Comics Jam

April 8, 2013April 10, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

My sincerest apologies for taking forever to post. Mea culpa.

To make up for it, today you get not one, but THREE comics. Of which I drew a third. So in total I drew one comic, but I drew panels in three different comics. It’s confusing, but you’ll see what I’m talking about in a minute.

The comics jam (or whatever you want to call it) was part of the first meeting of a comics-drawing collective I started in order to coerce me into drawing more. Our first meeting had 3 members, but after seeing these amazing comics, we’re going to have more people at our next meeting. I know it.

Each of us started a 9-panel comic and assigned a rule to the comic. We had 3 minutes to draw our panel then had to switch comics after time expired. As a result, each member drew 3 panels in each of the comics.

“Fill in the Middle” by Dan Duncan, Shane Hosea & Erika Schnatz

Dan started this one. He drew the first panel, Shane drew the third panel, and I had to draw the panel in the middle. It got really crazy really fast. Notice how the truck becomes anthropomorphic halfway through the comic!

“Everybody Dies by the End” by Shane Hosea, Erika Schnatz & Dan Duncan

Shane’s rule for this comic was that everyone needed to die by the end. As you see, it didn’t take long for us to start killing off characters. Shane drew the 1st panels, I drew the middle panels, and Dan drew the 3rd panels. The Shark Transformer is a stupid idea/theme song I made up in the shower earlier that day. I’m glad it was incorporated into the comic.

“Backwardz Comix!!! (Gay Penguins)” by Erika Schnatz, Dan Duncan & Shane Hosea

I started this comic, and we drew this story backwards. I love this story so much. I drew the 3rd panels, Dan drew the center panels, and Shane drew the 1st panels. We had to pause drawing for a minute or two because I couldn’t stop laughing after the “Timothy! Look at my new magic trick” panel.

I can’t wait to do this again. It was crazy fun.

Week of Lincoln: Day One

February 11, 2013April 10, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

This week is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

He is my favorite president ever, and sometimes I get bored and draw pictures of him.

I will attempt to post something Lincoln-related every day this week, because he was the man.

Lincoln is a total BAMF. Absolute fact.

I will never draw Lincoln without his stovepipe hat. It is the best type of hat.

Jay and ‘Ye in SPACE!

January 3, 2013April 5, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

My brother is a huge fan of Jay-Z and Kanye West, so I made him this ridiculous illustration as a Christmas gift:

Here is the line art of Jay-Z and Kanye

I decided to stick them in space (totally normal, right?) so I created this background with some watercolors and acrylic paint. I found a super easy tutorial on how to do this via YouTube:

Then I cut out the line art and Mod Podge’d it to outer space. Easy peasy!

This was a super fun project and it only took me a few nights. I need to start drawing more!

Materials used: Micron pens, other black pens, watercolor paints, white acrylic paint (for the stars)

More posts will be coming your way next week!

Giraffes!

November 9, 2012April 5, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

This was a project I completed earlier this year for my dear friend Kayla (who is sort of famous). The girl has got some pipes. But I digress.

Kayla’s close friend just had a baby, and Kayla wanted a special card made for the family. Specifically, she wanted a family of giraffes. When I finally got down to drawing it out (I procrastinate heavily without concrete deadlines), it didn’t take me very long. I drew out one rough sketch to show Kayla:

The finished art looks pretty similar. I got a little crazy with Momma Giraffe’s hair, but it’s a good look for her.

And here’s what the card looks like:

All I used for this card was some Micron pens I think. Some kind of pens. I don’t quite remember.

Robots

October 24, 2012April 5, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

As I mentioned in my last post, I was (sort of) working on a little robot art piece. Since I pulled out all the stops at the last minute and manage to finish the piece, I can triumphantly post about it.

Background:
Robo Taco (a Mexican eatery in SE Portland) put out a call for robot art on Craigslist (a totally reputable site to find art jobs) and I saved the post – thinking that I might get around to creating a piece. Usually, I don’t, but this time, dear reader, I did! I made a rough sketch of what I wanted my little robot to look like one evening, and the following evening I drew it out on nice paper, inked it and watercolor-d it, and Mod Podge-d it all together.

So here is the rough sketch:

And here is the finished product:

I put it in a frame I got from Goodwill for $2, and voila! A finished piece. It looks pretty classy in the frame, but I don’t have a picture of that yet.

Materials used: Watercolor paper, Micron pens, watercolors, colored pencils, and patterned scrapbook paper (the background)

MAPS Logo Design

August 17, 2012April 5, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

At the beginning of August I began my new AmeriCorps position at Portland State University. My official title is Retention Project Program Assistant (fancy, I know) and it comes with perks. Like my own office. There’s also this amazing copier that can scan in documents and send them as e-mail attachments, which blew my mind. It’s also how I got all of the images for this post onto my computer.

Anyway, the program I’m working with was initiated last year and is in a bit of a transition period this year. Someone made a logo for the program last year, which looked like this:

I didn’t hate it, but I thought it looked a bit amateur, especially for a university program that does important, good work. I kept the basic idea of the compass and found some reference material:

I drew one thumbnail and went with it. I know that’s frowned upon with logo design, but since I was tweaking a design and not inventing it, I thought that was enough brainstorming. So here’s how it turned out:

I like how it turned out. Plus now I feel like I’ve done something productive (I’ve done a lot of reading at work but not much else). It’s always fun when I can use my art skills for good.

Quick note: there is a rose in the center of the compass because one of Portland’s nicknames is “Rose City”. Knowledge is power!

Materials used: Micron pens, Photoshop/Illustrator

Erika Schnatz

Comics, Illustration + Design

Sketches