Bollin's Alley

Netbase Hero Design

2011-12-21T10:31:00.000-08:00

This is the full image of the hero I came up with for Netbase.com. This will be made into a full sized cardboard cutout for trade shows.

Pitt Pens on Strathmoore 400 Series Smooth Bristol and colored in Photoshop.

Here's a few detail shots. I wanted to show the color holds (lines that have been made into color in photoshop). I used a variation on the John Rouch (a.k.a. EraserX) method, and I have to say, I love the results. His method almost automatically yields sensitive variation between the lines that get color and the lines that don't. I went back in and tweaked it manually with a brush in the Layer Mask, but otherwise his method pretty much did this for me. Thanks John.

Check out his video tutorial on Deviant Art: http://eraserx.deviantart.com/art/Line-Hold-video-tutorial-96296201

Netbase site Launch

2011-12-12T07:06:00.000-08:00

Here's that redrawn crowd scene (darkened down to make the title text pop, which you'll see on the site):

www.netbase.com just relaunched their website with my illustrations all over it. The home page has three illustrations that play as a slide show, then click the "Solutions" tab, the "Products" tab, and "Scorecard" under the Products tab to see more of my work:http://www.netbase.com/products/insight-scorecard/

This is a version of "Slide 2" that you won't see on the site:

There are more illustrations on the site, too.

2011-12-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

This is a rejected piece of art for an ad campaign I'm doing the illustrations for. It was done in Pitt Pens on Smooth Bristol Paper, and colored in photoshop. I didn't take it past flat color because it was rejected at that stage, and for good reasons. I'll post the 2nd version when the company releases the ad campaign it was for.

Note: it is incredibly difficult to avoid tangents in a crowd scene.

Shadow Casting Sketch Dump

2011-07-04T08:59:00.001-07:00

I've been learning technical shadow casting in 1, 2, and 3-point perspective. This partly grew out of a need to be able to teach it to my students, and partly for personal creative reasons. Around 15 years ago in undergrad I learned this material on a very basic level, but was left with more questions than answers. Out of frustration I started just kind of making it up when I needed to draw cast shadows in a scene. It's always been a little frustrating, and I would usually erase and redraw several times before arriving at something that worked. So I want to be able to provide a thorough knowledge of this material to my students, and for myself.

Here is a selection of the fruit of this research (which is still underway):

Shadow casting using a "local" light source (man made light source). Also called a "Point Source":

Here is a diagram I made in Adobe Illustrator for Shadow casting in 1 and 2-point perspective using a "natural" light source (sun light) and several drawings using this method:

Side lighting scenario. I don't have a diagram for how this works, but this can be found in most perspective books.
After I figured out shadow casting in 1 and 2-point perspective I discovered something interesting... shadow casting in 3-point perspective is conspicuously missing from all 15 perspective drawing books that I have on my shelf (and several PDF books that I have on my hard drive), and I couldn't find even a mention of it on the web. The standard methods just didn't work in 3-point when I tried them on my drafting table, so I experimented until I came up with a method that has a converging "Solar Line". I've tested this so many times now that it's insane, and it works every time.

Super Enzo

2011-05-12T05:29:00.000-07:00

This was a really fun commission. Sometimes I really enjoy getting back to just doing solid line art without trying so hard to do painterly blacks and mark making.

Reworked sketch

2011-04-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

A little something I'm reworking for a friend. Been a while, so I thought I would post something.

Freshly Finished Pencils

2011-03-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

Just finished these pencils. Speed has always been an issue for me, and I just finished these in about 5.5 hours (down from an average of 8 to 10 hours or more). I'm pretty happy with them too. What do you think?

Moebius Warm Up Sketch

2011-03-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud is an amazing artist who has influenced generations of comic book artists and illustrators. If you don't know his work, you should look him up.

This was a much needed warm up sketch from a photo of Moebius at the opening of a huge gallery show of his art.

Pencil, ink, brush, nib, and gray marker in sketchbook.

Pencil Page Inked

2011-03-04T17:03:00.001-08:00

Here's that last page with ink and tones. I had a lot of fun with this one.

Pencil Pages Pencil Pages...

2011-02-28T13:14:00.000-08:00

This is the latest pencil page from my graphic novel. I got sick pleasure from drawing the bits of brains spurting out the back of the guy's head. Does that make me evil?

Drawing and Drawing and Teaching Drawing...

2011-02-10T16:45:00.000-08:00

Haven't been around for a while. I've been really busy trying to catch up with my graphic novel schedule, and with developing and delivering course material for my classes. I don't have anything I can show from the graphic novel at this time, but I took this pic in class today of my Drawing students working on this portable, mini city block that I built for them to do perspective drawing studies from. Normally we, the foundations teachers of art schooldom, will tend to release our students into the hallways of the school buildings to get this lesson, but I find it mighty difficult to be available for questions and help when my students are positioned all over a building. Plus, they tend to loose sight of the mission and start gabbing with buddies too much in the hallways, so I'm trying an in-class still life to solve those problems.

First Post of the Year: More Zombie Fun

2011-01-14T19:06:00.001-08:00

Here's the last in that series of zombie themed portraits I was commissioned to do. They were fun. Let me know what you think.

And here's a detail shot.

Client requested changes:

'tis the season... for Zombies 2

2010-12-23T19:43:00.001-08:00

I'm really enjoying these. They are commissions, but I really wanted to do them so I feel as though I'm working completely for myself. I feel the freedom to experiment in a way that I haven't for a long time. Like a good friend of mine says, though, "gutters and strikes" is an appropriate expression for how I feel about this piece. I love some of it, and some of it... not so much.

'tis the season... for Zombies!!!

2010-12-17T10:11:00.000-08:00

I know this is a weird time of the year for this, but I got a commission for a short series of zombie pieces that feature friends of the client killing zombies. I think he's giving them as X-mas gifts, so this is still holiday appropriate in a way.

This is the first zombie I think I've ever drawn. Fun stuff.

Search for the Great Salamander

2010-12-08T10:50:00.001-08:00

Here are a couple of warm up sketches I did from photos today. I'm insanely rusty, and I hope that doing stuff like this for a few minutes every day will help me get back into the swing of things.

I should be posting a lot more often now that I'm back in my own studio.

Somebody Shoot Me

2010-07-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

This was a very frustrating panel. The figure in the foreground is meant to be a little higher than the rest of the figures in the scene because he has just come out of a building and is standing on the front steps. The figures in the street would appear a little lower. Normally, I try to eyeball my perspective, but I just kept getting it wrong and having to erase over and over. I decided to try technical perspective, but that kept giving me results that were too precise. I couldn't force the perspective at all. Finally, I went with a mix of technical and freehand perspective, and I'm pretty happy with the final result. I think I may have found what I've been looking for.

These pencils are being done with a couple of different lead colors to help me keep the planes and elements clear. I like working this way. It allows me to sketch in one color and tighten in another.

Back to Traditional Pencils

2010-07-13T16:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of panels from one of my latest pages from the graphic novel I'm working on. I have stopped using Manga Studio for this phase of the process, because I had to give up my Cintiq. I'm experimenting with different colored leads to separate elements and planes. I have to admit that I'm really enjoying the feel of good old fashioned pencil on paper.

SCAD-Atlanta Summer Seminar Sequential Art Materials and Books List (try to say that 5 times fast)

2010-06-27T10:16:00.000-07:00

If you didn't catch it from the title I'm teaching SCAD-Atlanta's Summer Seminar Sequential Art classes this year, and this list is for the benefit of my students. For those of you who were in my classes last week, thanks. It was really fun, and I hope you learned a lot.

BOOKS (click it and be transported to my recommended book list on Amazon)

MATERIALS

This list is not comprehensive, but it should give you a good start. I'm providing links where I can, but you may be able to find a better deal somewhere else, so shop around.

PENCILS

-Sakura Sumo Grip Mechanical Pencil - 0.7 mm
Very Comfortable mechanical pencil, but any mechanical pencil will do.

-Pilot Color Eno Neox Pencil Lead - 0.7 mm
Smooth lead that comes in different colors. Easy to erase. I like this stuff, but you can use any lead from your local store too.

-KOH-I-NOOR Technigraphic 5611 Lead Holder (also called "clutch pencils")

BRUSHES
Start with some less expensive brushes to get a handle on it. Don't give up on these if you don't feel like you have the knack. Keep practicing and you'll be doing things that you never imagined in no time. Try different brands, different sizes, and shapes. Here are a few of my favorites:

-WINSOR & NEWTON Sceptre Gold II Short-Handle Paint Brushes, Round, sizes 1-4.
These are relatively inexpensive, but very good brushes for comics

-Loew-Cornell White Nylon, yellow handled brushes
*Series 795, Round #2 and #4. These are very cheap, but good brushes that will give you a great start doing comics in brush and ink.
*Series 801, LINER #2 or #4 (if you can find it). Great for fine line art. Hard to control at first, but well worth the practice time to get used to it.

-Loew-Cornell Gold Taklon Series 7000-2 Black Handle brushes
*Series 7000 has the feel of natural hair brushes without the cost. I use the Ultra Round and Round brushes sizes 2 and 4.

-Pentel Pocket Brush Pen
This is a great brush for traveling and inking. Gives a "dry brush" finish. The ink in the cartridges is NOT water proof/permanent. You may want to replace it with your own ink. It gets messy to do that, but it's worth it.

"DIP" PENS
These are metal tip pens (quills) that you dip into ink and draw on paper or board. They are a mainstay of illustrators and comic book professionals for 100's of years and are still being used extensively today. There are few inking tools as expressive as these.

-Speedball Sketching Pen Set
This American made inking set will get you started. It has a variety of nibs (metal pen tips) that you can try out.

-Hunt Pen Nibs--Crow Quill No. 102
This is in the Speedball set above, but you can also buy them separately. This is the most popular dip pen nib used in the U.S. and Canada.

