Post 329

Post 328

I was talking with Kristian the other day, and he made a good point, I don't put up previews of sequential art I've done for things very often. I guess it's because I used to think that everything had a gag order on it, which to editors should be a good thing that I'm not waving around art. But since I wasn't told not to show any of the non-lettered art, I think it's a good thing to show that I'm not just doing pin-ups and sketches and webcomics. I CAN DRAW SEQUENTIALS!!!! Over the years I feel my storytelling has gotten really strong, ESPECIALLY with the story pictured above, which you can check out in Popgun Volume 4. Not sure when it comes out. Popgun Volume 3 however, came out this week, and I seriously suggest you pick it up, the first part of this story is in it (different artist, same writer, my boy David Hopkins). The first part takes place AFTER the second part (my story)...sounds confusing, right?! Well, it isn't, David crafted a really well structured, cinematic pacing to the way the story is laid out!

So, I did all the pencils, inks and colors on this puppy in the span of about a week, maybe a smidge less. I was very excited about it, by all means this is the biggest sequential book I've worked on...in status and ESPECIALLY SIZE...pushing the 400 page mark on each volume. It's the most bang for your buck and easiest way to catch up on the new talent coming into the industry. Joe Keatinge and Mark Smith, both guys I've known for a while, started something really cool! New editors on the most recent ones, and I feel that each volume is getting better and better. Having helped Jake and luan with an anthology, I really don't know how it's possible to get one together at this scale in a short period of time!

So, between David, Luan (who lettered it) and I, we were the first ones done with our completed story, even with a bunch of re-sizing and changing lettering requests. I've kind of made a habit of that with projects like these. Show that I can be the first one done with a high level of finish, and then set the bar high early.

So, anyways, here's two pages of it to get a taste. I'll be putting up some more sequentials and in the process page shots from time to time now. Just to show you the fact that I am keeping up with a daily sketch blog, working a 40+ hour a week day job, AND I'm doing sequential pages weekly and keeping my deadlines! So, if you're an editor that happens to read this page, take all that into consideration!

Post 327

So, went to the doctors today, but I think I've narrowed it down to one of two things: either it is a new body wash I started using 2 weeks ago, or clay dust. Due to the fact it is primarily on my arms, I think clay dust. The clay had this brown mold on it. My room doesn't have a sink, and I can't leave the students in the class alone, so I've been walking around with clay dust up and down my arm for 90 minutes at a time without the chance to wash them as I wedge clay and dip my hands into slip on a regular basis.

Either way, the treatment is the same...steroid injection, and antihistamine pills.

So I should be back to fighting strength soon and getting rid of all of the skin irritation. Getting a full nights sleep without avoiding scratching will be worth a TON! Now I can actually focus on my drawing for the first time in a few weeks!!!!

Post 326

I have to say thank you to all the people who called or e-mailed me, I'm still working through things. Lost a few dollars in change from the car...thankfully that appears to be it. More to come on that as I find out. They caught one guy, and the other got away. I've become a lot more vigilant because of the experience...to say the least!

This has been the week of unending stress, but I've been dealing with it pretty outstandingly. I credit better health. Last year at this time I was a wreck from the stress. Still itching, I'm going to the doctor on Friday morning (first appointment I could get) and get it checked out, probably end up getting a steroid shot. As a precaution if whether it's fleas or what I think it is (dust mites), pest control sprayed the area by the fireplace. I'm about to go and use a steam vac I got to clean the floor and chairs, then I have to do a bunch of laundry. That's what I've read was the best course of action...I just can't take any more of this itching, on top of the cold I've been dealing with.

Anyways, hopefully it'll be a much better weekend than the week has been!!!

