Thank you very much for all the great feedback on the Dante Pic. I got the same questions a lot so I am just gonna answer them here.
The sketch was done once again on my tablet PC in Sketchbook. You can see the uncolored sketch here.
I colored it in Photoshop 6.0. No special tricks or anything. I set the sketch layer to "multiply" which allows me to color on a layer under the sketch and have it show through.
I also got a lot of mail from artists asking for tips and advice. I will be honest with you, I don't feel like I am at a point in my life as an artist where I can dish out my own little pearls of wisdom. What I can do though is tell you a story.
When I was a junior in High School Mark Kistler came to visit the elementary school where my mom worked. I had grown up watching his television show and so I went down there to meet him. I took along my portfolio, which at that time pretty much consisted of shitty drawings of Wolverine. I got the chance to talk to him and show him my stuff, which he actually liked. He offered me a job working on his next book. It was my job to ink all of his pencil drawings for his book "The Imagination Station". Feel free to check the credits next time your in a book store for my name. Anyway, the inking was time consuming, tedious and boring work but the way I saw it I was breaking into the industry. I wasn't exactly sure which industry but I was breaking into it by god. After about a year of inking he rewarded me with the opportunity to do the cover art. Not a bad pay off the way I saw it. After everything was all finished and the book went off to print he paid me what I now know was fucking didly squat for the amount of work I did and gave me this advice: "Draw every day, no matter what." For some reason those words stuck with me.
If you take time every single day to draw you cannot help but improve. Just take a sketchbook with you to school and draw the kids in your class. Or take one into meetings with you, the boss will think your taking notes. If you can just draw something everyday you will be surprised how much and how fast you improve. Just as a point of reference I dug out the very first piece of Gabeart I ever did. It's Jin from Tekken and I did it four years ago. God this is embarrassing.
Oh and one thing they don't show in Mark Kistlers drawing for kids videos is that the man smokes like a fucking chimney. I am serious. The first time I saw him I thought he was on fire.
-Gabe out
