Post 233=Conventions and Pinups...

So, tomorrow means I'm at Wizard World TX with the Space Gun Kru!

As you can see from the map above, we're over in artist's alley, in some ways kinda sad we aren't against the wall where we could paint stuff, then again, we're painting Saturday, and I need to pace myself! Either way, I'll have TONS of paintings priced to sell, sketchbooks, sketches, prints, and if you're nice enough I might just show you some of my originals (those aren't for sale right now)! Either way, stop by, say hi, rub some salt in the Zuda wounds, whatev'!

Now, you might have thought I was going to forget about explaining the pinup above...shame on you! Well, my awesome buddy/brother in arts Kristian was nice enough to have me do a pinup in the re-release of his groundbreaking (IMHO) book Supermarket. I can't begin to tell you how much this meant to me, as well as how much fun I had with it!

Anyway, I gotta' get ready for tomorrow, so seriously, stop by if you're in the Arlington area tomorrow and we can chat a bit!

Post 232

So, I'm just getting back into the habit of playing around with things. I'm trying some new brush techniques and line application, working at 11X17 is a very liberating thing.

The painting of Daredevil was for my good friend Gambit (Adam) for his birthday this past weekend. We had a great time partying at Dan's place. Got to hang out with friends, my brother, and Stelfreeze. Got to paint in front of the man himself, and it was amazing! It really helped me get my mind back to a good productive place.

I've got my birthday coming up tomorrow, the big TWO-FIVE! Crazy, I feel older because of work! I have to work tomorrow on my birthday, and it's going to be a long day, not going to get to do any celebrating: A)I no longer eat sweets such as cake B)Lots of work, and meetings, and more work...I'm just going to have to live it up this weekend!

Also, got Wizard World Texas on Friday, I'll have a post of that on Thursday to give specifics and such!

Post 231-We bring you back to your regularly scheduled programming!

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo... well, I can say that this month's over with, and more than anything, I'm feeling the first relief that I've felt in over a month!

First off, I want to say THANK YOU to everyone that helped, whether it was a vote, or moral support. I love you for it!

To break any tension, I'll answer some of those questions so we get back to normal business of me posting art, and you guys posting comments: 1) Are you disappointed about losing?Yes, I am disappointed about losing, I'd be a liar if I didn't feel disappointed, but I feel good (I'll explain why a little later in the post). 2)Is Hammer Sound going to continue? I'd like to happily say yes, but I'm being honest here. I honestly can't look at answering this for at least a month away from it. I don't like to make drastic decisions, so I'll let the emotions that this month brought out simmer down a bit and look at it logically. But after putting so much energy into this as I did this month, I'm kind of burned out on the property, and shopping it around only to re-do it in the vision to go with a publisher just don't sound appealing right now. I've been given some opportunities and offers to work on some new properties. I'm just toying around with the idea right now. Following this, I almost feel like it's time to just start working on my creation, my dream project as it were, primarily because of writers. I have been open about my experiences of being pushed to the side when the big name artist is available, Doug didn't do that to me, he gave me the time of day and really was great to me. So going through this process was just so much stress on the 3 of us. I was a wreck by the end of week 2 when we started slipping.

It was far too much stress for me, and I looked deep inside myself and I'm sick of being disappointed by projects that I put so much care into that don't take off. So I think I'm going to start working on a creator owned project because then I can dictate when things get done. I have the full script for this project sitting in front of me. It's been tempting me for about a year now, I used it as motivation to do other projects until it was the right time. I'm starting to think it may be the right time. Unless I get a really good offer to work on something, this may be the right time to start. I've given hints about it since the inception of this blog, but it's my statement piece. It really sums up what I'm about, and I love it dearly. All I'm saying is, obviously the approach I've been taking has been making little headway due to resting hopes on other people, I think it's time to really take it upon myself to see this happen.