Post 325

This is a placeholder post for later in the day. Been up since 3, but I wasn't sleeping well anyway. Itching on my arms got worse than ever and more welts on my arms. It's been driving me insane, a great addition to my cold. I couldn't figure what it was. It didn't have any raised section where the bites occurred, and it wasn't happening anywhere else. So I thought contact allergy of some sort, then thought maybe it's from all the orange juice I've been drinking (I put a splash in water instead of drinking any sugar drinks, diet secret), but that's not it, then I thought maybe hives. Then I researched mites, and I'm dead sure that's what it is, or fleas, treatment is similar since it's contained to the area near the fireplace. So I've gotta' get a steam cleaner and get the area, if that don't work, bug bomb, but I want to avoid that, as it leaves poison everywhere. My latin teacher in 9th grade forgot to wash her sheets after a do it yourself bug bomb and got cyanide poisoning and nearly died. She swelled up, and had necrotic tissue from areas of skin that were killed by contact with the poison.

ANYWAY, back to the ongoing fun part (sarcasm)! I thought I was hallucinating from cough medicine and the constant state of not knowing whether I was awake, asleep, or in the midst of the many nightmares I was having, but I started to hear voices on and off, and I thought...oh great, now I've finally gone and done it. People think my art is crazy, now I'VE become crazy!!! Thankfully for me, that day wasn't today...I look out the window and see some po-po driving around and yelling at a guy "come over here...get down." So at first I thought it was maybe a scripted impromptu performance of Arnold Schwarzenegger's greatest hits...but about 15 minutes later they come knocking and tell me that people are breaking into cars in the neighborhood to steal stuff. I don't leave important things in the car. You leave anything tempthing, they'll go for it. But still, gotta' see if anything was taken. Haven't gotten the okay yet, police are taking pictures, canvasing the neighborhood for one that tried to run. They caught one of them.

So yeah, great way to start the morning, so you'll understand if I'm a bit late with my daily sketch...thanks for understanding!

Post 324

More random sketches from the weekend, done while riding in the car.

Post 323

Post 322

Another marker sketch I shooped today. I'm feeling sick, cold or something, trying to push the zicam, but I just need to get better. It always happens right before the weekend! Gotta do the taxes and then some work related stuff...really fun...

Post 321

Post 320

Post 319

Yes, it's Dirk Anger, and yes, he IS wearing a Karate Kid headband...and even further than that, yes, he is about to try and break a board of nails with his forehead!

Post 318

Post 317

More from the mobile sketchpad...with some modifications of course!

Post 316

I saw Francesco on the Drawingboard doing some different versions of Modok that were just plain hillarious! So I had to jump in with my little play on words with Modok...Modoktomom!!!! Easily one of the scariest villains ever!!!

Post 315

Post 314

Cutting it close, I know, but this has been an intensely stressful week, so it's actually a miracle that I've kept up with the daily thing...but I keeps mah promises!

It's always depressing how around this time of year there isn't much to look at, people forget to update their blogs as they work to get new pages done and everything ready for the new con season. I've been able to really do well at my day job and still get pages done, keep up with a weekly online comic (I assure you I'm getting them all done on time, you just haven't seen them yet), and doing sketches for here everyday, plus somehow managing a sliver of a personal life. I think it's the working out, I've kept true to that, and it provides me will a lot of extra energy during the day to keep with a continuously evolving schedule.

Anyways, time to sleep, then exercise when I wake up.

post 313

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Post 311

Post 310

Going back to work today, so I have a bunch of pages to get done this week. Don't expect too much chatter to go with the pics this week, but I'll keep posting!

Post 309

I had a lot of fun last night with the Heroes4Heroes event. Different vibe than usual, by that I mean it had great lighting and air conditioning, but it was still the same kind of fun! The venue was really friendly and so were all of the patrons stopping by to watch and ask questions. Easily the highlight was working on the large jam piece on the wood board. I got to start it off with Jake and the craziness ensued. We had 6 people working on it at once at some points. We know each other so well that it's like a muli-armed art octopus, which is why I guess I drew that octo-monster. We've been doing this kind of stuff for a year now, and know each others habits and movements, we're all able to compliment each other so well in live-art painting.

Ah well, that's it for now. More sketches tomorrow! Also, FYI, don't know if people remember, but there was in fact a new President Awesome put up earlier this week!

