Summer Caricatures

I didn't end up being able to go to school this summer, so I decided to take an offer to set up and do caricatures at a beach resort. Between customers, which is most of the time, I'm doing some samples. Since every other caricature artist on the web has been doing MJs, I decided to try my hand at it too. Here it is in marker and Prismacolor Artstix. I have this set up as a sample at the booth. It gets a huge variety of reactions from laughter to low levels of outrage. Some people think I'm making a comment about him being dead, but I actually used a picture of him from ten years ago, and he already looked like a zombie. I honestly just exaggerated what I saw in the picture.



And here's a guy who works at a shop in the resort.




Other than this I'm doing some sketching in my sketchbook, but I have limited access to a scanner right now so you wont see much of that any time soon.

Heroes aren't hard to find: at Heroes Con

Alright, I know this post is WAY overdue, but things have been a little crazy to say the least. I'll cover that in another post, but for now here's some pics and verbage about the Heroes Con Charlotte, NC a few weekends ago. For those that don't know what it is, it's a convention for comic book fans and creators to connect and interact, and for dealers to sell their comics and geekdom like statues, posters, and such.

My goals for this convention were just to get the experience, meet great people, get some feedback on my portfolio from some of the pros, and just have a good time. I accomplished all that and then some. I got some great feedback on my own comic work from some of my longtime comic pro heroes who graciously spent time chatting with me. Thanks again folks! I could write a book on all the details of this con, but suffice to say that I had a great time. Here's some more with photos though:

I actually went to the con with nothing at all to sell or hand out. It was a crazy few weeks just before the con, and I really didn't have time to put anything together other than a simple portfolio and some new business cards. I did, however, bring plenty of art supplies in case someone actually wanted me to do a commission for them. I really didn't expect it, because the first thing I'll ever have been published in hasn't even come out yet. No one had ever heard of me. I was happily mistaken. Within an hour after I arrived at the con a guy named Jeff (aka TitansFan on a few message boards) approached me about doing an ink sketch of a member of the Teen Titans, called Beast Boy (or Changeling), who can morph into animal shapes. He wanted animals in the pic, and had found my website (lots of animal sketches in my online sketchbook) via the Heroes Con website and decided that I would be a good fit for the image he wanted. Very Cool! My first ever Con Sketch! Thanks again, man. You made the Con for me. He was so pleased with the piece that he brought one of his friends over who also got a sketch of a Teen Titans character called StarFire (I think). Here's my first ever con sketch!


I'm really really lucky to have found that rare jewel that all comic geeks seek for most of their lonely days; a beautiful woman who shares my passion for comics, art and geeky stuff! Renee loves comics. She hadn't read the amazing Bone series by Jeff Smith yet, and bought the collected edition at the con so that she could get it signed by the man himself. Jeff is a gracious guy. Here he is posing for a snapshot with Renee and I.


As a recent addition to the professional world of comics I was able to sit behind the table set-up for the Temple of Cartoon Mojo table. Check out the link for info about the Temple. I was honored to sit next to Doug Dabbs, Allen Spetnagel (pictured), and Cara Mcgee. All fantastic artists and writers. The banner is a six foot version of the header I created for the Temple Blog. I was surprised at how well it blew up.


Doug Dabbs is crushing your head!


Here is Doug doing his first ever (I think) Con Sketch too. It was a great time for all of us.


It was also great catching up with my long time friend, professor John Larison and his lovely lady, Raan. John has been teaching at the Savannah College of Art and Design for about 9 or 10 years. There was actually a huge SCAD presence at the con, including my own table made up totally of SCAD students.


And like all cons, there was, of course, costume play. Here's a sampling:

Marvel's Wasp


and the Scarlette Witch. These people put a lot of time into these costumes.


Including this guy, Nolan Woodard, who believe it or not is one of my professors and SCAD-Atlanta. Don't be Fooled! He's an awesome professor when he isn't posing as a Storm Trooper.


I could go on and on, and I have a hundred more snapshots, but this is it for now. I hope to post a bit more regularly now that things are settling down for me. Stay tuned.

BRAVES AND FISH

No new art. I finally got over being sick several days ago, but still can't shake the sniffles. It's annoying, but at least I feel fine now.

