Boarding Actions Class

Earlier this month, I learned how to use a tomahawk, long knife, cutlass, military sabre, and small sword. Next year, the workshop will be held on ship. Here are the sketches I did during the free sparring sessions using mixed weapons.

SD Red Star inks

Here's the inks of the SD Red Star strip. Now, I'll see how well I digitally color. The Red Star and characters are © 2006 Chris Gossett.

I pinch!

I've been watching Deadliest Catch. While I was switching channels, I saw a Honda commercial featuring a talking Element to a crab, "I pinch." It had the most appropriate voices.

SD Red Star

This is from a script my friend Dave Thun wrote a while ago. There's a few panels missing, so don't expect it to make sense yet. I'm nearly done with the final inks and then I'm going to try my hand at digital coloring. It will done by the end of this month, if not earlier. The Red Star and characters are © 2006 Chris Gossett.

kettle crack

At the local farmer's market, they always have the kettle corn guys there. I watched the line of kids queue up as the fellow churned the popping corn with an oar in the huge, blackened kettle.

animals from Six Flags Marine World

Here's a Siberian tiger swimming and an African lioness sunning herself.


This is two views of the sthenele satyr butterfly.


Three mammals with the same sized drawings in my book - a cheetah, an orca, and a female Indian elephant.

fan to light bulb polarity

The fan and the light bulb hang from the ceiling with their dangling switches.

Sketchcrawl 9 in San Francisco

I joined Enrico and Ronnie for 9th Sketchcrawl in San Francisco. Everyone met up at the Royal Grounds Coffee and then we walked over to the Palace of Fine Arts. I left a bit earlier them everyone else and was spared the climb up the Fillmore hills by the 22 line. Later in the afternoon, we convened Kinokuniya in Japantown to share sketchbooks and to check out the Cherry Blossom Festival.

I discovered that Enrico does his watercolors from the sketchcrawls at his studio before posting. Ha! Here I believed he did them all on site. I know Ronnie does it all the time though. It's tricky juggling everything on the go.

coffee social

I went over to Bay Street and doodled up some people there.

pencil heads

Bunch of random pencilled heads.

belly dancing

I went to a Persian restaurant and they had a belly dancer perform during the evening - slow, graceful arm movements with quick hip action and light footsteps.

martial arts morning

There's a senior community center near the park. They have groups there practice tai chi and other kung fu/wu shu exercises. I found it easier to focus on one instructor, rather than the whole group of people.


Here's a portrait of the fellow.

Sketchcrawl Santa Cruz

There was a break in the rain a couple weeks back and I was in Santa Cruz for a little Friday sketchcrawl.
The 20th annual Santa Cruz Kayak Surf Festival took place March 24-26. Here's some of the kayaks they were raffling or selling.

A parked Subaru near the festival sans corporate tagging.

The Walton Lighthouse around the bay from the Boardwalk. It's a green occulting light. The 5 mph presumably is for boats as people can run faster than that.

Of course, I had to draw some surfers! A couple of guys were skim surfing on Live Oak Beach. The other board surfers were bobbing up and down with the waves and all I got were little drawings of them.

catfishbatshark thing

It's an underwater creature I'm working on for a short sequential story. I'll probably do some color studies of it and think of a better name.

simple pleasures

It's nice having green tea and a chocolate crossiant in the morning.

push the button

People only need to push the button once, but everyone keeps pressing the button as if the signal will turn faster. Tried more dry brushing with the sumi pen for texture.

lil' trees

Just little, random trees done with a technical pen and brush.

even more heads

Did some head sketches from the day job and a couple from the local coffee house.

random heads

Some quickie portraits from an Indian fast food joint and BART.

test heads

I like using the convenience of a brush pen, but I can't get consistent dry brush strokes. Maybe it's the synthetic hairs? Here are some test heads.