Spring colds and books.

Well, I missed a week of looking for work, drawing, making model airplanes and anything else fun as I was down with a cold from the 17th to the 22nd. Sheesh! I only get sick twice a year, but when I get sick, I get SICK!

Book

I have been doing some work on something that might lead to something else. Like money. I really enjoy making Page One-Hundred Comics. I got the wild hair to think about offering commissions of a people's favorite books. So, in that spirit, I've been working on a fully inked and hand-lettered suitable-for-framing page as a test. I chose my absolute favorite book: Northern Borders by Howard Frank Moser. I will recommend it to anyone who likes a good novel. It will be like little, if not nothing, you've ever read.

How's it going. Well...so-so. Here's first test (click for extra-big version):



The layout itself took about two weeks of sketching. I had to take many liberties with the text because a lot happens, but there's a big moment that had to be shown. But, I'm pretty happy with it as an adaptation goes. The explosion turned out, if I may say so, awesome. A lot of failed attempts went into it and it worked, considering I've never drawn an explosion that occurred in water before. The lettering is good, but I sort of cheated with the sound effects: I typeset them in Illustrator, printed them out and traced them.

What didn't work was the figures. Even discounting the misshapen head of the grandfather, they figures are... unsure. My linework is wishy-washy and tentative. I think it might be my lack of confidence with my dip pen. I'm going to re-work the whole thing this weekend.

Another Book

In March, Sweet Enemy snagged a big audiobook cassette set of "Tojours Provence" by Peter Mayle. It was the second book of (probably) true memoirs of an Englishman who decided to escape the city life and move to rural France. His exploits of language, customs, odd neighbors and finally coming to completely adopt his new hometown's rhythms and lifestyle is funny, sweet and satisfying. For comparison, think David Sedaris if he actually loved life mixed with Bill Bryson if he was 90% less insufferable.

We then snagged the other Provence books and are now in love with the place. With the exception of the food (which Mr. Mayle writes about with infuriatingly loving, mouth-watering detail), Provence is a bit like Vermont which is, I suppose, why I fell in love with it. SE and I would like to visit, but our money, time and French language skills are lacking. If we go, I'm going to hit up my Québécois/American friend Ghislain for some helpful phrases like:

1) I have no idea what you're saying. Do you speak English?
2) I know very little French and that I do know is abysmal.
3) Lunch, please? Tasty and not expensive? What would you recommend?

So, that's it. I have been working on some Big Beautiful Wonder Woman drawings, but I put them on hold to work on the Northern Borders comic.

Listening to while posting: "Gender Bombs" by the Stills

Three Things

1) Second attempt at sexy. With some feedback from pinup artist Becca and some others (including my dad. Weird), I got back to work. This one is closer. Not there, but closer. I seem to have forgotten to use one piece of feedback that Becca gave me: exaggerated features often make a character look more natural. Looking now, the piece would definitely benefit from a little exaggeration. The poses and composition, however, I feel are a bit better. Sweet Enemy says when I finally get a drawing I'm finally happy with, she'll go all James Jean on it. That should be sweet. Here it is:



2) I spent the morning at my local independent bookstore (LIBS) with an double Americano and sketched out some potential covers/pinups of the stars of Interrogation 101. Anyone got a favorite? If not, I'll probably do them all for the inking practice.







3) Serendipity. This has nothing to do with art, but I thought it was neat enough to mention. Last Wed. I was heading back from my LIBS coffee morning. At a certain point on the way home, I had to stop for a bit because a wide load truck was negotiating a sharp corner. The truck was carrying some massive wind turbine blades! They were huge and all sci-fi-looking.

Yesterday, I was heading home from my LIBS coffee morning and at the same point in the road at around the same time, guess what? Yup. Another wide load truck transporting wind turbine blades! Freaky, no? Good thing I don't believe in coincidence. I guess that Wednesday around 11 AM is Wind Turbine Blade Truck Time in Jericho, Vermont!

