SketchBlog

Picnic

I squeezed in a bit of time for a new illustration amidst my European travels, and it happens to have a perfect theme for the US 4th of July weekend:

Click to enlarge!

This is available as a hi-res wallpaper. If you're interested in a print, drop me a line at prints@rob-sheridan.com.

Here is the original sketch, and here is the pre-colored outline. While I was working on this I thought I'd lost all my coloring due to a corrupt file and would have to redo hours of work, but Steve from Corel came to the rescue and was able to recover the corrupted Painter file. Huge thanks to him for helping me out there - I've now upgraded to Painter 11 to avoid any file corruption issues in the future. It was long overdue, anyway.

My next task is to finish work on Broken Robot Girls number two and three, so hopefully you'll be seeing those before too long.

I've also been taking a lot of photos while traveling, like this one (click to enlarge):

You can find a lot more in my tourist galleries and on my Flickr.

Labels: bizarre, creatures, morbid, photography, sci-fi, wallpaper

Scare Tactics

As many of you know, I've been pretty busy with my day job, so Sketchblog has yet again fallen to the wayside. However, during my travels I've been slowly forcing myself to do at least a little bit of drawing here and there to break up the monotony. I'm slowly chipping away at the post-production work on Broken Robot Girl #2 and #3, which Tamar and I shot a couple months ago, and last night I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to finally finish an illustration I started last year at the same time I did Ice World (hence the snow):

(Please, click to enlarge - or better yet, get the wallpaper)

This makes a lovely Wallpaper, and is available as a limited edition print. Here is the original sketch.

In other news, the first Broken Robot Girl got a really surprising/exciting amount of coverage, including a page in Popular Photography (wow!) with an interview with Tamar included. LA Weekly also featured it, and asked me some questions. As soon as I have time to finish them, the next photos in the series will be posted here. Oh, and I believe this is the very first Sketchblog-inspired tattoo (based on Troublemaker). I'm immensely flattered.

Lord only knows when the next update will be (hopefully soon?), but please follow me on Twitter to stay in touch in the meantime.

Labels: creatures, prints, wallpaper

Cereal Mascot Reunion

For some reason this image has been swimming around in my head for a few years now, and finally - after chipping away at it bit by bit over the last couple months - I've brought it to life as a large, absurdly detailed print. It's kind of about the strange, uncomfortable feeling of reuniting with old friends only to find that the magic just isn't there anymore - and in turn, about the melancholy "nothing will ever be as good as it used to be" type of nostalgia, of which I am increasingly fond. And of course, a tribute to the late, great, wood-paneled, shag-carpeted 1970's rec room.

Click to enlarge:

Download the hi-res wallpaper: Standard (4x3) or Widescreen (16x9)

Order the 22" x 17" limited run fine art print

Details: Trix Rabbit, Frankenberry, Count Chocula, Cap'n Crunch, Tony The Tiger

UPDATE:I've posted a detailed step-by-step of how this was put together, for those interested.

In other news, I polished up a couple images to get them print-ready for the Possum Saloon show last week, so now Headache and Miscarriage are available as prints. I'm also now offering smaller 11" x 17" sizes on some of the prints, for those who don't want the full size.

Labels: funny, pop culture, prints, wallpaper

Crabwalk

SketchBlog returns! I can't believe it's been over a month since the last post. As some of you know, I've been extremely busy with other projects, but I finally had time for some drawing tonight, and I think I'll be posting on a regular basis again now. So here's a new wallpaper for you:

(click to enlarge)

Right-click to save:
Wallpaper for standard (4x3) monitors
Wallpaper for widescreen (16x9) monitors

Oh, and if you hadn't noticed, there's now a pack of iPhone wallpapers on the wallpaper page (they're sized for the iPhone, but they'll work in other phones).

I'll post new artwork soon! In the meantime, if you're bored, you can enjoy some pictures I took of cheap/awesome alien tourist attractions during a recent stop in Roswell, New Mexico - click the photo for the full gallery:

Labels: bizarre, creatures, photography, sci-fi, wallpaper

Headache

I took a few minutes to clean up my horrendously messy desktop yesterday, and decided I wanted some new wallpapers to decorate it with. Here's the first one, which is probably the result of me playing too much Q-Bert lately:

Right-click to save:
Wallpaper for standard (4x3) monitors
Wallpaper for widescreen (16x9) monitors

Also, FYI - the Presents Opening Children print has sold out (thanks, Digg), and Troublemaker is getting very close, with the Mario print not far behind - in case anyone had been eyeing either of those.

