Wednesday, December 18, 2013

SKETCH CARDS?

I was asked to do some, recently.  A first!  I don't care for drawing small.  Thought I'd hate doing these.  I wasn't wrong.  Not completely.  I might try to do some more.  See if I can get used to it. 
First time using the markers I bought over a year ago.  First time doing anything in color in about 20 years.  I don't hate them.  Not completely. 

Thursday, October 24, 2013

NOT THE MOST OFFENSIVE THING TO SPILL OUT OF MY BRAIN-PAN ONTO PAPER.

The request was for Jesus and Thor drinking together holding their Hammers.  I added the piss-wine.  I, actually, pulled back a bit on this one.  It could've worse. 

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

I'VE BEEN A BAAAAAD BOY!

Way too long since my last post.  Between the move and work it's just slipped my mind.  Here's a Wolverine drawing to tide you over until I can get back to you. 

Sunday, August 11, 2013

I LOVE BROOKLYN!

I'm back in the city.  Mostly moved in.  Working to catch up after time lost to packing and the move.  I've seen a few friends and I can"t wait to see more. No new art to post just yet, but keep your peepers peeled. 

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

SKETCH COVERS

I've been doing a lot more of these.  I suppose most doodlers of doodles are.  Here are a few of them.  More Deadpool.  The kids love Deadpool.

One thing that is truly baffling about sketch covers is their inconsistent paper quality.  If it was company to company, I would understand, but on these four covers-all Marvel titles-the paper quality varied from cover to cover.  Some slick enough the ink sits on the surface and easily smears, others so porous they sucked the ink like a hungry leach.  Get it together publishers  One cover stock.  Good quality.





Monday, July 15, 2013

KAPOW! SKETCHES

The move date is fast approaching.  So, I did a farewell sketch and sign at the localish comic shop, KAPOW! in Sherwood AR.  There was much jaw-waggin' and ink-slingin'.  A win/win by any measure. 

Here are the doodles that got dood.








I ran out of time and gas.  So, I wound up bringing home two to do in my down time.




Saturday, July 13, 2013

AT LONG LAST, A COMMISSION!..

It's been a while.  Probably, over a year.  Don't pity me.  I have a list of commissions to draw.  I just haven't been able to get to them.  There are some guys who've been waiting for quite some time.  Feel bad for them. 

Don't feel too bad though.  I never take money until I'm done.  I've heard horror stories about artists who take money up front, then drop off the face of the earth.  There's a lesson in that for all you collectors/commissioners.  Do NOT pay your artists up front.  If you absolutely must, you might pay them a percentage as a retainer, but not any amount you're not willing to lose. 

Now, I'm not saying all artists/cartoonists are flakes.  I'm just saying enough are you should be careful.  It's just good sense.

Well, enough with the dispensing of wisdom.  It's doodle time. 



This is a little doodle I like to call PROJECT PEGASUS POKER PARTY.  The commissioner asked for a shot of The THING playing poker with a table full of heroes.  I'm pretty sure (I said it was a long time ago) he said he wanted Wolverine.  He might have even mentioned Titana (the broad with the boomerang on her head).

Now, my being a card carrying (and paste eating) nerd, I remembered the old Marvel Comics series Marvel Two-In-One, which every month teamed The THING, from Fantastic Four with random heroes from the Marvel Universe.  In this series, he often found himself involved with an experimental and top secret experimental hi-tech research facility.  This facility hired a revolving door of d-list heroes as security. 

There were some characters I really wanted to include- not because I have any great love for them, but because they were just so dopey and obscure, I know it would be my only chance for the cheap giggle.  Alas, there was only so much space. 

I've always loved Ant-Man.  His power is so incredibly lame, but I love insects and his helmet is bitchin.  His power over ants, also, presented the opportunity for a visual gag.  If I can, I try to put stupid little details in a drawing to amuse me and the Viewer. 

I've always been amused by the need to have "black" in the name of black characters and the group needed a splash of color.  So, Black Goliath was a shoe-in.

Valkyrie has always been a favorite character I've never really read.  I've never really read Avengers or Defenders.  She has a great look, with her hair in her face.  I imagine she could be a really interesting addition to a team.  She's a mystical being from Asgard.  So, your most powerful character on an otherwise male team is a woman.  Cool right?  I'm, also, drawing a graphic novel involving  Norse mythology (sort of).  So, it's a nod.  I follow Debbie Harry on facebook. I thought of her while drawing the character.

I needed someone serving snacks and Jacosta sprung to mind.  I got nothin' else on her. 

I've had a few comments/questions regarding the HAMM'S BEER lamp.  I just wanted to use a more obscure brand (to fit the heroes) with a fun graphic/mascot.  The bear won. 

I'm considering having this thing colored and made into a print to sell at shows.  What do you think? 

