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 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?

Back to Work!

I slept last night, and ohhhh was it awesome.

Hadn't really done enough of that lately.  Most'a this past week I put in overtime at Powerhouse Animation, making up for missing last Friday because all the weekend before that was convention time!

New Orleans!  The Big Easy!  NOLA!  It was my first time in the town, and I must be honest, I wasn't mentally prepared for the party it proved to be.  Normally we'll roll in, have a nice dinner someplace near the hotel, and spend the rest of the evenings hanging around in the hotel lobby and drawing on this or that.  This is not what happens in N'Awlins.

What happens in N'Awlins is, you roll into a restaurant like Mulate's filled with live music and dance, and you're presented with the best food and drink you can ever remember tasting.  Perhaps you partake in a little more to verify that yes, yes indeed, it is the best.  Perhaps a few buddies get in on the music. Perhaps a few other buddies decide they want some beignets, and you find yourself following them down Bourbon Street in the middle of the night to find some and yes, it turns out that they ARE that wonderful.  That's New Orleans.  It's an overwhelming feast that makes you want even more, and somehow when you go for more it gets even better.  What a glorious, dangerous scenario.

Next year I come armed with this knowledge.  Either I'll just plan not to work after dark or I'll stick to the hotel like my life depends on it.  A guy could stand to save a lot'a money that way; that awesome food I mentioned, it isn't cheap :D

Anyways -- The show!  Great times had; got to have a lot of fun, snap photos of a lot of cosplayers, came home with a few more trades to read and a few fewer prints & sketch-cards to sell.  I'm pleased to report that the X-23 piece Vo Nguyen and I collaborated on sold like crazy out there; the whole 40-print run was gone an hour before closing on the first day!

I wasn't able to get pictures of all the sketches I did throughout, but here are the few I was able to:

Sketch-card!

Drawn on red illustration board with ink and a touch of white gel-pen. 

(Not actually drawn in New Orleans, but a few nights ago at a pizza-place in Austin)

Another sketch card.

Looking forward to my next appearance!  It'll be Staple here in Austin in March; I don't know how official my set-up's going to be, but I'll have some fun stuff to show off!  In the meantime, there's a Naked Lunch session next week.  Don't let me forget to post the results!

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!

ACE Sketches and wrap-up

So all around, Albuquerque was great!  The convention was full of cool stuff going on, the people who came by the tables were really nice, the scenery driving in and out of NM was amazing, and there was this little diner called Zohra's right across the street from the convention that I fell right in love with.

Here's a sampling of the drawings I did while I was there..

I'd never really drawn Power Girl before this show; figured I'd give it a try.

This was a jam-piece that a bunch of CCP Comics' artists drew up for the event's organizer.  The artists for each character, from left to right, were Matt Campbell, myself, Vo Nguyen, Rita Moore, Sam Lotfi, and Eroll See.

Toyed around with sketch cards during the lulls in the show.