31 Days of Cowboys

I've begun research for a graphic novel set in 1910 southern California that I will be writing and drawing. Part of my research has been looking for photo reference of what people wore in that time period and geographical location. I found a set of photographs from the Library of Congress and began drawing some characters from it. Its interesting what assumptions I had about people from that time period that were incorrect. My favorite clothing detail that I learned was that most men wore suspenders instead of belts. In the roughly 30 pictures of men I only saw one or two belts.

For the month of August I drew a character either from that reference or my head. I played around with style and techniques. These are a few of my favorites:

Color Concept: Baby Dragon

I wanted to put down some ideas for what the baby dragon would look like:

More Rake Viz Dev

I took the day to finish off a couple of more pieces for my visual development portfolio. Check it out over at nateshawart.com. The character is from the Decemberist's album, The Hazards of Love. It is one of my favorite albums; a concept album, it tells the story of Margaret and a faun that she falls in love with. The faun's mother is jealous and does what she can to stop their trysts. At some point the rake comes in and kidnaps Margaret. The rake is an evil dude, his song is about his past. He gets married has kids but his wife dies in childbirth. Left with 3 or 4 children he goes about killing each one. After the deed is done he feels no remorse and goes about his evil deeds. I like drawing villains and I really like the Decemberists so I thought I'd give the character design a go. Once I finished the line up below, I wanted to do some action drawings. I quickly realised (I guess I hadn't thought about it too much before?) that this dude only does really bad stuff. I had to pick scenes of him doing bad stuff but infanticide might have crossed the line into questionable content for a portfolio.










Anywho, I had a good time drawing this guy, maybe I'll continue with the series once I have a bit more free time. (June?)

The Rake Viz Dev

I'm getting my portfolio ready to apply to some visual development internships and I wanted to strengthen my portfolio a little before sending out my apps. My 2d portfolio needs to be more focused. I've been working on some character concept sheets to fill it out. This character my take on a character from the Decemberists album, The Hazards of Love.



I like the dude in the green vest the best so I'm going to do another sheet based around him.