Thursday, July 4, 2013

INKING/DRAWING TIME SPLIT

I think I might have mentioned I picked up an inking gig.  I'm working on a five issue arc of Ultimate X-Men, starting with #29. 

There's a lot to like about inking.  It's much faster than pencilling.  It's, frankly, much easier.  The pay isn't as good as pencilling, but because of the previously stated reasons, I can ink more in a day than pencil.  So, it more than works out.  I'm inking an X-book.  So, there are residuals.  Free money is always a good thing.  It being an X-book, also, increases chances of selling originals. 

Aside from the monetary and laziness advantages I get to play around with other styles/techniques I wouldn't normally use.  So, it can be a learning experience- something I can take back to my own work.  Going back to the issue of speed, once I finish my ink work, I can work on drawing.  It's a win/win.  That's the idea, anyway. 

There's been a bit of juggling.  In order to get a good groove going with my inks- it always takes a bit before I'm able to find the happy zone when inking a new artist-, I was neglecting my drawing. 

Now, I don't know about you, but my drawing muscles atrophy, practically, overnight.  Once I got back to drawing, I felt as though my drawing hand had been replaced with a monkey paw.  I have no idea what animal part had replaced the part of my brain used for drawing.  Layouts were a pathetic struggle.  I scrapped half of the first page layouts AFTER drawing most of it.  I redrew the first page I worked on three or more times.  Not exactly the best use of time. 



The rust has begun to shake off.  Getting the first page done exorcised a lot of the bad spirits.  Confidence and routine are a huge part of doodling.  The layouts for the second page came much easier and I only drew it once.  Other than forgetting to draw one of the characters into the scene, there were few bumps in the road. 


I'm sure it's all easy-peasy from here on out. 



Tuesday, June 18, 2013

COMING UP FOR AIR.


This business of regular posts is harder than it looks.  I haven't been drawing much of late.  Landed a gig inking an arc of Ultimate X-Men.  So, that's been taking up a good chunk of time.  Also, hit some cons and visited family.  So, it's been about a month without any real drawing.  Boy, that"s depressing.

But who wants to read about that nonsense.  Hell, I don't even want to type it!

Good news.  I started Back on FOUR NORSEMEN yesterday.  Struggling a bit.  The drawing and layouts muscles were/are a bit rusty, but by end of day today started feeling better about things.  That's the key-confidence and a good groove.

Now, back to the inking thing.  I'm inking five issues of Ultimate X-Men, starting with issue 29.  Keep your peepers peeled.  Here's a link to a few pages.  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.368164969952284.1073741857.337516879683760&type=1


xox

Monday, May 27, 2013

CON SKETCH STAMPEDE!

Hey kids!  I don't get to many cons these days -a situation that will be remedied once I get back to NYC- but I recently went to two in as many weeks.  I enjoy pressing the flesh with funnybook readers- swapping tall tales and pimping projects- and earning a bit of jingle by drawing sketches.  I thought you might like seeing some of them.  Peel your peepers and get a load of these.






Deadpool is usually the most requested doodle at shows, but this go around Wolvie won by a nose.  Though, one guy got three of them.  The fix was in.


Surprisingly, not the first Vincent Price con sketch I've been asked to draw.


Kinda blew it on Loki's face.  Happy with the Thor pose, though. 


Not the best princess of power I've ever drawn, but not the worst.  I always like drawing her.



Another of my favorite characters to draw.  I prefer the sweet and innocent over the grim and constipated.  Crazy old bastard J. O'Barr kept trying to reach over and "correct" the breasts on the top one.  Finally, after much clanging of pots and pans and squirting of water pistols he decided to to chase a different rat. 


The all new 52 whorish Starfire.  Apparently, she keeps her tits covered with advanced alien technology.  Reach for the stars...




I hate drawing Spiderman.  The bat-shit crazy it would take to design a costume like that, knowing full well you'd have to draw it a hundred times a month, it surpised me not ione bit when I first heard he was a, Ayn Rand wacko.  Still, I was pretty happy with the way these turned out. 


And another Deadpool makes it one and a half.  So, even with the cheat of one guy getting three Wolvies, the Canuck wins by a nose. 


Such a silly costume, but I love Power Girl.


Game of Thrones something-or-other.  I haven't seen it.  Waiting for it to hit Netflix.


Crimson Sabre, the creation of the guy who got it.


I love Conan, but I think I kinda suck at drawing him.  Bat-shit O'Barr reached over and inked a bit of one arm.


Chaos Comics character, Chastity.  I don't think I'd ever heard of her and knew nothing about her.  Chaos published "Bad Girl" comics in the nineties.  It was a short-lived trend.  In all the pics I saw online she looked like a vengeful dominatrix.  Oddly, one of my favorite sketches of the trip.  My lovely wife, who abhors this type of thing, agrees.  so, it must be true.




