Matt Lichtenwalner

Road Notes Matt Lichtenwalner 11/2 '24

Photo of a squirrel on a telephone pole. The little bugger was chattering away at me while I shut down the system on the truck tonight. They definitely were telling me ALL about it!

I want to get back into the habit of recording random ideas / notes as I go down the road. I've fallen out of the habit, and it makes life far less fun.

Also, less creative.

Latest idea: produce a series of simple sketches that are 'base poses' of the RPG archetypes: Warriors, Rogues, and Spellslingers. (There are about a miiiiiillion subgroups, but the poses (I think) all would generally fall into those categories.)

Day before yesterday? (While I was still on break and talking to my brother) the idea was 'recreate the Sons of Anarchy back patch, but with School of Xavier and Cyclops as the 'wraith' in the center. I'm a nerd.

A collection of some of my favorite character illustrations from my work last year.

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11/2

Let's Make A Monster! Matt Lichtenwalner 8/14 '22

I did a little experimental thread over on my Twitter stream. I wanted to encourage a couple of things - namely audience interaction and I wanted to provide them an actual reason to share the thread.

Simply put: I provided a series of polls for folks to vote on to determine how I constructed a monster.

Here's a link to the thread in case you're curious.

The results to the first poll (bipedal or quadrapedal) was:

The second poll was what kind of terrain the creature spends its time in. The audience chose subterranean so I added digging claws and narrowed the torso to make the creature more wedge shaped.

The third poll was how many heads the creature has. Crowd said 2.

And the fourth and final poll was what kind of tail to give it (or to give it none). The crowd picked a long straight tail with a club end.

After the final poll, I finished the tail and posted it and then felt like I should go ahead and paint it. Since I was already in an experimental mode, I took the sketch, blurred it a bit, and then mixed the sketch lines in with the digital paint layers. The final results are at the top of the post.

Here's the process video if you enjoy that.

I really need to get back to the work for my Patreon page, but this was an excellent little experiment and I plan to do it again in the near future.

This is the character I'm currently working on for Patreon:

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8/14 '22 7 Comments

That was clever twittering.

Thomas Boutell

Thank you sir! I rather thought so.

The key, to my way of thinking, is to actually give people a reason to be invested rather than mindlessly echoing "Please like and subscribe and share with your friends BECAUSE REASONS."

Matt Lichtenwalner

And what are you calling the crowd-sourced beastie?

Rob

Jack.

Lindsay Harris Friel

I like it!

Though here's a question - should it get two names given the two heads?

Also, do they read as different personalities?

Matt Lichtenwalner

Currently open for discussion, and taking suggestions!

Matt Lichtenwalner

UNRELATED: DO THIS: https://www.americansforthearts.org/events/national-arts-and-humanities-month/poster-competition

Lindsay Harris Friel

20180911 Art Thoughts Matt Lichtenwalner 9/12 '18

Art is my illicit drug of choice. The more I create, the more I need to make to get off.

Okay, so I put it that way to be a touch provocative, but it's also kinda true. I've been doing more illustration work pretty much every chance I get and I'm still getting further behind. What's more, I want to do more. That's kinda crazy.

ETA: Okay, I think I was going to go deeper into this and then change the post to public, but I've lost the train of thought and figure I should just let folks see it as is for now. I can always comment more later if I get that thought back.

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9/12 '18 6 Comments

The dimension in the last female figure iteration is wonderful.

Shelle Klein Houser

The one that's all the way left? The were-panther?

In any event - thanks! I've been working pretty hard on my female forms recently. I want to be able to do 'ideal' but not make that every female character like in bad comic books. Too often, comic artists learn a 'template' (which, of course, is some kind of idealized Olympic athlete which somehow retains breasts and butt cheeks) and just apply that template to every female character ever.

I don't wanna be 'that guy'.

Matt Lichtenwalner

Not the were-panther, the one in the second picture, the one with the big ears.

Shelle Klein Houser

Ahhh. Gotcha. Technically, that's a he/him, but you can't really tell since he's wearing a poncho. I _was_ also told to make him quite chubby. If you're curious, there's more info on this one in particular (and my process in general) here: http://dragonbones.net/character-portrait-drawing-process-a-step-by-step-demonstration/

Matt Lichtenwalner

Dood, your coloring skills are really getting great!

Jill "xtingu" Knapp

Thanks beb. All I can see is how very far they have to go, but I'm glad someone is seeing the improvement. ;)

Matt Lichtenwalner

Inktober / Drawlloween Matt Lichtenwalner 10/1 '16

First, I should point out that I hate the name Drawlloween. I love the concept behind it, and I'm taking part, but there's just something about the name that is very much like fingernails on the chalkboard for me. I think it has something to do with the way some people have asked me throughout my life to "please drawl me something?". That's not the word.

I'm not really a grammar nazi. Not really. I just play one in my head.

Okay, yeah. I kinda am.

Anyway. I love the idea behind Inktober and Drawlloween. (Links are to their respective FB groups.) This year, I decided to take part in both. Yes, that's a little bit insane.

Unless, of course, someone got the idea in their head to combine the two. Which I did. So I created a quick cheat sheet which can be found here: Inktober Drawlloween Combo Prompts. (Document also contains the list of prompts for each separate group.)

So - I don't know if any of you were thinking of taking part, but if so, feel free to let me know! (I'll probably be posting the images here - or at least links to them throughout the month.)

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10/1 '16