Okay, onto some thoughts about the Zuda competition. It was exciting, and stressful, and surprising. It was a rollercoaster. Honestly, I came to the computer thinking I'd have all these things to say about the competition itself, but I really don't. It's in my head, but I can't bring myself to say it. I met great people, reconnected with old friends, and even strengthened some friendships. It taught me a lot about promoting. In the competition all you're given is an opportunity, the rest is all you: you make it, you submit it, you promote it. Promotion was the surprising aspect, purchasing ad space was a foreign idea to me and not in the game plan. So we did it through word of mouth and hitting the internet boards. In that respect we did extremely well, and I'm proud of us!

It was just a tough month, lots of competition, probably 3 comics that would have normally been easy wins in other months. Ultimately, it's the luck of the draw, and we pulled the short straw. It was most unfortunate that we got a month with no conventions, and due to the rules, couldn't promote it in Baltimore. Which really could have helped our cause. But you live and you learn.

Either way, it's great to get back to normal life.

Again, THANKS!

Post 230-The art that never was...

So, I'm not going to go into any details, but I can put this stuff up now since it's not going anywhere. My first 11X17 work in a very long time, I've been working at 8.5X11 for a while now, but having worked large recently with painting, I felt like I needed the room for details. I was THAT excited to do this that I moved up a paper 'weight/size' class just to give it the attention I felt it deserved! I was really excited about the project, but for some very specific reasons I felt like I needed to get away from the assignment. It was really disappointing, but here's what I have...

post 229

So, I've been trying to keep myself busy in the time when I'm not promoting or working at the day job, which isn't much time. But I've decided to start doing larger paintings. This one's about 28X48 inches, still working on the lines a bit. It's on Rives BFK off the roll for ease of shipping. I'm using acrylics for these. This is the larger painting I had promised someone a while ago, but I finally got around to actually doing it. The one I started today is much larger. the nice thing, Rives takes ink REALLY well. Normally Pentel ink bleeds with water, or loses the luster. On BFK neither of these things occur!

I stuck this onto a cork board on the wall and went to town painting it. It's so much fun to work at a large size.

Post 228-Reviews and interview (not plural on the interview)...

I never went through this kind of stuff before, so it's all new to me. I mean, when I worked color flats and stuff on the Hunger there were reviews, but at no point did I feel like I was involved in that aspect. When I did Negative Burn, it happened at a crappy time when Desperado was gearing to leave Image, so it really wasn't promoted and I never saw any reviews. So good or bad, it's kind of cool to see these things now:

Review over at the Webcomic Witchfinder.

Interview at Zudafan (I'm pretty candid, I don't like to hold back on truth bombs, but I kept it fun).

Small interview/review on Comicsmix.

Post 227-Help me regain #1!!!!!

First off, and most importantly, with today's update we lost a step and went to #2, from what I can figure, a lot of people I've talked to have not been hitting "Favorites" on the side panel when you're reading our comic. Let me tell you: Votes, the 'star' ratings, and favorites (underneath the stars it says 'add to favorites'...all these count, and can help us win!!!

Here's a helpful set of instructions for voting created by the awesome Doug Wagner:

HOW TO VOTE:

I need you to sign up (it's free and they keep your info safe) and vote "FAVORITE" for Hammer Sound. The rating isn't as important as getting more "Favorite" votes.

http://www.zudacomics.com/user/register

1. Pick a User Name without any underscores, spaces, or periods. For some reason, their software's not fond of those.
2. Fill out your First Name, Last Name, Email Address, and Birthday.
3. Enter the characters from the box. Remember, they're CASE SENSITIVE.
4. Click the little checkbox to agree to all their rules and such.
5. Click SIGN ME UP!
6. They will send you an email to complete your registration. It's a safety feature, so play along.
7. After completing registration, click on COMPETITION on the top right.
8. Scroll down to HAMMER SOUND.
9. Click on the cute, little picture.
10. On the right, you should be able to RATE our chaotic, little story, VOTE for it, and choose it as your FAVORITE.
11. YOU'VE DONE IT! I greatly appreciate what you've done and it won't soon be forgotten.

Please tell friends, family, anyone you can to vote for us. I know for a fact that I have received a lot of e-mails saying that people would like to see my sequentials on a more regular basis...well this is the chance, and I appreciate any help you can provide!