My dad came into town this week and took Renee and I to a Braves game on Thursday and the Georgia Aquarium on Friday. Thanks again, Dad. It was a lot of fun. Renee and I had been talking about going to both of these things for almost a year, but never got around to it till now.

The game was not the most eventful, but the experience of being at the field was a lot of fun.

I'll try to have some new art to show next time. Thanks for reading.

Massive Website Update

I'm just getting over the worse cold I've had in about 5 years. I didn't have energy or the patience to do much this past week, but, thankfully, I'm about over it now.

So I used the last few days to do a massive update to my website. I created a few new pages, I added a ton of new images in my art section and ditched a ton of the old stuff. Oh, and I completely overhauled my HUGE links page. There's some really valuable links there.

Thanks for taking the time.

Finally Finished

I finished another rigorous quarter in Grad school on Thursday, but most importantly I just completed my first (to be) published comic job today. I learned a lot, experimented a lot, and I had a lot of fun drawing, inking and coloring these pages. I'm really glad they're done, and now I'm excitedly looking for the next project. I've got a couple of things in the fire, but not sure which thing I'll choose to do next.

On another subject, I'm sick. This is big news to me, because I haven't had a common cold or hardly had any other ailment in nearly 5 years. It was a hell of a streak, but I guess it couldn't last forever. There's a bug going around, and I didn't sleep for nearly 2 straight days at the end of the quarter, compromising my immune system (I guess). I had forgotten how much it sucks to be really sick. I'm still not feeling great, but I'm on the mend. I'm sure I'll be back to spec by tomorrow or the next day.

After I get to feeling better I intend to get out and enjoy some of this great weather we're having in Atlanta, go see some summer blockbusters, and get back into the gym.

Laters

Resurrection Tales: Pages 1 and 2 in Color

This is my last post on the pages I'm doing for Oni Press. For those of you that have been following my progress with these pages, I hope you'll pick up Oni Press' Resurrection Volume 2, Issue 2 when it comes out. I'll update when I find out exactly when the book hits the stores.

I'm in the home stretch with these, and really enjoying the process now. I should be done with all ten pages on Thursday or Friday. I've really enjoyed doing this, but I'm really looking forward to a bit of a break. The quarter is coming to an end this week, too, and I can't say how much I'm looking forward to 3 and 1/2 weeks off. I've got a ton of stuff planned, but it will be at a nice even pace.

Here's pages 1 and 2 in living color.

Resurrection Tales Page 3

I've done a ton of new art for these pages, but I'm only showing a little bit of the work here to give you a taste. I may post more after the comic comes out, but that'll be a while.

Here's page 3 fully inked. I'll probably post again when I get the color done.


In other news; School is going particularly smoothly this quarter. I chose to start doing all-nighters earlier in the quarter and try to stick to a production schedule that I came up with when I got assigned the Oni comic pages. I didn't want to end up without sleep for the last 2 weeks of the quarter like usual. Instead, I figured I would spread the all-nighters out over the quarter. So far so good. I'm probably still going to end up with one or two of them next week, but not all week long. My stress levels are much more manageable because of it. I guess I had to learn good time management eventually.

Speaking of managing time. I've spent an enormous amount of time on these comic pages. I found myself doing tight thumbnails, super tight pencils, and then tight inks. I feel like I drew something, just to draw it again a little bigger and then redrew the exact same thing in ink. It's the standard process in the industry, but that process is based on a system where two different people are doing the pencils and inks. It doesn't make sense for me to do that. Next time I do comic pages I'll be doing something much more rough and quick in the early stages, and go tighter in the final stages. The hope being that I'll hit the same quality in half the time. I'm spending up to 14 hours a day at the drawing table, 6 days a week. My goal is to produce great work, but to leave some time for a life too. My professor, Shawn Crystal, who is doing pages for Marvel Comics, has attempted a similar change in his process with fantastic results. I hope to follow in those footsteps.

The summer break is coming up after next week. It'll be almost 4 weeks long, and I'm really looking forward to the time off to catch up on other things, enjoy the sun a bit, and I'll be traveling to Charlotte at the end of June for Heroes Con. More on that later, but I'm really looking forward to it.