-Japanese MARU-PEN
Very similar to the American made Hunt 102 nib, but less flexible. I use this a lot.

-Japanese G-PEN
Holds more ink than the MARU-PEN and can create wider lines.

-Tachikawa Comic Pen Holder - Model 40
For Japanese Nibs only. VERY comfortable and has a plastic safety cap on it for travel.

INK
There are a ton of inks out there that will do the job just fine. Try several to see which ones work best for your needs. Here are some that I have tried:

-Higgin's Black Magic
This is a great starter ink, and it's pretty cheap. However, the inks below are used more extensively by professionals.

-Holbein Black Drawing Ink
Very good coverage. Runs through a brush or nib very well. Kind of expensive and it evaporates a little fast, though.

-Holbein White Drawing Ink
The image in the link is the wrong one, but Binder's Art Supply definitely sells you the correct ink. This is the only white ink that I've ever been able to run through a pen nib without clogging. Great for drawing back into black areas.

-Dr Ph Martin's TECH Ink
This is a middle priced ink that works great all around. This is what I'm currently using.

The Raftermen

2010-06-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of cartoon logos of photographers Dane and Ben, who call themselves Raftermen Photography. These guys have a great sense of humor, and pretty much let me have fun with this. I inked them on paper with brushes and quills, and digitally colored/painted them in Photoshop. My goal was to land somewhere between my comic book coloring and digital painting styles to come up with something cartoony, yet high finish. Thanks for stopping by.

The Most Perfect Ink Well Ever!!!

2010-06-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

I've been using a glass eye cup (on right of picture) for an ink well for a few years, because you can see exactly how much ink is in it and you know exactly how deep you can dip your brush or nib into it without hitting the bottom. Problem is that it's very easy to knock over, so (after one massive and costly accident that ruined carpet) I started taping it down to a piece of board to keep it upright. I hated messing with it, so I've been looking for something better for a while now. At Heroes Con I saw that the great Karl Story was using an upside-down sake cup for an ink well, and the double cone shape kept it from being tipped over easily. I looked around for a set, but ended up thinking outside the box a little and found this awesome mini glass candle holder at Micheal's Art Supply. It holds exactly the same amount of ink as the eye cup, but wont tip over easily. Lovin' it! I also found a big cork that will keep the ink from evaporating while I'm not using it. I may switch to a rubber cork if I can find one in the right size, because I've gotten a few specks of cork in my ink already. No big deal, but I'd rather avoid it.

Life Drawing: Spring 2010

2010-06-13T07:51:00.000-07:00

As I stated in a post some time back, I took a Life Drawing class this past quarter. There are far too many pieces from that class to post them all, but here are a couple (including a self portrait I did in conte' and white charcoal). If I haven't mentioned it yet, this was also my last quarter taking classes in grad school. I am still finishing my Thesis project, but not having anymore classes is a huge milestone and I'm really happy to be moving on to bigger things.

(WARNING: Don't scroll down if you are offended by nudity!)

This may seems stylized, but this girl was really buff and had bizarre double jointed knees.

Heroes Con Rocked!

2010-06-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

Heroes Con was an amazing time meeting and reconnecting with a ton of artists and fans. I only did a hand full of sketches, and here they are. I would write more, but I really just don't have the time. Suffice to say that Renee and I had a fantastic time, made a lot of great connections and friends, and had a nice road trip out of it.

Heroes Con Here I Come!

2010-05-19T09:14:00.001-07:00

I will be in Charlotte from June 4th - 6th for the always awesome Heroes Con comic convention. Come find me in artist alley, because this year I'll be drawing YOU as your favorite comic character or superhero. On top of comic art I've been drawing caricature for over a decade, so it just seemed appropriate to combine the two and offer something that you may not have seen being done at comic conventions before. Prices will start at $25 per caricature (in archival marker and ink), and will vary depending on if you want a full figure drawing and/or background and detail. To get an idea of what I do you can check out the caricature page in the art section.

I've also been invited by the Savannah College of Art and Design to present a workshop on the awesome software, Manga Studio. Below is the info on that. Hope to see you there:

SCAD WORKSHOP: Manga Studio (12:00pm Sunday)

From panel layout to finished inks, Manga Studio is the most powerful software there is that specifically caters to the needs of comic book artists. It has amazing tools to layout panels, it's drawing and inking tools are extremely natural using a tablet or Cintiq, and you can create and manage entire projects with astounding ease. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Follow along with SCAD-Atlanta grad student and Oni Press penciler/inker, Pat Bollin as he demos his digital drawing techniques using Manga Studio, and discusses the pros and cons of using digital techniques vs good old fashioned ink on paper.

Under the Influence

2010-04-16T23:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a full page of inks from the graphic novel I'm working on for Oni Press.

My comic work has taken on a very different look lately, and I've been asked by a lot of people who my influences are and/or "who have you been looking at". It's a very reasonable question considering how often artists imitate other artists rather than imitating life. I'm no exception. I have been making an effort to draw from life more often these days, and I'm really enjoying that. But the real change in my inked work started happening after I started looking at the work of several artists who have a certain freedom (and sometimes a grit) to their work that I recognized as being missing from my own.

I would say that this trend began over a year ago when I started looking at the amazing work of Mr Sean Gordon Murphy, then Goran Parlov, Guy Davis, and then a host of others. Not to be missed, would be the huge influence of my own friend and classmate, Doug Dabbs, who's inking style would be more akin to painting than the usual lines of comic books. The following is a list of many of the influences (and their web pages) who have impacted the direction my work has taken. There were MANY before these, and maybe I'll post more of them some day, but these are the ones whom I look at every single day to inform my current work.

Sean Murphy
http://www.seangordonmurphy.com/
http://seangordonmurphy.deviantart.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxPWcZ4XBXI

Goran Parlov
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Goran-Parlov/21421857395?v=photos
http://www.facebook.com/people/Goran-Parlov/1040328780

Guy Davis
http://www.guydavisartworks.com/

Jorge Zaffino
http://www.jorgezaffino.com/
http://picasaweb.google.com/gianmaria.caschetto/JorgeZaffino?feat=directlink#

Eric Canete
http://kahnehteh.blogspot.com/

Doug Dabbs
http://www.dougdabbs.com/comics.html

Sean Phillips
http://surebeatsworking.blogspot.com/

Chris Samnee
http://www.chrissamnee.com/

Brian Hurtt
http://thehurttlocker.blogspot.com/

Cameron Stewart
http://cameronstewart.blogspot.com/

Ashley Wood
*Google him. Sadly, I haven't found a lot of his black and white inked work online. I have a small stack of his comics that I look at all the time, though.

Toby Cypress
http://roddracer.blogspot.com/

Hand Drawings

2010-04-14T11:59:00.001-07:00

I'm taking a life drawing class right now that I knew would be helpful, but I was a little afraid that it would turn out to be review/busy work only. Well, its turning out to be really enjoyable, and I'm getting a well needed refresher. We had to do some drawings of our own hands for homework the other day. I had forgotten how difficult, but useful, these exercises are. It really makes you slow down and get a better understanding of the structure of the hand.

Dry Media Studio Caricature

2010-04-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

In the midst of working on 2 classes, Graduate Thesis, a graphic novel and an upcoming move I'm still paying the bills doing live caricature and studio caricatures like the one below. This was done in Faber Castell Pitt brush pens and Prisma Color Artstix. This is little more than an extension of my live caricature technique, but with color line art. What made this different enough for my to post it, is that I went kind of painterly with the trees in the background. After watching Nolan Woodard using the Pitt pens for his Star Wars trading cards I was inspired to push my own technique a little further. I really enjoyed this, and it made me want to do some mixed media painting, something I've wanted to do for a long time but never got around to.

Here's a detail of the left side of the page. The trees are still essentially just line art based drawing, but pushed further than I would normally take it.

Seeing the results of the marker painting of the trees side-by-side with the Marker/Artstix rendering of the figure definitely makes me want to try to go more painterly and ditch the Artstix for studio work all together. I still like the Artstix, but maybe markers mixed with water colors or something would have a finer affect in the same amount of time. I don't know.

The Grab

2010-04-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

Here's another panel from my Oni Press book.

Harbinger of Light

2010-04-11T16:25:00.001-07:00

Here's another inked panel from my Oni pages.

Surrounded

2010-04-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, there were some complaints that I didn't post enough yesterday, so here's a bigger panel to chew on.

Stick em up

2010-04-07T11:13:00.001-07:00

Still can't give you the name of the project or any details about it, but here's an inked panel to chew on. I'll be posting little snippets like this a lot over the next month, so stay tuned.

Angel and the Ape Challenge

2010-03-09T18:22:00.000-08:00

Sketch challenge of Angel and the Ape (google it). The challenge also included "cheese cake", so I made a gag out of it. This was inked in Manga Studio, not something I normally do, but it was faster to just finish it in the computer.

Head Turns

2010-02-05T14:08:00.000-08:00

I've had a bit of trouble keeping the protagonist looking consistent in my comic pages. I was originally trying "find the character" in the pages, but I caved today and did some turnarounds of his head. I need to make sure I do this for major characters from now on. It's still not perfect at this point, but I feel more confident drawing the character now.

Feeling the flow

2010-02-04T21:08:00.001-08:00

Here's a panel from my latest page. I'm really starting to feel it now. The computer with Manga Studio is really starting to feel like a successful replacement for paper and pencils... and light box and, scanner, and xerox machine, and drafting tools, etc etc. This is getting to the point that it has the grit, angularity, and overall style that I've been working toward. I'm getting really excited about the next hundred and forty some odd pages, now.

Digital Pencils and Spot Blacks

2010-02-03T12:22:00.000-08:00

Here's the first peek at the digital pencils for my Oni Press graphic novel. One of the things that I'm absolutely loving about working digitally is how easy it is to plan your blacks and tones. After I put in the line art the blacks take minutes to put in. And if I don't like something I can erase it quickly and easily. My hope is that I'll eventually get to the point that I can do more of this thinking in ink (which I'm still going to do traditionally with brushes and pens), but for now I'm feeling pretty good about this process.

