LIttle something something

A few pages from the Vindicated project which is now completed.  I wanted to get that out of the way, so I can feel right about moving on to more projects.   It is a donation, but I let paying jobs distract me from completing it in a timely manner.

Vindicated 1 First Four completed

This is for an after school program through 12 comics and Studio4hire, that rewards kids for good grades by letting them create a comicbook, I came late to the project and am completing the back half pencils. Which is the simple explanation. The complex explanation is that I came to the project after another artist balked at completing it -- the reason was understandable once I read the script. The script was too complex, it required a lot of things happening on every page and in most panels things happening in the foreground and background, and there were a lot of panels per page.

My personal professional opinion was that the script focused more on certain characters to the detriment of other characters. Further, the story was bogged down in producing back story so that there was a very slow set up: introducing characters, whose point is to introduce other characters, who then introduce other characters, who then go into action -- so that your fight scene is reduced to two pages. So I made story suggestions, because it is a donation -- I'm not getting paid nowhere near enough -- for kids. And I think every kid wants to see their character DOING something. I wanted to donate enough pages to give every child what they want, but the problem with working in a studio is that you're also messing with someone else's money, so trying to make do with 10 pages and it still won't come out right. Best I can do.

Darkness Issue 11

One of the reasons that I haven’t been as successful as myself and others feel I should be in breaking into the Big Two is that I am being a perfectionist, so I would change faces or styles or details, finish a page, then erase the face or change a hairstyle, all sorts of things that limited my portfolio. I can and do sometimes design on the page – that is I would not predesign a character or object I would create it directly on the page. This works, except when the design doesn’t work or looks wonky, and being a perfectionist I would want to correct it, so erase, start again. You don’t tell an editor it’s incomplete because I wanted to change something, or improve something, or perfect something they want finished product. They want to know you won’t spend months perfecting a page when they need product right away. So I used to end up starting samples and not finishing them, because I would invest only so much time and then I would move on. Working full time jobs and drawing in the evenings, I would want fresh samples so those sample pages I spent weeks working on, I would shelve and then start another set of sample pages. So I dug out my incomplete samples and will post some.

Darkness and Witchblade have always fascinated me, and I’ve always wanted to do some pages for either book. There are some really nice textures available in both – in these pages I did the Darklings as just shadow creatures, but I have pages and sketches where I’ve done them as almost every variant imaginable, from super deformed characters to Brian Froud type fairies beings, fanged horror movie gremlins and others…

The Darkness Armor has no definitive form from what I can gather, so I’ve drawn that in organic variants and anime inspired mecha.

X Force 5.1

Astonishing Xmen 37

When I sent my second completed set of tryouts for I sent this to the Submissions Editor: Here's some pages from Astonishing Xmen 37 featuring the formidable Fin Fang Foom! I consider the FFF the grouchy old man of monsters, the original FFF looked like a grouchy old man and sounded like a grouchy old man -- he just wanted to go back to sleep! I can picture him telling kids to stay off his lawn. I was a photographer for Google and one of the programs that they have is street views of the larger cities of the world one of those cities is Tokyo. So I used images from Shinjuku in Tokyo for the location of the story. The vehicles are the most popular vehicle in Japan, the Suzuki Wagon R. The truck is a Dekatora -- decorated truck, they are covered with lights, perfect for a night scene. guess that's it -- references for anyone that needs them.

Marvel Tryout 2 Part 2

Seven completed pages.

Marvel Tryout 2

The Hulk 30.1 script was not my first tryout script with Marvel, but it is the first project that I completed in the time frame I set for myself. The time frame was meant to show professionalism with the material. I went monkey nuts with the enthusiasm to draw for Marvel and threw all my years of education and training out the window. I did excellent research, but I didn't do solid designs before penciling. I did a lot of designs on page. r For instance, the plane featured is a Lun Ekranoplan. The first image of it is based on a photograph -- I made some minor adjustments on the photograph, since it pretty much matched my thumbnail, but I should have drew it from scratch, because it looks quirky. I didn't use perspective I faked it, and I REALLY can't fake things AT ALL. I resisted some of my worst habits -- like SOMETIMES drawing Kirby fingers on characters, but I'm sure there are some graphic gaffs. I completed seven pages in five days which was a goal for me to see how I would handle a deadline. I did very well, was very happy with my timeliness. There are always some things I like about my art, things I feel like I captured well. So here 'tis.

Pencils For Marvel

I had wanted to go to Wondercon on Friday and present my portfolio at the Marvel program, but I didn't get the chance family obligations took precedence. So, on Saturday, I went to Wonder-Con without an agenda, just going to connect with a few friends and see some distant ones. I had my portfolio full of pages from my Xeric Grant project and some pages that I have never submitted to Marvel. I always carrying my portfolio, I saw a familiar face. Couldn't quite place it, but he was talking to CB Cebulski, my supervision allowing me to read his badge at a distance. I waited politely until they finished their conversation, then asked about the program, he allowed that I had missed it, but that he would take my copies -- I was totally excited that I was allowed to submit anyway. I visited with my fried Tomm Coker -- new book out Undying Love -- buy it read it. I also spoke with Erik Larsen and he made some suggestions and I followed his advice.

I arrived late to WonderCon Sunday, so if Marvel wanted to see my portfolio, they couldn't. But I ran into CB Cebulski and Axel Alonso (Marvel EIC) and gave them the fresh copies of pages I had never submitted to Marvel. CB stepped into the booth and gave me his email address and the email address of the submissions editor. I emailed an introductory letter. The submissions editor gave me, someone else's email and we've been in communication ever since! It's been great so far and I look forward to showing them what I am capable of. These are the layouts at comicbook size, I will shoot them up to 15 by10 and do finished pencils.

Complex Life

Just wanted to post something. I am still drawing, but don't have the facilities to publish to the internet right now. I will get back to regular updates soon.