Whoops!

Totally forgot to post the Big Beautiful Wonder Woman-a-month for March! I did post it on my Deviant Art page but not here. Sheesh.



This is something I've wanted to do for a while. The whole concept of WW's invisible jet as a bunch of white lines or, in the case of Darwyn Cooke, absolutely nothing really bugged me.

If it were totally invisible how could she actually find the dang thing on the tarmac let alone control the engines with the invisible levers or even see her altitude on the invisible flight instruments.

I figured that the SKIN of the invisible jet could be invisible and ended up with this image of BBWW getting ready for a flight.

Her costume was fun to design as it's a Wonder Woman-ed version of 1950's pilot gear The jet that you only see parts of is a bit of an inside aviation joke. It's an invisible T-33 Shooting Star, a 1950's jet that had a notoriously small cockpit that even average sized men had trouble getting into and out of, let alone BBWW. Of course, it had to be a two-seater so she could cart Maj. Trevor around.

The main image is hand inked and digitally colored while the background is totally vectored. The only thing I couldn't work out is how the shadows of the invisible jet parts would work so I copped out and didn't do them.

In other news, I've started full-time at Earl's Bikes. It was my favorite store before applied there and now that I work there and know the people better, it's easily the best bike store I know. I'm in the service department mostly with a little bit of time on the floor. I worked the floor last summer there part time and was asked by the owner to come back full time. Very little hesitation with 'yes'.

Cheers!

listening to while posting: nothing. I've shut everything down and then realized I needed to post.

Ram. Blin.

Sweet Enemy and I took a trip to DC to visit AndreZero and ScienceGirl. Here are some notes of the trip

- Trains are cool, but better if your seatmate is a close friend.

- Thirteen hours is a long time, especially if you spend seven of them riding backwards

- Drawing on train not possible due to vibrations. Good thing I brought along a giant book. I did make some attempt during longer stops. Here's a small sketch of a guy walking by while waiting in West Haven, CT




- There is no 'wrong side of the tracks'. Every place where buildings meet train tracks is a buffer of garbage. What is with people?

- A train may make good time but, unless your destination is the first stop, it doesn't matter: they never depart before their set time

- DC Metro is ridiculously easy to navigate, if the Metro card kiosks aren't

- DC Metro is also ridiculously clean and the people are relaxed. It's weird.

- Met by AndreZero and ScienceGirl outside Metro station then walked 100 meters to their apartment. Brought them a gallon of real maple syrup. More expensive than gasoline but so tasty. Bags much lighter on way home.

- Downtown DC near the mall is cool and the nicest city I've been in. Probably because it's tourist-oreinted.

- Hit the National Air and Space Museum. Not near enough helicopters, USCG or SAR. By "not near enough" I mean "None"

- National Portrait Gallery is awesome. It is the only gallery where I didn't get art fatigued. I even sketched a marble bust (I meant to just draw the hair but, kept going). Never looked at the card though. Re-drew the picture 'better' the next day waiting for ScienceGirl to wake up. ScienceGirl not MorningPerson.


- Met AndreZero and ScienceGirl at the NPG and they took us to great small Mexican place. Guacamole made right at our table. Fresh and good. Margarittas, too! Good thing not driving.

-Hanging with AndreZero and ScienceGirl on Saturday and Sunday. That's all we really came for.

- Ate with them at a real cafe near Politics and Prose. By "real" I mean that there was a guy eating lunch with a glass of wine all by himself; you don't see that much at regular restaurants. The food was mediocre, but the service and atmosphere was outstanding. If I lived there, it would be my regular place.

- Was introduced to both Cuban cuisine and the Mojito. Both are awesome. Waiter was wonderful. When Sweet Enemy asked for the tiny remains of our dinner to be wrapped up she apologized for having to wrap up such a small amount but "it was so good". Waiter returned with a take-away box filled with more of what we had. Wonderful.

- Home for more drinking and Lego Creationary *. It is fun but, more fun drunk!

-Dragging AndreZero to the Natural History Museum. He was a good sport.

- At the NHM watched a mom deal wonderfully when her two little girls found the human child skeleton on display.

- None of us noticed the stuffed leopard in a fake tree right over our heads. So much for survival.

- Dinosaurs smaller than when I was eight. Also, T-Rex not dragging tail anymore

- NHM is for kids. Not just the layout and interactivity. It's that they don't answer a lot of questions, they just make you want to find out more on your own. Not a bad thing.