More thumbnails

2010-01-30T09:14:00.000-08:00

I'm mostly working on things that can't really be released yet, so I've hardly had anything to post. Here's some teaser thumbnail pages though. I'll post some of the pencils as I get them done. Sorry, I still can't release the name of this project yet. I think Oni is waiting for me to get some of the finished art done, so that they can do the official release. When they do that, I'll put out the word here. Oh, and these are two pages from completely separate parts of the book, so they aren't in continuity with each other.

New thumbnail pages.

2009-12-20T22:04:00.000-08:00

I've been feverishly working on the thumbnails for an action/thriller graphic novel from Oni Press that I'm doing the art for. I can't release any details yet, because their official announcement isn't out yet, but I can give you a little bit of process images. Here's a few pages of thumbnails. I hope to be posting a bit more often from now on.

Manga Studio Pencils... again

2009-11-16T18:57:00.000-08:00

Here's another page of Pencils I did in Manga Studio. This is going to be a 12 page mini comic about a campfire ghost story, btwy. Created by an old friend of mine, Beau Trussell, and scripted by him with assistance from me. Beau is an incredibly smart, media savvy guy that I've wanted to do some kind of comic work with for a very long time. This is kind of a small and manageable dry run to see how we work together. So far so good.

I'm still working out the kinks in my process for penciling in Manga Studio. I'm starting to use the layer structure more efficiently. I'm no newby to digital, so it hasn't been that hard. I'm definitely doing these pages in the same amount of hours that it would normally take me to draw them on paper... maybe even faster. That's one huge hurdle crossed now. If I'm right, I may actually get to the point that I can crank out quality pages faster than traditionally. We'll see. I am experiencing some serious lag time on my 2005 PC, which is annoying the crap out of me. Maybe that'll be my excuse to finally replace the thing. Thanks for looking.

Notes on my Manga Studio process

2009-11-10T21:16:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who has been stopping by my blog. I got this comment on my last post, and felt like it warranted a post of it's own:

"It would be very useful if you could post a video tutorial/screencast on how you do penciling in Manga Studio. Do you use the perspective tools in Manga Studio? thanks"

I wouldn't even know how to go about making a video. I'm really not doing anything all that different than working traditionally with a light-box. I slice up my panels using the standard Manga Studio tools and rasterize the layer. Then I do rough thumbnails making sure I DON'T zoom in (I actually zoom out so that the page is no bigger than 4 inches tall on my screen). If you zoom in at the thumbnail stage you'll be getting into too much detail too soon. When I'm done with thumbnails I set the layer to a light blue color, and then I make a new layer at 600dpi in color mode for my pencils. I draw with the pencil tool and try to keep it simple, and rough. Don't zoom in too much even here, or you'll end up drawing detail that will never print or be visible in a webcomic either.

I have started to use the perspective tools a little, but not much. I use a fair amount of curved perspectives (like the first page I posted with the treehouse), and that can only be done by hand with a lot of practice. I'm not really looking for perfection, so much as 'convincing' environments. That said, I've got a project coming up that will require a LOT of perspective work in a city environment and I'm sure I'll use the perspective tools a fair amount just to speed things up. This is a brand new process for me, and I'm sure it will evolve a great deal as I develop it more.

Hope this helps. If you have specific questions you can email me. If you are just looking to get a better handle on the software you can do what I did and get the "Manga Studio for Dummies" book. It's cheap and good. It took me a couple of solid weeks to learn the software, but it was time well spent that is paying off now.

Another Page of Pencils in Manga Studio

2009-11-10T14:02:00.001-08:00

This is another page I penciled in Manga Studio. Note that I skipped a page from the last post. It will be raining in each of these panels, btwy. I just decided to save most of that work for the ink stage.

I'm starting to find lots of little things useful in this software that I didn't expect. It's really the same stuff you could do on a light box or a copy machine, like blowing up and cropping a background from one panel into another. The difference is that in the computer it takes only seconds to do. So I'm starting to develop little time savers that can really help speed up my process.

First Page of Pencils in Manga Studio

2009-11-05T16:27:00.000-08:00

This is the first page I've ever "penciled" in Manga Studio, and the experience wasn't half bad. It took about the same amount of time that my Resurrection pages took. I'm leaving this intentionally loose(ish), because I intend to do a lot of the work in ink. The gray ereas are going to be partly spot blacks and partly gray tone dots. Any feedback would be great. Thanks for looking.

Manga Studio Sketches

2009-11-04T16:56:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to get a handle on using Manga Studio for my comics work flow. I've already been doing my panel layouts and some of my thumbnails with it, but now I want to move to doing my pencils there too. There are tons of advantages to doing so, but I'm not going to get into that right now.

Doing thumbnails and sketching in Manga Studio was definitely a little slower than paper at the start. I couldn't put my finger on why at first, but I think I've figured it out now. Using a pencil takes a very small amount of left brain (analytical) activity that most artists master when they're pretty young. So we're able to forget the tool and slip into the right brain (creative) activity that we so enjoy. Manga Studio and a computer are no different than drawing on paper except that there is much more left brain activity involved in the learning curve, which initially makes it much more difficult to tap into your creative centers. So a comic book thumbnail page that normally took me 15 minutes to an hour took me several hours in Manga Studio while hunting for quick keys and trying to figure out the best layer structure to use. As I got comfortable in the software environment my thumbnails started flowing out much faster. I'm almost to the point that I can do them as fast as on paper now.

So now I'm sketching in Manga Studio and not loving it at first. Same as before, there's a learning curve. After just a few hours I'm discovering things I really like about it. Using the pencil tool on a color layer gives you something like a transparent marker. You can be really loose at first and get some great marker-like effects and then tighten up with a smaller tip. I'm definitely liking it now. Hopefully, I'll get decent at it pretty quick, cause I'm going to pencil a small comic project with it in the coming weeks to test it out.

Inking? No. I would ink in Manga Studio if I was still going for a clean, "wet" look, but I'm moving in a direction with my inks that just can't be done in this software. Probably not any software. I like the alchemy of ink on rough paper and the happy accidents that happen. I wouldn't give that up right now.

90 minute Challenge: Headless Horseman

2009-10-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

On a Shetland Pony! This was an in-class 90 minute illustration challenge. I wanted to try to have a cartoonish image in a gritty inking technique to see if I could pull that off. I'm not really sure if I did, but I had a lot of fun trying. I'm starting to feel like I'm getting some consistency in this new inking style. There's some similarities btwn this one and the ink drawing in my last post for example, but I've got a long way to go.

Frontman Inks

2009-09-18T11:39:00.000-07:00

Here's another inking experiment using the lead singer to a punkband for subject matter. I don't honestly know who this is. I found him on the net while doing an image search for "punk". A character I'm designing is supposed to have a similar build, so I thought I could get some great anatomy study out of this as well as inking. For the figure I started out with a small micron pen and then added some nice chunky line weights with a tiny angular/flat brush. I wanted this to be fast and energetic. For the background I used a flat bristle oil brush that separates easily when you use it for ink. I love the texture it gives. And finally I used white Holbein ink in a G-pen nib to bring some detail back and add some lighting effects. OH, and I used a white china marker on top of the white ink to give that grainy affect. This was really fun, and out of all the inking experiments I've done lately its the closest to what I'm envisioning for a comic project I'm trying out for.

Renee Caricatures

2009-09-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

Over Labor Day weekend Renee took the 6 hour drive down to Gulf Shores, AL to hang out at the beach with me while I did live caricature at The Hangout, a huge family friendly party spot right on the beautiful, white sand beach right there on the Gulf. Over the summer it was fantastic, but sadly, Labor Day weekend was nearly fruitless. The money just wasn't there this time. However, that gave me plenty of time to finally draw Renee, who has mentioned on many occasions that she would like me to do a caricature of her. While sitting there trying to lure customers in, I used her as a prop to start the show several times. Here are the results.

I tried a variety of different things. This first one really didn't look much like her, but it's fun.

This one has an air of "cool" with the shades, and it looks more like her. I like the lip detail.

She hates this one, but I think it comes really close. She has a curved nose and Angelina lips. I guess I pushed it farther than she's comfortable with. :)

And this is her favorite. It was fast and "friendly". She loves the cheerleader gag, too.

R. Kamal ink study

2009-08-27T16:09:00.000-07:00

Here's another ink study. This one was not easy. I'm forcing myself to make decisions with completely different effects in mind than I normally do, and its actually a bit frustrating right now. I want something that's loose and fun, but still tight at the same time. Hard balance. So far it isn't exactly fast either, but I think it could get that way once I get used to it. I'm really enjoying the use of tones. I might have gone a bit too far with that on this one. It would take WAY too long to pull off 2 or 3 shades of tones in a comic page, so I should probably stick with only one from here on in. Ultimately I really like the over all affect of this piece, but I'm still reaching for something else/more from this process.

Another caricature inking experiment

2009-08-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Here's another inking technique experiment. I really enjoyed doing the beard and trees on this one.

Joe Bluhm in Ink

2009-08-26T18:35:00.000-07:00

Here's another caricature ink study. This time it's of Joe Bluhm, an amazing caricature artist himself. This was done with a round brush on Bristol Vellum (a nice textured paper) and then I used a flat, square oil painting brush for all the affects around him. I'm really liking the oil brush. It's very rough and stiff, and separates easily, giving me an affect that I'm really liking on this paper. The tone pattern was done in photoshop.

I'm not as happy with this one as I am with the Maestro, but you have to find out what doesn't work to get to where you know what does. I really like the affects around the head, though, and the tone pattern shadow work almost makes it for me. Let me know what you guys think.

Ink Study

2009-08-25T21:35:00.000-07:00

I'm trying something completely different for me. Rough brush work on toothy paper with some lines laid down with a variety of markers and nibs. I'm basically trying everything you can possibly use to lay down black ink on a page, and then using some china marker and white ink or titanium white acrylic to bring out highlites or make corrections. Seeing as how I've been doing lots of caricature lately, I figured I'd keep at it. This is a caricature of someone from the drawingboard.org who goes by the moniker of, Maestro.

Summer Caricature Dump

2009-08-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a ton of live caricatures I from this summer. I had to take photos of most of them in bad lighting with a flash, but you can still make them out. Enjoy.

This guy's given name was actually THOR, so I did a silly gag making him look a bit like a gay version of the thunder god. He thought it was hilarious.

Jason Kolano was the artist I worked with/alongside all summer long. This is one of my favorite caricatures of the summer. I didn't get a good photo of him to post with this, but I found a decent shot of him from his own facebook page.

And last, but not least, I did this highly exaggerated picture of fellow caricature artist, Tommy Lebeau, whom I have no photo of right now. This is, without reservation, my favorite caricature of the summer. He loved it too.

More summer live caricature

2009-08-14T21:53:00.000-07:00

I got treated to this sunset over one of my locations the other day. It was magnificent.

Tomorrow (Saturday) is my last day of live caricature at (or near) the beach. I've been a little burned out for a few weeks now. I haven't lost the love of the art, but I'm ready to be back in my own apartment, my own bed, and mostly to be back in the arms of my lovely lady.

Not much else to say, but here's some art. This first one is of Zack, the DJ at one of the locations I'm working at. I took my time on this one. I can usually crank out one of these surf scenes in about 15 minutes, but I took almost 40 minutes on this one.

I took some risks with this one. He bought it and tipped me, but swore that it didn't look a thing like him. You decide. Let me know what you think.

Drawingboard.org Caricature

2009-08-07T10:02:00.000-07:00

I've been participating in a thread on the Drawingboard.org for about 5 years called "Caricaturist's Caricatures". A bunch of us caricature artists post our own photos on the thread and proceed to make fun of each other with as much zest as we can. Over the years I've probably done around 60 drawings, paintings, and digital paintings of other artists for this thread, and have received as many of myself. Why? Because its incredibly fun, and the feedback and learning from rubbing elbos with so many other amazing artists is worth gold! It has been far too long since I participated in the thread, but here is my latest piece.

I tried a new (ish) technique for this: Line art done in colored Pitt brush pens, and PrismaColor Artstix for color fill. The affect looks to me to be somewhere btwn a painting and an animated cell. I like it, and want to develop it further as a much cleaner and more portable replacement for my airbrushed caricatures. Here's the link to the photo reference. http://www.drawingboard.org/download.php?id=79155

Long Summer Days

2009-07-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

I'm out of school for the Summer, so I decided to take it on the road to do caricatures at a few locations on the Gulf Coast. I'm having a great time doing live caricature again, meeting some great people who also do caricature, and enjoying the beach when I get the chance.

I'm working really long days, some times as much as 14 hours with only a lunch break. I wish I could say I was drawing people the entire 12 to 14 hours, but I'm spending more time trying to get people in the chair than drawing them. That said, the money isn't bad at all.

It's been too long since I've done live caricature full-time, and its great to reconnect with it. I also took the plunge and switched from using a heavy pencil method to markers and Art Stix (basically its a color pencil without the wood). This is a highly portable and affective method of doing live caricatures. I really thought I'd have a hard time getting used to drawing live caricature straight to permanent markers, but it was no sweat at all. I guess I never really erased when I did pencil work anyway. The marker is so much more powerful than the pencil anyway. Heavier black lines, and it impresses the customers more too. I've really enjoyed challenging myself to work with new media and trying new exageration techniques too.

I have tons of images that I need to optimize, but for now here's a sample I did of Bob Dylan. He's got a bit of cowboy look these days that I wanted to have fun with.

Auction Sketch for American Cancer Society

2009-07-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

UPDATE August 17th 2009: Here's the link to the auction: Ebay Auction for the American Cancer Society

My buddy, Beau, got in touch with me and asked if I'd be willing to do a cover sketch for a blank paged comic book that would be auctioned by members of the CGC (comic collectors society) to benefit the American Cancer Society. I've given to the ACS at every opportunity for years and thought this would be fun.

This is basically a redo of the cover of Iron Man and Submariner #1 (click to see the original) done in my own style and with a prank element that only Beau and his cohorts at the CGC forums would really understand. If you want to know more check out this thread:
http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=3307922&nt=3&fpart=1

For more info on the auction and how you can get involved click here:
http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=3307699&fpart=1

Summer Caricatures

2009-07-12T09:50:00.001-07:00

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

2009-07-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-13T18:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-07T13:05:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-31T20:53:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-25T12:05:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-20T10:15:00.001-07:00

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.

Fresher Inks

2009-05-12T18:59:00.000-07:00

I've done a lot of inking over the last 5 years, but most of it hasn't actually been on comic pages. I'd almost forgotten how much inking you have to do for even a single page of comics. It's pretty intense. But seeing the finished product emerge is totally worth the effort.

I'm seeing an eclectic grouping of influences affecting these pages, some of which I intended and some of which are just happening. I just hope that it all seems to jibe, and not clash.

Here's page 2 fully inked.

Fresh Ink

2009-05-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

Here's some fresh ink (as in a few days ago) on the first panel of my first page in Resurrection Tales. I'm a bit rusty with the inks, but I'm getting it back pretty quick. Let me know what you think.

First Professional Comic Job

2009-05-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting much lately because a fair amount of the work I'm doing these days is not allowed to be viewed yet, but my editor at ONI PRESS has given me the thumbs-up to release a sample of the comic art I've been doing for a back-up story in their post alien invasion story called Resurrection. I'm doing the pencils, inks and digital colors for a ten page back-up story that will appear in issue 2 of the second volume. James, my editor has been a genuine pleasure to work with on this, and my professor, Shawn Crystal, has been really helpful getting me up and running too.

I've spent a ton of time over the last year and a half researching, relearning anatomy, relearning perspective drawing, and reading books on screen writing, cinematography and how to maintain continuity in the art of comic book story telling... oh, and lots and lots of exploration in software. You could say that I've been a bit bookish. I spent 75% of my time preparing and researching and 25% of my time actually doing the work.

Some time last quarter the paradigm began to shift, and I was spending 75% of my time drawing, digitally painting, and writing while spending a modest 25% of my time researching. Now I'm working constantly and have hardly researched or read a thing.

While doing all this work, I'm finding that the time I spent over the last year and a half was well spent. I feel like I can approach the work with confidence in a way that I wouldn't have had I not prepared my self so well. However, I'm learning even more by just doing the work. Learning as I go. From now on my paradigm is going to consist of doing lots and lots of work, and reading books when I have the time. I'll still be going to seminars, conventions, and of course I have a few classes left to take in grad school, but the majority of my time will be spent in my sketchbook and at the drawing table.

Here's some snippets of the pencils for my back-up story in Oni Press' Resurrection #2, called Mercy. There will be more in a few days, so stay tuned:

Character Designs in Ink

2009-04-20T09:57:00.001-07:00

Here are a couple of character designs I did last week in ink on paper. I mostly used archival markers for these, but there is a bit of brush with india ink in there too. I've got a million other things on my plate, but most of it I can't post.

I'm really excited, cause I'm doing a 10 page back-up story for Oni Press right now. I can't show any of it for now, but may be able to post some developmental stuff after it's published. That will depend on the publisher.

Anyway, here's the images. Hope you enjoy it.

Maquette Bust

2009-04-01T19:53:00.000-07:00

I spent all day Saturday, Sunday, Monday (and an all-nighter Monday night) working to bring one of my characters to life in Sculpey clay. This is only my fifth maquette, so I'm still really experimenting with sculpting techniques and learning how to bake it properly. I started out with scale drawings of the character to get the right proportions and the general idea, but then I really let loose and explored the design in clay.

After I had the initial designs in pencil I asked myself, "who looks kind of like this?" Then I gathered a massive amount of reference of celebrities who have similar features. That's a version of Tom Cruise's nose for example. The hair style is something similar to Justin Long's, and his overall build is kind of like Jason Alexander's (George Castanza from Seinfeld). There's more, but you get the idea.

After 3 straight days designing, researching and sculpting I excitedly placed him in the oven to bake him for the time and temperature that the instructions suggest. I've never had a problem with that before, but sadly this sculpt was different. I built the internal framework differently which may have been part of the problem, but this sculpt is also just plain thicker than all the others I've done. He CRACKED! He's actually riddled with cracks. I did some research afterwards, and most of the pros are saying to bake it at a lower temperature for longer periods of time to achieve an even temperature shift. Live and learn.

So, I ended up spending an entire day fixing all the cracks in him. Luckily you can superglue the small cracks and epoxy or puddy the larger ones. This is supposed to keep the cracks from getting larger. The one on his neck (as you can see in the close up) was extra difficult to get to. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to sand that for the paint job.

Speaking of which, I'll be posting the painted version of this soon. Enjoy.

Spring Break Challenge

2009-03-23T16:53:00.000-07:00

Over Spring Break, Renee and I read a lot of graphic novels, including a great book from Dark Horse Comics called the Umbrella Academy, and watched the final season of Avatar together, and hung out at Panera Bakery and coffee shop around the corner from her place. I'm very lucky to have found a girl who likes a lot of the same geeky stuff as me. :)

The other day Renee mentioned that she would like to take part in the Spring Break Sketch Challenge at the Temple of Cartoon Mojo, and wanted for us to do a picture together, something we hadn't done before. So she drew us as characters from the Umbrella Academy graphic novel; Me as Space Boy with an ape body, her as The Rumor, and Pogo, the chimp, serving us coffee and soda while we read comics. This will show up on the Temple soon, but for now I wanted to post our first piece of art.

Line art by the lovely Renee Rivas with digital color art by yours truly.

This was a lot of fun and I learned a lot while trying to emulate the color style in the book.