Listening to while posting: "Shadows" by Au Revoir Simone

production design

So, as I said last post, I've been inspired by Jake Parker and his fun Missile Mouse comic. For an upcoming project (guess what), I needed to make a spaceliner. Unlike the inestimable Mr. Parker, I haven't kept up with my spacecraft creation that filled my time in high school, so I had to start small. I started sketching based on a swan-styled spaceliner by the great sci-fi artist Angus McKie (dubbed the Interstellar Queen when it was featured in the great 70s sci-fi book Spacecraft 2000 to 2100AD).

The Interstellar Queen was a huge, long-range liner, but I needed a small medium-range passenger ship. So, rather than being swan-like, I went for a bit more duck-like. I also opted for a smoother, more aerodynamic profile as this would be an atmospheric as well as a spacecraft.



Mr. Parker also creates great cutaways of his great spacecraft. I thought about doing a full schematic, but after painting twenty little seats for a 1/72 plastic model of a Faiery Rotodyne VTOL passenger plane, I couldn't bring myself to draw dozens of identical seats just now. I'll absolutely have to figure out a floor plan later, but for now you will have to make due with a profile:



About the book I mentioned. If you like old-school sci-fi art, pick this book up. ABE Books has some and they start at US$10. WARNING: there is a newer version of the book published a few years ago. DO NOT BUY IT. Instead of the original artwork, the new book features CG rendering of the originals; a pointless and rather insulting thing to do. Compare their version of the Interstellar Queen with McKie's original

The other great one in the series is Spacewrech a great crammed full of really great art. These are also on ABE Books, but only a little more expensive

listening to while posting: "I'm Leaving" by Condo

more USCG-ish stuff

When I came up with the rescue craft in Death of a Friend, some might have thought I'd modeled it after the Samson from Avatar.

However, while I was modeling it after a previous design, it wasn't James Cameron's, it was mine. In 1994 or so, I started what was then an ambitious project: a 16" x 20" gouache illustration. It was meant to depict Air Station Kodiak in the near future and in the starring role was a SAR rotorcraft I designed, the HH-90d. I never got farther than transferring the image to illustration board and painting the cockpit, though. I only mention it today because, while cleaning up our 'library' I found the 16-year-old sketch (sadly, the unfinished painting is lost). Embiggen it, it's bigger.



Overall, it looks pretty good, but there are a few things wrong with it. Most obvious is the lack of true perspective. Each item is on its own plane almost as if I was using the ancient Egyptian canon. Also, was my lack of futurist vision. As of 2003, the building you see in the background is no longer the helicopter hanger; I'm not sure what it is. It's been around since WW2 and there's no real reason to think it'd be around in another twenty years. My retcon is that it's not the future, it's an alternative 1994! Trivia: I had a friend take a photo of me in my flight gear standing by a fire bottle for reference.

I'm considering seeing if I can make it work, but the perspective may bug me to much.

listening to while posting: Sweet Enemy using the vacuum cleaner on some sort of dirt.

hey, bud.

One of the things I'm going to try to do now is practice drawing at least a half-hour to an hour ever day. By practice, I mean drawing something that gives me trouble, not something for fun. Yesterday, it was Faces That Don't Look At Least A Little Bit Like Me. Most of mine do. So, I grabbed the flyer for the UVM Lane Series I had hanging around and drew the most interesting face I could find. Then, I tried to extrapolate on that face and draw it in another aspect. I think this worked pretty well. But, it was a nice clean headshot to work with. I think I might make him the villain in the new thing AndreZero and I are working on. If AndreZero agrees...



Right now, with all of my 'free time', I'm working on getting advertisers and stuff for our 24HCD. I've also written a Welcome Comic featuring the Strongman from the poster. It's working pretty well. Six 5.5" x 8.5" pages. Hope they like it!

Listening to while posting: "Meatball" by Atom and His Package

more pigs

They've got me doing some light developing at work in addition to design. The developing app is notoriously slow opening, slow synchronizing with the main repository and slow starting the local server. More than enough time to draw something.