Okay...now to the paintings. Did these yesterday, 4X13 inch canvases. I decided to paint them, and they're for sale. If I don't get any e-mails then I'm taking them to sell at the beginning of next month at Wizard World. You can inquire at my e-mail evan.kaiser@gmail.com about the price.

Again, thank you for all the help you all have given me so far, and I hate to ask for more help, but it's a very stiff competition this month!

Post 226=New Business Card

Post 225-Spoof!

I joke with my friends from time to time, this time it was Cully because he joked that he was duped, and thought the story was called "HamNer Sound." So I made him a picture to make up for the disappointment!

Post 224

New HAMMER SOUND BLOG!!! I'll have new art, wallpapers, the whole nine yards! Please go check it out, and of course, if you haven't already, go check out the comic HAMMER SOUND at Zuda and vote for me!!!

Post 223- ZUDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I said I'd have big news, and here it is...I got into this month's Zuda competition! It's really something that can help give me some added credibility and hopefully if the story Doug and I created wins, we get to continue it and really ramp up for some high octane action!

It's robots, future stuff, and lots of crazy energy and expressive colors! I went for a really different pallette with lots of contrast and visual texture. It's about Jonah Henry, John Henry's long lost relative!

I'm hoping we do well, so PLEASE, PLEASE sign up (it only takes a minute) and vote "favorite" for our story Hammer Sound! It's really fun, and we had a great time doing it!!!

Here's the LINK.

I'll be talking about it more. But if I've ever needed a favor, I'd like to ask right now to get your votes!

Post 222

The ArtLoveMagic show seemed to go very well last night. I have to say though, I was tired by about 2/3 through. It just happened to be a long week, and our experiment of musical chairs art was exhausting both mentally and physically. We ended up working 2 on 2 paintings. It was interesting how the pieces evolved throughout the evening. Some of them started off well and ended well, others started somewhat lacking vision and we had to pull them back from art death.

By the end of the evening, we had 6 20X30 pieces that consisted of acrylics, india ink, marker, and various other materials. It was a true artistic experience. Performance and fluidity. We (Jake, Matt, Luan, and I) have been working together for nearly a year now at cons, and we have jelled well. It's hard to really pull our styles out of it, but we just...RESPONDED! It was so fast moving that none of us had time to be scared at the precision or dance of it. Our problem was that we worked so fast we finished pretty early.

It's definitely something we had to try once, working together in unison. The venue was just awesome, working in Mokah. Loved the atmosphere, and the music!

I really want to continue live-arting as often as I can. I really work best with music and when I'm forced to not correct myself. It's really changing my art and my approach to art drastically.

P.S. If you can tell what exactly I did in these, MAD PROPS to you! I can tell you if you're right, but it would blow your mind to know what I didn't do!!!!

Post 221

So, tonight I'll be rocking the brush with my brosephs the Space Gun Kru. Jake, Luan, Matt and I will be doing some live art for the folks at ArtLoveMagic this evening in the Deep Ellum at 8 pm. We plan to try some new stuff, like musical boards, where we rotate and work on each others paintings. I really think if you're in the area you should show up and I'm sure you'll have a great time!

In other news, my favorite pen store got some of the pens I really wanted to purchase back in stock, and I nearly fainted from excitement!!! I know, it sounds sad, but some people go crazy over clothes, others love food, people have tons of vices. Mine is pens and to a lesser extent, paper! Speaking of paper, that Canson comic board is actually surprisingly REALLY good from what I've done on it. It takes ink like a champ and gives great line fidelity. It doesn't cause the ink on my brushes to splay out. Instead, much more consistency.

Lastly, KEEP WATCHING THIS BLOG!!!! I SHOULD HAVE NEWS THIS WEEK (HOPEFULLY THE BEGINNING OF THE WEEK), AWESOME, AMAZING, SPECTACULAR NEWS!!!!!

Post 220

Some more experimenting on a large page (over 11X17). Total randomness, but this is what I came up with using some pentel brush, copic, and some acrylic. It's like a weird new world at this size! But I have to say, working on the illustration board sure don't stink!