- At NHM discovered that there is a creature called the Pink Fairy Armadillo. No, really.

- Introduced to the TV show Sherlock. Very much goodness.

-Ate home-made nachos for dinner while watching Sherlock. It's good to be a grownup

- Much wine consumed over visit. Tried to introduce ScienceGirl to good beer but doesn't like belching.

The worst part was saying goodbye. We didn't need to be in a place with great museums and restaurants. Hanging out with AndreZero and ScienceGirl was the reason we went. Hope we were good guests. We tried to be good and not needy and all.

Listening to while posting: "French Navy" By Camera Obscura
*Note from that night written down on notepad for some reason: "Everyone's like: 'it's the Italian flag!' and you're like 'No, it's Sushi!'"

Art show, new art and a preview!

Art Show:

I got into my first real gallery show at The S.P.A.C.E Gallery in Burlington! Sure, it might be because Sweet Enemy has been showing there for a couple of years. Sure, it might be because we've gotten to be pretty good friends with the owner and the resident artists. Sure, it could be because it was a kinda-small, last-minute, hey-let's-do-this sort of show and all I had to do was ask.

Or, it might be because it's The Cute Show and The Glitter Dragons fit right in! I submitted this new poster piece and four individual portraits (to be posted soon).



At the opening Friday, I wondered if I should feel ashamed for creating such nearly unbearable cuteness but, I consoled myself that they're cute with attitude and they seemed to go over big with Lucy Lou the standout favorite. There's also been a request for Glitter Dragons Valentines cards. Sheesh.

(speaking of Glitter Dragons: any artist out there who'd like to draw their own rendition of the GDs please do! Just check the blog for details. Any musicians who'd like to write their theme song, let me know as that'd be awesome)


New Art

It's Big Beautiful Wonder Woman-a-Month time again. This time is a tribute to the Golden Age of comics where anything could and did happen!



The yeti is based loosely on Philbert Appleshrug, a live-size plush yeti by highly talented artist Kelice Penny. Philbert was a wedding gift to Sweet Enemy and I from an amazingly awesome friend (I like to say that he's not just cool because he gave us a yeti, he's cool because he's the kind of guy who'd give us a yeti!)

Preview

Coming soon to Obscure Tales

New year, new stuff

Firstly, Glitter Dragons!

For better or for worse, I've started another blog dedicated to this strange exercise in cute. I'm hoping to get a bunch of artists, but we'll see!

Give in to the Glitter!

Secondly, I've been occasionally posting on the Big Beautiful Wonder Woman blog. However Jamal has so much on his plate that it is often not on his radar. I'd promised a BBWW a month so, as it's now the new year, I'll start here.

Here's the BBWW for January in all her Amazonian glory!



Hand inked; digitally colored. I'm inordinately proud of this one. Click to make her bigger; I can guarantee an increase in beauty.

Cheers!

Listening to while posting: Kiss Kiss by Perov Stelar (It's not playing but, I can't get it out of my head)

Season's Greetings

The cusp as the new year ends and another begins is usually a time for reflection. This is one of those refletions.

I consider myself to be one of the luckiest people on the planet. Mostly it's people. In my life now are many wonderful people that make my life wonderful. They are nearby and seen every single day. They are far away and not visited nearly often enough. They have never been met in person but, I very much like to.

The things they do are big and they are small but all help make my life great. What makes the things they do all the more marvelous is that they seem to be done unconsciously just because of who the people are.

I want to thank you all. To avoid embarrassment, or any semblance of favoritism, I won't make a list. It would also take a long time.

That's how lucky I am.

I feel as though George Bailey, on Christmas morning, would say "Dang. You've got a lot of nice people in your life, son!"

Thanks, everyone.

I hope I've done enough to earn your friendships.

Call to Artists (of sorts)

Okay. As you may know, I work at an independent bookstore. Yesterday, I was working with a female colleague when a mom and nine-year-old (ish) daughter walked nearby. I overheard a short exchange and recounted it to her.

Me: that little girl was hilarious. She told her mom she wanted a puppy calendar but then said that she really wanted a rock star calendar. So, now I have to invent the perfect little-girl calendar with puppy rock stars!
Colleague: And glitter! Have to have glitter!
Me: And dragons!
Colleague: Glitter dragons!
Me: That's it! A calendar of a puppy rock stars in a band called "Glitter Dragons"!