After finishing the Pigs In Space comic cover, I had pigs on the brain. Working out the snout in different expressions and angles, while still keeping it slightly muppety was the task here. I neglected the hair and ears to concentrate on the faces. Some work, some don't, but that's just the way of things

Captain Lincoln "Link" Hogward (renamed from 'Hogthrob', hey, if they can do it for Apollo)



Lt. Piggy Lee (she was 'first mate' in the show, but that's just silly)



All I know is, if they ever do a re-imagining of Pigs In Space, I'm ready...

As far as the Page One Hundred contest goes. If I get no other entires, I'll be flipping a coin at 8pm EST to decide between Rambler and Rambler's Kin.

listening to while posting: "Playground Love" by Air

I'm terrible at surprises

I just can't wait and give them away too soon. I'm selfish that way.

This is a small side project I was sketching out while taking a break from the next Page One Hundred: "The Dharma Bums". Which is finished, pencilled and waiting to be lettered before inking.

In these days when cheesy 80's sci-fi becomes re-imagined, often with harder, more naturalistic edges, I got the wild hair to suggest another re-imagining. It's going to be a full-color fake comic cover when I'm done. I was going to wait to post until it was all colored, but I liked the sketch so much that I wanted to post it before I wrecked it inking.

I thought about using this as the contest for the original Page One Hundred art give-away. But that would have been too easy for people of a certain age so, I'll just use it as part.

The contest is simply to leave a comment. After one week, I'll print out the names, throw them in a hat and pick one at random. The winner will receive their choice of one of the previously completed Page One Hundred pieces or a new one from the book of their choice. If that person can guess the name of the show I'm re-imagining, along with the names of the characters, they get a free smaller crappy drawing of my choice to go with the main prize.

Yay.


(click to enlarge. It looks better bigger)

Lee Sargent asked about my lettering of the previous Page One Hundred. I used the ever old-school Ames Lettering Guide. It's pretty easy to use basically, but hard to use for real. The included directions are cryptic and while there are some videos on YouTube, but they amateur at best. However, even basically, it's easier than measuring and lining with a ruler.

Listening to while posting: "Width of the Circle" by David Bowie

random art and real life problems

Sorry, but Death of a Friend will be later than I want. I pencilled up the next two pages, but then dealing with our very ill cat took precedence.

She's sort of okay. Her hyperthyroidism is acting up and she may be going blind. It's heartbreaking to watch her pace around as though she's looking for something. She hugs the walls and almost bumps into everything. Word to the wise: If your animal is on meds for a condition and the vet has you giving him/her a pill or med-infused treat, unless your vet tells you DO NOT crumble the treat into the animal's food. Unless that animal is going to scarf up the entire portion, it won't get the recommended dosage and my have a relapse. Like ours did. I feel pretty darn guilty.

Anyway.

Here's a sketch I found while cleaning the house today. It's from a few weeks ago and shows my rendition of a Martian from the Rocco Vargas universe created by my favorite artist Danial Torres. Now, the way that Torres portrays Martians may, at first glance, to seem a bit of a 'minstrel show' look at race. But, I don't think he intended it as racist. He only has a few non-whites in his works, but his universe was intentionally the lily-white 1930's Buck Rogers-style 'future' (the stories take place in 1983 and he wrote them in 1987, get it?). The hero is absurdly masculine with a gigantic chest and lantern jaw, women swoon except for the kick-butt Asian warlord-girl. The most prominent Martian is Samson, Rocco Vargas' servant/valet/sidekick/best friend and their relationship is tighter than worker/boss.

However, it's always easy for us whites to say, "oh, it's all in fun", but I think this is all in fun, or at least tongue in cheek and is neither racist nor misogynist. Have any of you read any Rocco Vargas graphic novels? What do you think.

Anyway, here's the sketches of a Martian girl. I changed the nose to look a bit more alien:




I also remembered that I did an Illustration Friday piece with a Torres Martian girl back in '07. It's here.

listening to while posting: my poor cat stumbling around the room.

Process!

