reminds me of the action figure mashups I used to make as a kid — take apart my brother’s Masters Of The Universe action figures and reattach the limbs and heads to make my own character.

The glowing red robot eyes are an obvious homage to Stan Winston’s Terminator endoskeleton. Which I guess makes this character part robot, part pirate, part ape and part skeleton. Cool.

Rough sketch and final color art worked up in Photoshop CS4 using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet.

Another cartoon monster head for this week’s Monster Monday submission.

I had originally set out to create a minotaur/bull style creature, but I started out with too human of a face. Modifying it was not working so I decided to go with the human version and save the bull for a future post.

Sketched, drawing and coloring done in Photoshop CS4 using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet.

“Yellow Bellow” is the newest member of my monster collection for Monster Monday. The initial rough sketch for this critter was loosely roughed out in Photoshop, and then the drawing was cleaned up and colored in using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet.

Cartoon drawing of a blue devil/demon.

Original sketch drawn in my sketchbook, graphite on paper, then scanned into Photoshop where the sketch cleanup and color was added using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet.

The head was sketched out and colored in completely on it’s own, then the body sketched out & color added, both elements were isolated in their own Layer Groups in Photoshop.

Original sketch created in my sketchbook, graphite on paper, then scanned into Photoshop where the sketch cleanup and color was added suing a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet.

A fun monster/creature exercise once again.

Not really sure to say about this one… I was working on some rough sketches using bold geometric shapes as the starting point, and this odd bat/monkey creature manifested itself. I suppose it’s more bat than monkey, but Monkey Bat sounds cool so I went with it.

Sketched with an oversize lead holder, scanned into Photoshop where the sketch was cleaned up and made symmetrical. Flat color, shading and highlight layers were added. Flat color, shading and highlights were then sketched in using some custom Photoshop brushes I have saved. All sketch & brushwork done using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet.

Original rough sketch included below for those that might be interested:

You can see the variations on the ears, and also that I forgot to add his belly button and pointed tail!

Another Photoshop paint job for this week — I give you a green gremlin. No, not that Green Gremlin.

This sketch was created entirely in Photoshop using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet. Initial sketches were roughed in, then refined. I copied the refined sketch layer and flipped the copy horizontally. Another rough sketch layer was added to refine one half of the face sketch. I did this to find the symmetry and to choose which parts from each side of the face worked best.

Once the half-face rough sketch was complete, I duplicated and again horizontally flipped the layer, then merged the two. From there I flat-filled the base colors and added a shadow layer (set to multiply and also set to clip from the flat color layer). A highlights layer was added (set to Screen mode).

Shading and highlights worked up in their respective layers, then the linework layer was duplicated and cleaned up. The original linework layer was hidden. I did this to be able to go back to it if necessary.

I have found through experimenting that when creating a highlight layer and setting the Layer Blending Mode to “Screen”, I can use the original flat color from the base layer color, and it will highlight nicely. The shadows I am still picking colors manually.

A flat background was added, then a quick gradient to add a slight bit of depth.