MY BLOG IS MOVING!

My blog, this one right here, will now be integrated into my website. I know, I'm sorry. I should have done it ages ago; I think I might be the last person on earth to finally make the move. Please head on over and enjoy. I'll be posting with more regularity now that it's all incorporated into one place. It'll probably take over as my number 1 form of social networking; all these different websites to keep track of gets to be too much after awhile!

It's not a clear as it should be, but clicking on the "head on over" text above will send you there. Or you can just click here.

Anywho, thanks for your interest and support - I've got a lot of interesting things happening right now, so there will be lots to share very, very soon. Peace!

Even more Patreon stuff

Yet another header image. This is a story based on an 8 page short I wrote and drew way back in... heck, I don't know exactly - '98 or '99 maybe? The expanded version was initially going to be a 12 issue mini-series, but I think I can tighten it down to 9 or 10 issues now. That often comes with getting better at writing: you learn to keep things shorter and more to the point (but still leave ample room for characters to breathe, etc...).

It's also gone through a name change. It was originally Take That Job and Shove It, but it was too similar, I think, to the well known song. This title is far better fitting for the story, which is about a guy who learns he has super powers and the life that happens around him while he's obsessed with chasing his dream of becoming a well known hero. You know how all those Disney films tell you to follow your dreams? And how the protagonist in those stories always succeeds in the end? Well, this ain't one of those stories. This is a story that resonates with the other 99% out there.

More Patreon stuff

Another header image for my upcoming Patreon page. Forgot to add this one last time. Recovery Incorporated - another story long in the making. Not as long as Simon Brizdale, but long enough. This one was originally commissioned for a british comics anthology magazine, but they ran into financial troubles early on. Not getting paid meant, for me anyways, not continuing to draw and submit the art for publication. I was pretty sad to see this project fall through and will be pretty happy to finally get it out into the world.

If you like Rene Russo's character from The Thomas Crown Affair, then you'll like this story. Mia Raven is very much like her character, but with a little more action added in. Kind of a mix of Thomas Crown Affair and La Femme Nakita (the original french version, thank you very much).

Patron stuff

Headers for the three stories I'm going to be starting out with on my upcoming Patreon site. More details to follow. First up:

Simon Brizdale and the Gauntlet of Kings - a fantasy adventure, my love letter to the stories I love, like Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Firefly, Lord of the Rings, Buckaroo Bonzai, The Rocketeer, etc...

Next:

Bimbo - an action superhero satire about a tomboy who gets unwanted powers and is forced to cope with the changes it forces in her life. The story takes a hard look at a lot of social codes we live by.

Third:

ONE - a modern drama about how we treat each other as human beings. My buddy Dean Deckard wrote this as a screenplay and I knew I had to adapt it into graphic novel form the instant I read it.

I'll also be updating my website soon, using one of the newer sites that do all the heavy lifting for a person - I've spent too much time learning and relearning web design. No more. My blog will be incorporated into that site once I make the switch. Everything will be consolodated and more regularly updated once that happens. Yippie!

Inks over Mignola

My inks over Mike Mignola's pencils. I think I could ink his work forever - so fun and so educational. I'll make a few changes digitally before coloring, but overall I'm satisfied with it at the moment.

SAIL Magazine

My first illustration for the magazine just came out. It's for the monthly article "Voice Of Experience". Had a lot of fun doing this one (except for the all nighter and a half I had to pull to get it finished on time). I love the water, boats - everything that would make this a dream assignment. It's photoshop, start to finish.
Anywho, here's some process shots, ending with the published piece.

posted from Bloggeroid

The Trusty UH-60

Can't really share much of what I'm working on at the moment, but i figure a few ambiguous panels with no real context should be okay.



I wanted to share this one because of how much i love drawing UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Nostalgia to be sure. I spent an awful lot of time in these when i was in the army. I've jumped out of them at least 900 times or so (and other aircraft another couple hundred times), conducted sling load operations with them (where a buddy of mine damn near got crushed between a Hemmit - truck - and a Chinook - helicopter - ok, not a black hawk, but still), and been a part of massive air assault operations.

I've seen them do some amazing things - things you wouldn't think them capable of doing. I've been on board them for several of these. I've actually experienced zero gravity in them. Truth! They can perform parabolic curves just like the vomit comet (the plane NASA uses to train astronauts on zero gravity effects). The Black Hawk's curves aren't as big, so the zero gravity effect lasts for a shorter time period, but i feel comfortable saying we could get twenty to thirty seconds worth. Enough time to tumble around in the back, doing flips, or watching a pal's coffee come out of his cup and float across the cabin in a giant blob (Dave Keres, I'm looking at you, buddy)!

Even though zero g sounds like the coolest thing ever, i think the most amazing thing I've ever seen with Black Hawks is Air Assault operations. Being crammed in the back with two squads worth of infantry buddies and all our gear, looking out the windows and seeing twenty or thirty other Black Hawks flying in close proximity, with more infantry guys crammed in the backs, is a truly amazing sight. They're all bobbing up and down a little as they try to maintain their flight positions, heading en masse to a drop zone where they will all land, dump their cargo (us), and be off again inside of a minute, is awesome. It doesn't look as glamorous as seeing paratroopers jumping out the back of C-130s, but believe me, it's just as awesome.

It takes a lot of skill for these pilots to fly in such closer proximity to each other - in the back, our lives are literally in their steady hands.

The third coolest thing I've ever seen with Black Hawks (last one, I promise) is when they come in to land at night during combat (or simulated combat) conditions. They come in with no lights. I mean nothing. With the naked eye they might as well be invisible. What's so cool, however, is when you're wearing your night vision goggles. They suddenly look like something out of TRON. They've usually got one or two infrared strobes going and the rotor blades, which generate an incredible amount of static electricity, create a glowing ring around themselves. It's so science fiction looking.

Maybe I'll have to recreate some of these as illustrations at some point. Sounds like fun. :-)

posted from Bloggeroid