Lunchtime Sketches

Drink & Drawl

2011-11-10T12:09:00.000-06:00

One of the artists I work with runs a local drink & draw group and I went for the first time this week. It was a lot of fun and I actually managed to get some drawing done:

I am Providence

2011-11-01T08:55:00.003-05:00

I saw an interesting documentary about H.P. Lovecraft last week, so I thought I'd do something quick in a Cthulhian vein for Halloween this year:

My exposure to Lovecraft has mostly been through radio dramas adapted from his works rather than the original stories themselves and I didn't really know much about Lovecraft himself. He was a strange but interesting guy, which is what you'd expect from someone who specialized in stories of unspeakable tentacled horrors that lie dormant within the Earth.

His family tree went back to the founding families of Providence, RI where he lived all but a few years of his life. "I am Providence" is the epitaph on his tombstone, and R'Lyeh is the lost city built by his race of ancient space monsters, so that's where the epigram comes from.

Happy belated Halloween!

"What in tarnation!?"

2011-08-30T11:53:00.000-05:00

Quick panel for an art jam at work:

Fantastic Ninety-Four

2011-08-29T08:30:00.000-05:00

Jack Kirby would have been 94 today:

Devil or Dandy?

2011-04-08T13:21:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how I stumbled onto it, but I was reading about an urban legend from London in the early to mid 19th century, Spring-Heeled Jack. Depending on who was telling the story he was either an actual demon or just a dandy gentleman dressed in a devilish costume. In either case, he could jump over high walls and gates (hence the 'spring heels') mostly for the purpose of scaring lone travelers in the dark of night.

From the newspaper and magazine illustrations of the time its obvious that the artists had fun drawing him, each with their own twist on the character. I especially like the ones that make him look like a Victorian Batman prototype rather than a monster. I've always loved the hand drawn designs of periodicals from that time so I made my own Spring-Heeled Jack newspaper spread:

Nice Soup Strainer

2011-03-31T20:55:00.000-05:00

While cleaning up the studio I found this little 7"x10" oil study from last year. I never could decide if I liked it or not - I guess that's why it was under a pile of papers:

Cardboard Conan

2011-03-24T20:23:00.000-05:00

Conan sketch on part of a broken down Amazon box:

Hero or Scoundrel

2011-03-22T21:23:00.000-05:00

Just a quick notebook sketch:

Love is in the Air

2011-03-17T13:15:00.002-05:00

Kaw! Kaw!

2011-03-14T16:57:00.000-05:00

2011: A Birth Odyssey

2011-02-07T14:42:00.000-06:00

Got to see the first ultrasound images of my baby this morning:

Very wiggly, but also very healthy.

Under the Wire

2011-02-04T13:45:00.001-06:00

It's been a very busy week between digging out from Snow-mageddon and putting in some extra hours on the game we're finishing up, but I still wanted to sneak in a quick drawing this week. I follow a blog that a group of comic book artists put together called Comic Twart (don't ask me what the name means) where they do weekly sketch challenges. One of their recent topics was minimalism - everyone drew a picture of a character trying to capture their essence with as little visual information as possible. I thought that would be perfect for a week where I'm very short on time, so here's minimalist Two-Face:

I could have pushed the minimalist aspect further, but I wanted to do at least a little rendering.

Dusty

2011-01-28T12:50:00.002-06:00

Even though I'm really busy at the moment, I'm trying to get back into the habit of regular drawing and posting. I'm going to try some sketch challenges just to get the ball rolling. Illustration Friday's theme of the week was 'dusty':

This one took about 2 lunches to finish.

Keepin' it Loose

2011-01-12T13:50:00.001-06:00

I decided to keep this guy loose and sketchy so I can move onto other things:

We now resume our scheduled programming...

2011-01-10T13:19:00.001-06:00

I hadn't realized just how long it had been since I had posted anything here - sorry about that. The end of last year was very hectic and stressful and kept me from working on very much 'fun' art. Things are looking up on many fronts though, including a new job.

I've been getting adjusted to working on a Cintiq art tablet, which is kind of like a giant iPad, so I've been messing around with it during lunch trying to get my bearing. Nothing spectacular, just some quick doodles, including this one:

Not much to look at yet, but hopefully, I can keep plugging away on this one - I think its got some potential.

Software Roulette

2010-08-25T09:38:00.000-05:00

Just messing around switching between Painter & Photoshop for a quick doodle:

Coming Soon to a Cinema Near You

2010-08-16T20:51:00.001-05:00

I wish...

Still Short on Time

2010-08-12T20:43:00.000-05:00

I've got a few sketches I've been chipping away at, including this one:

Samurai Slap Chop

2010-08-04T20:16:00.002-05:00

Busy week - just a quick doodle:

Rockin' the Eye Patch Since 1965

2010-07-26T22:32:00.000-05:00

I should be doing stuff for work tonight, but I'm burned out, so I drew a quick Nick Fury instead:

Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy

2010-07-25T09:21:00.004-05:00

When I was checking the listings on TCM and saw this title, I knew I had to record it. Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy is a terrible 50's grade Z scifi movie from Mexico about a mad scientist who builds a "human robot" to fight an Aztec mummy so that he can steal the ancient treasure that the mummy guards. The robot and the mummy were a sad looking mish mash of cardboard and playdoh, but the actors in the movie were a lot of fun to watch.

