Drawing manga facial expressions

I'm not into manga and I've never illustrated anything like that... until now. Couple of weeks ago I needed to illustrate a set of facial expressions in manga-style for a project I'm working on. It took a lot of browsing on manga websites and a lot of sketching to achieve the right kind of style. All in all it was a bit trickier than I would have expected. Here is what I did.


I was happy with the result. Unfortunately that set of expressions didn't quite meet the needs of the project and I had to redo the faces. Being forced to dig myself even deeper to the secrets of drawing manga wasn't that bad. It was good practise for the next time I need to draw some manga, whenever that is.

Sketching cats

I need to illustrate a cat character for a project I'm working on. Here's some quick sketches. I guess I have seen too many cat characters, because I found it very tricky to do one with a very unique and personal look. Maybe some of these will stand out tomorrow when I take a look at them with fresh eyes... or maybe I'll just do thousand more cats...

A figure in the dust - Lara Croft

I was lucky to draw Lara Croft for a project I'm currently working on. For that particular purpose it's just a simple spot illustration on white background. After I finished it I couldn't resist doing a very quick experiment and work it a little bit further. Would be fun to something like this more often.

Bronx Zoo t-shirt design - part 2

I have been doing more sketches for Bronx Zoo t-shirt design. Here is some of them. In this first sketch I tried some poses for gorilla.



... or what if I only use the upper body, gorilla having his arms crossed over his chest..? Somehow I think it brings the right kind of attitude. After all this is not just any zoo, but the BRONX ZOO :) I also suppose it's going to be white on black background, so I did some quick sketches how to use white...



I think it's now time to go digital.

P.S. Sketching these gorillas has been so much fun that I'll utilize them for something else also.



EDIT: The finished design can be seen here