Press

Not sure how long this will stay the headline, but the first press is finally out for a magazine I'll be a part of. It's called Strip Magazine (no, it's not a sex thing - think "comic" strip) and the first issue will be hitting the English market in November. That's English as in England, not all places where English is spoken predominantly (too bad). Click  here to see the article.

My story, created and written by me and my buddy Dean, is called RECOVERY INCORPORATED. Mia Raven is the main character and I'll leave it at that. I lie. I can't help it. It's an action packed kind of story. How's that? More? Okay. She's an American immigrant from Portugal with a troubled past and an addiction to risk taking. Here's some character studies I did of her.

Note to Commuters

This is mainly aimed at guys, but if there's any women out there doing this, you're included.

You're on the train, you forgot to bring along things to keep you occupied, and you're bored stiff. Because of this you can't seem to ignore the booger lodged up your left nostril. You try but it is a powerful thing and compels you to get it. It's okay. It happens to the best of us. Get it. Don't, however, forget this fifteen minutes later when you're still bored and you look at your fingernails and think "huh, I really should trim those," because when your fingertips go in your mouth and the biting begins, well that just crosses a line.

Either one is less than ideal when in public, but we're all human. It happens. But combining the two, specifically in that order? That's a no-go, as we used to say in the army. Just sayin'. People are watching. ;-)

Otherwise, happy commuting!

Sketch Cards

After C2E2 this year I decided to start doing a sketch card a day. The daily bit lasted a whopping three weeks. I'm not the fastest artist in the world so sometimes I really have to buckle down and work on actual work without distractions. I like doing the sketch cards though so will try to keep up with it the best I can.

The reason? During C2E2 I was asked to do a few commission sketches and I hadn't drawn openly in public like that since college. I work quietly in my office, often digitally or on marker paper where I can redraw things over and over (using multiple sheets of paper or layers in Photoshop) until they're 'right' to my eye. These methods allow me to redraw and edit very easily. Sitting in McCormick Place and drawing 'one shot/one kill' was waaaay more stressful than it should have been and I was disappointed in the results. I said to myself, "self, that's not going to happen again."

So that's the reason. To try and stay true to the 'working live' conditions I set up a couple of simple rules for myself: have no idea what I'm going to do before sitting down to do it and then finishing it in 45 minutes or less. So for better or worse, these are my results so far.

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.