Easy Come, Not So Easy Go explained

More pages from The CORPS!

Jobs come and go. It's a part of life. This one wasn't so easy to let go, unfortunately, because of the 'not getting paid' part. That's hard. So there, now my stupid title has been explained. Not that anyone was wondering. It was bugging me, I admit it.

Design A Character

I love coming across new things, especially fun ones. I found this group over on DeviantArt called "Design A Character", link ,and thought "this should be good, fun practice". The first challenge in progress since joining the group (earlier today) is called "Drop In". You take a picture and add a character that would seem to fit.

I went to a website where I knew there would be interesting pictures, link , picked the first picture of interest I came across, and this is what my brain produced. Fun, and not overly time consuming.

Easy Come, Not so Easy Go

So way back when I posted pages for a comic I was working on with Rick Remender. Devil's Due was the publisher. The book: The CORPS! (pronounced "core"). It was a G.I. Joe kinda thing. I got an issue and a half done and the book got cancelled due to DD's money problems. I have yet to be paid for most of the work. That money's pretty much gone now, as is Devil's Due it seems. Oh well. Such is life.

Since I'm pretty sure these pages will never be published I'm sharing a few of them here that I can still stand to look at. That's how it goes with most of us artsy fartsies - we rarely like our own work. So here are a few pages from issue 1. I'll post some pages from issue 2 next time around.

Okay, so I made a small reference there to farts but it was really by the way side, therefore I'm considering this a fart-free post. :-)

Patience with the Elderly

So when we're young it seems we are constantly annoyed by older people slowing us down. That was me anyways. As I've grown older though, I realize that I will one day be one of these people and they're doing the best they can. How arrogant I was to think everyone was out to get in my way.

So I'm walking out of the grocery store the other day and I get behind an elderly fellow, easily in his nineties, and he's slower than molasses in January. I don't get frustrated though. See? I'm a grown up now. Good for me. The old man peddles along, holding onto his shopping cart for dear life. He raises a shaky hand and waves to an employee he recognizes outside, dutifully watering plants. I think "how nice. What a nice fellow." Again I'm proud of myself for my maturity. I pat myself on the back once more for my personal growth.

Then, after a full minute of patience, the old man lets one rip. FRRAAAAPP! Loud, full-bodied, and full of stink. He doesn't flinch. I'm not sure he even knew he did it, but I sure knew. And that's the thanks I get for being more mature.

No, not all of my posts are about farting. I can't help it if my life revolves around such things. It just happens - there's no reasonable explanation for it. I'll see if I can't post on a different subject matter next time.

Overheard on the train

The METRA commuter trains to be specific.

A young father holds up his infant son and says the following between spurts of giving the child rasberries (putting lips to stomach and blowing):

"Are you gassy like daddy? Are you gassy like daddy!?"

Mixed in were other great lines like "Did you fart? Did you fart!?" and "Did you drop a duce? Did my boy drop a duce!?"

Truth. I Swear.

That was easy.

Thanks to blogspot for the export/import tool! Now I've got way more extra time on my hands than expected. What to do, what to do...

Explaining the impossible

So a couple of years ago, give or take a year, I moved to a new blog. Why? I have no idea. I didn't keep up with it very well anyways. So now that the stupidity has worn off I'm moving back. I'm going to copy and paste all those posts to this blog so that they're not lost. Why? No idea. Just feel like it. I guess the stupidity hasn't totally worn off. Oh well...

Midnight Men

My blog is falling behind compared to my deviantart page. Too many sites to keep up with. Here's a couple of two page bio stories done for The Midnight Men. Their blog: http://midnightmen.blogspot.com/ and their website, newly up and running: http://www.themidnightmen.net./

Fun characters to work with; would love to do more.

America's Army

Well I'm finally getting around to posting some of the pages from the comic book project I'm working on for the US ARMY.

Time to kill? Bored? Can't sleep? Well boy do I have a time waster for you! Follow the link below to the America's Army website and have a read. The cost? A few minutes of your time. Once you're to the page, click the "read now" button in the upper left corner to get started. Some find the controls a snap. Others want to beat doorknobs with baseball bats after about sixty seconds of trying to figure them out. I hope you're of the first variety. Unless you don't like me, in which case I wouldn't feel too bad if you're in the later category. Said controls are not of my design. Just keep that in mind.

http://www.americasarmy.com/graphicnovel/

Yes, it DOES come across as a sales piece for the Army. At times. The Army pays (as in, you know, like, they're the client) so it gets what it wants. Zack Sherman (the writer) and I think there is still plenty to like. We're both veterans - he was a Jarhead and I was in the Army, and yes, we poke fun at each other constantly over it. We've got special forces operatives verifying the accuracy of our work. Put it all together and what you'll get is a military story that is very accurate in the details. Maybe not Tom Clancy accurate, but maybe so.

Thanks to anyone who reads it. If we are considered a success it is because of you. Issue 2 is in production (I'll share a little from that soon) and 3 looks like it's close to approval (everything with the Army is about approval - it's all part of the process). 12 issues is the current goal, so basically I need to shut up and get back to work.

If it is to your liking, enjoy.

SANDYeggo comicon 2009 report: FROM THE FRONT LINES...

So, the show is bigger than ever. It's more hollywood than ever. It's more crowded than ever. Is it more awesome than ever? Well let me tell you...


I don't know because I didn't go. Missed it. It just slipped by. Passed me right up. Stayed as far away from me as it possibly could. I thought about it, tried to wave to it, but I got nothin'. No love. Maybe next year... Or the year after that. Or sometime after that.

Looking for Spring

I think the cats have finally found it, and it's right outside their window! The paper clippy thing was a cheap tactic to get them up in the window, har har, and it worked like a charm.