Post 219

Sometimes it's like I get posessed when I start a piece. It's VERY rare that I take a few days on a piece, let alone more than a few hours. I started this afternoon doing this piece, it's like 12.5X20 inches. I wish I would have taken pictures of the process because this started off as a graytone wash on mat board. I was testing it out, and the mat board was far too cotton based for illustration. But I wanted to make this work, so I broke out the prismacolors and went to town. I finished a bit ago, and it's been a while since I've really gone to this extent with prismacolors, but it's one of those things you just feel like you have to do from time to time. My hands are sore, so I better rest them tomorrow and maybe even Friday so I can be totally prepped for the ArtLoveMagic show this weekend (I'll post details tomorrow).

I really want to put an art show together at some point...

Post 218

The Edward Scissorhands nearly killed me. I was handed the book with the instructions (just look at the reference book, you'll understand the theme). I didn't get to it for a couple minutes, so stupid me, I looked through it. Great page after amazing page...I mean, there was a fully gessoed page with a highly defined painting...what the heck?!!? So I gathered myself back together and did what I felt was my best at the time.

I really had fun with the batman pieces. The batman pieces were for a great collector's sketchbook, a normal/bizarro sketchbook. He had the coolest sketchbook ideas and his girlfriend made the neatest covers for them (painted, collaged, they were all pure class).

Post 217

Usually I do a long-winded con wrap up, but I gots to tell ya, I just don't have it in me right now. I am so tired from all the goings on of the weekend I just have to stumble forward. I met TONS of great people, especially long time heroes of mine, Cory Walker and Nate Bellegarde. A few paintings went, I have to get a few pictures of the commissions I did, but I'll put them up later.

Post 216-Breaking News...

---

I totally agree with them on the crits, I really should have made some of the harder lines a little more flattering. I make no excuses because had I spent more time those things would've been worked out. But I really should've left the collar...that was just dumb on my part. Either way, #5 out of over 100 entries and props from Joe Jusko (a lifelong hero of my brother and I), can't go wrong with that at all. Check it out on Project Rooftop.

Post 215- Pre-Baltimore

So, I'm almost ready for Baltimore, but this'll be my last post until after I get back from the con Sunday evening. I'll of course be at a table with my band-mates Jake Ekiss, and Vinh-Luan Luu. But something you may be surprise by is that we will be sharing some of our table space with my boy/running dawg Jose Torres. Jose (along with DiBari) gave me my comic start doing color flats on the Hunger. It honestly seems like forever ago. It'll be great to hang with Jose before he starts his military career fighting for freedom...wherever there's trouble...oh wait, that's G.I. Joe.... ;)

Of course, I'll have many of the paintings I've been showing recently, reasonably priced might I add (in the $10-80 range). I'll also have the sketchbook that nobody has purchased online yet (yeah, I can check the numbers, and it's disheartening), so I'm hoping that you've just been holding off so that you can get one from me at a con....well now's your chance! I'll also be sporting some other projects my studio-mates and I have worked on, and a few prints that only have been available locally. I also have original pages...what I'm trying to say is that I'd like to sell some stuff this time!!! I've been delivering a lot of free art on a VERY consistent basis, so this is the way you can help a brother out!

I'm also excited because I get to hang out with a lot of my friends: one of my bestest buds Chris DiBari, the Gaijin Gais (Tony Shasteen, Karl Story, Cully Hamner, Doug Wagner, and Brian Stelfreeze), my buddy from Image Joe Keatinge, and I really want to meet Nelson Blake II in person. I also want to meet anybody else that wants to hang out with me. Seriously, I really want to put real faces with the people I've been talking to online for a long time now.

Hope to see you all there!

Post 214

So, I was talking with my brother about this topic, what's the deal with this. Granted, I'm not a continuity person in the least. I follow the art, and when a good storyline strikes, I'm all over it. But I find the fact that they've got Barbara Gordon in a wheelchair after all these years very sad. Characters in that universe are healing from things ranging from scratches...to DEATH!!! Batman was paralyzed for a long time...but guess what? He recovered! So why, after all this time, hasn't somebody helped Barbara get healed up, anything from an experimental surgery to over the years her back has repaired itself, to alien technology, to nanites...tons of reasons. Is this done to capture a specific demographic? I wonder this because I feel like it's unfair to take away a character that I know for a fact tons of my friends and I really enjoy. Granted, I actually enjoy the new-er batgirl (the one in the gimp-gear), but to me, Barbara is the one and only true Batgirl that we loves to draw!