Here's the most recent iteration of the potential collaboration with Sweet Enemy. Some things are working, but some aren't. I'm not entirely happy with with the woman's forward foot and may change it. Her expression has been proving elusive. Most of the time, when trying to get her to be looking down with an affectionate smile, she ends up looking as though she is smiling in that way that people do when they'd rather be somewhere else. I've been re-working the page so much I think it's time to pull out the tracing paper.



I'm also not sure of what to call it now. I thought of a student and teacher, but SE wanted their relationship to be more ambiguous. What do you guys think?

The next two pages of DoaF are ready to go, BUT, I'm debating whether to wait and post the last ten pages all in one go as it's going to be a page-turner. What do you, my loyal readers, want?

Listening to while posting: "Darling, be here" by Bodies of Water

Obscure Tales addendum

Here are the first character sheets I sent to AndreZero. The character on the cover first appears here. AZ had done a sorta story way back, but two weekends ago we were at dinner and I told him I needed a story. He thought that the robo-medic story could be resurrected. I agreed and drew up a character sheet so that it might help inspire him.

They show as much of the robo-medics mechanisms as I could think of. I'm no Jake Parker, but it's not bad for me.





And, if any of you out there who know my real name care to know, I'm now on Facebook. I'm not sure why. I've got my own URL, a blog. I tweet and now Facebook. What is wrong with me?

Listening to while posting: listening for the sound of Sweet Enemy's car. She's gone to visit a friend who's feeling very down. Have I mentioned what an awesome person she is?

not here yet

The 24 Hour Comics Day comic is still at the store. Sweet Enemy was off today, so there it languishes. It should be back tomorrow and, in between freelance stuff that has piled up, I'll scan it. To placate you, here's the page that started it all that night. I sat there in the store sketching randomly to get the juices flowing and it was this guy who reminded me of something I saw a couple of weeks ago. I'll share the whole story of my 'thought' process when I post the comic.



Also saw Iron Man on Saturday night. It was good. Very nicely comic-booky (Sweet Enemy called the Good Version vs Bad Version as soon as she saw Stane). It was, to me, not as good as Ed Norton's Hulk. The production design was fabulous (especially the updating of the original suit), but it was lacking. The character of Tony Stark was perfectly developed (and wonderfully acted), but everything else seemed flat. Pepper Potts was slightly three-dimensional, but Obediah Stane was barely even a sketch of a character. His betrayal was no surprise and his death provoked no feelings whatsoever. Rhodey was a wasted character. It felt like a walk-on on a weekly TV show: see, it's my best friend who, for some unknown reason, hasn't been here, ever.

I am also a nitpicker (as I was with The Hulk), so here's some nitpicks:
Good:

-- MAN! Is Tony Stark's chest cavity ever deep! I'm no doctor, so maybe most people's are, but dang it seemed very, very deep! Even so, how do his damned pectoral muscles work with a hole larger in diameter than his sternum is wide?

-- The magnet made sense when it was car-battery powered and sitting on his chest bolted to his sternum, but why would it have to go so damned deep? And what was that wire plugged into (and how did Stane get the right fittings for his monstrosity, anyway?)

-- The magnet anyway. Did the comic ever explain why the pieces could never be removed once he was out of the third world?

-- The Iron Man suit is so heavy that it will drop through two reinforced concrete floors from a drop of less than a meter? What's it made out of, neutron star material? It was a funny scene, though.

-- What news service got that totally non-shaky video footage and the crystal-clear photos of the warlord and his new toy? From what we've seen on the news, Taliban insurgents don't really like reporters.

Interesting points:

-- Tony was very un-Batman-like; he killed without emotion. Terry Pratchett once said that if your life is in someone's hands, you should pray it's an evil man. An evil man will talk you to death, a good man will kill you without a word. Hmmm.

-- Tony's joy at the first suit test flight was really nice. No real person would be cool and collected at that moment.

Now, onto The Dark Knight!

Listening to while posting. Nothing. Hey! I should remedy that. Ah, it's 'Moonage Daydream' by David Bowie (duh)

randomness

Still drawing.

I should have done this earlier, but I'd like to thank all who critiqued The Beast. Especially Swinebread who gave me a few good paragraphs of criticism. All taken to heart, bub!

