Comicpalooza Wrap-Up!

We had a great time last weekend at Comicpalooza!  Always glad to go out to that show; it's huge fun and a great excuse to hang out with all our art-buddies in Houston.  The coloring panel went pretty okay, too!  Unfortunately the last day of the show was when all the weather craziness rolled through Central Texas.  We were able to avoid/find shelter from all the flooding, though many weren't so lucky.  Please support relief efforts if you can.

Meantime, here are a good chunk of the sketches I did over the weekend!  Hope you'll dig 'em!

Commission update -- Venomess #2

Finished up another commission piece over the weekend! Fun piece to do... the next couple of commissions I have slated will be a bit different in style and tone, particularly the second which will be very involved. I'll share the big piece in- process since it'll be a long project. I think I'm almost ready for it though -- excited!

Commission Time!

Realized it's been awhile since I've updated; sorry about that :\  It's been busy times.  The good news is, I have a lot to share since Alamo City!  I'll space it out a bit so as not to overload, but for now I'll just show off a piece I wrapped up over the weekend.  I've had a number of commissions waiting in the wings for awhile as I've dealt with work-overtime and the #Inktober challenge and moving to a new place and a lot of busy personal-life scheduling --  Finally getting to a place where I can settle in to knock out some artwork for folks!

This was a commission for a fellow who wanted to see a female Venom, mid-transformation.  I spent #Inktober trying to develop my inking technique, and looking at how this turned out I'm glad I did.  I'm not sure I could have pulled it off quite the same way even a month ago.  That's how I try to see all my work; every piece a step-stone to improvement.  I need to be honest -- I have three commissions remaining on my queue right now, and I'm afraid of the last one.  I'm gradually refining the pencil-work on it but it's huge, and it includes many characters who are real-world people, and it's based on a famous illustration so I need to make it at least as good as that guy.  It's intimidating, and it's taking forever to Rocky-montage my way up to it -- But I remind myself, the dude who commissioned this believed in my work strongly enough to put money on my ability to pull it off.  It's on me to prove him right.

Anyways, that's my philosophy on commissions.  Creators, art-buyers, how do you look at commissioned artwork? What do you look for, or what repels?

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!