Anyway, rant aside, I've been busy getting ready for Baltimore. I've been painting, getting my portfolio together (a new 11X17 one that you guys hadn't seen at previous cons). I painted my messenger bag today, so I'm going to pack everything tomorrow even though I leave Saturday morning. I just want to enjoy this weekend, but I also want to make connections and a bunch of sales. Ultimately that's what I've spent the past few weeks preparing for.

So, not sure if I'll be able to get another post in before I leave, I'll try, but I can't promise anything!

Post 213

So, I've been trying to refine things as always, I also was working on this prismacolor drawing and my shading while listening to the Canete SiDEBAR. I didn't use any reference. I know that can be wrong and everything, but I like to challenge myself to recreate different effects. I did this in maybe a couple hours spread out over part of the day. Things was busy!

I can't even begin to describe how much I am looking forward to Baltimore! A little over a week and I'll be flying out to hang out with a ton of my peeps!

Post 212

Did some sketches during my break today at work. I was listening to SiDEBAR with Skottie Young today. I ran out of Smodcasts, so I've finally made it to listening to other podcasts now. I could listen to Skottie talk about various brands of toilet paper and it would be hillarious, and informative. It's been great listening to what all of the various professionals have gone through, and finding out that there are other artists with similar views as myself. I've also been learning some things from it too, but it's such a great podcast after having listened to about 10 in the past week and a half. I have a lot to catch up to, but that's great for me.

Post 211

I decided to post my colored version of the pic for download..however, don't let that sway your attempts. This is how I interpreted the colors in the image, and I would believe in my heart that everyone else's interpretation will be COMPLETELY different.

Also, here's a new digital drawing. You might be thinking two things: 1)WHOA EVAN, those are some LOUD COLORS!!!! or 2) why didn't you render it more. Well, to answer the second question first, you have to know when to pull back, when it's time to not go overboard, which you would think completely contradicts question one. As for that, I like to think of this as subtlety through blunt-force-trauma. The colors speak for themselves and the lines give you just barely enough visual information so as to get the point across. I was going for impact over rendering, and you will sometimes find that that can be the case. A couple years ago, I wouldn't have felt this was done and would have done lighting effects and tons of rendering, but I was going against my gut. Now I listen to my gut instincts when it says it is time to stop...thus, this was the result.

I saw that a few people have already downloaded the hi-res picture. I can't wait to see any results!!!!

Post 210

So, a few posts ago I was talking about coloring and everything. Well, here's some line art I did this weekend, and for those of you interested, I put up a hi-res file for download on Sendspace. So, I was nice and made some of the work easier on any takers. The line art is all clean and such (as clean as I get, I know, I know Matt). I even selected out some areas of line art with separate colors if you want to go that path, if not, just fill with black, no harm, no foul. The main character's been flatted, and so's the word bubble. But I'm seriously interested in what other people would do with my line art.

I'm serious, anybody who colors this, I'd love to see it, just post me a link in a comment here or e-mail me at evan.kaiser@gmail.com

Other than that, doing okay, the weather's wonky and I've got a sinus headache. Things just didn't feel 'right' today.

Post 209

Did these yesterday in Painter (the lines at least). It's been a while since I really sat down and did some digital art. I messed with how I was positioned at my Cintiq so I wasn't having to arch out uncomfortably over it and keep my arm extended for long periods of time. I still need to get a proper desk, but at least this works for the time being. I wish the Cintiq were a little lighter so I could just put it on my lap, but it's so big that it would be insanely uncomfortable to just rest part of the stand on my legs.

I messed with the colors and a couple things in Photoshop. I should post the black and white of the Thing picture. That's all for now, but I should have a really fun picture done tomorrow.