Sadly, spring break was bitter sweet. It was sweet that I got a chance to slow down and catch up on sleep for just over a week and do a lot of reading, research and art that I've been wanting to do on my own time. Unfortunately, it was cold and wet for almost all of the break and Renee was sick with food poisoning or a terrible stomach flu of some kind (the doc didn't really know) for more than half the break. We finally got a chance to soak up some sun and relaxation together just one day before school started back. Other than that we hung out at the Panera bakery and coffee shop a lot. Mild baked goods seemed to set well in her stomach. She's back to health now, but it's also back to school.

I'm actually really excited about this quarter. I think there are lots of new discoveries and fun project waiting for me. Wish me luck.

Kid Maquette

2009-03-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

As promised from my last post. I made my kid concept into a maquette (a mini sculpture to help you get accurate, consistent drawings from). This is only the 4th one of these that I have made and the very first human I've done if you don't include my first maquette back in 2004 that had a coat, hat, and mask hiding his face. So there was a lot of challenge with this one. If you are sculpting an alien or creature you have a lot of room for error, but a human is something we know, something we see all the time. And it's a lot easier to tell if it's wrong.

I had a lot of fun building this, and as usual I learned a lot from the process. I had a tough time getting him to look the age I wanted, and he turned out looking a bit too young. But I'm alright with that. I left him pretty rough. A few people said he looks like a wood carving. I kind of like that, but I want to push myself on the next one to make the sculpt a little smoother. I learned just how hard it is to mix your own flesh tones. Next time I'm going to try some premixed craft paint colors for that.

As I said in my last post, I'm interning for a maquette design class this coming quarter. I have a feeling I'll learn as much or more from the students than they will learn from me. It'll be a fun process, though. Thanks for reading.

Last 90 Minute sketches of Winter Quarter

2009-03-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

I've been going through my work from Winter Quarter, which just ended last week (still recovering from a week without sleep... uhg). I ran across my last few 90 minute ink studies, and realized that I never posted them here.

The topic of this one was Usagi Yojimbo, which is a comic about a rabbit samurai in a world full of other humanoid animal warriors. I didn't really know anything about the topic and frankly, I found the idea of a rabbit fighting large natural preditors a bit absurd and amusing. So, I decided to redesign the character to look a bit more like an actual rabbit (comparitively speaking).

This next one is the last 90 minute challenge of the quarter. Dr Manhattan of the Watchmen was the topic. I didn't have to research this one at all. I read the graphic novel years ago and remembered it well enough to start drawing right away. I just wanted to have fun with this one, but overall I feel pretty good about the quality of the piece, too.

This process taught me that I could think and produce even in a massive time crunch, and even manage to have some fun while I'm at it. The quality of these pieces is definitely not comparable to what I can do with lots of time on my hands, but I still really enjoyed doing them and enjoy looking at them. This coming quarter I'm planning to try to find a happy medium btwn this and my finer line art, so that I can manage to get some comics done on a deadline.

This quarter was full of other little self discoveries and small triumphs. After just over a year in grad school I feel like I'm finally catching my stride. The same thing has happened to me when I've embarked on other artistic journies. Not the same thing at all, but it took me just over a year of drawing caricatures for a living before I finally felt like I could get a likeness on a consistant basis. That was several thousand faces before I felt like I could do it worth a damn. My program of study in grad school, Sequential Art, is far more complex an indeavour than that, but I'm seeing the same curve. Just over a year and I'm starting to feel competent. Cheers to the next 3 quarters, eh?!

Spring quarter I'm going to be nailing down the particulars on a graphic novel concept that I've been working on for nearly 3 quarters. I'll be writting the script, finishing the character designs, doing some more environment designs, and nailing down the look and style of the art. It will be a very busy quarter.

I'll also be interning for Nolan Woodard's first Maquette Design class. I've only done around 4 of these things myself, so I'm no expert. I'm already doing as much research as I can on the subject, so that I don't walk into the classroom unprepared. Speaking of which, my next post will include some images of a maquette I did last week, and finished painting yesterday.

Kid Concept

2009-03-07T08:58:00.000-08:00

Sorry its been so long. I've actually been extremely busy drawing and digitally painting, but most of it is things that I can't really show right now.

Here's a concept drawing for a kid in one of my stories. I haven't actually drawn a lot of kids in my life, so this was a challenge. How to make him seem the right age? What do kids that age wear these days? etc. I also challenged myself to try to do a simpler color style than the fully painted work I've been doing lately. I still spent way too much time rendering this out and second guessing myself, but I feel like I hit on some things that may carry me in the direction that I want to go for my comic book art. Thanks for reading.

Digitally Painted Vehicle Concept

2009-02-05T19:40:00.000-08:00

This is some pieces for my Concept Art class. It was done in pencil and gray marker on paper, then scanned and digitally painted in Photoshop.

Loader/Lift
This is an idea for a construction machine that actually looks like a cat. It's kind of a campy idea that will probably go no where past this class assignment, but I had a great time designing it and doing all the rendering.

AstroBoy meets Pinocchio

2009-01-30T17:54:00.000-08:00

Our 90 minute Illustration Challenge this week was "AstroBoy". Once again I didn't know anything at all about the topic, so I quickly did some research on the net. I didn't get all the details, but the most interesting thing that I discovered was the similarities btwn the story of AstroBoy and that of Pinocchio. So I decided to give them a play date. These weekly challenges continue to be a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Temple of Cartoon Mojo Header

2009-01-26T13:10:00.000-08:00

I've never really won anything, so it was a real honor to have my art chosen for the 2009 header of the department blog for the Sequential Art department of SCAD-Atlanta, known as the Temple of Cartoon Mojo. This piece was done in ink on paper and then digitally painted in Photoshop. Lettering done with a pen tool in Manga Studio EX. Click the art below and you will be taken to the site to see how they incorporated it into the design of the blog.

Character Sketches

2009-01-26T00:07:00.000-08:00

I'm doing a 13 page story for my next project in my Speed Sketching / Thumbnailing class. For this I'm telling a story from the childhood of one of my characters. Jack is a little guy who got badly abused by the neighborhood kids and took Kung Fu help cope. Here are some of the sketches for this story.

The first one is mousy looking Jack. And the second image is the bullies from the trailer park where his lives.

This sad sack is Jack's dad sitting in front of the tube at the bar in his trailer.

Here is Kung Fu Master and ex-special forces soldier, Carlton Forge and a shot of the interior of his School.

90 Minute Illustration: Ben Grimm

2009-01-22T12:51:00.000-08:00

Here's this week's 90 Minute Illustration for my Speed Sketching class. The topic was "Ben Grimm", otherwise known as the Thing from Marvel's Fantastic Four. I knew from reading the comics that Ben dated a blind sculptor named, Alicia Masterson, who often used him as inspiration for her clay sculptures. I figured she wouldn't need a lit room to work, and that would be an interesting thing to hook into for a nice moody piece. This piece has a lot of issues with perspective and lighting, but overall I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

Speed Sketching

2009-01-16T10:40:00.000-08:00

I'm in a class called Speed Sketching for Sequential Art this quarter where I'm doing 90 minute illustration challenges in class and thumbnailing comic pages. So far it has been a massive challenge and a lot of fun. Prof Shawn Crystal gives a topic at the beginning of each Thursday class session, and we have to research reference, come up with a concept, and then draw and ink the piece of art... all in 90 minutes. I'm not used to being under the gun like that, so this has been a little daunting for me. But this exercise is helping me discover that I can function under pressure and still come up with some decent stuff. It's giving me the confidence to work faster and more decisively on other projects too. I think this quarter is going to turn out to be just what the doctor ordered for my working process. Here are the first two images. I'll be posting the rest as the quarter progresses.

The first topic was Calvin and Hobbes. I decided to have Calvin imagining Hobbes in a slightly different way than usual to fit the theme of a tiger trainer. I'm fairly happy with the outcome although there are lots of things I would have done differently if I had had more time.

I was completely unfamiliar with the cartoon series Avatar, so this one scared me a little. But after doing some quick research on one of the computers in the classroom I came up with this idea for a layout and action. I didn't know what age the characters were supposed to be, so you Avatar fans please forgive me for making them too old. I really like the piece and I'm concidering doing a tighter version of this one if I can find the time. Thanks for taking a look.

House MD Digital Painting

2009-01-14T10:20:00.000-08:00

I've been watching a lot of House MD over the last few months. They guy's face is extreme to say the least, and that's prime fodder for a caricature artist. For this piece I mostly worked with brushes I created for photoshop along with a couple of standard brushes. You can get a lot of mileage with very little with digital painting. It helps to know all the bells and whistles in the program, but mostly you still just have to know how to draw and paint. For this piece I drew the first sketch in my sketchbook and scanned it into photoshop for rendering. I haven't decided if its done yet really, although I like the rough and dark look because I think it fits the character's personality. Thanks for looking.

Client Painting

2009-01-11T10:27:00.000-08:00

This morning a friend reminded me that I haven't posted anything in 3 weeks, so here is a little something that I finished a few days ago. This is a caricature painting of a client. I tend to be a little lite on the exaggeration with client work, so I didn't do much of a stretch. However, I'm pretty happy with the experimentation that I did with my photoshop painting technique. I don't publish the reference images that clients send me, so you'll have to judge this on its own merits.

I'm taking a concept art class this quarter and there will be a lot of character designs, creature designs, and vehicle and environment designs. Keep checking back for those starting this week.

Thanks for reading.

Comic Studio (aka Manga Studio)

2008-12-20T19:06:00.000-08:00

After school let out for the quarter a little over a month ago I took a few weeks of time to learn a new piece of software that I've wanted to learn for almost a year. It's called Comic Studio... in Japan. In the U.S. it was given the unfortunate name of Manga Studio. Wait! Don't run off just yet. If you're like many of my "serious" artist friends who do comics or concept art you probably have some negative preconceived notions that come with the word "Manga". I'm not going to argue about the value of the comics known as Manga, but you could successfully argue that the choice to name the software "Manga Studio" for it's U.S. release is a huge fumble, because it turns off a massive demographic at the very mention of the word. Whether you like Manga or not don't judge the program by its cover. IF you're like me, and have been looking for a piece of software that really caters to the needs of comic artists this program is a must for your digital arsenal.

You can draw and ink in it VERY naturally with a tablet or Cintiq, it has amazing tools to layout panels on a page and you can create and manage entire projects with astounding ease. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are things in this package that just don't exist in any other graphics program.

Digital Inking
I've tried to ink in Photoshop, Painter, Flash and Illustrator. Each of them have their strengths and weaknesses, but none of them gave me the inking experience that I was hoping for. I'm certainly not ready to give up good old fashioned ink and paper yet, but Manga Studio is the closest thing to real ink and paper that I've ever encountered in a drawing program. I'm definitely going to give it an honest shot at doing my layouts and pencils if not my finished pages. You can ink in both vector layers and raster layers inside a single document. The brush and pens are really easy to set up, and respond very effectively to pressure, tilt, rotation, etc. Its the only software that I've ever used that automatically responds to all the strengths of Wacom's 6D art pen as well as the standard stylus.

Tones
Lately I've taken an interest in adding tones to my work, so I was particularly interested in the ability to add vector (highly editable) tones to a document in Manga Studio. Well, they're extensive and kind of badassed, but you can't get too complex with them. If you add a flat tone, you can go back in and change it to any other type of flat tone or gradient tone that you choose. And I mean ANY! You can use dots, ellipses, diamonds, etc, and at any angle or frequency you choose. It's amazing, and even fun. Sadly there are some limitations. There are some things that Photoshop still does better with it's Halftone Screens, but for most screen tone needs Manga Studio is superior.

Text handling and word balloons
Manga Studio has some impressive text handling and word balloon capabilities. Just like any software, if you don't know what you are doing it wont do the work for you, but it can certainly help. I've been doing text and word balloons in Adobe Illustrator for years. Special sound affects and unique caption boxes are better created in Illustrator. However, Manga Studio is simpler and easier to use for standard balloons and text handling. Now I just need to figure out a workflow for that.

Ruler Tools
Now, if you thought any of the above sounded cool then Manga Studio (version EX) has some more tools that will blow your mind. Ever need a specific curve or a longer straight edge for inking, but just don't have it? Well, imagine yourself at your drawing table, and within easy reach you have an unlimited variety of french curves and straight edges for drawing and inking. Manga Studio EX has just that. You can choose from a large variety of preexisting curves or create your own with Manga Studio's vector drawing tools, and then draw your lines like you would on a real drawing table. Your lines will snap to the edge you created and respond to your pen pressure to create an experience that is incredibly similar to drawing with real pens on paper. You can do the same with the Focus Lines Ruler which snaps all your lines to a single point of your choosing, the Parallel Lines Ruler which snaps all of your lines to a specified angle, and the amazing Perspective Rulers that you can set to a One Point, Two Point, and Three Point perspective model and then all your lines will snap to your specified vanishing points. Oh, and you can place your vanishing points ANYWHERE on or off the page. Can you say "infinite sized drawing table"? You've always wanted one! And now you can have it.

Color Limitations
Manga Studio has it's limitations, some of which I understand have been addressed in the latest version of the software that just came out. It is really a black and white program. The newest version of the software has more advanced color capabilities, but I'm sure it wont be replacing Photoshop for professional comic color anytime soon.

Learning Curve
The learning curve wasn't so bad for me, but I bought the Manga Studio For Dummies book (the only book you can find for it in English). I did all the exercises and found it quick and easy. But then I have a lot of software experience. Either way, I say its worth the learning curve.

I could go on and on, and there is a ton of amazing stuff that I haven't even touched on. But the truth is that you just have to try it. Download the trial version and give it a whirl. Even if you just test out the drawing and inking tools you'll be impressed, but stick with it and you'll learn that the power of this program goes even deeper than that.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On another subject, my lovely leading lady and I went out to the Shakespeare Theater on Peachtree Street in Atlanta with Chris and Liz Schweizer the other night and had a fantastic time. Get a pic and more detail here:

http://reneerivas.blogspot.com/2008/12/god-bless-us-every-one.html

2008 NCN Convention

2008-12-18T15:52:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post:

"I'm a proud member of the International Society of Caricature Artists formerly known as the National Caricaturists Network. They still haven't changed their website to reflect the new name yet, but they recently changed it at the Annual NCN convention which took place this year in Raleigh, NC from November 2nd - Nov 8th. I've wanted to attend one of these things for years but one thing or the other always got in the way. This year I was able to attend only part of the con, but got an amazing experience for the few days I was there. I learned a ton from the old pros and the new, about technique as well as business ideas. Most importantly I made a lot of great new friends and connections. I love doing caricature and its important to me to stay in tune with that wonderful segment of the art world. More on this (with photos and art) later."

Every year hundreds of professional caricature artists from all over the free world descend on a hotel somewhere in the US for fun, friendly competition, networking, and seminars. For years I've been told again and again by fellow caricature artists how amazing the convention experience is. This year I promised myself that I would be there no matter what else was going on, so on November 2nd this year Renee and I took the 6 hour drive to Raleigh, NC. This first photo is of us in the hotel bar on the first night of the con.

Later that night we attended the Ice Breaker where they made announcements, had entertainment, and served a really nice buffet dinner. I was happy to run into a few old coworkers there, and then both happy and fascinated to meet several people face to face for the first time whom I had previously known only on internet message boards and such. Talk about "small world"! I was, however, sad to find out that quite a few of the folks that I was hoping to meet didn't make it this year. To them I say, "Hope to see you next year".

I've been drawing caricature professionally since 1999, and I knew what to expect from this gang of misfits. But Renee had a lot of reservations. Neither one of us really drew the first day. We were too busy soaking in all the amazing art that was being done in the convention hall. I'm pretty confident about my work, but this was a little daunting to say the least. Here are a few shots of the crowd at work on the second or third day of the con.

It was amazing to walk around this hall and witness all the different media being used.

Good old fashioned graphite:

Ink and Prisma Color ArtStix:

Oil Painting by Jason Seiler:

And even clay sculpture:

There were also artists doing paper sculpture, acrylic painting, digital art using a laptop and a wacom tablet, airbrush, pastels, woodcuts if you can believe it, and and and... you get the idea. Pretty much anything you can imagine.

By midday on the second day Renee and I finally got the courage and inspiration to get to work ourselves. Renee had never done caricature before and was a little nervous, but she dived right in.

I decided to try my hand with Faber-Castell's color brush pens and PrismaColor ArtStix, something I've wanted to try for a while.

Here's Renee's version of that last one in pastel, something that she hasn't done much of prior to now but seems to handle like an old pro.

The following images were all done live with markers on paper... something else I'm pretty new at. I really enjoy working this way, but I'm way to slow with it yet to use it for gigs. Each of these took me at least 10 minutes each and as much as 15 minutes.

This one is Renee's first live caricature EVER! I wish I had a photo of this guy, but I can tell you that it looks just like him. She's a natural.

There were several workshops offered on digital caricature painting, caricature 101, and advanced caricature. Here's a couple of shots from Joe Bluhm's Advanced Live Caricature:
Here's Joe doing what he does best... talk! :) He actually does caricature best.

Here's Renee and I up front. I've been a fan of Joe's work for a long time, so I was really excited to see him draw live. I wasn't disappointed.

And neither was the rest of the massive crowd that showed up for the seminar.

Renee and I had to leave the convention early, because we needed to get back to class. But the time I was able to spend was well worth the trip. I learned a lot, and met a ton of great artists. The best part of the the convention is something that I actually can't show you here. It's all the amazing art from the hundreds of professional artsts who attended this event. I took a ton of images for my own viewing, but I wont post other artist's work.

Instead, here are lots of links to other artist's blogs from the convention. If you like the art of caricature and/or art in general take the time to check out some of these great artist's work:

Sean Gardner
Jert
Tom Richmond
Jason Seiler
Stephen Silver
Joe Bluhm

MASSIVE PHOTO DUMP ON FLICKR
A Video
Another Video

I'll be posting more here in the next few days as I find them. In the meantime, if you are interested just click around on these blogs and you'll probably find lots of links to other amazing caricature artist's blogs and sites too.

Adventures in Art Instruction

2008-12-16T07:33:00.000-08:00

From the first time I ever trained someone on a job I've been told that I have a knack for communicating ideas to people in a way that made it quick and easy to grasp. I've often ended up being the primary trainer (officially or not) in job settings including my last command in the Navy where I trained several hundred young officers on their watchstanding duties. I've known that I wanted to teach art since undergrad back in the mid to late 90's, and I'm in grad school partly because I want the opty to teach art on the college level.

SCAD-Atlanta Summer Seminar
This summer I was given the opportunity to teach a summer seminar to high school students at SCAD-Atlanta. The summer seminars are essentially a big recruiting thing, and the kids get a chance to try out the school. There really isn't much that you can fit into one week, but being that it was my first experience I spent more than 2 straight weeks developing lesson plans. The class was "Cartooning and Sequential Art" which is a huge topic for a one week seminar that lasted only 2 and 1/2 hours each day, but I tried to pack as much into it as possible. I developed a character design lecture, an inking lecture/demo and workshop, a basic 2D composition lecture, and a cartoon acting workshop.

Being my first time I was pretty nervous to begin with, but my first day with these kids was more than a little unexpected. I was expecting terrors who wouldn't shut up or sit down, but what I got was a room full of serious kids who were on time, polite and quiet... too quiet. They just sat there and loomed at me in silence. For the first few days I couldn't figure out if they were getting anything. No one answered questions or asked questions. I quickly adjusted my approach and started forcing participation by putting them on the spot in as fun and positive a way as possible. Before the week was out they were laughing and joking with me and seemed to be getting the material down.