Friday, May 3, 2013

SHAME ON ME!

Not too long ago I promised I'd post more often and regularly, and here it is a month since my last post.  I've been busy, but that's no excuse. 

What's been keeping me busy is a case of the same old same old.  I'm plugging away on FOUR NORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, the graphic novel I'm doing with writer Matt Sturges.  Unfortunately, my production on this is like the trains in India- slow and smelly, but chugging along.  Hopefully, it's worth the wait. 

Here are a couple of my most recent pages.  Hope you dig em.


  Yes, my friends, this book is bat-shit crazy. 


Wednesday, April 17, 2013

EVERY NOW AND THEN...

I draw something I really like.  Aside from the jacked-up arm on Horus, this is such a thing. 

Monday, March 25, 2013

A LITTLE JOLT! OF PROCESS!

Since I've shown you the stages of a page I'm not crazy about, I thought I should show you some I, actually, kinda like...

First the thumbnail.  Gotta love the conversation pages.  In this one everyone is seated.  It can be a little tricky, sometimes- positioning characters so that all the conversation flows and the word balloon order works.  In an attempt to speed up, I thumbnail pretty tight- first in pencil, then tighter in ink.  Often the doodles stray into the margins.  A hand or head or some other element won"t work within the body of the layouts.  See the hands at the very bottom? 



Well, the hands weren't the only thing that didn't work.  Once I enlarged and lightboxed the layouts I didn't care for the bottom panel.  It was a little claustrophobic.  So, to the sketchbook 


I didn't take a photo of the pencils, but here they are partially inked.  Notice, I, also, changed the seating chart.  The two vikings on the left side of the table have switched places.   And see, doesn't the last panel work better than in the thumbnail?   



Aaaaand, the inked page...


Wanna see another one?

Here's a shot of thumbs in pencil.  See the notes to tilt the first two panels?  I do that a lot.   If I like how the panel looks, I don't want to redraw it.  That's be hard and I might not get it right the next time.  That's what I like about doing it this way.  The blank page freaks me out a little.  Doing a lot of the work in the layouts I'm able to stay loosey-goosey.  I can get it down informally and monkey around with it later if I need to. 


Aaaand finished thumbnail.  Honestly, I shouldn't call these thumbnails.   They're too big.  They're just about print size.  See, what I did was, I scanned a Marvel or DC page with all the crop, bleed and lettering guides, cleaned it up and I print a stack of it reduced to 65%.  I rarely stay within those areas, but it gives me an idea of what to shoot for.



Once again, I didn't take a photo of the pencils, but here's the partially inked page.  In another attempt to speed up, I've moved away from inking everything with a brush.  Instead, I'll hit a lot of it with a no.2 micron.  This time I went a little overboard.  I feel pretty comfortable with a micron, but it'll never be brush.  The dead line of the pen kind of killed the face in panel 4. Time to break out the pro white and noodle with it to try and breathe some life back into it. 

In case you're womdering, I'm listening to Fela Kuti and africa 70 as I type this.  If you don't like Fela, I don't think we can be friends.
 



 Partial inks and white out on the face. It's working out ok. 


And what I thought was the final inks. 



Why the confusion?  Well, once I thought I was through with this page I noticed two things.  The first was panel 1 lacked depth.  The dry-brush on the trees in the foreground might highlight my mediocre split dry-brush technique, but it did little for the page.  So, I spotted some solid blacks.  Easy-peasy.

The second was the crazed fellow in the wig and dress was supposed to be covered in filth and leeches.  No small detail.   

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret.  I don't like reading scripts.  Now, let me be clear.  I like to read- prose, articles, essays, history, biographies and above all comics-, but the script form leaves me cold.  It strikes me as disjointed and it's difficult to maintain interest.  My mind starts to wander.  So, I sometimes don't catch everything the first read-through.  It's a nasty habit and I need to be better about it.  It'd save me a lot of redrawing and solve the speed problem I'm always whining about.

You may think this is odd, and it probably is.  How on earth could I ever become interested in drawing comics if I don't like the required reading for drawing them?  First of all, when I was a kid making comics with my buddies, the egg-head writers in the group would hand me a short story and I'd adapt it.  It wasn't until the DC published the Watchmen HC, complete with Alan Moore scripts, that my buddies and I knew what a real live comic script looked like. The only other method we'd ever heard of was Stan Lee's Marvel method of hackery and total dependance on the genius of Jack Kirby.   So, in the face of ignorance, we did what came naturally.  We did it wrong. 

Second, I love to draw comics.  So, I muscle though the things I might not be completer over the moon about.  I love drawing comics.

Do what I say, kids, not what I do.  Read your scripts.  Read them carefully.





Hope you enjoyed it.  And if you didn't, tough titty cried the kitty cause the milk's gone dry.