Post 308=Live Art Heroes4Heroes style

Heroes4Heroes
March 21, 2009
Poor David's Pub
1313 South Lamar St., Dallas, Texas 75215
7:00pm - 11:00pm
$5 at the door (parking not included)
Saturday, March 21st at Poor David's Pub will be a Heroes4Heroes live art|music show. H4H and ArtLoveMagic will be hosting a great night of live art and music. Artists will have original art and prints for sale at the show. Featured artists will be Mitch Breitweiser (Captain America, Hulk, Fantastic Four) and Eric ‘Ebas’ Basaldua (Witchblade/Devi, Darkness, Tomb Raider). Space-Gun Studios will be there kicking it live as usual and we'll have prints and original art for sale as well. Come check out the show and give support to our troops overseas.

Post 307

Got a new sketchbook on sale yesterday, one of those travel ones with the journalist treatment that flips open in lengthwise. It's fun stuff, nice paper for pencil drawing. Not amazing for inks, but again, fantastic on pencils. Might be able to take a light wash, but it'll be nice for sketching ideas.

Post 306

More experimentation, and yet, it took less time than ever before. This week has been great, I've had the time to get a lot of work done, and still learn a lot more to refine my style.

Post 305

Further corrections made to my hand positioning using a pencil. I took a cue from working more with chopsticks. While splitting a meal of sushi at the Korean place next to the convention center for Staple, I bobbled my way through using chopsticks. Then, when I went to my big brother and sister in law's anniversary dinner I watched the people in the restaurant, who used a completely different technique than I had seen before. So I made adjustments, and the outcome was 10000-fold improved.

My point is that you may be used to using a certain style of holding the pencil, but what is known may not be what is comfortable for your skill level. Looking back, one of the major hindrances to my getting drawings to look the way they were in my head was because of how I held a pencil. As I've mentioned before, I fought off my 2nd and 3rd grade teachers and their ridiculous rubber pencil grip-guides. This also may have led to what appeared to be the onset of tendonitis my senior year of high school (you need to see some of my portfolio from back then, easily 1000's of lines on just a section of each drawing), but I have been careful to watch out for my wrists, thus the search for a better grip began. It's an art in itself. People don't pay attention to it, and I can't stress enough how much it changes the outcome of a line.

If you've seen Erik Larsen draw, you can definitely see the large variety of ways to hold the pencil!

Depending on what kind of a day I'm having, I find it easier to get the hold I need, and sometimes it's insanely tough (days that I work out, rainy days) like when my arm muscles are strained. So I've been working on different ways to hold for specific types of days.

This may seem crazy, or too much effort spent on something trivial, but I've found that my production level has jumped up a lot! With less frustration I don't leave as many drawings unfinished, and I'm able to work for longer periods of time. Part of that too goes to a better style of living that I've been working on. As a comic artist, more than many other professions, you wouldn't believe how important it is to take care of your body. I'm creeping back from a really horrible level of inactivity and into a very active day to day life. It's actually helped with my art in a lot of ways from general confidence to ability to produce. My arm can sustain a greater range of movement and achieve better line variation. I can actually paint again without my back getting sore and having to hunch all the time.

Everything works together, and ultimately improves your work. Art is life, life is art, there's a sense of equilibrium necessary for everything to work together, and no one part is independent.

These are the little things we take for granted, and ultimately the things that can lead to many issues. I also stress if at all possible, regular trips to the doctor, it's something that I hated for so long, but I'm so glad that I keep up with it. There are so many artists that didn't have insurance and let things slip by that have passed away far too early from treatable ailments.

Done preaching, go ahead and check out the sketch!

Post 304=Bonus Post

I'm feeling a little generous, so you get a second post for today. Got a clean bill of health and ACTUAL approval from the doctor (a rare and treasured thing), found a pen that Kody Chamberlain had mentioned a while back that is super rare at my old campus bookstore, finally made it up to Ruby's Diner for some awesome eats, and on my way out got whistled at by some college girls in Spring Break mode...it was nice! ;)

Post 303

Just trying something different, this took me only a couple minutes to color with a different technique. Speed colorin'!

Post 302

I'm very particular about the lines I want to get, and yesterday I found a pretty good way of getting the right hand position to achieve those lines.

I'm excited because I'm going up to Denton today, so I'll get to stop by Voertmann's (college bookstore/awesome art store) to check out the latest art goodies, and go eat lunch at Ruby's Diner, one of my favorite places as of recent times. Then the rest of the day I'll work on finishing some pages and inking. So much to do, so little time...