The hero (I think he's doing the Mexican version of 'Blue Steel'):

His fidgety egghead sidekick (his giant glasses should have gotten the screen credit):

The mad scientist (he looks more jolly than mad):

His fidgety scarfaced henchman (a little moisturizer should take care of that):

Two Fists of Freedom

2010-07-20T22:36:00.000-05:00

I started this over the long 4th of July weekend and finally had a chance to finish it up:

A Big Loss for Cleveland

2010-07-13T21:37:00.001-05:00

No, I'm not talking about some dumb basketball player - I'm talking about Harvey Pekar who passed away a few days ago.

He Blinded Me with Science

2010-07-12T21:48:00.000-05:00

Friday was the birthday of Nikola Tesla - fellow Serb, inventor, super scientist, and possibly superhero, if you believe the comic books :)

Call Me Ishmael...

2010-07-11T22:38:00.001-05:00

I recorded the 1956 John Huston/Gregory Peck version of Moby Dick that was on TCM last week and watched it clandestinely since my wife hates the book and wasn't too interested in watching the movie. I don't remember much about the book from reading it in high school, so I'll respect her opinion, but I do like the movie.

Huston created a fantastic looking film with a limited budget as well as the limited effects technology of the day. He also put together a great cast. Although Peck got flack at the time for being too young and handsome to play Ahab, I thought he did a great job, especially in the finale when he faces the whale. Other actors may have played the part more broadly, but few could have brought more conviction to it. Friedrich von Ledebur, who played Queequeg, had an amazing face that, like Woody Strode's, looked like it was carved from marble. On top of all that, you had Orson Welles in the small part of Father Mapple, delivering a fiery sermon from a pulpit that looked like a ship's prow.

Now I'm going to have to re-read the book, dammit.

Fragments

2010-07-08T22:51:00.000-05:00

Fragments, a charity comic book anthology for humanitarian aid that I contributed to a while back, is out now. It's available for order here, through comiXpress.

The story I contributed was originally posted here.

Check it out if you're interested.

El Borak

2010-07-03T13:18:00.004-05:00

I just started reading a collection of some of Robert E.Howard's lesser known adventure stories, El Borak and Other Desert Adventure Tales. El Borak is the name the locals gave to the hero of the majority of the stories, Francis Xavier Gordon, a Texas gunslinger who finds himself in the wilds of Afghanistan.

So far, the stories are very good. I had always avoided Howard's 'lesser' works, assuming they weren't as good as the Conan or Solomon Kane stories, but his writing is actually very consistent in quality. I think a lot of his creations fell by the wayside since they were based on standard pulp tropes (explorers, sailors, boxers, cowboys, etc.) that are considered dated by today's standards, and not because they were poorly written.

Pug

2010-07-02T20:19:00.000-05:00

I've been busy lately, so not much to post. Here's something from my notebook for an idea that's been rolling around in my head:

Another Empty Drawing Board

2010-06-16T22:02:00.003-05:00

Al Williamson, another legend of comics illustration (and long time friend of Frank Frazetta) passed away this week. Although not a household name like Frazetta, Williamson was one of the monster talents of comics, carrying on the tradition of lush, elegant brushwork from the Golden Age of comic strips. Although Al was American, he spent his childhood in Columbia and his main link to American culture was the Flash Gordon strip drawn by Alex Raymond, who became Williamson's artistic compass.

In the 50's, he started his comics career as part of the legendary bullpen of artists at EC comics alongside Frazetta, Wally Wood, Roy Krenkel and the rest. When the comics industry imploded in the wake of the Wertham witch hunt he moved over to drawing comic strips and got to work on two of Alex Raymond's creations - first Rip Kirby, then his beloved Flash Gordon. As the market for adventure strips dried up in the 70's, he moved back into comics drawing memorable adaptations of The Empire Strikes Back and Bladerunner.

Eventually, he settled into inking, which he found to be less time consuming and gave him the chance to mentor up and coming artists. It wasn't until recently that he completely retired from working.

I highly recommend the recent Flesk Publications retrospective of Williamson's Flash Gordon work.

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T21:22:00.000-05:00

Just a quickie to recognize the holiday today:

Mayday, Mayday!

2010-05-25T21:46:00.001-05:00

Still messing around with the oil paints a bit. I used this old movie still as reference:

It looks like David Niven in some kind of war movie, but I'm not sure which one. Anyway, I wasn't going for an exact likeness, but more of an idealized kind of feel:

Still in a Frazetta Mood

2010-05-17T22:07:00.003-05:00

I managed to squeeze in some time for a quick Frazetta tribute sketch:

Frank Frazetta Forever

2010-05-11T15:17:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, Frank Frazetta, no doubt the greatest fantasy illustrator ever, passed away. He was 82 and had been in poor health for a while, so it wasn't a complete surprise, but there had been some very public infighting between his children over his estate recently, so I was glad to hear that he settled all of that before he passed.

I think it would be impossible to count the number of artists working today that were inspired by him to learn to draw and paint. I had the old Bantam paperback art books as a kid so I knew at an early age how high he had set the bar for the rest of us. Nobody had the imagination, confidence and ability to render raw power that Frazetta had - thunder and lightning came out of his brush.

I would like to have thanked him for setting me on the path of the artist - I hope I can find some of the freedom and fulfillment that it brought him.

