Idea Behind the Comic:  Taking after our dad, Heather and I are not the most ladylike when it comes to bodily gas.  I’m more of a burper, but I can’t completely say that this one is based solely on my sisters lack of embarrassment when it comes to tooting.  Seriously, she has let them rip on her boyfriend before.  Least I have stomach issues to blame mine on.  Plus I’m good enough to wait till I’m in a room by myself.  It’s just a problem when Kyle comes back into close proximity.  It wouldn’t be a lie to say that I’ve blamed Reagan or Scout for a stink bomb before…

Materials Used:

• 11×14″ Strathmore sketch paper with a fine tooth surface cut to 8×10″
• Lead holder with 2H lead
• Lead holder with HB lead
• intuos 5 touch professional pen tablet
• Corel Painter 8 (materials within the program: Pens – Flat Color)

Up Next:  I have no defined plan right about now, so I will probably continue on with more Couple’s Counseling and speaking to the writer of the book I am currently working on illustrations for.

Until next time!
Lauren H.
Follow @BewareOfTrees

Story Behind It:  Superman is looking for a place to put all of his stuff, so he finally decides to drop roots and grow himself a Fortress of Solitude.  He looks all over the world at different available lots of land, and finally decides on a part of the ocean between New York and Europe.  Too bad the Titanic just so happens to have plotted its course through these waters…

Yes it’s dark, but that’s just how my mind works sometimes so I just go with it.

Page 1:

Page 2:

Page 3:

Materials Used:

• 11×14″ Strathmore sketch paper with a fine tooth surface (eventually changed to 11×17″ dimensions on the computer to go more with the comic book page layout)
• Lead holder with 2H lead
• Lead holder with HB lead
• intuos 5 touch professional pen tablet
• Corel Painter 8 (materials within the program: Pens – Flat Color)

Up Next:  Probably a new Couples Counseling, but I am also going to start working on illustrations/layouts for a new book I may be working on with a friend from the HSMO.

Until next time!
Lauren H.
Follow @BewareOfTrees

Idea Behind the Comic:  Long story short, Kyle and I cheer for two separate teams.  As a born and raised St. Louis girl I am loyal to all our teams through and through, so it is the Blues for me, but Kyle’s favorite player as a kid was traded from the Blues and he followed him all the way to Detroit.  Now he’s a Red Wings fan to the bone, and though I will support them for his sake, it’s a different story when our teams play against each other.

Materials Used:

• 11×14″ Strathmore sketch paper with a fine tooth surface cut to 8×10″
• Lead holder with 2H lead
• Lead holder with HB lead
• intuos 5 touch professional pen tablet
• Corel Painter 8 (materials within the program: Pens – Flat Color)

Up Next:  In celebration of the release of Man of Steel this week, I think it is about time I finish my short comic about what happens when Superman looks for a new place to put down roots.

Until next time!
Lauren H.
Follow @BewareOfTrees

For those of you who have been following me for a while, you might remember seeing a black and white version of this a while back.  A long way back.  It eventually grew dusty on the shelf as I debated getting a tablet to learn how to color things on the computer as many comic artists do, so now I finally had the chance to break this one out again.  Hope you like where it went!

Materials Used:

• 11×17″ Strathmore Smooth Bristol Paper – Though it was eventually scanned, I did my original sketching and inking out on this
• Lead Holder with 2H lead
• Prismacolor Premier fine line marker -  Black .03
• Prismacolor Premier brush tip marker – Black
• intuos 5 touch professional pen tablet
• Corel Painter 8 (materials within the program: Pens – Flat Color, Airbrushing – Soft Airbrush 20)

Process:  Here’s the simplistic play by play of how I did this for those of you interested: First I sketched out my drawing idea and then inked over it with a .03 black pen, trying the comic style that often uses crosshatching.  I used a brush tip pen to do the trees, which was definitely quicker at creating the look of leaves than had I gone in with a fine tip.  I probably should just use a darker pencil next time since I eventually had to redo the ink lines in Painter anyway so that they could be layered over the color, so I will keep that in mind for my next drawing of this style.

In order to create the color I used the pen with flat color in Corel Painter to put a base down, and then went over it with the airbrush tool (Soft Airbrush 20) to add highlight and shadow.  This was the first time experimenting with the airbrushing and I loved it, especially after not really enjoying the watercolor tool.  I kept the opacity between 5-10% so that I could build up the lights and shadows, slowly creating depth.  This also created an interesting blend of the crosshatching and typical shading tools that I use.