It's February already!!

Zoiks! 2008 involved a lot of thumb twiddling. 2009? Looking better. During the thumb twiddling I managed to work on a few things, so here are a few of the few.


Yeah, it's a bird. Riveting, I know.


This one? A little more fun. Far from perfect but good practice.


More fun. I started coloring this one and got busy, so colors at some later date.

I snagged a fun gig doing a comic book for the US Army (yes, that's fun for me. Go figure), so I'll share some of that soon.

To be published or not to be...

Finally got the chance to do a comic book series. Got halfway through issue 2 and the series was suddenly put on hold. Indefinitely. Business issues. Hey, who's NOT having business issues in this economy? They still want to do it, which is good, but people have to make a living, me being people, so who knows if our schedules will match up again. Anyway, they released a Zero issue, previewing the first eight pages of issue 1, so I'm sharing the black and white pages here. Hopefully you'll see the whole thing someday: The CORPS!, published by Devil's Due and written by Rick Remender.

Happy drawing.

Work and fun

Wow, time does like to fly doesn't it? It doesn't seem like my last post was so long ago. I suppose I've been a little busy.

First up: a piece that I had started but haven't gotten around to finishing yet. I've got way too many stories like that. Subject matter is a Naboo fighter pilot. Gotta finish the background then to color the whole thing... someday.


Next: a few frames from some recent work. Not the most exciting subject matter on earth, but I enjoy the coloring process. Learning to use color theory well is a challenge for me but I love it. I try to minimize my line art and let the colors do the bulk of the work, informing the image with form, depth, and mood.

More Progression Fun

OK, not really, but this is another pose that I came up with while doing the last set of drawings. I didn't feel that it fit in at the time, but I liked it a lot so I found a little time this past weekend to give it a go.

Progression

Sitting everyday and staring at your own drawings, it can be difficult at times to feel as though you're making any progression as an artist. I know a lot of artists are like myself: always looking for the faults in their own work. We tend to be our own worst critic. Shuffling through some old stuff recently I came across a drawing I had done around five to six years ago. It was horrible and I couldn't understand how I could have drawn it without noticing all of the problems with it, so I decided then and there to give it another try. Had I had managed to get any better between then and now? I had drawn the first one from my head, so I would do the new one the same way. I guess it was my way of regulating the 'test'.


Starting from the beginning, here's the horrid piece of graphic flinging that started the whole thing:


Next up is the first of the new sketches, just trying to lay everything into place. It's better, but it's not great.


Clean it up and it starts to look acceptable. I am, of course, still not happy with it.


I happen to be a tall person who used to be quite skinny, so I think that a lot of the people I draw turn out that way, including the above sketch, so I redid it, shooting for a slightly shorter person, or at least a more robust person (whatever the heck 'robust' is supposed to mean).


Again I think it's a little better but the pose in general is quite stiff and there's no sex appeal whatsoever, so that's when you have to bite the bullet, trash the pose that's not working, and start over.


Now I finally like what I'm seeing. I cleaned this one up and inked the final version.


Personally I think I like the sketch version of this better, but it was still a good exercise and proved that I have managed to grow at least a tiny little bit in the last five plus years. I hope that three or four years from now I will again look at this last piece, see it for the horror that it is, and be able to do it that much better yet again.

What a Week!!!

Well, there's distractions and there's disTRACTions. So last Tuesday I was awoken by pain in my left knee at like 5:30 in the morning. It was swollen and just feeling something awful, so Elena took me to the doctor's office who in turn sent me to a knee specialist. The knee specialist took one look at it and took out a syringe.

What? You don't like where this is going? Heh, me neither.

One syringe of bloody puss later and I'm off to the hospital for minor surgery the next day. Talk about sneaking up on a guy. The culprit? Staff infection in my knee, specifically the bursa sack that lies on top of the kneecap. How did it happen? No clue. Doctors don't have a clue either, so it's just one of those things. What can I say? "Cleanliness is next to godliness", that's one thing I could say. Or have heard said. I think I'm starting to believe it.

As of today, six days after surgery, I'm walking on my own again, which is good because crutches get old really fast. No art today, but I could post a photo of my knee if you want...

Oh, and have you ever heard of a PICC line? That's an IV type line that they stick into a major vein in your upper arm. The catheter goes up your arm, around the shoulder and into the chest, stopping right next to your heart. Sticking out of your arm you've got 4 inches or so of line that you attach things to, like syringes with medicines in them. I've got one of those. I have to take mondo-powerful antibiotics (in liquid form) every day through that line. If all goes well that should come out this Friday or Saturday, at which time I get downgraded to antibiotic pills.

If you wind up in a place where you have to go through this, I recommend having a loving spouse and a good pain-killing prescription by your side. I'm not really into drugs or any such vices, but there's a time and place for everything. I am, however, really really into the loving spouse thing. I think 'always' is the time and place for that one. :-) I know, I know, lovey-mushy stuff is gross, but I could go back to talking in detail about the knee, the bloody puss, and the two and a half inch slit down the front of my knee...

Grinding it Out

Sometimes there's just not any room left for those fun little side projects that help to satisfy the soul. Those times can be stressful and can take their toll on any 'commercial' artist, but that's the way life works and when you arrive at one of those places you've just got to hunker down and weather them. I try to find something in each job I do for me to enjoy. It's not always easy, but I do what I can. And if it's too hard? And I get all stressed out? And start acting like a moron? That's where my wife steps in and lets me know just how moronic, stressed out, and difficult I'm being. Then she scratches my back and makes me a snack and the world is set right again. I'm probably overdue to buy her some flowers...



So here's some of the current non-soul-satisfying-but-pays-the-bills work that I'm zinging through with grace and ease (hahaha!)