This piece is titled “Threshold to the Infinite”

I recently purchased some Prismacolor Pens and this piece was the end result of my attempt at coloring with markers for the first time. I chose a surreal piece because there is room for mistakes if you do make them and also because it gave me a great opportunity to test out most of the colors on one page.

It was fun mixing the different colors together and exploring the effects each color can produce. Overall, it was a rewarding experience and made me more confident in using colors in my future work. I definitely expect to use these pens again in some of my projects before I make the jump to digital art sometime this year.

More on surreal art, it is one of my favorite genres in the art world. It is a window into the subconscious mind and it was almost relieving to draw. I took a lot of inspiration from Dali and the piece itself came out very psychedelic. As to what the piece means – that is something left for the viewer to interpret.

It has been a while since I last posted something. I have been working on quite a few things at a time all this time. I felt that I needed an update for the New Year so I took the time to finish one of my new projects.

I am still working on my graphic novel project from time to time. I am greatly enjoying this hobby and wish I could put in more time for it. I have been saving some money to make the leap into professional digital art but for now I just practice on paper. This one is a character I have been reworking a little bit. An earlier concept of this character can be seen here: http://damirvazgird.com/45-protagonist-sniper/

As you can probably tell, I have changed the jacket/cloak of the character quite a bit; transforming it into a kind of body armor. This is most likely how the character will appear when he is first introduced into the storyline. However, most of the time he will appear without his hood and goggles on but I put those on for the effect.

Some info on the character:

I have been thinking of a name for the character and will most likely name him Orion. Mainly for the fact that his fighting role in the story will be a sniper. He has above average aim, making him an excellent marksman. He is able to hit distant targets with plain iron sights. Making him even deadlier when looking through a scope. Therefore, I think the name Orion represents his character quite well.

The rifle slung over his shoulder is a standard AK-47 which will mainly be used against weaker enemies in the story. He will replace it once he acquires the mobile rail-gun which can be viewed in the link for the earlier design of the character. The pistol on the side of his leg is an alien weapon which will play into the background story of the character. The back story is still in the works at the moment but you can check my website out for upcoming updates on the story itself. As far as the pistol goes. All I can say is that its an effective weapon which pretty much allows this character to survive in this hostile world.

Info on the drawing:

This was done in about 12 hours. The whole thing was done in standard black ink using copic multiliner pens. The only references I used was for the AK-47 and the car on the left of the character. Otherwise the entire thing was done from imagination.

I feel this was one of my most detailed pieces yet. The shading specifically improved quite a bit from my previous work and I am quite happy with my progress. Anatomy is getting a bit better but I still need a lot of practice. I really want to move away from the simple standing poses and jump into more action poses. However, I still need to look at a lot of references to get the anatomy down.

The background took a really long time but I seem to be getting better at doing backgrounds now. I think I must have spent about 20% of my time working on the actual character and the rest of my time went to planning, sketching, inking, and shading the background. The extra time was worth it I feel as it brings out the atmosphere of the setting into clear view.

Well that’s that for now. I will post some more of my work as soon as I finish it. I plan on buying some colored copics sometime this week and will definitely test them out on a new project. Look forward to some color soon.

So I went to a secluded area in Utah where I was far away from all modern distractions. The above is the result of my isolation from the rest of society for a few hours. The entire piece took me about 3 days to finish with several hours being dedicated per day. A large portion of the initial sketch and the concept for the piece was comprised in isolation. It’s amazing how much time you realize you have each day when you have nothing to distract yourself with.

I enjoyed doing the background and all the details in the piece and overall I am satisfied with how this came out. The shading is getting better but I still think it is not where I want to be and want to improve. I tried to get some vanishing points going for the background to give it a more 3D feel. Most of my previous backgrounds were pretty flat and this was good practice for me to work on that.