In the final analysis I had a great first experience and developed some great lesson plans. I learned a ton of new info while I was researching those lesson plans, too. When I was developing those plans I showed them to my professor, Shawn Crystal, who liked them enough to allow me to present a few of them to his class when I was his Teaching Assistant in the Fall.

Fall Teaching Internship
I did a Teaching Internship with Shawn Crystal for Visual Story Telling 1. I was actually a little disappointed to find out that there were only 4 students in the class, but in many ways that turned out to be great. It gave me a chance to try out my teaching techniques on a small group where I could gauge the results pretty easily. Shawn gave me a lot of great feedback and guidance and gave me a lot of class time to do several of the same lesson plans that I did in the Summer Seminar (with some changes and improvements). He also asked me to develop a digital painting presentation. Digital painting is still fairly new to me, but I was able to pass on the little bit that I have picked up over the last 6-9 months.

This was one of the best experiences that I've had in Grad school. Thanks to Shawn, and thanks to the students who actually made this a really positive experience. I hope you got as much out of the class as I did.

In the Spring I'm going to be living in Savannah, GA for a few months to do another teaching internship, this time with the irrepressible John Larison for Visual Story Telling 2 which should be a nice follow up to Shawn's class.

POST FALL QUARTER

2008-12-08T18:15:00.000-08:00

As a graduate student my life is very much broken down into quarters and breaks. The quarters get so busy that I often neglect to keep up with things like blogging, but now that I'm on winter break I'm playing catch up on a lot of things that I just didn't have time for in the last few months. I never feel like I'm getting enough done during a quarter, but looking back on Fall quarter I can't help but to wonder how I fit it all in. The following is a brief of all the stuff I crammed into the last few months. I'm going to write some more about each of these things (with pictures if I have em) in the next couple of weeks, and hopefully be posting more regularly next quarter.

Obviously there were classes:
I did a Teaching Internship with Shawn Crystal for Visual Story Telling 1 (you learn a lot while you are teaching). More on this later.

My other class was Graduate Studio: Shawn was also my professor for this one. He let me get away with being a bit of an academic this quarter, which I started by reading 8 new books and reread several more on story telling for sequential art. Books on things like screenwriting, cinematography and concept art. I did a massive presentation in class that they liked so much that they asked me to do it for two more classes. I'm also planning to write up my research into a web friendly format to put on my site and the blog of the SCAD-Atlanta Sequential Art Blog called the Temple of Cartoon Mojo. Shawn also let me get away with doing a massive photo shoot of Atlanta for a story I was working on. I'll be adding a photo section to my art gallery soon and I'll have a selection of those photos there. The rest of the quarter was spent doing a massive amount of concept work and illustrations for an art tryout I did for Oni Press (more on that later).

Scott McCloud
Early in September, Renee and I met a few friends at Agnes Scott College to hear the amazing Scott McCloud give a lecture/presentation. For those of you who may not know, Scott McCloud is the author of 3 major books on the theory and craft of Sequential Art and a bit of a rock star of the medium. I had heard from a few friends how amazing his presentations were, and I wasn't disappointed. The man is brilliant as well as highly entertaining and warm. It was totally worth the evening. Click on the images below to find his books on Amazon.com.

SkaterAid 2008
On Sept 21, 2008 Renee and I drove over to Decatur to support and enjoy the 2008 Skateraid. What is that, you say? Their website says it best:

"SkaterAid is an annual skateboard and music festival in Decatur, Georgia. Proceeds from Skateraid are used to assist families of children who are battling cancer. Featuring: Skateboard Demos, Live Music, Deck Art Auction and more."

I've never been a skater, but I've always been able to appreciate it. There was some great skating going on, a few contests, and my favorite was the "Deck Art" which is painting and even sculpture done on skateboard decks and put up for auction to support the cause. I wish I had taken some photos of the boards that were hanging up. They were awesome! But here are some skater photos taken during one of the trick contests instead:

The Editor's Day at SCAD-Atlanta:
Axel Alonso of Marvel Comics, James Lucas Jones (head Editor of Oni Press ), and Chris Starros (Editor-in-Chief & Publisher of Top Shelf Publications) all graciously spent the last weekend in October giving talks, Q&A, and reviewing portfolios for Sequential Art students at SCAD-Atlanta. I have to admit that I was originally NOT going to attend. I was swamped with work, and the truth is that I've been privy to editor's panels in Savannah before. They normally put several editors from a variety of companies in a single panel in a room of several hundred students and you get to listen to them argue (light heartedly) and give the absolute basics about what they are looking for in an artist or writer. Its useful and fun indeed, but I'd heard it all... or so I'd thought. Thankfully, in a conversation with professor Nolan Woodard he convinced me that this event would be different. Each editor would be speaking separately to a MUCH smaller group of students who would have more individual access to them for direct Q&A. I attended two Q&A's and got a TON of new info and lots of great anecdotes that the editors normally just don't have time for in the big panel discussions. It was Great. This type of direct access to the professional world is another reason that I tend to rave about SCAD these days.

I Voted:
I would have voted for Ron Paul if he had gone for the Libertarian ticket, but since he didn't I voted my conscience in his absence. For everything else I voted Libertarian. I'm proud that I did my homework on this one and took part in the process.

NCN Convention
I'm a proud member of the International Society of Caricature Artists formerly known as the National Caricaturists Network. They still haven't changed their website to reflect the new name yet, but they recently changed it at the Annual NCN convention which took place this year in Raleigh, NC from November 2nd - Nov 8th. I've wanted to attend one of these things for years but one thing or the other always got in the way. This year I was able to attend only part of the con, but got an amazing experience for the few days I was there. I learned a ton from the old pros and the new, about technique as well as business ideas. Most importantly I made a lot of great new friends and connections. I love doing caricature and its important to me to stay in tune with that wonderful segment of the art world. More on this (with photos and art) later.

I turned 37!
Yep! I'm gettin older. Slowing down in some ways, but speeding up in other ways. Over all I'm doing great and I'm exactly where I want to be in life. That day was spent like any other really, except that my lovely girlfriend baked me a delicious, albeit lopsided, cake. She rocks!

Adobe lecture for CS4
I attended a presentation by an Adobe rep at SCAD-Atlanta who demoed all the changes and features of the new software package, Adobe Creative Suite 4. There are lots of changes to the software, some of which I had hoped for in the last addition of the package (CS3), but not enough to make me rush out and buy it.

And there's probably more that I can't think of right now. I'll be posting more over the next few weeks as I gather my thoughts. I'll also be posting a ton of new art as I get it scanned out of my sketchbooks. Stay tuned.

I'm Back

2008-11-23T06:50:00.000-08:00

Alright! It has been WAY too long since I've spent any time here. I've got gobs of new stuff since last I posted. I'm just going to dump a fair amount. Hope someone enjoys it.

Here's some standard babes I've been working on for a spoof barbarian thing. Can't really say more than that. I'll be posting a LOT more over the next few days, so stay tuned.

The Great Pumpkin

2008-10-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

Yep! Renee and I carved a pumpkin! Sadly, its already rotted and gone, cause it only lasted about a week (we didn't preserve it properly). But it was a lot of fun to make and we enjoyed it while it lasted.

Class and my teaching internship are going great. Busy as hell, but really good.

I participated in the 24 hour art event at SCAD-Atlanta this past Friday. About 300 students from a variety of departments and doing a wide variety of projects descended on SCAD at 10AM Friday Morning, and many didn't leave till 10AM the next morning. I usually can't focus on work in such a social environment, and it probably did slow me down a bit. However, I did learn a lot about myself and my own work that day. I wrote an entire comic book in the first 6 hours that my teachers and cohorts seemed to like, I produced 2 finished comic pages and did a couple of detailed inking samples over another artist's pencils that day. That is substantially more than I thought I could really get done. It has boosted my confidence in my ability to produce under pressure. I'm going to keep trying to push the speed/quality envelope over the next several quarters. I think I can finally reach a balance of the two in my work.

Harrison Ford in digital paint

2008-10-03T19:54:00.000-07:00

I just finished the photoshop paint job on this. I'm feeling a little better about my skills each time I do one of these.

New Qarter / Harrison Ford Caricature

2008-10-02T18:26:00.000-07:00

Wow! Been WAY too long since I posted something. The usual excuse... been insanely busy. I've been back in school for 3 weeks now. I'm only taking one studio class, but I overloaded myself with projects in there. In the studio classes you get to propose the projects that you want to do and it either gets approved, rejected, or modified by the professor depending on how it achieves a set of goals. I got ambitious this quarter and am scrambling to keep up with deadlines. That's cool. Keeps you in shape.

Other than that I'm doing a teaching internship with Shawn Crystal for his Visual Storytelling For Sequential Art class. I've done an inking workshop already and will also be doing a digital painting demo and a character design lecture. Later in the quarter I might be doing a presentation of writing books as they apply to sequential art. So far I've really enjoyed this experience. The opty to intern with Shawn has been great. He really lets me get involved and gives lots of great feedback and input too.

I just spent a few weeks taking a massive amount of photos of the visually diverse city of Atlanta. I'm writing a story that takes place here and felt the need to get a better handle on the look and feel of the cityscape. It was a rewarding experience in many ways. I'll post some of my favorite photos from this expedition later.

For now here's a caricature sketch of Harrison Ford to tide you over till I can get some more art up. This will be a digital painting soon, so keep checking back.

UPDATE OCT 3rd, 2008: Just added this marker drawing.

Atlanta Botanical Gardens

2008-08-31T18:05:00.000-07:00

Aaaahhhh! Another quarter is over. Stress valve has been released, and I'm basking in some well needed R&R with my stunningly beautiful girlfriend. She and I found our way to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens today, which is something we have been talking about doing for a few months. It was a really hot day, but really beautiful. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the trip.

Don't bother asking me what any of these are. I can't recall. But they're really pretty.