Post 301

I like to memorize poses and things I see in the everyday world, it's how I remember poses. I started doing this in college to create a memory bank of poses and situations for drawing. I really liked this one and I'm glad I remembered it. The top version I was just playing around a bit, and had fun with the crazy result.

Post 300!!!!!

Two-for-one post for post 300! It's crazy, never thought I'd make it to this many posts, as nearly every other blog I've had never lasted very long at all. So here's to 300 more!

Post 299

I went way farther with this than originally intended, but whatever, it took me less than an hour to do in total, and I like the final result.

I can't stress just how important drive is in this industry. Recently, the first words out of everyone's mouth that I hear after looking at my art is "What are you working on now?" It's tough, you want to say "Well here, check this out!" and have a stack of comp copies to point at. It just doesn't always work out that way. Even without thinking of comp copies, it's nice to have a book to point them towards, but it takes a year or so to get a project off the ground and into stores, then tons of things happen, and you end up getting bogged down with lots of time sensitive smaller projects. You're only as good as your last published work, and once you finish one it's in the hands of other people...so you either play the waiting game, or you keep working, but no matter how hard you try, it ultimately comes down to the waiting game. A backlog of finished projects piles up, and for many months at a time you can't say what you're working on.

That used to bum me out...waiting! That's why it's been nice working on President Awesome, instant artistic gratification. You see your labors put on the web for all to see. When it comes down to it, money does play it's part in any form of motivation for an artist. You can be the staunch uber-artiste and say it's purely for the work, but you know what, artists like to know that their work isn't absolutely worthless. You have to put a price tag on it, or people won't value your effort, or feel that you don't value your own work. That shows a lack of confidence. I used to really lack confidence in my own work, but you know what, I've struggled for it, so I'm proud of it. Are there things I'd change? ABSOLUTELY! But I do that on a daily basis as you can tell. I don't make excuses for my choices, because that's how I feel at the time.

But back to the original point, drive, motivation, inspiration, whatever you call it, you gotta' keep it going. For a long time resentment fueled my drive, and to some extent, it still does. I wanted my art to slap people in the face and say "LOOK AT ME!!!!" I went through many years of being overlooked, and I won't go back to it. I've learned not to place as much value in needing the approval of others, and when that happened, I got approval. When that happened, I let myself get complacent, and fell into a time of artist's block. From there I had to re-learn everything from the ground up. I decided that I would understand all of the mechanics again. Ultimately I am self-taught. Yes, I had 6 teachers in high school, and have a BFA from a major university, but there were only a handful of teachers/profs that really TAUGHT me. Even then, they only helped with advanced techniques. The basics I had to teach myself by messing up, summer after summer laying on the floor sketching, and getting frustrated as the things in my head wouldn't show up on paper. It didn't start happening until a couple years ago, so the process was not even remotely instant.

People think that you're born a good artist, and some people are, there are savants, like there are in any industry. The vast majority of us have to work for it. Most people get frustrated and give up on their dreams. Becoming a good artist requires drive, a fanatical focus on becoming the best artist you can be.

So I'm trying my best to constantly have an answer to that tricky question "What are you working on now?" by constantly working! The key to not getting artist's block is get into a groove and never stop!

Rant over...

Post 298

I'm a little late today because I celebrated the fact that I have a little bit of time off from the day job, so I get to relax a little! Finally saw Watchmen and it rocked!

Post 297

I got my new brush pen in the mail yesterday and was able to finish an installment of President Awesome for next week, a pin-up for a pin-up group my friends are starting up, and this. Not a bad use of an afternoon. More than anything I was excited about the brush!

Post 296

Morning update! I did this a little differently, no colored pencil underneath, I just used H pencil lead and it seemed to drop out fine. I haven't used a mechanical pencil in a long time, and because of using brushes and pencil-pencils, the way I approach it is much different, but I get more detail, which is nice. I'll explore this further. I'm still waiting to hear when my new brush pen is being shipped. I'm not really used to waiting this long. Plus, I'm excited to try it out, not a great combo...