He did mention this: "Also make sure he’s always evil looking there’s couple of shots were he looks too cute. Save the Cute werewolf for Pidge.

So, here you go. I was waiting for a code build last week and sketched this out.



I think it worked because when I showed it to Sweet Enemy without introduction, she said, "nice she-wolf". I tried really hard to make it female without making it feminine.

listening to while posting: The Project(s) by DJ Logic

There wolf! There castle!

I just finished up the final layouts for The Beast. Sweet Enemy went over them to see if my pacing was good. Since it took her a minute to go through the last six pages, I've decided that I'm not going to post any more until I've finished it. Trust me, you'll appreciate it; we're getting too close to the end for the cliffhanger syndrome. I'd like to have them up by the middle of next week.

By way of apology, here's a sketch I did while concepting Queeg's final form:



Listening to while posting: "Whispering Wind" by Moby

And ending! A beginning!

I finished off a sketchbook yesterday. Woo! It's got just over a year of stuff in it and is the first sketchbook that I wouldn't mind someone looking at 'un-expurgated'.

Here's the last thing I did. It's Long Tall Sally berating Captain Armsakimbo for something. (without any background reference, he looks far away, when if fact LTS is very very tall. Hey, it's a sketch! Whaddaya want?)



Here are the first things in the new sketchbook. Pictures of Anne Margaret Johnson for the Weekly Challenge.





Listening to posting: Exquisite Dead Guy by They Might Be Giants

mini-sketch dump

Almost done with this sketchbook; one page to go!

As I've mentioned, I do a 'monster a week' for a co-worker. The Friday before last,much to my dismay, I missed one. So, this week I did her a double and it turned out to be a pretty cliche monster, but with scary potential. It would either make a good old-school slasher flick or a good story in 'Creepy' or 'Tales from the Crypt' comics



Zeke and Obed: Conjoined Twin Hillbilly Cannibal Serial Killers! Scary, no?

Less scary is another sketch of Jean d'Arc as a lamb. I think it would make a pretty good comic in the visual vein of Blacksad (not the visual skill, though). Here is young Jean as she first receives her 'vision'.




Listening to while posting: "Big Beautiful Spoon" by Poi Dog Pondering from 'Thinking like a mountain and wishing like the sea"

Been a long time since I've rocked and rolled

So, this weekend Kick Enemy Men (that's him on the right) and his wife came up north to go to see Clutch play at our local music club . They really dig Clutch, but I've never heard them before. KEM sent me a couple of MP3s, and I thought they were okay and I thought the show would be at least pretty cool.

However, it was great. Clutch is a really interesting band. They aren't a new band and not as hardcore as I'd thought they would be. They could really play. The bass player worked the hardest of all, I thought. This is because while the drummer wove the beat around and the guitar player mixed in these intricate little arpeggios, the bassist just kept thumping the downbeat. He must have carpal tunnel like mad. As an aging bassist, I can commiserate.

The crowd was fun to watch as well. While I am no Daumier, I've done some drawings of some of the more memorable (and easier to draw) fans. The show was on Sat, these were done on Mon and today:

First, there was Probably High (or at Least Drunk) Dancing Girl. This girl, short, with very red pants and her hair literally tied in a knot danced in this strange slowmotion thrash. Like she was battling her own inner mosh pit. In maple syrup. What really made me think she was high (or at least drunk) was how she talked to the merch guy of one of the opening acts. She kept pointing to different merch on the table and each time she pointed with a different finger. The finger she was pointing with also appeared to be what held her up:



This is supposed to be the merch guy for Clutch (we were near the merch tables, can you tell?). It doesn't really look like him, but I really like the picture, so there:



This guy was cool to see. Not just for him, but for what happened around him. As you can see, he has sort of a Kingpin Lite thing going on. What made it cool, was that everybody seemed happy to see him. This one girl saw him and ran over and hugged him like he was her long lost brother (maybe he was, who knows?). Later, she came running through the crowd to him with another girl in tow. This new girl seemed like she didn't know where she was being led, because when she saw this guy, her face lit up (another long lost sister?) and another hug ensued. I think I captured him pretty well:



