Ben Hopkins Illustration

Here's a Photoshop painting I did recently just for fun.  Kicking around the female armor dilemma; how to suggest the female form without some utterly pointless bikini style armor.  I had fun designing the Abominable snowman here and getting that sword to really  ssshhhiiinnngggg!!!  out of the scabbard.  Still need to work on my fabric and hair textures, but I'm happy with most of this one.  All righty Ben, let's get some more stuff posted...

This was a submission to a T-shirt design challenge based on Neil Gaiman's poem, "The Day The Saucers Came".  It's a pleasant little tale about alien invasion, zombies, giants, Ragnarok, and a bunch of other hilarity.  Pencil, ink, and acrylic on Bristol with a little color added in Photoshop.

These are from a series of 50 comic book type drawings I did for a friend's project that probably won't get used now.  Oh well, it was a fun project.  All pencil on Bristol board with a tiny bit of sepia filter in Photoshop. .

Old sketchbook page, random media.  Good old Bram Stoker; this is actually more or less how he described the count's initial appearance.

Costume, make up, hair and jewelry designs I did for an upcoming project.   Pencil on very wrinkly tracing paper.  Yes, I like to revise.  This was my first foray into costume design, I really enjoyed it.

Old sketchbook spread illustrating Edgar Alan Poe's "A Descent into the Maelstrom."  Pencil, watercolor, acrylic, ink, gesso, white out, collage, you name it.  I just always liked this one, something about his right hand in particular.  So there.

This was the beginning of a comic I pencilled for a local author before it got killed.  Was a fun idea for a noir story set in the Bay Area in the 80s.  All pencil on Illustration board.

This is the credits page for an app I worked on called The Boy and the Dragon.  Like its companion app, The Boy Under The Sea, this is a learn-to-read app for kids that uses voice recognition to help kids learn reading with a fun animated story to play along with.  It's still in production.  This started as a pencil sketch and the rest is done on the Wacom in Photohop.

I'm getting better at doing cute I think.  This I did for the end credits of an app I worked on called The Boy Under the Sea, which was a really cool project.  The app has proprietary voice recognition software and as the kid reads aloud the story on each page, the app progresses to the next part of the story, assuming the kid read it correctly.  It's still in production.   This started as a pencil sketch in my sketchbook, the rest is Photoshop.

I never really liked the character of  Rorschach,  and I doubt Alan Moore wanted anybody in their right mind to like him, but he does look cool!  So when I got these weird blotches in purple and black on a piece of paper towel while fixing my printer, I immediately saw inkblots (because that's what they are!)  That became my current sketchbook cover, plus a little paint and toothbrush inking and some English Breakfast strewn for good measure.

This is an adaptation of a cd cover illustration I did years ago for a fan who wanted it as a tattoo.  The tattoo didn't come out exactly like this but it is kinda cool to think people like your stuff enough to go that far with it.  Scratchboard line art with photoshop colors.

I did these as part of a series on the signs of the zodiac; Ares and Aquarius in particular here.  I think I used a photo of Norman Mailer on the Ares.   Mixed media like ink, acrylic, pencils, pastel on illustration board.

Call him Ishmael; yep, this one is for chapter one of Moby Dick, "Loomings".  Acrylic on canvas with magazine collage used more or less throughout.

A few more pages from my block-printed comic The Vigil.  Here you're seeing the whole page as printed; the little black triangles in the corners show the crop area.

Here's another spread from my ongoing comic saga The Vigil.  This one is pure relief print.  It's something I call a papercut; it's like a woodcut  but instead of carving the image on a wood block, its carved out of illustration board.  It's much faster and easier than wood or lino cut and much cheaper, and you can get a middle gradient to print by tearing the paper instead of cutting and removing the top layer completely.  Then I just ink it with a  brayer, lay my print paper on it, and roll it with a huge rolling pin I made out of an old motorcycle fork tube.

This is a page from my comic series The Vigil , still a work in progress.  This one is pure scratchboard.

Here's a little WWII "deiselpunk" or "rivet punk" piece.  Not quite done.  This is a pencil sketch painted in Photoshop.  

Here's a commisioned dyptich I did showing one of my own comic characters, Dr. Abraham Kane.  Left side is oil, right side is all Rapidograph.  You have to get real close to see all the details on the ink side.   Had to photograph the oil painting since the canvas texture was confusing my scanner's poor little brain.