Labels: bizarre, design, wallpaper

Idol Worship

Inspired by the small bit of snow that fell today up in the Seattle area. Even a tiny bit is fun when you've grown accustomed to seasonless Los Angeles.

(please, click to enlarge)

This also makes a fun wallpaper.

Labels: funny, morbid, seasonal, wallpaper

Happy Holidays!

This is my Christmas card this year. Hope everyone is having a great holiday!

(click to enlarge)

This is also available without text as a wallpaper and a print.

I'll leave it up to some intrepid Jewish artist to draw a family of menorahs lighting people on fire.

P.S. Here's the original pencil sketch and the more detailed digital sketch.

Labels: bizarre, funny, morbid, prints, seasonal, wallpaper

Helicopt-O-Bot

I haven't had time to do any sketches lately, mostly because I've been busy trying to fulfill all the print orders. Is that irony? I'm not sure. Anyway, here's one I did tonight - I ended up with two versions, and I can't decide which one I like better, so I'm posting both. I also made a wallpaper version.

Version 1 - click to enlarge:

Version 2 - click to enlarge:

Here is the original sketch, which has Helicopt-O-Bot looking a bit too robotic. I changed him to look more like something an inventive child could put together out of items from around the house and believe it really works.

Labels: funny, robots, sci-fi, wallpaper

Hyperion Holiday

(click to enlarge)

This one was definitely the result of seeing this classic poster, which I have in my kitchen, and then somewhat subconsciously thinking about the cool look of Disneyland's great retro Tomorrowland travel posters, and probably also this scene from Forbidden Planet, and very possibly the desert-like alien terrain often depicted in Spaceman Spiff Calvin & Hobbes strips.

Labels: design, prints, sci-fi, wallpaper

A Plumber In The Third Dimension V2 - Now With Goomba, and Wallpapers

I never felt like I'd quite finished the Mario portrait I did a couple weeks ago. The background was rushed and I didn't have time to make the bricks change over as they should have. So since it proved to be so popular, I figured it was worth expanding upon a little bit. Here's version two, now with a Goomba:

(click to enlarge)

Update: You can now order a limited run print of this image here.

WALLPAPER VERSIONS (RIGHT CLICK AND CHOOSE "SAVE AS" TO DOWNLOAD):

Standard Monitors (2400 x 1800)
Widescreen Monitors (2560 x 1600)

P.S. Someone asked me for an update on George Bush Super Ultimate Adventure. It's going well, just very slowly. There are a lot of graphics left to build and I have to find spare time to chip away at them. I'm going to keep at it though, there's been a ton of interest in the game so I'm hoping to get something playable out ASAP.

Labels: pop culture, prints, wallpaper

Robot Block Party

(click to enlarge)

Labels: design, robots, sci-fi, wallpaper

Troublemaker

(click to enlarge)

I really need to get a better grasp on the concept of a "sketch." This was way more complicated than it probably looks. Yeah, my Saturday nights go OFF.

Original sketch here.

Labels: creatures, design, prints, wallpaper

Girl in Peril

I started this blog to motivate myself to draw more. It's been a favorite hobby of mine since as long as I can remember, but in recent years I've let it go, often going years at a time without drawing anything. One of my problems is that once I start something, I have a hard time keeping it simple. I make it complex and detailed and laborious, and it never gets finished. So today I decided to start a new little disciplinary exercise: I'm going to draw at least one picture every day. Even if sometimes it only takes five minutes, or it's just a stick person, something has to go up every day. It'll force me to learn to create things more simply and quickly, and putting them up on a blog like this makes it more real, and encourages me to stick with it. Plus people can harass me via the comments if I slip up.

To get things started, I decided to finish a little drawing that had been sitting around since the last time I told myself I was going to draw more. At the time I had a sudden urge to make something, but didn't have any ideas. I asked the always-helpful Tamar, who said, "draw a picture of me." I told her no, I did not want to draw a picture of her. She then said, "draw a picture of me getting eaten by a monster." Okay, I told her, I could handle that. But as usual, I never finished it - so when today when I was reminded of the cool '70's-flavored design work of Scott Hansen, his simple shapes and color palettes made me think of that drawing, and inspired me to dig it up and finish it. So here it is, dedicated to Tam for the original inspiration - click to enlarge, obviously: