"Cohi and Sakura traveling the road" - digital illustration clean up rough. Shaun Lieb

Hey all! I just got done cleaning my house for Christmas and thought I would get back to an illustration I had been working for a joint story with my gaming pen pal Nicole Goci.

In this we see I have made a few minor changes to the image, nothing major just a little mod to Cohi's right arm and a little re-scaling of Sakura's head.

So adding a couple of layers over the initial sketch, I really went through and chose which lines to express in this rough, and started to separate the planes. I gave the temple and trees their own layers while adding a little more over all detail.

I gave Cohi and Sakura their own layer and added another layer underneath with a flat grey to help separate them from the background.

All in all I really like how this image is coming out.

WOW! THE HOLIDAYS!

"How did he make it on to the list five times in a row?"

Hey everyone I would like to take some time and say Happy Merry Holi Hani Kwan Sols Mas. It's the final month of 2014 and we should all take this time to remember the road we just walked 12 months ago. The good, the bad, the ugly and the delicious. I hope you all find the moments with loved ones near and far and remember the spirit of giving is that we all get the chance to be transmitters of laughter, joy and compassion.

Take care and I will see you all next year.

Love Shaun the comicsmith

Hello hip cats! Wow this month has been really busy with work and geekery! I have been working on some new things in which I will have up soon, one of these is a commission for a concept piece I did for the very talented 3D digital artist "The Dude". I will soon have colored pieces of this rough up soon and hopefully I can show you all his 3D renderings of these two characters.

"Dark Bullets" character concept rough, pencils by Shaun W. Lieb

I am afraid I really don't know much about the story in which these two are involved in, but from what I was told the lady above is a magic user named Eclipse who teams up with the other lady who is a bounty hunter gun for hire. I had a lot of fun trading messages with the creator to try and get these two just right.

Photoshop Has Gone Too Far

Really makes you think about the unfair standards we hold on eachother.

Beginning the journey rough 10/2014 Shaun W. Lieb

Here is a new rough for a series of illustrations for a collaborative story I am working on with friend and fellow gamer Nicole Goci.

So the person on the left is a shugenja by the name of Shiba, Cohi Mori and the shugenja to the right is another shugenja Agasha, Sakura. They are originally two rpg characters Nicole and I have made in AEGs L5R.

The story is about a young man named Cohi, who has come back to the empire form the colonies and is a bit disillusioned from the violence he had experienced over there. His longtime friend and former class mate Sakura has taken it upon herself to try and help him through this ordeal. Thinking a routine inspection of the Phoenix clans lands might help Cohi out, the two find themselves on a few crazy adventures which challenge each of them as individuals as well as how they may feel about each other.

This project definitely came out of fan boy and fan girl geekdom. Nicole Goci is a wonderful gamer from Austria who is my geeky pen pal. We got into all kinds of talks about each others games, characters and story experiences over the last year. One of us had asked if we could use the others character for a game session, this of course led into talks and a brainstorm for a short fan story for AEG.

The story Nicole writes is truly amazing and I am very fortunate to be a part of this project.

We will have more for you soon.

Jack and Cloberus cover sketch

Here is a sketch I have been playing around with for my personal comic "Jack and Cloberus". I really want the first image to catch with the thought of adventure danger and two interesting characters who appear to be in the thick of it.

Jack and Cloberus #1 cover sketch. Digital sketch. Shaun W. Lieb 2014

Andrew W.K. - Party Hard

I LOVE DRAWING TO THIS SONG!

Color render test

Color render test. 2014

I have been practicing color rendering techniques this past week. Using Manga Studio 5, I started with some fat grey scale water color brushes for the initial rough, I put several layers of defining lines over the rough and removed the initial layer, Finally I slapped some flat color, and one final layer of complimentary colors for a better rendering effect. 

Big props to a digital color guide by DC comics!

I will be back soon with more stuff.

My first Post has Samurai!

Well this is my first post as a blogger ever! So I will just do what I have set out to do and post my art work to act as a timeline to my progress and if it gets good enough to act as my online portfolio. 

My name is Shaun W. Lieb I am 35 years old and have been drawing all my life non stop. I work as a small free lance illustrator and have been a professional coffee specialist for almost the last 12 years.

So this will be the first piece of art I post. 

Imperial Lantern Magistrates. Shaun Lieb 2014

Digital Sketch, Ink and Textures using Manga Studio. This is a rough draft of an upcoming pic in the works, my main goal with this was primarily composition of the characters. Right off the bat I want to make changes to some of their facial expressions and maybe pull down the middle one just a hair.

Anyway I will have more up soon.