This was one of the security people. She was about 5'3" and she carried herself with an assurance that went a long way to showing how a 5'3" girl can work security at a rock show. She was Asian with bleach-blonde hair and had one of those sneaky secret service earbuds attached to a not so sneaky walkie talkie on her belt:




So the show was cool, but it is always great to see KEM. We all drank a bit before we went to the show. I had to limit myself because I was driving and am not yet stupid enough to drive drunk. After the show we headed back and snacked on cashews and peanut M&Ms and drank margarittas (made in and consumed from our beautiful/tacky 60's bar set) and a drink KEM found in my Bartender's Bible called a Borble(which, when made with Southern Comfort, tastes exactly like the juice of fresh-squeezed Smarties).

I don't drink all that often (bar set notwithstanding), as I only do so with people I trust. KEM I trust alot. So, we were pretty lit. KEM's wife hit the sack about 1am and Sweet Enemy, KEM and I stayed up until 3. Playing Scrabble and watching DVDs. For the record, this show is terrible, even when very, very drunk. It's not even in a so-bad-it's-funny way. Trust us.

It was good to be oldish and go to a rock show, drink until three and STILL get up at 830am to make everybody a breakfast of homemade pancakes, scrambled eggs, VT maple syrup, undercooked homefries (only the second time I've made 'em) and fresh-ground, fair-trade, shade-grown coffee (from plantation owned by author Julia Alvarez). I usually make it brutally black, but I eased it up for the guests. Then we played a great game of Scrabble. It was KEM's wife's first time ever playing. She was a bit pissed about losing, but I told her (from personal experience) if you go through life expecting to win at your first time all the time, you're setting yourself for a world of disappointment.

After that they left, which is always not as good as their arrival. I felt pretty good despite it being along time in between rock and rolling. I did have a massive one hour nap attack at 230pm, but it was a Sunday after all. SE and I sat around playing Legos and listening to NPR all afternoon.

Listening to while posting: "Further I Slide" By Badly Drawn Boy

Sketch Dump 3

Hey, sketch dump time again. I'm going to keep doing this until I'm asked to stop, or I run out of storage space, or I forget.

This week started off good, but a lack of eraser for two days (duh), made for some crappy sketches. I was also working on my freelance project at night and a pro-bono poster design for a rural middle school's theater department.

On with the show. The first from Monday is a super team. I'm not sure if they are super heroes or super villains. It started with the guy in the middle and then just grew from there. I typed out the text that I had written next to the sketches as my handwriting was... not good.



The same day brought a freighter study for an upcoming comic and some more ENJPs.



Tuesday brought a good page. The upper drawing is supposed to be Mr. Twilight fighting a giant plant. What it looks like is a less gross version of the scene in Akira where Tetsuo attacks the Colonel. The little heads of Jean d'Arc as a lamb was an idea I was kicking around for a while, though I can't help feeling that Juanjo Guarnido would do it much, much better.




Wednesday brought works that really aren't worth showing (why, yes. I am editing). On Thursday I did some sketches for the Dare Detectives Weekly Challenge I mentioned a few posts ago. This was to be my heroine's 'Advantages'; what strengths she has over her foes. So, I did some quick little drawings. This one went with the description of her natural piloting abilities:



This was to go with a description of her extraordinary sense of her body in relation to its surroundings:



One thing I found here. Although I've been mountain biking seriously and continuously since 1987, I could not for the life of me draw a person on a bike! I could draw the bike fine but trying to put the rider on proved very difficult. Sure, could have hit my pile of Bike magazines, but this was a quicky. And I wanted to see if I could do it. So, today at lunch, I tried again.



That's all. Gotta go work on my freelance stuff. Yee ha!

Listening to While posting: Aurora by Bjork from Vespertine

Process!

This is going to be a big process post. It's not to show off at all, though. It's for me. First, so I can look at my work objectively (for some reason, when I post it, I can look at it differently than I can on the wall, or even in Photoshop). Secondly, maybe someone will stop by and say, "oh, you do that? Oh, try this instead, you'll get better results in the end". Or something.

This is the splash page for the comic that Andre Zero and I are creating: the adventures of Mr. Twilight.

This page started, ultimately with the script. But, you don't get to see that. Here's the initial thumbnail I made in the sketchbook when I was at work. Given that I had no time, it was just a basic reminder of the idea:



Then, while waiting for a code build at work, I took a minute or two to flesh it out a bit more:




then, one more time, a little bit bigger. These are all about actual size btw:




Then I did some figure studies. I felt I could base Mr. Twilight off of an older image, but the others needed to be worked on. You don't need to see all of the thumbnails and stick figures, so here are the ones that I had on the board when sketching out the final. Looking At Watch Guy was first:



Then came Fat Guy Talking To Conductor:



Then the hard one The Happy Couple. It's only been this past year that I've really done drawings of people interacting and this was extra hard. Doubly so because they were walking. STANDING is easy. I'm still not entirely happy with her feet, so I pulled a rare cop-out in the final piece and hid them behind a suitcase. You'll notice her lack of hair. This is because I did this at lunch and didn't want to be at my computer looking at Google images for research into 1930's hairstyles. It was easy enough to wait until I could hit my tearsheet file at home. I thought of giving her a hat, but changed my mind:




Then, the big sketch. First on greenbar paper (I actually found a big box of it in a closet at my dad's house. He was a programmer from way back and would bring home tons of the stuff. Great for a kid who likes to draw!) then traced onto comic board and refined in pencil. I am out of blue leads, so it was in 2H. This is full-size, about 9.25" x 13.75":



Then inked. I had already started on this when Swinebread suggested working with thicker lines, so it's thin lines. I am going to experiment with thicker linework this weekend.



Then color was added, type was placed and a piece of 40 year old (no kidding) newsprint from an old drawing set was scanned in and put in the background. AndreZero thought it would be cool if it looked old and distressed like a comic we'd found in a basement. The finished product:



Oh, Swinebread. If you've got some ideas, hit my design portfolio for some contact info that works. Cheap as free, man.

Listening to while posting: "Triangle Man (acoustic)" by TMBG

storage hog

So, no new finished works this week. However, I have been drawing every day for a while now, so I thought I'd post this week's sketchbook offerings.


A rear view of the Valkyrie suit. Designed by myself and AndreZero (15 Jan).




Since AndreZero is finishing up the script for the first installment of the Mr. Twilight story, I thought I'd brush up on drawing some of the characters. Here's Jackson Cort. And a hopefully thirties-esque airplane. And a random guy I made up who I think looks pretty cool. (16 Jan)


More Mr. Twilight. I'm trying to codify his look. I'm getting very close. It's nearly the same guy. I'm really happy with the expression on the right. (17 Jan)




While sitting listening to Sweet Enemy read Paula Poundstone's funny new book out loud to me. It was about midnight or so when I did this. I don't usually draw with a sketchbook in my lap, but these seemed to work out well.

A spacegirl! Yay! This was a bit sketchy so I worked it over at lunch. (18 Jan)



Another Twilight. Sweet Enemy says he has girl-eyes. So. He likes wearing a little mascara? He also packs a pair of M1911s. These weren't worked over, but done at midnight.



Also at lunch, I drew a little generic European car. It's an amalgam of many memories of 1930's cars.



The last lunch sketch from 18 Jan. I don't really draw a lot of guys, so I decided to try to draw Nightcrawler. I ran into the age-old problem faced by many comic artists during the years: how the heck do you show where Nightcrawler is looking? He's got yellow eyes with no iris!


Finally, here's an old picture of Jackson Cort. It was before AndreZero came up with the cool idea of having him in a cavalry shirt and Swinebread suggested rodeo gloves. It's even before I did research on Henry Rollins, J.C.'s inspiration. He's still pretty cool, I think.



Whew!

Listening to while posting: "the Pillows (Japan)" by Moon Marguerite. It was on my QuickList on Pandora.