LISTON'S SKETCHBOOK

Witchy Surfer

2012-01-17T01:23:00.000-08:00

Mashed Potatoes

2012-01-15T17:35:00.000-08:00

The New Recessionaries

2012-01-11T22:46:00.000-08:00

The New Recessionaries, my new favorite band. The idea here is based on an old 30s political cartoon.

Yum Caax

2012-01-11T19:24:00.000-08:00

Ancient Mayan God Yum Caax (Yummy Cakes) seen here threatened by evil Union Spirits. New evidence that the major cause of the collapse of the Mayan empire was unionization.

Fishbowl

2012-01-09T00:09:00.001-08:00

Surfing into the New Year

2012-01-06T23:13:00.000-08:00

30 Park Sketches

2011-08-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

I spend so much of my time working on these that I felt like sharing some.

Comicon Sketches

2011-07-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

Comicon was so crowded and so busy that I didn't really stop to sketch much once inside. A semi trailer with a "Walking Dead" poster on it made me laugh because all of us nerds really did look like an unending sea of zombies.

Anyhow these few sketches were drawn either during my trolley ride out to the convention center, or from photos after the fact. Some of these are drawings of my favorite comic book artists, many of whom I got to chat with a little bit while I was there.

Comic Con Sketches

2011-07-25T09:15:00.001-07:00

Star Wars Tango

2011-05-18T23:22:00.000-07:00

Quick Color Comp

2011-05-07T22:54:00.000-07:00

New Background

2011-04-27T19:48:00.001-07:00

Ideas Unfinished

2011-04-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

Here are some paintings based on recent sketches. I didn't really finish any of them. I guess it's too soon for them.

Unfinished Business

2011-04-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

Calm Weeks of April

2011-04-13T00:37:00.001-07:00

March was a busy month at Sea World. April has been mellow in comparison. At least it has been so far. Anyhow I finally had some time to paint. These two paintings were based on drawings from recent sketchbooks. The baseball player is taken from a Sea World guest who looked a little like a Tomboy. The boy in the tree is based on the Barret used to sit on the pool fence when we first moved down here to San Diego.

Boy in a Tree

2011-04-13T00:28:00.000-07:00

Baseball Girl

2011-04-11T23:09:00.001-07:00

Sketches at the Park

2011-03-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

Sketches from January 2011

2011-02-17T18:34:00.000-08:00

First Sketches of the New Year

2011-01-10T19:38:00.001-08:00

Quick Sketches and Christmas Cards

2010-12-09T17:43:00.003-08:00

I've been using a lot of photoshop lately. But here is a quick sketch that I drew with Painter X.

Kids on a Train

2010-12-01T15:09:00.001-08:00

Sleepy Walrus and other stuff

2010-11-22T11:22:00.000-08:00

We'll see if I can't catch up on some old projects this week.

It's getting colder

2010-11-14T03:18:00.000-08:00

Zak hasn't actually learned to play video games yet, however he always insists on holding a controller.

This drawing came out halfway decent except for one thing. I don't look like me.
So I'll be working on another drawing.

It's getting colder in San Diego. It will still be warm tnrough the afternoon, but as soon as the sun goes down the ocean brease comes in and cools things down very fast. So I bring a jacket to work, but I only wear it for the last hour.

More Painting

2010-10-11T15:52:00.001-07:00

I want to get better at painting so I've been painting daily.

The Morrises

2010-10-08T23:30:00.001-07:00

Happy Halloween Month

2010-10-06T03:08:00.000-07:00

I've never dressed up as Frankenstein, but my brother did one year.
I watched the old black and white Frankentstein with my dad when I was a kid.
I never saw the newer film.

I love the weather in October. It is kind of gloomy, but much cooler. I was tired of warm summer days. Now I just need to get over my cold.

In the mean time i vowed to celebrate Halloween month with some kind of halloween related illustration each day. Well I've got some catching up to do, but here are the first two.

Sketches This Week

2010-09-21T00:02:00.000-07:00

I've been working on several projects for friends. One of these pages was drawn at Disneyland. Also I drew some of Barret's heavy equipment toys.

Pen and Ink and Color Sticks

2010-09-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

The sketch of the kid in Mickey ears is color pencil on black canson paper.

Nanoo Nanoo

2010-08-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

A little random tribute to Spock, or Leonard Nimoy.
Live long and prosper.

Mama Testa's

2010-08-16T21:18:00.001-07:00

Sinse moving to San Diego county I haven't been dowtown that much. Today I got lost trying to find Blick's art supply in Little Italy.

Anyhow on this page of my sketchbook are mostly drawings of my sons with their friends, and caricatures of random people.

Also I drew the interior of Mama Testa's, a mexican restaraunt in San Diego. I don't usually like catfish, but their catfish tacos were awesome.

Character Bodies

2010-08-08T18:08:00.000-07:00

Every so often you get a request to draw a car at Sea World. One guy asked for a 64 fastback mustang so I had my wife Cheryl text me a pixture of one. Maybe someday I'll get a droid and then I can just search one. Until then I practice drawing cars in my own time.

Barret helps me with this. He brings me one hotwheels car at a time and demands that I draw it.

It can get deathly boring drawing the same old character bodies all of the time. On the other hand if you try to get to creative you wind up spending an hour on just one drawing.

It's best to practice these at home. These are some of my sketchbook pages of practice bodies. We draw soooooo many mermaids.

Business Cards Yeahhh!!!!

2010-08-06T14:29:00.000-07:00

When is Enough really Enough?

2010-07-27T22:48:00.000-07:00

Whatever

2010-06-17T16:10:00.001-07:00

Zak

2010-06-04T18:17:00.000-07:00

Painted from a photo that we took at Santee Lakes.

Lake Painting

2010-05-21T09:01:00.001-07:00

Woah

2010-04-24T00:57:00.000-07:00

Easter Caricatures

2010-04-08T16:28:00.001-07:00

I drew these while I was hangin out with my family.

Surfer girl

2010-04-07T05:44:00.001-07:00

Mysterious Warrior

2010-04-03T16:04:00.001-07:00

Beaver Dude

2010-03-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

My son

2010-02-23T15:12:00.000-08:00

This is a work in progress. So far I've layed out the colors and worked onthe shadows a little.

Next I'll start jumpin the detail up to the next level.

My son

2010-02-07T07:46:00.000-08:00

An actual sketch.

2009-12-20T17:20:00.000-08:00

This is what Im using for my facebook picture at the moment. I meant to go back and color it, but I still havent gotten around to that.

Pulling out the Rapidograph

2009-10-24T16:38:00.000-07:00

I hadn't used a Rapidograph in awhile. So I got a couple out.

Midnight Caricature

2009-08-17T02:30:00.000-07:00

My tacos kept me awake so I drew this copy of a drawing from my sketchbook with my tablet PC. The drawing was of my dad at church, the quality of the exhageration is better than usual for me. My dad and my wife seem to be two of the faces that I have the easiest time stretching out.

Sunday Funnies 3

2009-08-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

Sunday Funnies 2

2009-07-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

Panoramic Isn't It?

2009-07-18T23:02:00.001-07:00

Year Mark

2009-07-17T11:01:00.001-07:00

It's been fun drawing caricatures for a living.

Sunday Funnies

2009-07-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

Har Har Har

Album Cover

2009-07-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

Here is a nod to the cover of Demon Days by the Gorrillaz featuring my family.

Episode I Tribute

2009-06-29T23:30:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I posted anything. My sister was down for a visit, my cousin got married, there were quite a few birthdays and all of that sort of thing. Also, Ive been working a lot more since School let out. I've been busy applying to all sorts of jobs. Mostly I'm trying to get hired to do storyboards for an animation studio. However the need to support my family has driven me to consider all sorts of options. In the mean time summer is here and business at Knott's Berry Farm is alot better.

It's not easy to get people to sit for a caricature by talking to them. In fact approaching any person will automatically put their social defenses to work. That's the reason I draw stuff like this. A drawing of this kind will bring people to you making the sale many times easier.

I had a lot of fun quizzing kids with this drawing. I was impressed with how many of the character names they knew. Many of the older generation do not really get the newer STAR WARS films. The completely miss the fact that episodes 1 through 3 were made for the new generation and not for the old.

Of course if you take time creating the image it may actually cause people to come back later to see how you are doing. Getting someone to come ny your stand multiplt times is great because it allows them to gradually build up to the idea of buying a caricature.

Besides, drawing stuff like this is fun. It helps to keep your enthusiasm up. People are pretty good at recognising enthusiasm vs boredom. They can also see a salesman coming from a mile away. In any case artists easily fall into bad moods. We're kind of bipolar that way.

From My Celphone

2009-05-20T04:44:00.000-07:00

My New CelPhone takes pretty decent pictures. I've been using it at work to photograph my demos.

Storyboard Roughs

2009-03-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

Invite Illustration

2009-02-26T16:32:00.000-08:00

PMC Activities

2009-02-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

I have lots of drawings that I've been working on, but for today I have some pictures of recent PMC activities.

His Nose is Bigger in Real Life

2009-01-29T19:54:00.000-08:00

I'll be usin' painter alot. THis is just a quick excersize that I did today.

Sketches from the Break

2009-01-09T21:30:00.000-08:00

This will be my last break between semesters for a long time. I am taking my last class at CSU Fullerton and will soon be graduating. It's time to find a more serious job than drawing caricatures at a theme park.

Most of the time in my sketchbook I draw from life. But sometimes I will copy favorite artists. One of the pages here is a set of copies of Humberto Ramos drawings from a comic book series called Out There. The other copies are from Danger Girls by Scott Campbell. Copying helps me get into their heads and see why they draw the way they do.

Under the Bed

2008-11-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

Here is one of five illustrations that I have been working on for six months. I've been figuring out some things about digital painting.

Tiny Dancer

2008-11-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

A picture of this dancer was on the cover of the Riverside COmmunity College class catalogue.

Horsing Around

2008-10-25T00:58:00.000-07:00

These are the results I got from using a brown prismacolor marker and a white prismacolor pencil on this indigo colored, strathmore art paper. It's not super clean, but still fun to look at.

Four Dudes

2008-10-19T02:25:00.000-07:00

More fabulous work from my sketchbook.

White on Red

2008-10-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

Drawn from a magazine photo.

Hero in a Hood

2008-09-06T20:44:00.001-07:00

I've been going through some of my old highschool drawings. I've been redrawing a few of my old favorites. I find that some of my old ideas weren't so bad, even when the drawings themselves were.

Evil Eye

2008-08-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

Here a friend of mine practices the evil eye as taught to him by his grandmother.

Some Old Editorial Cartoons

2008-07-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

The awards I won were for my editorial cartoons including this one here about text books. My "Aliens on the Roof" comic didn't turn any of the judges heads, but it is still one of my favorties. Anyone who was at R.C.C. at the time would understand why it was relevant. As for the blackspot on the trees, it was an accident. I was drawing almost entirely with crow quill pens at the time and accidental ink spots are pretty much unavoidable.

The Horny Toad was a character that I created for my animation course at R.C.C. I then used him in several strip comics for the student newspaper there. I didn't get any awards for him, but he was a lot of fun. I never actually settled on any particular name, but Eddie always comes to mind. I've been drawing him over the years since then. I used him in a one minute cartoon short and I've been working on a redesign every so often. For the last three weeks I've been trying to find time to sit down and do a couple strip comics. So far nothing. So here is some of the old stuff.

I'm Working at Knott's Berry Farm

2008-07-10T02:01:00.000-07:00

I get paid to draw people. It's a start,

Work in Progress

2008-06-28T23:21:00.000-07:00

This is a little tribute to two of my favorite artists. I've only gotten the pencil done so far. I'm likin' how it's lookin'.

Coloring the Cat

2008-04-23T15:47:00.000-07:00

I finally finished fiddling around with UVs and now I can start coloring this thing. This is just the first pass. It gives a general idea of what I have in mind for this model.

Vans Tennis Shoes Are Great For Hiking

2008-04-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

I've done my share of walking. I wore through two pairs of Doc Martens and a pair of Sketchers when I was a Missionary in Argentina. I was living out of suit cases so I didn't have that much stuff (for two years) but I did have a pair of Van when I could'nt stand those other heavy shoes any more.

I also went on a number of hikes and I found that VANS were a lot nicer to my feet than hiking boots. Actually at the moment I'm wearing Ocean Pacific shoes, but VANS are still my favorite.

The idea behind this illustration (that I drew years ago while at community college) was to advertise some product. I was heavy into swing dancing and classic car shows at the time. Hot Rods Hangout had Rockabilly bands every week.

I added color to the drawing some time ago using Illustrator, but the colors came out very flat. Just last night I used photoshop to touch it up a bit. I'm much happier with it now, and in any case it's still one of my favorite drawings.

The First Try at a Realistic Fruit

2008-03-31T16:06:00.000-07:00

Just a day after creating this I was shown a number of brush tricks that would have been helpful.

The Cat Returns

2008-03-24T05:15:00.001-07:00

It's been some time since I posted any pictures of Neeko here. Right now he has only one eye, and that one is glass. He's having a bad day. On the upside he has teeth now.

I've just about finished modeling. Soon I'll start unwrapping the UVs and then I can get some color on this guys cheeks.

William Bouguereau Master Copy

2008-03-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

This is the first of five master copies that I will be drawing for my life studies course this semester. The original is on the left.

Black Dress

2008-03-07T17:50:00.000-08:00

This image was influenced by the nose art on old World War II planes, and also by a black dress that my wife had at the time. I had just bought Adobe Illustrator CS2 at the time. This was one of my first attempts to digitally enhance and color an image.

The Cat so Far

2008-03-03T10:45:00.001-08:00

I've been working on this character model now for several weeks. This version is still very simple. Now that I've got the body put together I can model the features out more particularly, and add more polygons so that it will look smoother.

How Cool are Model Ts

2008-02-21T14:36:00.000-08:00

I like drawing old cars every once in awhile. My father in law has one of these in the garage, so apart from internet photos I was also able to get a close look at his car. I gave this version a yellow hue so that in would look older.

I actually wound up drawing this twice. The first copy was ruined, I can't remember if I ripped it or spilt something on it. The second version turned out much better any way. I used a non-photo blue pencil to lay it out, and inked it with rapidographs.