Acrylic Fever

2010-05-09T20:25:00.000-05:00

I'm still getting over the bad case of the flu I've had for the last week, but I did manage to get out for a bit this weekend and pick up some acrylic paints. Although I enjoy oils, I've been wanting to try acrylics, especially since they dry so much faster. I didn't have a lot of time or energy to do much with them, but I managed to get in a quick 20 minute sketch just using black almost like ink wash. I can't wait until I have the time to do some full blown painting with them.

One More Quest

2010-04-25T22:44:00.001-05:00

I felt bad leaving Dr. Venture -er, I mean - Dr. Quest out of that last sketch, so here's a quickie to make up for it:

Again, just marker and blue pencil on newsprint in about 45 minutes.

It's Been a While...

2010-04-23T10:07:00.001-05:00

Sorry about that.

It's been a busy month and the free time I've had has mostly been spent writing my western, doing a little painting and not much drawing. I'm trying to change that though, so here's a little Jonny Quest action to get things rolling:

I drew it on newsprint and spent about 1 1/2 hours on it. Nothing great, but better than nothing :)

POW! Right in the Kisser

2010-03-16T20:16:00.000-05:00

I was messing around with some oil sketching on 9x12 canvas paper over the weekend - this took about 2 hours total:

Here's the photo I used as reference:

The proportions are all out of whack, but I had fun keeping it loose and simple.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

2010-03-07T16:12:00.002-06:00

I was in the mood to do a little speed painting and since I had recently seen the trailer for the new book Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (yes, books have trailers now) I threw this together:

I haven't had a chance to read this book or any of the others in this style (Pride & Prejuduce & Zombies, Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters, etc.) but they look kind of fun.

Who Dat Ninja?

2010-03-01T22:27:00.001-06:00

Things have been busy, but I'm still working on the writing side of my western story and I'm still trying to knock out some pages based on some odds & ends bits of writing I have lying around in the mean time.

I'm working on another 2 page story that came about after reading a post on Digital Webbing that was looking for short stories for an anthology book. All of the stories had to have something to do with ninjas. I thought it would be fun to do something a little more historically based than the usual fantasy based ninja stories. I never heard anything from the guys putting the book together beyond the initial contact, so I shelved the story until now.

Being such a short story, it's pretty straight forward so I wanted to have some fun with the visual style. I love Kurosawa's samurai films and have always admired the sumi brush drawing style of traditional Japanese art so I'm trying to combine the two styles. I'm hoping it'll be a little looser, more expressive and moodier that my usual stuff. We'll see. Here's the first panel:

Projekt Ultima-tely Shelved

2010-02-16T22:07:00.004-06:00

Still turning out some pages based on old stuff I have lying around while I do some more writing. This page is based on some old thumbnails for a story I started dreaming up about 15 years ago. It was going to be called Projekt Ultima and was a story about a team of Allied agents racing against the Nazi's to find the lost city of Atlantis. I knew even less about writing then than I do now (which still isn't much), so it was shaping up into something bigger than I could handle and I eventually gave up on it. I still feel like I have too much mental clutter from it to ever go back to it, but maybe that'll change someday.

This page wasn't actually from the story, it was something I drew up before I had the Atlantis angle worked in and is more straight sci-fi. Here's the original thumbnail:

Here's the page I came up with based in it:

I made several attempts at coloring it and couldn't come up with anything I liked, so I just went with a sepia tone look that kind of matches the idea of this page being based on notes from an old file.

The 'other' Avengers

2010-02-05T09:54:00.002-06:00

One of the old radio shows I listen to sometimes when I'm working is The Avengers. Even though radio dramas had pretty much run their course by the late '60s, BBC Radio was still churning them out for the South African market, where they were apparently still popular. That's where these Avengers shows are from. Anyway, here's a quick John Steed/Emma Peel:

More Doodles from my Desk

2010-01-31T21:06:00.000-06:00

Some more miscellany:

In case you were wondering - yes, that is Samurai from the Superfriends.

Conan on the Prowl

2010-01-30T22:10:00.000-06:00

Just a quick Conan to zazz up your weekend:

More Chicken Scratch

2010-01-23T22:46:00.001-06:00

Another page of lunchtime doodles:

Keepin' the Ball Rollin'

2010-01-17T17:46:00.002-06:00

I took some time over the holidays to go over what I had done on my western comic, both in terms of story and art, and decided to do some major overhauling on the whole thing. That means it'll be a while before I have any pages to post, but since I don't want to lose the habit of turning out pages I'm going through my notebooks and looking for anything I can work up into short pieces.

This first one is an idea I had about 14 years ago when my wife and I were living in a small town in southeast Ohio - not much to set up, just a quick little two pager:

Chicken Scratches

2009-12-18T08:07:00.000-06:00

Just some doodles:

A Bold Experiment

2009-12-14T16:23:00.003-06:00

Two of the artists I work with had the idea of trading drawings that are unfinished for one reason or another and seeing what somebody else could do with it. We made the first exchange last week and here's what I came up with:

The original sketch by Cef Grima:

The finished piece:

I was trying to emulate the way that Dave Stewart has been coloring the Umbrella Academy books. I like the way it looks and I wanted to see if I could figure out how he does it.

It was fun to work on, and I'm looking forward to the next one.

**UPDATE**

Eric Huang posted his interpretation of my chicken scratches up on his blog. I think he did a great job on it - it's a nice blend of his style and mine. He's going to have to show me how he got that aged look on the colors.