So, this is you mission, should you choose to accept it: A picture (or more) of puppy rock stars in a band called Glitter Dragons. I'll be doing this to and posting my result(s). If you would like to participate, there's no money nor likely even fame involved. Just fun. Standard PG-13 no scat/vore/gore rules apply. Send your pics to revansATobscurius.org. Deadline for submissions is Jan 31, 2011 (unless a bunch of folks want to do it and demand a slightly longer deadline)

I'm personally doing it because it's outside of my comfort zone. I don't do cute very well and I've never actually drawn a puppy.

Listening to while posting: "Cruel Sea Captain" by Bryan Ferry from the compilation "Rogue's Gallery"

24HCD 2011

Whew.

Another year, another 24-Hour Comics Day. A shout out to our sponsors firstly Sweet Clover Market for the BIG box of assorted snacks; Phoenix Books for the two urns of coffee and a dozen cookies; Rocky's Pizza in Williston for, what else? Pizza. And of course Artists' Mediums for the venue and hard work.

This one was harder than normal because I was not only participating in the 24HCD, not only helping organize it, but also participating in the Open Studio Weekend on Saturday from 6m - 8pm; right during 24HCD. So, I spent the week before getting stuff from sponsors for 24HCD and getting some artwork ready to hang at Phoenix Books.

The setup of both events went smoothly, the Open Studio the night before. I arrived at the event, set up the coffee and I fell into my normal 24HCD routine: I started writing the story first. I love coming in cold, it's part of the fun. All I had in my head since the drive in were the words "bi-plane" and "sphinx". So, with those words I carved out a rough story. Then, I started thumbnailing and writing at the same time. This is sort of a scaled down version of how some folks do 24HCD; they start at the beginning and just write until all pages are filled. It's the same way except there is some revising and I try to have at least an idea of the ending before I get too deep.

Writing and thumbnailing took two hours. It would have taken less except that I mis-numbered my thumbnails early on (I had two #3s) and had to add some pages.

Then, I started drawing. I used a Pentel brush pen (hacked with Higgins Black Magic replacing the awful stock ink) because I didn't want to get bogged down in the details as I would with a Pigma Micron. I did use Microns for the panel lines, lettering and for the eyes .

There were more interruptions this year with friends coming in to talk, great artist banter and heated discussions, so I didn't even get to page five before I had to go to the Open Studio bit. I wasn't sure what to do there as I'm usually on the other side of the art scene. However, two friends were there and they bought me some good beer and we had an impromptu tasting. What was nice is a local middle school librarian asked for my help in an upcoming project where kids will be either writing a play or a graphic novel.

Then back to Artists' Mediums to try to finish my comic. The beer-bringing friends showed up at 24HCD (sans beer) and chatted for a long time. I kept working until 5am then took a nap for an hour. I got to finishing the pencils and then inking the panel lines and letters of page 17 when I just had to stop. I helped clean up and we were out the door by 9am. I was good to go, tired-wise, until I was within a few hundred meters from our house, when I nodded off for an instant and drifted into the oncoming lane. I snapped awake before I went off the other side and, since it was a 30mph zone on a backroad in Vermont on a Sunday morning, there was nobody coming.

Sweet Enemy and I crashed for a bit; she on the couch with Fat Grey Cat and me on our bed. We didn't plan to sleep more than an hour but while I set the alarm I forgot to turn it on. I drifted awake three hours later and felt good to go.

Here's this year's story. There are some issues I have with it. Some are story elements I would have done differently if I'd had the time to revise the script; stupid ideas I'd purge; some are words I put in by mistake ("ridden" for "riddled"); and POVs that I wish I'd done differently.

It's got a lot of aviation in it but it's "television" aviation. That means there are some really stupid things involving planes and history here. I'm a former aviator, scale modeler, war history buff and usually a stickler, but I'm asking you as all of these things to please forgive the tv-style silliness...

But, here it is with all its flaws and incomplete-ness.

I'll probably finish it in the next week. I'll refrain from editing m thumbnails and try do each page as quickly as if it were at the event to try to maintain a continuity of style.

































So, what did you think? Should I continue? Should I refine it into a tighter story with tighter art or let it lie?

Listening to while posting: "24" by Jem. I bought Jem's "Finally Woken" for Sweet Enemy for her birthday and I like it more than she does now.