Idea Behind The Art:  The original idea was just to start working with panels in my artwork, so this was just something I came up with that could be fun to make as I learned how to use my tablet as well.  But eventually it became something more in my mind, and I came up with this idea about imagination.  It probably would have worked better if I was 5 years old, but I am still a kid at heart considering I have that helmet to begin with, so the idea was just how the world changes through the eyes of someone exploring their imagination.  The helmet comes on and the world is full of color, but when it is off we are back to the simple world.

Up Next:  Still waiting for a commissioned pet portrait to come through, so I think I might go with Couple’s Counseling #3: “Team Rivalry.”  Remember, if you have any ideas for that series then please feel free to share them!

Until Next Time!
Lauren H.
Follow @BewareOfTrees

This is my youngest beagle mix, Scout, though she looks more like a hound mix to us.  Her mom was a beagle rescued by All New Hope Animal Rescue from a Southern Missouri pound just after giving birth to this litter of nine, all of which suffered from and survived parvo.  Clearly it did some brain damage to Scout though, because she is clearly a weirdo.  She seriously sits like this, and more often than not this position is accompanied by groans and swats for attention.  She’s a little needy, to say the least.  But she’s also the sweetest dog, so I won’t hold it against her.

Paper Used: Strathmore Premium Recycled Drawing Paper (400 Series) cut to 11×14″.

Prismacolor Colored Pencils:

• Dark Umber – PC947
• Sienna Brown – PC945
• Clay Rose – PC1017
• Rosy Beige – PC1010
• Ginger Root – PC1084
• Peach Beige – PC1085
• Beige – PC997
• Sand – PC940
• Cream – PC914
• Tuscan Red – PC937
• Crimson Red – PC924
• Black – PC935
• 90% Cool Grey – PC1067
• 70% Cool Grey – PC1065
• 50% Cool Grey – PC1063
• 30% Cool Grey – PC1061
• White – PC938

Time Spent: 19 hours and 23 minutes

Coloring Process Notes: For most of the fur I put down a layer of thick or light Sienna Brown down depending on how dark or light the brown of the fur was, then went over it with a layer of Cream.  It didn’t turn out quite as yellow as needed, so I had to go over everything with a general coat of Sand.  Might need to rethink this combination next time, but it turned out well.

Buy A Print:  If you’d like to support my artwork, then you can buy a print of this drawing here, as well as many other prints.

Up Next:  As I wait to see if a commission comes through, I am finally going to finish up a drawing I started a long time ago involving a series of images of me taking a transformer’s helmet off.  All that’s left is the color portion of the process!

Until next time!
Lauren H.
Follow @BewareOfTrees

Idea Behind the Comic:  I guess if art is any good it’s supposed to be self-explanatory, but I’m going to tell the story behind the inspiration anyway just to cover my bases.  Long story short, Kyle and I are very indecisive people.  In other words, this situation could really be flipped where he is asking me what I want to eat for dinner because I made the mistake of saying that I was hungry.  But this isn’t about me, it’s about Kyle.  You see, when I would ask him if he would like to watch a movie, I was even nice enough to limit the choices.  Yet all I ever got was “I don’t care” or “whatever you want to watch.”  Sure, some of you are probably thinking that’s sweet, but making decisions is hard!  Especially considering one time I did make the choice after one of these question sessions and he later said that he hadn’t wanted to watch that movie in the first place.

But this isn’t completely all about his failings, that last panel is used for the purposes of making it look like he’s getting punished for this by being forced to the floor, but in actuality this happens all the time because the dogs and I are just greedy, and he’s nice enough not to make us move on his behalf.

Technically I planned this as two pages, so here you go if you’d like to see them separately.

Page 1:

Page 2:

Materials Used:

• 11×14″ Strathmore sketch paper with a fine tooth surface
• Lead holder with 2H lead
• Lead holder with HB lead
• intuos 5 touch professional pen tablet
• Corel Painter 8 (materials within the program: Pens – Flat Color)

The process was pretty similar to what I did for the last Couple’s Counseling, but this time after penciling it out in my sketchbook I scanned it and did all the outlining on the computer instead of going with the pen.  Not sure if this was really a time saver though, since I still had to outline it in darker pencil to have the scanner pick it up, but it is nice keeping the edit option available to the initial sketch, which was taken away when I penned over the pencil lines.

Up Next:  Once I finally get Scout scanned I will be posting that portrait as well, so you get the gift of two posts in one day!  YAY!  Then I’m off to finishing that Transformers drawing I mentioned last time while I wait to see if any commissions come through.

Until Next Time!
Lauren H.
Follow @BewareOfTrees

Origin Of An Idea:  I’m quickly coming up on the one year anniversary of moving in with a boy.  A boy!  Ick!  I love Kyle and all, but we definitely have things we can work on, like me not hogging the couch and him finishing his can of soda before opening another one.

One day I was staring at his pile of Mountain Dew cans in my non-confrontational manner when my mind started daydreaming of an extreme reaction I could have storming the mess (you’ll see it sometime later because it is a planned drawing), and I broke out a piece of paper to write it down.  More and more ideas started coming to mind about different “issues” that come from living with one other person, and this is how Couple’s Counseling came about.

New Style:  Before I could start drawing “issues” of this series, I had to come up with a style.  I’m so used to drawing realistically that creating a cartoonish style was definitely a challenge, and my first attempts at creating a character were pretty blegh.  Then I turned to one of my friends for inspiration, and eventually I came to something I was happy with (though I am still learning as I go).

Spider!!!:  Here’s the story that inspired this drawing: Sometime last week I was getting ready to head out and run some errands when I saw a giant spider on the wall above the bookshelf, staring down my Batman action figure like it was ready to become a super villain.  It was just out of my reach, not that I wanted to feel the horrible squish of that giant monster anyway, so I turned to Kyle and cried “Spider!” as I pointed in defenseless terror.  Kyle looked over, smiled, and went back to playing his computer game.  Psh.  So with that, I left.

During the days that followed I often thought about where in the apartment that spider was hiding, so I finally mentioned it to Kyle again.  To my relief he told me that he killed it after I left, but I don’t know if I should believe him or not.  So thus came about this extreme idea of a couple both too afraid of a spider in their apartment to confront it themselves.

Materials Used:

• 11×14″ Strathmore sketch paper with a fine tooth surface
• Lead holder with 2H lead
• Prismacolor Premier fine line marker – .03
• intuos 5 touch professional pen tablet
• Corel Painter 8 (materials within the program: Pens – Flat Color)

Like with my last drawing, I started by penciling out the drawing in my sketchbook, going over the lines with black ink when I was happy with it.  Then it was the scanners turn so that I could get it on my computer to color with my tablet and Corel Painter.

Pretty sure that for flat color like this I will keep working with this process, but unless I get much better with these materials I am going to stick to my pencils for anything involving blending and fine detail because I just don’t have as much control as I want in this new process.  No matter what I decide for other things, I will definitely go with colored pencils for my pet portraits still.

So what do you guys think of this idea for a series? I have a list of a bunch of ideas for more drawings, but I’d love to hear your suggestions!

Until Next Time!
Lauren H.
Follow @BewareOfTrees

I know what you’re thinking: this is nothing like the other artwork you’ve done.  I don’t know what to think anymore!  Don’t worry!  And be sure to breathe as well.  The truth is I’m a bit of a nerd, so you don’t know how excited I am to finally have something else to add to by Geeking Out page on this site, giving “Starscream’s Revenge” some company (that I named, but it made more sense as a mock comic book cover. Don’t judge my rational!).

Paper Used:  Started out in my 11×14″ pad of Strathmore sketch paper with a fine tooth surface, and then scanned the page to finish coloring with Corel Painter 8.

Materials Used:  That’s right, for once I couldn’t subtitle this section “Prismacolor Colored Pencils Used.”  That’s growth right there!  At least I’ve convinced myself so in order to feel like I’ve really accomplished something worthy of telling my grandma about in order to impress her next time she visits.

• Prismacolor Premier fine line marker – .03
• Prismacolor colored pencil – Crimson Lake – PC925
• intuos 5 touch professional pen tablet
• Corel Painter 8 (materials within the program: Pens – Flat Color)

That’s right: I finally used my tablet!  Which is also why this drawing is a little bit simpler than what I usually do.  I had this drawing idea of a silhouette for a while now, so it was the perfect opportunity to take some small steps to learning how it works.  So far so good, but I have to figure out how to use the different “materials” within Corel Painter 8, and then manipulate them from there.

Time Spent:  I didn’t actually keep track of this one since it just started as a sketch that I wasn’t even sure if I was going to continue, but I would say I knocked it out in a few.  This might seem like a lot for something so simple, but I was experimenting with new materials instead of going with my typical colored pencils.  And those who know me know this is actually pretty fast.

Prints:  If you’d like to buy an 8×10″ print of this, follow the link here!

Up Next:  Either I will continue experimenting with my tablet, possibly coloring one of the other drawings I have stockpiled, or I will finally draw the sixth and final dog within our family to have a complete set.  Goodness knows Scout’s been jealous of the other dogs and their portraits for long enough.

Until next time!
Lauren H.
Follow @BewareOfTrees

I have done a yellow lab before, but whenever I look back at it I wish I had done something to make it stand out more from the paper, which was a similar color to the fur.  So now I had a great picture with an interesting background to work from, and I like to think it turned out pretty well.

Paper Used: Strathmore Premium Recycled Drawing Paper (400 Series) cut to 8×10″.

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Prismacolor Colored Pencils:

• Black – PC935
• 90% Cool Grey – PC1067
• 70% Cool Grey – PC1065
• 50% Cool Grey – PC1063
• 30% Cool Grey – PC1061
• White – PC938
• Tuscan Red – PC937
• Crimson Red – PC924
• Blush Pink – PC928
• Dark Umber – PC947
• Sienna Brown – PC945
• Light Umber – PC941
• Rosy Beige – PC1019
• Ginger Root – PC1084
• Beige – PC997
• Cream – PC914

I think I need to restock my pencil supply since most of them are getting to 1-3 inches long…  Yay supply run!

Time Spent: 17 Hours and 53 minutes.

What You Should Do:  If you’d like to buy an 8×10″ print of this portrait, then click here.

Up Next: Preparing for Bark in the Park.  Still planning on seeing all of you there.  ALL OF YOU.  After that I do plan on drawing my youngest beagle mix since she is the last of 6 dogs in my family and she is the only one that hasn’t been drawn yet.  Poor Scout.

I also plan on starting story-based drawings that form the narrative through panels.  Basically the same design as comic books, but drawn far less awesomely since I am not Jim Lee.  Maybe some day.  The series has the working title of Couple’s Counseling for now, but it could still change.  But instead of explaining it further, you’ll just have to wait and see it.  Maybe for a while if I break out my tablet to learn how to color with photoshop.

Until next time!
Lauren H.
Follow @BewareOfTrees

Inspired by the original photograph taken by Rich Ryan during the days following the tragic events at 2013’s Boston Marathon, this drawing is dedicated to the brave men, women, and canine heroes who risk their own lives to guard and protect our safety.

I have to thank my mom for coming across the picture reposted by one of the dog groups she follows on facebook, because I absolutely loved this photo when I saw it.  I remember seeing the K-9 unit during the days of coverage coming out of Boston as they searched neighborhoods for the remaining suspect, and could not believe how disciplined these dogs are, especially when thinking of my two beagle mixes in comparison.  So when I saw this photo, something about this dog sitting at attention alone in this larger composition seemed so honorable.

A much bigger thanks (sorry mom) goes to a Boston area photographer, Rich Ryan, for allowing me to do a drawing based on his amazing photograph.  Please swing by his website or facebook page to see more of his work.  Also, he shared this great non-profit organization with me called Vested Interest In K-9s, Inc., that provides protective vests to police dogs in the United States.  50% of the proceeds made from the 8×10″ prints of this drawing will be going to this organization, so be sure to swing by my Etsy shop if you’d like to purchase a copy.  It would be greatly appreciated.

Now on to the less exciting stuff.

Time Spent: 18 hours and 12 minutes.

Paper Used: 400 Series Flannel White Strathmore Artist Paper cut to 9×14″.

Prismacolor Colored Pencils Used:

• Blue Slate – PC1024
• Henna – PC1031
• Deca Pink – PC1014
• Black – PC935
• 90% Cool Grey – PC1067
• 70% Cool Grey – PC1065
• 50% Cool Grey – PC1063
• 30% Cool Grey – PC1061
• White – PC938%
• French Grey 50% – PC1072
• French Grey 30% – PC1070
• Dark Umber – PC947
• Sienna Brown – PC945
• Ginger Root – PC1084
• Beige – PC997
• Cream – PC914

It’s sad to say how exited I was to branch out away from my typical use of just Cool Grey to mix it up with some French Grey.  It was only used on the sidewalk through, so don’t worry, I didn’t go too crazy.

Up Next:  I will be drawing a friend’s yellow lab.  It will probably be the last drawing I can complete before Bark in the Park on the 18th.  I had one more planned, but I guess you will just have to wait a little while longer!  Be sure to come say hi at the event, because I am assuming you are all coming, right?  No excuses if you live in the St. Louis area, and I hope the rest of you were able to find cheap plane tickets

Until next time!
Lauren H.
Follow @BewareOfTrees