The ball is in your court now, Cef! BRANG IT AWN!!!

BADGE - page 4

2009-12-06T21:43:00.001-06:00

Iron Man Wants Cake

2009-11-24T08:33:00.001-06:00

In the spirit of the DIY craft show my wife & I went to last weekend, I made this birthday card for a friend of mine (names have been obscured to protect the innocent):

It's a re-creation of the splash page from the very first Iron Man story back in 1963 - only fitting for the world's biggest Iron Man fan.

BADGE - page 3

2009-11-16T20:54:00.000-06:00

Drink & Draw

2009-11-06T20:50:00.000-06:00

The Drink & Draw group I go to on Tuesdays is trying to get a little more organized in terms of having a weekly theme. Unfortunately, I missed the Halloween week theme (pumpkins & brains), but we carried the gruesomeness over to this week with "draw the worst affliction you can think of." I naturally went with something with a strong visual element - Hoof & Mouth disease:

BADGE - pages 1 & 2

2009-11-01T16:10:00.007-06:00

Reposting the first page with the second since I made a few changes:

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-30T08:19:00.003-05:00

I managed to squeeze in a little sketch during lunch yesterday so that I could actually post something new for Halloween. I haven't drawn in my poor man's Mike Mignola style in a long time, so it was fun to tap into that for a bit:

Have a horrifically happy Halloween and don't eat too much candy!

Monster Mash-up

2009-10-28T08:15:00.003-05:00

Some more Halloweeny stuff from the archives:

Who would win in a fight between Frankenstein and the Werewolf? I don't know, but I'd pay to see the fight. Poor Dracula didn't even make it past the first round.

Halloween Countdown

2009-10-27T08:19:00.003-05:00

I usually like to do some special posts for Halloween, but this year I'm very busy - there's a lot going on at work and the second page of Badge is behind schedule but almost done. Luckily, I've got some stuff in the archives that hasn't been posted yet, so I'm going to run that stuff this week:

"Call it my woman's intuition."

2009-10-20T20:00:00.002-05:00

This past weekend I got to see the newly restored version of North by Northwest that was shown as part of the Chicago Film Festival. The new print was made for the Blu Ray release of the movie and Martin Landau was at the screening and answered some questions afterwards (the title of this post is a quote from his character in the film).

I always enjoy seeing old movies in the theater, especially anything from a master like Hitchcock. It's amazing how modern the movie feels. The opening credits were designed by Saul Bass, one of the graphic design pioneers who helped create what we think of as modern style. In fact, the opening credits to Mad Men (my favorite TV show after the Venture Bros.) are inspired by the credits in North by Northwest. I was inspired to try my hand at that clean design style and whipped this up during lunch:

Graphic design isn't really my strong suit, but it was fun to try play around in that style.

BADGE - page 1

2009-10-08T20:55:00.006-05:00

Alright, here's page one of "Badge", my western story. The plan is to post pages as I finish them, with no set schedule. Once I have a decent number of pages done to act as a buffer, I'll create a site for the strip and make it a proper web comic. Right now, I'm just trying to get into a production groove, see if the story has any legs, and to get some feedback (good or bad):

I'm producing the pages at full print resolution in the event that the story ever goes to print. Here's a full rez shot of panel three as an example:

I thought I'd go over my process (which is still evolving), in case there's any interest. I'm working from a loose outline which should honestly be tighter than it is, but I want to get this story rolling before I find more excuses not to do it. I'm drawing thumbnails for each page at about 2"x3", scanning them in, then printing them out at 6"x9" and penciling over that:

The finished art is all done in Photoshop to save time and to allow for more experimentation. The goal is to build up several simple techniques to get an illustrative look in a relatively short amount of time. The first step is the inking, which is primarily focused on form and laying in the graphical black elements. I want the story to have a bit of a rough edge, so I created a brush that gives me a look similar to black Prismacolor pencil on textured paper:

Next, I go in an lay in some medium greys, mostly flat with a few gradients:

After that, I go back in with a brush I made that has an ink wash feel to it to give the page some extra texture and tonal value:

One all that is in, I go back and do a polishing pass with digital screens (like the old zip-a-tone patterns that old comics used) for more tone and texture, some digital spatter (which I used to do with an old toothbrush back in the day), and finally, just going in and punching out some white highlights on things:

After the lettering is done, I overlay a scan of old parchment paper to give everything an antiqued look and I'm pretty much done. It sounds like a lot, but really, I'm just building up several simple steps that add up to (I hope) a lush, finished look.

When I post the second page, I'll re-post page one without all of the blabbing.

Thanks for taking a look. Like I said, any comments, good or bad, are appreciated.

Logo Loco

2009-10-08T08:15:00.006-05:00

I'm working on some logo ideas for one of the stories I'm trying to get off the ground. It's a western called "Badge" (the first page is done and will be posted later this week) and it's very much influenced by a lot of the classic western films. There have been some other western comics that have come out in the last few years, but a lot of them are either very modern feeling stories with a lot of graphic language and violence or they are "westerns plus", i.e. westerns + horror, westerns + scifi. I don't have a problem with either approach, I just thought I'd try some thing different, something more old fashioned.

A lot of old movies (not just westerns) had really great hand painted titles, like these examples:

Lettering is not really my thing, so my results in trying to get that look are mixed, but here's some raw lettering that came out OK (by raw I mean that I haven't done any aging or outlining or anything):

I'd like to avoid using any sort of stereotypical western fonts, but I found a few that had a nice feel without looking like the Purina Chuck Wagon logo:

I've also messed around with the idea of replacing the A with an actual sheriff's badge, but that might be too cutesy:

No final decisions yet, but as the art for the story starts to develop, all of this other stuff will fall into place.

Funny but true

2009-10-02T12:31:00.004-05:00

I realized I haven't posted anything in a while which is ironic since I've been very busy with a lot of different art projects. One of which is this Fear Agent pin-up I've been chipping away at during lunch. I wasn't going to post it until I inked it, but what the Don Heck.

A few weeks ago I was at the 2nd annual Windy City ComicCon and went out to dinner with a group that included Tony Moore, artist on lots of cool stuff but probably best known for his work on Fear Agent with writer Rick Remender. I've always liked Fear Agent - it's right up my retro alley - but I had never drawn Heath Huston or anything else from it, so that's where this sketch comes in:

One Reel Wonders

2009-09-21T20:21:00.008-05:00

I found out from a friend that the owner of a local night club is an avid fan of old and obscure films, and once a month he shows some of the movies in his collection at the club. My wife and I went last week and saw two one reel zingers - The Preview Murder Mystery & Strangler of the Swamp. Both films were favorites of film historian William K. Everson, who helped preserve lots of these non-mainstream films. Both movies had very cool visuals despite their shoestring budgets and packed a lot of story into an hour or less, but I enjoyed the Strangler the most, just because it felt like a story that might have been in an E.C. comic back in the day.

I'd been wanting to draw something based on it and I finally had some time today during lunch to knock this out:

Out with the Old, In with the New

2009-09-17T08:09:00.003-05:00

The company I work for was recently bought by Disney and today is officially our first day under the Mouse. I would imagine that we'll have to say goodbye to some of our old characters that aren't quite family friendly, like Stubbs the Zombie:

I guess that just means that we'll have to come up with something even better.

What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men?

2009-09-13T22:11:00.003-05:00

Only The Shadow knows! (insert Orson Welles laughter here)

Messing around with markers & white Prismacolor pencil on textured grey paper:

Long Live the King!

2009-08-29T14:22:00.003-05:00

I read that yesterday would have been Jack 'The King' Kirby's 93rd birthday if he hadn't already gone off to Valhalla to hang out with Thor and the Warriors Three:

Odds & Ends

2009-08-23T14:47:00.005-05:00

I didn't really come up with anything worth posting at last week's Drink n' Draw, so I thought I'd post a few other things I've worked on this summer.

Way back when I was first getting my start as an artist - probably around 1994 - I drew an illustration for the cover of a novel called Alligator Alley, which you can still get on Amazon. It's a fun neo-noir kind of crime story written by Ken Coffman and Mark Bothum. They were very cool to work with and generous in giving a greenhorn like me a chance to do some work for them. Out of the blue, Ken got in touch with me earlier this year about helping him out with some new projects he was working on, and I was glad to help him out. Ken is not only publishing his own books, but is also starting up imprints to help other writers get their work in print, which is impressive since he does all of this in his free time.

The main character from Alligator Alley is a guy named Glen Wilson. Glen is a sort of slippery anti-hero of questionable morals who bears more than a slight resemblance to James Woods. He's gone on to further adventures in other books, so Ken asked if I could draw him a B&W logo for the books that could be used in a frontispiece to tie them all together. He suggested a variation on the skull & crossbones with Glen's head in place of the skull. I thought that was a cool idea so we ran with that:

Ken has another book coming out this fall called Hartz String Theory and he asked me to design some logos for the two mysterious shadow organizations in the story. Not to give anything away, but the first group is a sort of ancient Illuminati type group, so I gave them an old fashioned engraved looking logo made up of the arcane symbols Ken said were important to them:

The second group is more of a street level militant band of anarchists, so I wanted to given them a DIY looking logo that could be stenciled onto walls with spray paint:

I'm not really a graphic designer, so it was a fun challenge and a nice change of pace to work on these.

Drink & Draw

2009-08-12T21:57:00.004-05:00

Last night I went to a Drink & Draw session with some of the comic book artists that live in Chicago. It was a great group of guys and everyone made me feel very welcome. Hopefully, I can make it a regular thing.

I was lucky enough to sit next to talented artist and all around nice guy Hilary Barta who offered to ink what I was doodling. I wish had come up with something better, but Hilary made it look great anyway despite working in an environment totally unsuited to inking. Here's the Flash Gordon sketch we teamed up on:

More Doodlin's

2009-08-04T21:54:00.002-05:00

More notebook sketches in a western vein:

Burnin' Ring of Fire

2009-07-30T22:52:00.002-05:00

Another experiment - this time marker & Prismacolor on brown paper bag and then a bunch of Photoshoppery:

Doodlin's

2009-07-29T21:45:00.004-05:00

Just some misc. meeting doodles from my notebook:

What's Old is New Again

2009-07-28T21:57:00.003-05:00

Here's a quick sketch I did to experiment with style & texture. I drew it with pens and a black Prismacolor pencil on canvas paper so that I could get the graininess of the paper to show up. I added the zip-a-tone look and spatters in Photoshop and then laid down some flat colors to finish it up:

This closeup shows the texture a little bit better:

My inspiration to try out these new (to me) techniques came from several sources. I was looking at some movie posters from the '50s when they started using more graphic styles (like this poster for Vera Cruz), also some of the illustrators of the same era who were experimenting with looser rendering techniques (like Mitchell Hooks here), as well as a contemporary comic book artist named Dave Johnson who uses a lot of these same inspirations & techniques but gets a very modern feel out of his work (like this cover for 100 Bullets).