They have recently installed a bunch of mobiles in the Botanical Gardens. I kind of thought it would be a little gimmicky before I went, but they really did a great job of making them fit their surroundings. This one was several tons, but was so perfectly balanced that a 4 year old could spin it on its axis.

This was Renee's favorite. It was in constant motion with the slightest wind.

This shot of a water lilly is one of my favorite photos of the day.

The Marta

2008-08-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

I've extremely busy with art school projects. Here's a panel from a comic page for a story that takes place in a Marta station. These are still taking entirely too long. This panel alone was around 10 hours of painting. I had to let this run its course to see where it took me, but I have ideas on how to speed up without loosing quality that I intend to implement soon. Definitely enjoying the learning process.

Penciled on paper, grey tones and colors in Photoshop.

Digital Landscape Painting

2008-08-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to develop a fast yet appealing method/style of digital painting so that I can apply it to comic book pages. The methods I've been using are great, but take way too long. At the rate I was painting it would take a week or more to finish a 6 panel page of comics. That's just too long. So Here are some scaled down attempts using grey tone marker sketches as the basis. This is a fairly fast method, and I plan to keep dabbling in this until I get something that I really like.

Here is a fully tonal value study of a bonfire that I took a photo of last year. I'm not attempting to create a photo-real affect with these, just a strong and believable impression. This took almost 4 hours to complete from sketch to final digital color.

This is from a photo I took in the Sequoia National Park in Cali, 2003. That place is breathtaking. This method of drawing and "painting" was the fastest I've done thus far. It took a total of 2.5 hours from sketch to final digital color. I'm planning to develop this method farther for comics pages.

63 New Doodles

2008-08-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

That's right! There are 63 new images in the Sketchbook section of my portfolio. Most of these are grad school assignments or doodles that I've done in the last year or so since I've been in Atlanta. You may have seen some of these in various places on the web, but I felt like it was about time for my newer work to be gathered in one place on my own site. Click the image below to check it out, and please drop me a comment to let me know what you think.

EIGHT LEGGED FURY!

2008-08-03T09:23:00.000-07:00

I finally added something new to the Sequential Art section of my gallery. Its work I did last year which I posted in various places online, but this is it's debut on my own website. Hope you enjoy.

Lone Star

2008-07-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

I was commissioned yet again by employees of Bowne for an outgoing office member. This time I created an animation showing some of the progress of this piece in Photoshop. I had a great time with this one, exploring the use of textured brushes and figuring out how to make shiny objects look shiny. The hat was really fun too. I'm still working really slow. My hope is to get this quality at about half the working time. This one took me around 10 hours.

And click on this one for a larger view of the finished piece.

Hello Mr. Wendell

2008-07-24T13:16:00.001-07:00

I was pleased to get a call from a repeat client last week for a caricature of a departing office manager at Bowne. Last time I worked for her I did a simple head and shoulders shot of an outgoing boss in airbrush on art paper, which is pretty much what I offered before. I don't oil paint and my experience in acrylics is limited. This time I showed her the samples of the digital painting I've been doing here on my blog and sold her on the idea of letting me produce it digitally and then print it.

This thing has a lot more detail than I usually go into for caricature portraits. It was a great opportunity to jump face first into doing more complicated pieces with perspective and environment issues, depth issues and color issues that I haven't really tackled in this medium before. What follows is some stopping points along the way. Not really a tutorial, but a peak at the process that I used to produce this piece.

This first one is the sketch that the client approved. I left a lot of space in the background for word balloons, because they had a lot of phrases that they wanted included.

In some of the digital paints that I've done I did a complete black and white rendering on paper in pencil and marker and used it as an underpainting in Photoshop. I wanted to try something working mostly digital for this job, so I scanned the rough sketch and started the paint job right on top of it. Here is the first pass. I used the line tool in Adobe Illustrator to create a simple perspective grid that I used to keep my shapes lined up when I started painting in the flat color in Photoshop. It really helps keep things looking plausible.

After I got the flat colors in I created a new layer and just started painting with some standard photoshop brushes. I start out painting in flat color just to get the shapes and lighting right.

The client wanted a messier desk, so I put in some more loose paper. I fleshed the face and figure out a little more and added some color to him.

This next image is many hours later. As you can see I started adding the reflections to the desk top and there is an entire background. That sky is my own painting based off of reference, but I have to admit that I basically traced the plane. I just didn't feel the need to spend hours painting it fresh. I changed it dramatically from the original image, to include changing the light source and reflective lighting, and I used the transform tool to reshape it quite a bit. But it was still a paint over. Everything else in this painting was drawn and painted the old fashioned way, just in a computer.

Just more tweaking and peeking. More detail in the objects on the desk. Deepening the darks and lights.

This is the final painting. I changed the color of the back wall, because it felt like it was blending in too much with the desk color. I finished the phone and Blackberry, and added more details on the desk top.

And here's the final image after using Adobe Illustrator to add word balloons and sound affects.

Total working time on this was well over 20 hours. Yikes! But I learned a lot and I feel like I could produce similar results in a shorter time frame now. The client was super pleased with the piece and with the process as well. I was able to send her lots of images via email to keep her posted on progress and get feedback. I'm really pleased with the process as well. I was able to complete this job and deliver the image digitally via email. Its extremely efficient and leaves little room for miscommunication. I'm going to bed now.

Journey Into Prehistory

2008-07-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend, Renee, and I took a trip to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History here in Atlanta today with her younger sister, Reghan. We've been talking about going for months now, but kept saving it for a special occasion. I really didn't know what to expect. I've been to The Museum of Natural History in NYNY as well as the fabulous Smithsonian one in DC, and they were both mind blowing. I was kind of ready to be disappointed. Thankfully, that wasn't the case at all. Sure, it's significantly smaller than their bigger brothers in NY and DC, but the exhibits are great. We had a ton of fun. Renee and I are even planning to go back again next weekend with sketchbooks in hand to have a big drawing day. So if you are looking for something different to do indoors in Atlanta this summer you should definitely check out the Fernbank. Here are some pics:

Renee has a thing for jumping photos. Now she and her sis have one from the Fernbank.

Beauty and the beast. I'm the one on the right ;)

My lady helping her sister put the finishing touches on her penguin outfit. Don't ask.

I'm still trying to figure out how I got talked into the penguin suit... but it was fun.

Bangaloremonkey

2008-07-17T15:15:00.000-07:00

Here's yet another digital paint job. I tried something very different this time. I used highly textured brushes in Photoshop to achieve an affect that seems like acrylic paint applied with sponges and rough brushwork. I really like this. I doubt that I'll settle on this as a style, but I'll definitely be using more texture now.

More Digital Caricatures

2008-07-15T09:03:00.000-07:00

This first one might seem a little strange for me, but I've been looking at a lot of James Jean's work this year and I couldn't help but to try some of his techniques. This one was done from sketch to finish in Photoshop, something I've rarely tried. This is of a guy I only know as "oogen" from the drawingboard.org.

To view the photos of this handsome guy click here: Got Face: oogen

For this next one I decided to stick with a more subtle approach. I also started and finished it all in Photoshop.

To view the photos of this handsome guy click here: Got Face: Tendho

Digital Caricature Painting

2008-07-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

Hey all! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything. There's a ton of news, but I have zero time for writing. In the meantime here's my first fully painted caricature. It started with a marker sketch, and ended up in photoshop for a full paint job. I'm doing lots more so you'll see more here soon.

This is one of many participants over at the Caricaturist's Caricatures thread over at the drawingboard.org.

To view the photos of this handsome guy click here: Got Face: conger

And here's another one of the same guy. This time I just scanned a simple rough pencil sketch and started painting from there. I feel like I made some progress with this one.

Celeb Samples

2008-06-27T20:24:00.001-07:00

I did several samples while I was in Orange Beach, but only a few survived (long story). Here are a couple that made it through: Patrick Dempsey and Simon Cowell of American Idol. I don't have any particular like or dislike for either one. They just happened to be good pics in the celeb rags I found laying around at the store I was working in front of.

Back to the grind

2008-06-25T14:45:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Atlanta, and just had my first classes. Its looking like a really fun quarter. I'll have some new art scanned and up soon.

I just got an email from a customer I drew in Orange Beach, AL last week who took this great shot of me cutting up with them. Gotta have fun at what you do, right?! :)

Orange Beach

2008-06-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts the last few weeks. I've been in Orange Beach and breifly in Sandestin, FL doing caricature gigs between quarters. I was invited down here by Wade Colins, another Atlanta based caricature artist, to share space in front of a T-shirt shop at an upscale retail location called the Wharf, in Orange Beach. The traffic has been pretty good and I'm earning a well needed infusion of cash down here.

I'll have new art up after I get back to Atlanta on the 24th or so. In the meantime, here's a pic of me at the Wharf drawing a caricature of Simon while I was between customers.

Creature Sculpture

2008-06-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

I used the design from my last blog to create a small sculpture. This was the final project for my animal construction and creature design class. Sorry for the sideways scrolling on these images, but it seemed like the best way to present the progression.

I started out building a sturdy armature with wire on a wood plaque. I used plumber's apoxy to weld the wire together. Then I started building the actual shape of the creature with tin foil, because it's lighter than clay and because it makes for a quicker baking time when you go to fire the super sculpy.

I realized that the right shoulder was way too low and didn't look natural, so I had to pull off some flesh and do bone surgery on him. On the last pic you can see that the shoulder looks about right. Sadly, it was about this time that I realized that I had made the arms way too short for the original design which had more like monkey arms. I chose not to correct it at this point, because I felt like the sculpture looked natural this way and because time was an issue.

These are a progression from basic shapes to more finished fleshed out creature and base. Thats a fish he's stabbing with the spear.

More of the same.

And finally here is the finished, painted piece. I used an airbrush almost exclusively for this. I only used regular brushes to add a gloss varnish to the water and to the creature's eyes. Total sculpt time was around 20 to 25 hours and the paint job was another 8 to 10.