The creepy stuff on the bottom right can be explained and will once I implement it in the story. For now it could be interpreted freely by any observer. As far as the character himself goes. He is the second strongest warrior in the Empire and he is also the most loyal to the Emperor. He hates the first strongest and always tries to get recognition and a chance for promotion to number one. He is going to be a vital antagonist in the story and probably one of the most violent. Thank you and I hope you like this piece as more is on the way soon. Peace.

This was a commission that I finished recently. This is not one of my characters, I just drew this according to a description that was provided. I tried to give the throne and background an Egyptian feel because of the setting of the story itself. I am also satisfied with the shading of the character here. The shading is unconventional to my previous style. I tried a different approach and I think it came out quite realistic. The background was shaded more with the original crosshatching/hatching technique.

While working on the background, I tried my best to make it as symmetrical as possible as Egyptian architecture is known to be very akin to symmetry. Overall this was a very valuable experience for me, working with the background and the shading technique used on the character helped me advance further and learn techniques which I hope to use for my future projects.

Alright, here is the third concept of one of my main antagonists/anti-heroes in the story for my graphic-novel project. As you can probably tell this concept is vastly different from the previous two which emphasized the character’s metal looking armor. In this one I decided to approach the character with a more biological look as if it is almost alive. The many eyes that the character brandishes is a representation of greed/lust and he instills fear and paranoia.

The six bones coming out of his shoulders are meant to be wings but he can also use them as legs, like a spider. I am more satisfied with this concept over the previous ones, however, I still need to rework it more. I think I need to redesign and perhaps simplify the design of this character. I also think I need to make him look a bit more menacing.

I am happy with my progress and I feel that I am vastly improving with my line work. I also used large Bristol Paper to work on and I love using the paper but the problem is that it doesn’t fit into my printer. This makes me scan two ends of the paper and then combine them in Photoshop which gets pretty frustrating but its not that bad. Anyway, hope you like this concept and let me know if there is anything I can improve on if you can. Peace.

This piece is me practicing different poses. This one was done with no references and was just a test for me to try to create an anatomically correct sitting pose. I used one of my main protagonists for the character and I like the way this one came out. From my point of view, my line work seems to be improving along with my backgrounds. I am getting better at the shading as well but it still needs more work.

I had fun doing this piece, the background was a good step forward in my progress as an artist. I really need to get into the habit of doing backgrounds. My future projects will depend heavily on extensive backgrounds and scenery. So in the future, expect more complete works with backgrounds so I can get my practice in.

Its been a while but I guess it was worth the wait. I’ve decided to use the Bristol Paper that I purchased recently. All I can say is it is the best paper I have ever used and I highly recommend it. It is very sturdy, smooth, and you can use almost any medium on it without any problems. The only thing that I didn’t like is that it didn’t fit in my scanner. The paper is 11×14, a lot larger than what I usually use, 9×11. However, I was able to scan the drawing twice and put it together with photoshop. I don’t think it came out too bad, but you can still see the line where the two sections meet. I tried taking a picture of it with my camera but I just didn’t like the quality, it was too blurry. Overall, I enjoyed working with more paper, it gave me the opportunity to add more things in and for once I was able to fit an entire character into the page.

About the characters: You can see another antagonist in the middle, she is the leader of the “Spider-Ninjas.” She specializes in stealth and assassination missions for the Imperium. No references used so the anatomy may seem a bit off at closer look. For example, I think her legs are a tad too short for her body. The head could also stand to be a bit smaller. I think with all the details on the page it can be kind of hard to notice these things.

Doing the background and foreground were the tricky parts for me in this drawing. Aside from getting the anatomy right in the poses of course. The background took a surprisingly long time so I started to rush it so its not perfect. It was very good practice for me though. I have never inked a background/foreground before so it was good practice. I will try to do more drawings with backgrounds now just because I know I need the practice. Hopefully if I get around to doing digital art the process will be a lot easier with the advantage of layers and the undo button. All in due time though. Hope you enjoyed the new drawing. Peace.

Hey all! This is another concept for a character for my graphic novel. With this I practiced some dynamic shading in order to portray that black metallic feel, I think it came out alright. I’m pretty sure that I will be changing the way this character looks in the future. I think he came out a bit bulky on the top, maybe I can cut down on some of the details as well. I sketched this character out a couple of hours before boarding my plane for Vegas. I did most of the inking on the plane so I had a hard time trying not to mess up some of the lines. You would be surprised how short a five hour flight could be when you’re working on something.

About the character: These are going to be the stealth units for the Imperium. They are very fast and they can climb on walls and ceilings. They will probably have stealth camouflage but I haven’t really decided on it yet. These units are best described as cyborgs and have lost all traces of their humanity.

Update: I am planning on working with watercolors for future projects. I have just bought some watercolors and Bristol paper so I am excited about playing with those medium. I am not good at all with watercolors, I actually used to hate using them but now I have some plans for incorporating them into some of my work. So look forward to some colored work soon. Peace.

Hello everyone! It’s been quite a while since I last posted and I have a good explanation. I know you probably thought I was slacking but I wasn’t,  in fact I was very busy. I have recently changed residency and am now residing in Las Vegas. The move from New York was tough and the truck took a really long time to get my stuff to me. In case you’re wondering about the drawing above. This was the last drawing I did in New York before flying over to Vegas.

The character in the drawing is only a concept character. He is going to be an antagonist wielding something like a sniper rifle, specializing in marksmanship. I have not finalized the actual look of the weapon he will have so don’t be surprised if right now it looks so strange. Personally, I don’t like the way it looks at all and I am planning on making it different. As far as the character goes, I think he looks close to what the final product would look like.

I also felt like putting a waving flag in the background. I felt it was time to practice some backgrounds so I did something simple to get me started. The Flag has the Imperium symbol on it and I tried my best to make it look like it was waving in the wind. No references used at all for this drawing and I am quite happy with the results. Anyway, feel free to comment and critique. Peace!

This is a recent character I created for my graphic novel project. I did not use any references for the character, I tried to practice anatomy without any help. I think I’m getting progressively better at anatomy, however, the face needs more work though. I also had a chance to practice some more shading techniques with this drawing. Over all I feel it came out pretty good.

This is only the first concept of this character. No name has been given yet. He is supposed to be the leader of a resistance movement of survivors. I had fun drawing his leather coat, it was the first time inking leather so don’t be surprised if it looks odd. I probably should have used to refernces for the coat, I’ll make sure to look at some examples next time. The weapons holstered on his hips are supposed to be modified pistols that don’t use traditional ammunition. In order to fight an alien invasion the survivors were able to adapt enemy weapons into their own in order to effectively fight against the threat. Traditional human weapons proved to have no effect.

Of course, I do not want to go into detail. The characters will have a much deeper background information when I get around to it. Right now I’m busy making and revamping new characters. The story, which is always a work in progress will be revealed later. I also don’t want to reveal too much as I think it can spoil the story and it is better to leave the full story to be explained in the actual finished product.

Alrighty, this is an example of an extreme camera angle. This is something I felt I needed to practice a lot in order to make my upcoming graphic novel look more appealing to a reader. This shot was referenced from Bleach, again. Yea I know I seem to be borrowing a lot of examples from Bleach. This is mainly because, if you ever read that Manga, it has some amazing fighting scenes. This is something I truly need to learn to draw without the need for references. For now, however, I will have to keep referencing.

This was done in about five hours, the sketch didn’t take too long, maybe twenty minutes at best, with some details thirty. The inking was definitely the hard part and took some patience. As you can probably tell my line art is getting better. I learned exactly where I needed to make the lines thicker, where they need to be thinner, etc…

Usually, the thicker line is the one on the bottom, or opposite of where the light is coming from in your drawing. In this case, I chose for the light to come somewhere from the top-right. It is always important to choose where your light is, I usually try to do it in the initial sketch. It helps to add a marker on your drawing in case you forget or stray from your shading path. I usually have this problem where I get carried away with the shading. Something I’m trying to overcome.

In this drawing, you can see one of the characters I posted previously. I named the one standing over the beaten down character, Sakk’ron. You can probably tell I changed his appearance just a bit, as I said I would. I will be making some tweaks here and there as I post more work of him. The character that is beaten down is going to be one of the main characters. I will explain more of this in later posts. Hopefully, when I find the time to start writing again, I will post segments of the story and background info on all the characters. Look forward to it and thanks for visiting. Peace.

I did this in order to practice action scenes for my graphic novel. As you can probably tell the line art is a bit improved when compared to my previous work. By the way this scene was references from Bleach. In order to practice various poses and action scenes I find it very important to use references. I have not done many action poses in my time, mostly just still shots so creating the illusion of movement is particularly difficult for me. I find it that if I practice long enough I will eventually get it down and won’t need to use references to create my own scenes.

Overall, I am satisfied with this work, the line art is great. Although, it could stand to see some crosshatching but I just didn’t want to get into it because I thought I would color it in Photoshop later on. The character on the right is one of the main antagonists in the early part of the story. The character on the left is actually a character I came up with on the spot. He is some nameless Bounty Hunter, I just used this type of character for practical reasons – it was easy to draw him. There aren’t many sword-fighters in the actual graphic novel so I just made this one up. This doesn’t mean that this actual scene will appear in the actual story, this was just for practice. Anyway, let me know what you think.

This is just the second concept for this particular character. He is not really an antagonist in my graphic novel but more like an anti-hero really. I got him pretty close to how I want him to look. Only thing that concerns me is the armor on the legs, I really want to change the way they look a bit. Also I feel I made his head too small so that will be improved in the next drawing of this character. Like I said before anatomy isn’t really my strong point yet, but I’m working on it.

I like the line art but I feel I improved with regard to the line art I can do now. No particular shading on this character, I just liked the drawing too much to mess it up with shading practice. Its lazy but I will have more opportunities for shading, I’m sure. Right now I will keep this character a mystery, at least until I post the story behind my graphic novel whenever I finish it.

This is the second concept of this character. I am pretty satisfied with the way this came out, very close to the final concept. I will post some more of this character, of course in different poses. This way you can see him develop as I draw more of him. Right now however I have been overflowed with ideas and I just take too long to either write them down or put them on paper. This is a bad habit I’m trying to break right now. I have like four different sketchbooks filled with all these characters that I forget about but once I get some more free time I will look into developping more finalized characters from those sketches.

Anyway, this was done with Copic Multiliner Pens on Acid Free sketch paper. I have recently purchased Bristol paper, a very high quality paper that is ideal for inking and even watercolor. I will be getting into using watercolor pretty soon so you will be seeing more color in my drawings.

This is the second concept of this character. He is supposed to be one of the main antagonists but he makes his appearance much later into the story. He is supposed to be strongest of the four that belong to this group. This will all be explained further later once I finish writing the story line and character background information.

This is not the final concept and I feel there is much room for improvement, however, the overall feel to this character is about right. I would definitely change the weapon he is holding, to me it looks way too plain. The armor needs a bit more reworking, I feel it could use some more detail. Also, this character is particularly hard to draw in a side view. So look forward to a side view of this character as I really need to practice the angles.

This is actually the second concept for this character. If you notice, he resembles the character in the “Chain of Fate” drawing.  That is because I have been developing this character to fit into the storyline. I am still not completely satisfied with this concept either. I think the shoulders on his armor need a reworking. I was also planning on continuing the design on the cape part of his costume. Other than that I think this concept turned out alright.

In case you are wondering I used Copic Multiliner Pens to do the inking. The line art could have been better but this was done at the time I was still new to inking. I feel I have gotten better now but I still have a long way to go in the shading department, as you can probably tell yourself.

About this character: I am not going to explain his background to you too thoroughly now because you first need to grasp the actual story in order to comprehend where he is coming from. However, this character is a sword-master, in fact he was the one responsible for inventing the art of sword-fighting. You can’t really call him human so in a way he is like an alien. He is very idealistic in his views so he sees the world in black and white. He is extremely righteous and lawful. This will all be explained later with regard to the story. Hopefully I will post a revamped drawing of this character as I feel he looks way too bulky for a flexible swordsman. Anyway, enjoy and tell me what you think.

So, this is the same antagonist concept just without the helmet. No name given yet but working on it. This one I’m more happy with and the shading wasn’t too bad. The pose was referenced from the manga called Bleach. It is a pretty good manga, the action scenes are top-notch. I’m sure some of you probably heard of it before. The face of this character is not really finalized and it wasn’t done in particularly my style. The hair in my opinion could have had better shading but I was just experimenting there. Overall, I feel the character needs some more work but he is definitely in his final stages of development. I’m sure with more practice I will improve so look forward to it. Peace.

This is the first concept I came up with for one of the main antagonists for the story. I don’t want to bore you with any details on this character now. Once I set up the storyline and all the background info on the characters I will post that on here for you to check out.

This was done on regular printer paper that is why the ink job doesn’t look as good as it should. This was my early ink work where I practiced shading techniques. I am not really satisfied with the inking on this but we all have to start somewhere so I feel it was an admirable job for an experiment.

Protagonist - Bounty Hunter

This is the first concept for one of the protagonists for my graphic novel project. The name is still pending but I am probably going to go with Anna. This concept is not finalized and I feel I have much to improve on. For instance, the sword would probably look differently. The suit she has on is definitely going to look better.

When I was inking this I was only just getting into using pens. The lines are all the same width which I normally would not do anymore. Also there is no hatching/crosshatching to be seen in this line art mainly because I was afraid of it at the time. Still, this is a good look into the past and a good way to compare what I can do with inks now.

This is another concept for a protagonist for my graphic novel. As you can see I haven’t come up with a name for him yet. I planned him to be one of the main character for the story. Some things to note: I realize the anatomy is a bit sketchy here pertaining to his legs. Anatomy is something I feel all artists struggle with, some more then others. I for one have not perfected anatomy and it is something I’m always working with.

This wasn’t done using a reference photo, which most artists would do to help them with anatomy and different poses. If you are getting into art or struggling with anatomy I would recommend using different photographs or even artwork for reference. I won’t deny I haven’t done it myself because it is very helpful in developing your understanding of anatomy, camera angles, and different art styles.

About this drawing: This character is a sniper in the story, of course he gets that weapon at a later chapter. The weapon he is holding there is a rail-gun sniper rifle, it fires high powered energy beams that can pierce the strongest of armor. The drawback is that it gives away the position and takes a long time to recharge. This makes this weapon useful for sure kills and for cover fire if the user can manage to change position fast enough after firing once. The weapon is not earth made and belongs to a bounty hunter that gives the weapon to this character. No point into explaining that further as it will confuse you but once I post the actual storyline, hopefully, you will understand this more. For now just enjoy the artwork.

This drawing is for my graphic novel project. This is the first concept for the protagonist, Nova, when in armor. Done entirely with a Bic pen, this was one of my first attempts with inking. The reason this was done with a Bic pen was because I drew this on basic printer paper without realizing that the ink would smudge which you can see in my other work related to the graphic novel.

This is only the first concept of the character in armor, although I do like the way the mask came out, so I will probably keep it that way. By the way, the character obtains the armor later in the story as to what kind of armor it is I can’t really explain without getting into detail so I will save those details for later.

This is another World of Warcraft fan-art I did a while back. The guy on the left was my character at the time and the other two were friends I used to play with. We were all Paladins in the same guild and we considered ourselves to be the best on the Dunemaul server. In this drawing we are slaughtering undead noobs, which we would do a lot in order to pass the time between raids. It was good times, just too time consuming for my own good, glad that its behind me now.

This was line-art, done with a Bic pen again. I think it came out better than the other WoW Fan Art I did. Maybe I will color it one of these days.

This one is just some fanart I did for a World of Warcraft guild I used to roll with. World of Warcraft was a fun game but it just didn’t last and got old fast. Still, I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t have fun with it. This is Guild Equilibrium from the Dunemaul Server. They are long gone and I haven’t spoken to them in a long while. This was done entirely with a Bic black pen. Yea, one of those cheap school pens everyone uses. This was before I had any professional inking pens and wanted to try my hand with a new medium. Its a bit too dark I think, I have a problem with applying too much dark. Going overboard on shading has always been a problem of mine but I’m defenetly working on resolving it.

This was the beginning of my work with ink. As you can tell I wasn’t really safe with using inks for shading. Using hatching and crosshatching was something entirely new to me but I was really interested in learning the technique. Right now my inking has gotten a lot better but I still have some problems with backgrounds. Anatomy is another obstacle for me but I am working on it. Hopefully you guys will see the improvement as I post more of my new stuff.

This particular work is a drawing I did for a friend of mine. This is Algeroth, who was his character in the game Ultima Online. A real griefer the guy was and he asked me to portray the character in art form which I did for him. Maybe later on I will draw a revised form of this for comparison purposes. Anyway, hope you guys like this one.

There is a bit of a story to this drawing. This was a work I did for one of my art classes in college. Well, it wasn’t really your typical art class. The class was called Creativity Perception and The Visual Arts, it was a mix of art and psychology so you basically got credit for both fields. Most of my time in that class was spent doodling and creating concepts for random characters. This was the character I came up with in that class, which I later revamped and used for my graphic-novel project.

To explain the background and just what is going on in this piece in case you’re wondering. What you see there in the background is part of a plane that is like a gateway to another world. The mountain in the background serves as that gate, the volcano-type explosion is actually a portal which allows you to transcend dimensions. The only way to get there would be to climb the chains of fate that connect to the top of the mountain, the ground as you can see cannot be tread on. The character in the drawing is one of the guardians for this chain, I planned about four chains so that makes four guardians. As you can see he is defending the path to the top, preventing the protagonist from making his way to the portal. This is just an idea behind the drawing and I’m not sure if this will make it into my graphic-novel.

So what was supposed to be a project on depth turned out to be a project for my graphic-novel. The professor was pissed at me for reasons unknown… well actually she had some reasons. She told me I had no concept of depth and gave me a terrible grade for this. She probably hated me for sleeping in class sometimes. Can’t blame me when the class is at seven in the morning which meant I had to wake up three hours in advance in order to make my commute. I tried explaining to her that the character in the drawing was standing on the chain, which led to the mountain in the background, personally to me this shows some form of depth. She wouldn’t have it and so what we have here is a failure of portraying depth with the use of imagination. I kind of like it because everyone else had the same boring street view with a vanishing point whereas my interpretation of depth was not of this world and probably could be hard to imagine.

Back when I was playing a bunch of videogames I became influenced to draw massive, futuristic battlefields. I sketched out three different takes of battles which I later named War Torn. These were done back in 2004 and I just recently found them lying around unfinished. I always had this ridiculous tendency to abandon my work which I would then find and be astonished at the difference in style. My style changed over the years but I still finished this piece because I felt it was a pretty good idea that I started. The lower-left corner was done back in 2004 and left that way for about four years. The rest of the drawing was finished in late 2008. There were two other works that accompany this drawing and when I finish them I will also post them. Hope you like this one, it shows us the horrors of war, no matter when and where it takes place.

This is one of my earlier works in surrealism. This was done for a class project when I took a drawing class in college. I haven’t done many surrealism over the years since my focus was mainly on my Graphic Novel project. I do love surreal art and do want to do more of it. Although probably not in this style, I want it to be even more bizarre. Hopefully, when I get around to it, I will be posting a lot more surreal work since I have a lot of ideas for some.