For as little time as I put into it, I like the results, though I need to see if something like this would work on sequential pages. It might be too abstract to look at page after page.

Jack London in Paradise

2009-06-19T08:36:00.005-05:00

I take the train to work everyday and I use that time to make up for years of not reading by plowing through as many books as I can.

Right now, I'm reading "Jack London in Paradise" by Paul Malmont. His first book, "The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril", is one of my favorites. He seems to enjoy taking his favorite writers and dropping them into the types of stories that they wrote. I'm sure it's been done before, but I really enjoy his approach to it.

I never knew much about Jack London before starting this book, so I've been reading a bit about him and looking at old photos online. I gave myself 15 minutes to knock out a sketch of him and another 15 minutes to 'antique' it a bit:

Pulp in Progress

2009-06-12T23:13:00.003-05:00

I'm slowly chipping away at inking the group sketch of pulp characters I posted a few days ago so I thought I'd post a little work in progress detail of the Spider, the Shadow and most of Doc Savage's widow's peak. I know that Doc wasn't portrayed that way until James Bama started painting the covers to the reprints in the 60's, but that's the way he'll always look to me:

I Love a Mystery

2009-06-10T22:47:00.008-05:00

I get tired of listening to music while I work, so I've started listening to some of the old time radio shows. The internet archive has a huge collection, but some of the files are in such bad shape they aren't worth listening to. Fortunately, there is an OTR fanatic who runs a site called Broken Sea Audio and one of the things he does is restore old shows so that they can be enjoyed again.

Lately, I've been listening to a show called 'I Love a Mystery' which is more of an adventure show than a mystery show done in a very pulpy style. The serials have great titles like 'Temple of Vampires' and 'Pirate Loot of the Island of Skulls'. The thing I realize as I listen to these shows is that maybe radio dramas were the ideal format for pulp stories. I've tried reading some of the old books and while I love the concepts, I can't get into the writing. Same goes for the movies, even the modern ones like Sky Captain - nice visuals, but not quite right (though The Rocketeer was great, as was the Rocketeer comic book). These radio shows somehow hit the marks that the books and movies miss. I suppose it has something to do with the concept of the 'Theater of the Mind' as they used to say in the golden age of radio.

Anyway, I was inspired to make a fake vintage newspaper ad for the show:

One interesting thing about these old shows is the advertising. This show was sponsored by Fleischmann's yeast which wasn't being advertised as a baking ingredient, but as a health food. You either mixed it into tomato juice to make a 'vitamin cocktail' or just ate it straight - blech!

Backlog

2009-06-03T21:27:00.006-05:00

After putting in a lot of hours to finish a big project at work, then taking a short but much needed vacation, and finally slogging through the inevitable post-vacation slump I'm getting back to being productive again.

I spent most of last weekend cleaning my home studio and in the process found a pile of old, half finished artwork. Since they're all pretty far along and won't require any major effort, I'm going to try to finish them up and hopefully build up momentum towards some of the other, bigger efforts I'm trying to get off the ground.

Up first is a sketch I drew when I was reading a lot about the history of the pulps - just a goofy group shot of some of the major and minor characters of the era:

I'm going to clean it up, ink it and probably color it too. I'll post the steps as I go. I also need to go back and figure out who all the characters are - there are some pretty obscure ones in there.

Artchives 3

2009-05-19T21:37:00.005-05:00

I've been putting in a lot of hours on a project for work, but I'm in the home stretch - just in time for my wife & I to go visit some friends over the long holiday weekend. Here's one last batch of old miscellany before I try to get back to a normal schedule.

These first three were for a story that I tried to get off the ground for a long time, but got away from me. Maybe someday I can go back to it with fresh eyes:

This one was for a pitch someone was putting together for a horror themed multimedia site, this character was going to be the host, in a simlar vein to Svengooli (get it? vein? horror?):

These last three were character designs for a video game about mobsters in space:

Artchives 2

2009-05-08T22:31:00.009-05:00

The game I worked on for most of the last year is coming out on May 14th. It's called Texas Cheat'em - a poker game where cheating is not only allowed, it's the only way to win.

It was a very different project than what I had been used to, but it was a lot of fun. As the only artist on the game, I was responsible for every pixel you see on screen. The game has a lot of interface, so I did a lot more graphic design work than usual. I also got to do a lot more cartooning than I've ever done before on the player avatars. Here are some of my favorites:

Some of the avatars are specific to certain cheats (like the burglar=chip steal) or to certain mini-games (like the strongman=strength tester), but most are just meant to be funny. Also, creating these was where I learned digital inking since it was going to speed up my production time quite a bit, so some of the early ones are a bit rougher than the later ones.

Early on, we were planning out a story mode where you would play through a character's career as a gambler from rags to riches. At that point, we were toying with the idea of using animals as the characters and since our company mascot is a hippo, the main character was going to be a hippo. Here are some storyboards I did to try to get a feel for what all that could have been like:

Ultimately, it was decided that it would have been too much work for too little added value, so it got scrapped but we had some good ideas that would have been pretty fun to work on.

Artchives

2009-05-06T21:25:00.014-05:00

I've had a fairly big assignment dropped on me at work that will keep me busy and pretty stressed out for the next two weeks, so I'm going back to post some older stuff from the archives in the mean time.

I don't generally post work related stuff on here, but I've had the chance to work on some cool things over the years, like these screens from Mortal Kombat: Deception. Each character had their own story arc and if you played a character all the way through the game you got to see an end game scenario related to that character. We didn't have the time or resources to make animated cut scenes for these so I put together these stills instead.

The character and environment models were all created by other artists - my job was to storyboard the scenes, pose everything, light & shoot the scene, render it out and then give them a 'spit & polish' paint-over pass to add special FX, extra detail and generally try to make them look like stills from a big budget movie.

There were about 24 characters in that game and I spent about 6 months on the ending renders. It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. Here are the original storyboards and then the final renders:

Here's an example of a raw render compared to the touched up version:

Illustration Fridays: Theater

2009-04-27T19:37:00.002-05:00

Another quick one - this week's theme, theater:

Illustration Fridays: Impossibility

2009-04-21T22:30:00.006-05:00

Another quick take at an Illustration Friday challenge - this week's theme was 'impossibility'.

I've always liked the imagery of David vs. Goliath, so I thought I'd run with that.

Illustration Fridays: Fleeting

2009-04-15T19:40:00.003-05:00

This week's Illustration Friday theme - fleeting:

The Good, The Bad and The Freakin' Weird

2009-04-12T10:32:00.005-05:00

I'm on my own this weekend, so I've had movies playing while I putz around the house. Yesterday was western day - I watched For a Few Dollars More (a classic), Django (rough around the edges but fun), and El Topo.

El Topo is a 'mystical western' written, directed by and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky. Jodorowsky is a Ukranian who was raised in Chile and is best known for writing French comics. The movie has some interesting visuals, but man is it weird. It starts off with in the fairly standard "man with no name" scenario but quickly goes off the rails and ends up with a cave full of deformed midgets with a lot of flute playing, dead rabbits and old men wearing make-up along the way. Not for the faint of heart:

Illustration Fridays

2009-04-07T22:06:00.004-05:00

Every once in a while I'll draw something based on sketch challenges I find online, just to mix things up. I just found out about a site that has a weekly challenge, Illustration Friday. It's nice that it's a regular thing and seems to have a lot of participants. I'm dipping my toes in the water with this week's challenge 'talisman'.

I'm taking the approach of working with the first image that pops in my head based on the theme and then knocking something simple out. Just keep it quick, fun and hopefully better with each passing week.

It's a long way from Oa to Abiline

2009-04-02T22:06:00.004-05:00

I was looking at some art blogs and someone mentioned doing a commission for a collector who always asks for a western take on a superhero. That sounded like an interesting exercise, so I took a crack at the Green Lantern re-imagined as a lawman from the Old West:

It's no great shakes, but this has been a crazy week and I just needed to turn my brain off and draw for a bit. I really wanted to do this on paper (my inking brush has been calling out to me), but time only allowed a digital drawing.

Only The Shadow Knows

2009-03-26T22:45:00.000-05:00

Just a quick Shadow marker sketch today:

Bad Mojo

2009-03-24T22:17:00.003-05:00

Just a quick Jonah Hex after reading some of the recent issues drawn by Jordi Bernet:

Zeppelin Fight

2009-03-21T13:07:00.005-05:00

I've had a very hectic couple of weeks, so I haven't done a lot of work on the Lord Bastard project. That's not to say that I haven't been thinking about it a lot - I'm finally to a point with the story and characters where I can see things playing out like a movie in my mind. The characters are coming to life and the whole thing is starting to have its own 'feel'. On paper, I'm behind where I want to be with the project, but I feel good about where it's going.

I took some time last night to loosely concept an idea for a scene I've been kicking around:

One of my most cherished possessions is an old copy of Prevue magazine from the late 70's that had a big pull out poster of concept art that Jim Steranko did for Raiders of the Lost Ark. I love the rugged feeling he gave the paintings and the warm tones he used to give the desert a romantic, pulpy feel. This is my lame attempt at capturing that same feeling.

Insert Bad "Who Watches the Watchmen" Joke Here

2009-03-05T19:37:00.004-06:00

I'm going to see The Watchmen tomorrow with a group from work, so I drew a quick Dr. Manhattan today.

The movie looks like it's going to have some amazing visuals. The shots in the trailer where Dr. Manhattan & the Comedian are in Viet Nam always catch my eye because it looks like they dropped them right in the middle of 'Apocalypse Now'. I'm also looking forward to the flashbacks to the original Minutemen back in the 40's & 50's. That's probably the closest thing to a big budget Golden Age superhero movie that we'll ever get:

Another Study

2009-02-25T21:33:00.005-06:00

Another quick concept piece to try out some things.

I realized that I've never posted anything that takes place after the first act of the story, which is when things really get going. Although there's a definite John Carter influence to it, Bastard doesn't end up on Mars. I was going for kind of a Spaghetti Western sunset and went a little nuts with the red:

Technique Study

2009-02-21T22:02:00.005-06:00

I got tired of working on my story outline, so I messed around with some techniques I've been thinking about for doing the backgrounds. Again, just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks:

Not the most ambitious example, but hopefully tomorrow I can find the time to try something a little more involved.

