Wizard World Austin Wrap-Up!

All in all, what a fun show!  I got to do a lot of drawing; Saturday and Sunday especially I was trapped behind the table the entire time!  The show organizers had a kind of unique rule of shutting everything down and booting everybody out right at closing-time, exhibitors included.  This prevented me from blowing my earnings in the dealer room, so thanks to the organizers for helping me keep my money :D

Here's a sampling of the sketches I did during the show!  I wasn't able to get pictures of everything, but here's an idea of what I was up to..

Come Out to Austin Wizard World!

If you're in the Austin area this weekend, just hunt down the row of tables run by CCP Comics -- I'll be in there somewhere alongside a small army of other great artists!  I'll also have copies of of this on-hand:

My brand-new sketchbook, making its debut at Austin Wizard World for only $5 a copy!  What you see here includes 28 full-color pages of sketches, works-in-progress-to-finished pieces, comic art, musings on inspiration, and a special Alice In Wonderland piece produced specifically for this collection, and on top of that you'll get a FREE custom sketch on the inside with your purchase!  That's a lot of work to take home for $5!  We'll also have issues of Reichenbach #1, illustrated by yours truly, as well as a brand new anthology produced by CCP which we'll announce formally in the coming days!

Good Times to be had!

Batman, Again

With a little more serious of an approach than the last one..

16" x 20", Mixed media [Prismacolors, Ink, and white Conte Crayon] on matte-board.

 

24-Hour Comic Day!

This year, after dodging the past two years, I decided to give this a shot!  A few nights ago a whole bunch of other folks and I holed up in Dragon's Lair Comics & Fantasy here in Austin to attempt to write and draw a 24-page comic book in 24 hours.  There must have been 20~25 people in there at the beginning of the night, by the time I went home it was down to maybe seven -- It's a hell of an endurance-trial!  I lasted through the night, but around 1:00 pm the following day it became clear I wasn't gonna finish 24 pages in time.. So instead I steered it into a 12-pager and called it done at 21 hours.  I might try again next year, and if so I'll simplify my drawing a bit and see if I can pull off the full page-count.

Anyways -- Hope you enjoy the pages..

(If you think she's overreacting a bit to a phone, a few bruises, and a somewhat steep ledge, it's partly an echo of my own tendency to imagine the worst possible outcome of any problem that comes up, projected on a not-terribly-strong character. It's also partly because, to speed up the story, I cut out a lot of other missteps and difficulties that would have stacked up on each other more effectively.)

(That first panel is one of the few where I think I actually hit the age-group she was supposed to be in. She looks too old in most of the story :\ )

(at this point I was still less than halfway on my 24-page plot outline, I knew I couldn't do the rest in time to finish it all by 5, and I wasn't prepared to give myself another project to work on during the week. So after this page I derailed the story to its quickest, tidiest conclusion available.)

(to give you an idea of how far afield this is from my original plan, the birds originally reacted the way they did in the page 10 because a panther was prowling nearby. Later she would have run into a tree nymph, followed it to an ancient grove, and possibly have been turned into a tree herself. THAT was actually the stuff I wanted to draw from the beginning; ironically I never even got to it :D

The route I ended up with has less going on, but at least it does focus more on how the character's developed somewhat since the story began. And, y'know, wrapped it up in half the time.)

In the course of this I amassed a nice fat list of things I need to work on.  Let's see how I do on my next project!

Nananananananana Batman!

One of my side projects for the past little while has been a piece for a lady who wanted a birthday present for her husband -- Of him being rescued from the Joker by Batman.  It sounded like a fun job, so I said sure -- And since I thought to scan it at various points, I can share some of the making of it!

I started off sending some rough sketches her way, to gauge what direction she wanted me to go in..

...And as it turned out, she really liked two of 'em and asked if I could make it a two-panel comic page. Groovy!

(This is an animated GIF; click inside to watch!)

Here's the final piece drawn with brush-ink, Prismacolor marker, and color-pencil on 11"x17" Bristol.  I hope it feels as fun as it was to draw!

Naked Lunch, Sept. 10

Another great session today!  Usual routine, starting with 1-minute poses, then 3-minutes, then closing with 7-minutes.  The model was Andrea Mastromatteo.

Daily Sketch Theme: Under The Sea

Daily Sketch Theme: "In the Jungle"

First try:

Second try:

Daily Sketch Theme: Hiking

Why Reference Matters

So I've been continuing with the randomly-themed-sketch thing, but I've discovered that it has a much more useful (but annoying) function than merely staying fresh..  It's doing a great job of highlighting my weaknesses.  With each drawing, before I've even put the pencil down I'm already seeing things I should have staged better; designs and poses I should have pushed further; drawings without personality, etc.  I've been grudgingly adding and adding to the list of things I need to work on, but a few days ago I stumbled across one that really bugged me.

I decided the day's theme would be Walruses and I drew this...

.....As it turned out, I had no friggin' idea how to draw a walrus |:\  That clearly wouldn't do; it's not like I have a huge career of drawing walruses, but nothing bad ever came out of understanding your world better.  This weekend I took some time to go study up at the local library.  Here are some sketches I did looking at photo-references I found in a book on seals.

As I drew these I focused on the focal points, figuring out how things worked and how they related. Then I went from there to a coffee-shop to play a little with what I'd learned.

Still nothing master-quality, but they're sure better than the first one.  They at least demonstrate some awareness of the original source, and once I had a grip of the foundation I got to think less about trying to render a diagram of a walrus and more about what I could have that walrus doing to give the sketch some personality.

Education helps.  When you find yourself totally stuck the best thing you can do is go away, learn more about what you're trying to do, and then attack again with a more enlightened approach.

Daily Sketch Theme: "In spaaaaace"

Daily Sketch Theme: "Out On A Limb"!

Daily Sketch Theme: "Birds!"

AVAA, Aug. 15 & 22

AVAA is short for the Austin Visual Arts Association, and among their other activities they hold life-drawing sessions multiples times a week! In the past couple of weeks I've been trying to get back in the habit of hitting their Monday night sessions.  Here's a sampling of what's come of that.