And Now for Something Completely Different...

2009-02-17T09:47:00.004-06:00

I managed to make Valentine's Day dinner for my wife without poisoning us or burning down the house. She wrote about it on the food blog she and a friend started recently:

http://creating-a-foodie.blogspot.com/2009/02/valentines-day-dinner-part-two.html

Pre-pre-production

2009-02-16T16:27:00.004-06:00

Having just wrapped up the game I've been working on, I was able to have a long weekend off and managed to get a lot done on what I call pre-pre-production for my graphic novel. I already had a rough outline and a lot of notes, so right now I'm working on a more detailed final outline, nailing down names for people, places & things, and organizing my reference material for everything.

Once that's complete, I can move into regular old pre-production where I filter all of the things that inspire me into my designs for everything that will appear in the story - all of the key characters, locations and props. I'll also take the final outline and use it to break down the story scene by scene, loosely laying out the pages and writing all of the dialogue. At that point, I'll have a pretty good blueprint to follow.

I'm an organizer and planner by nature and since this is going to be a long term project that will undoubtedly have stops and starts as my free time allows I need to have this guide that I can use to keep me on track.

It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm long overdue to try something like this. I look forward to the opportunity to do something 100% the way I want to do it. That way, the only person that can hold me back and the only person I can blame for failure is me.

Major Dundee

2009-01-29T11:51:00.004-06:00

One last movie sketch, this one of Sam Peckinpah's first films, Major Dundee. Charlton Heston plays the title character, a Union officer who leads a pack of rag tag volunteers and Confederate P.O.W.'s across the Mexican border to track down a band of Apache's who have been raiding forts and settlements in Texas.

There are lots of interesting characters all played by great actors in this one, but I really liked James Coburn as the scout who tracks the Apache for Dundee. This seemed like a part more suited to Lee Marvin, being a gruff, scraggily bearded frontiersman, but Coburn played it well. The fact that Coburn was so damn skinny helped. Usually when an actor hides one of their arms under their shirt to play an amputee it's very obvious and looks weird, but it actually made Coburn look beefier and more heroic:

Dr. No

2009-01-28T08:06:00.003-06:00

Last weekend was great for catching up on some of my favorite old movies on TV. After watching The Big Heat, I caught some of the James Bond marathon on BBC America. I just watched bits and pieces, but saw three different Bond films in one day.

The last one was Dr. No. - still one of the best Bond movies despite being the first. Even though it had a crazy villain with metal hands, a cool hidden lair in the Caribbean and membership in a secret society called S.P.E.C.T.R.E. it will always be remembered most for introducing the first Bond girl. The first time we see her, she's walking out of the ocean wearing a white bikini complete with knife belt. The only thing that ruins the scene is that she and Bond both sing "underneath the mango tree", a song that's heard about 10 times throughout the movie. The producers definitely got their money's worth out of that licensing deal:

The Big Heat

2009-01-25T20:53:00.003-06:00

I watched one of my favorite film noir movies this weekend - The Big Heat. Glenn Ford plays an honest cop who doesn't know when to back off in investigating the suicide of a police official with ties to the local crime czar. I think I like it so much because it's very simple but very well done. The story is straight forward, but it hits all the right notes and has some pretty intense stuff for the time. I highly recommend it if you like that sort of thing:

Getting Back Into the Swing of Things

2009-01-14T21:45:00.004-06:00

I've been busy/distracted lately, and whatever free time I've had has been spent working on/learning about writing, so I haven't had much to post. I am trying to get back into regular sketching though.

Here's a quick study from a movie still, just messing around with basic Photoshop brushes and working with a limited palette. Not the best likeness - it looks more like Robert Redford than Roger Moore. About 45 minutes of work:

Squid Mobster

2008-12-23T20:29:00.002-06:00

Going through a pile of old random doodles on my desk:

IT Crowd

2008-12-22T09:03:00.005-06:00

I've been watching The IT Crowd, a British comedy with a lot of the same actors from Garth Marenghi's Dark Place, a favorite show of mine. Just a quick doodle of the main characters who are nerdy IT guys, if you can't tell:

The Original Rebel

2008-12-18T20:52:00.007-06:00

Last week Betty Page, the Queen of the Pin-Ups, passed away. I think one could argue that she inspired almost as many young men to pick up a pencil and learn how to draw as Jack Kirby did:

Solomon Kane & Candy Canes

2008-12-15T19:38:00.012-06:00

Let me try this one more time - the first time I posted these, the images weren't clickable.

Anyway, I finally got some time to finish the last page of the Solomon Kane story I had intended to wrap up by Halloween. I didn't get the last page done in time, then things conpsired to keep my from finishing it, and suddenly it's almost Christmas.

Here's the whole story:

Other Stuff

2008-12-02T08:04:00.002-06:00

The last page of the Solomon Kane story is coming, but I've been working on a few other little projects too. Here's a little 4"x6" oil sketch I made for a friend in lieu of a card:

It took about 2 hours to paint and about a week to dry (aargh) - I've got to try acrylics some day.

Off the Rails

2008-11-18T20:06:00.003-06:00

I missed my Halloween deadline to finish my Solomon Kane story and things keep popping up eat the time I need to finish the last page. Since I haven't had anything to post, I thought I'd point out that my friends at Midway Games just released Mortal Kombat vs. The DC Universe. I drew this back when the project was just getting underway - seems like forever ago: