Still chugging on Know-It-All

Don't want to keep posting page sketches to keep the story somewhat of a mystery, but will throw some art up in the next day or two. Goal is a page sketched out a night until completion and then I'll start in on the actual comic itself. (Gonna be hard with Fallout New Vegas dropping tonight at midnight.) Then the goal will be a page a week pencils until done (hope to increase that productivity as I get in the groove) and then 2-3 pages a week for inks. Sticking with black and white, so I should be able to letter it in a couple days after that. No set deadline, but everything should be done for Heroes next year.

In the meantime here's a snap of our young artist painting her pumpkin at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum yesterday.

Know-It-All

Finally cracking on my story Know-It-All. It's been languishing, along with several other scripts I've written, but this tale is a one shot and much more attainable in my opinion. If I can get these 22 pages done and dusted I'm hoping it'll be the impetus to start on one of my actual series and keep that beautiful creative ball rolling.

That said I've been thumbnailing the heck outta the script this week with horror or hockey on in the background. (The way the Flyers played last night it was almost a creature feature between them and The Thing.) Here's a panel from page three. Just two lads out for a midnight boat ride in the swamp. Nothing bad'll happen, right?

The word balloon sez it all

Expect a return to regular postings in the upcoming days. Thank you for your patience.

Afton Getaway

Angie and I got away to our usual B&B in Afton County for an extended weekend of wineries, hiking and breweries. Last year the weather was horrible for hiking, but great for wining and beering, so we were both elated that the weather played pretty this go 'round. As luck would also have it the owners of the B&B had just gone a hike themselves and suggested we give Humpback Ridge a go. Feeling full of ourselves we set out and were promptly humbled by the 40 minute incline hike, but once on top it was worth all that pain. Heck, I even got a bit of vertigo, which was strange for me.


On the trail we passed this creepy tree that reminded me of some poor soul who had recently visited the executioner's block.


One of the numerous scenic overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway.


Del Fossi was the last winery we hit before heading home. The terraced vineyard added a nice Tuscan feel to the place. Unfortunately, rain had moved in at this point, which imparted a more moody feel to the place. Still a beautiful vineyard despite the lack of sunshine. Excellent wine, too.

The mini-vacation was much needed, but it's also nice to be back home with the Dare Bear, who was on the verge of tears she was so happy to see us. (And the same could be said about Angie and I.)

Five years

Of wedded bliss that is! Gaze upon the happy groom when he had hair and only one—okay—maybe two chins! Love ya, honey!

Back in the pond

Hope everyone is having a lovely Labor Day weekend. Finally got back to the duck painting series and present number six for your viewing pleasure. Now I'm off to the Labor Day Sale at Velocity comics, then a Drink & Draw with Mafus at Legend.

Skullery Maid

Had an idea for a character the other day and was all set to do some sketching. Of course, Lilah wants in on that action, so I didn't get the drawing to the level I wanted, but at least Lilah had herself some fun. (As witnessed by the squiggly lines dancing throughout the sketch.)

Pretty sure the Skullery Maid her is a villainess of some kind. Assassin? Ghost? Maybe once some meddling kids and their dog take the case we'll find out more...

Other than that I've been inking some 'Haps stuff, which I can't show and doing some other freelance illustration stuff. I could probably show them, but they're not that exciting. (Though somewhat profitable!)

We're back...

Despite dangerous rip currents in the OBX (we witnessed an ocean rescue on Saturday) the weekend was excellent. Weather, company and time was much enjoyed by everyone. Back to business tomorrow night...

Miss ya, 'Ringo!

As you've probably seen around the internet and various other friends posting and blogs that today is the third anniversary of Mike's passing. Funny how you think you're over something until the actual day pops back up or you're reading an old comic and there's that Marvel 'Ringo memorial page jumping out at you. Stops you in your tracks and you realize just how much the world lost.

Mafus has another excellent remembrance of his brother over on his blog. Pay him a visit and share a memory or leave a kind word.

If you'd care to, you can revisit my thoughts on Mike here.

Old Ones and Bum Wrists

Been sidelined with a strained wrist for the better part of a week. (Save the jokes, por favor.) It's still crunchy, but the pain has diminished enough that I couldn't say no to inking an old drawing. For Cthulhu here I decided to go back to my quill roots. Even threw in some dry brush to jazz it up. All around a fun exercise that I hope to keep rolling along with. Though for Matt's pencils I'll probably stick with the brush and marker routine. (He draws so darn tight.)

Aight, I'm beat. Snoogans.

Channeling Neal Adams...

Or at least I like to kid myself.

Cinco

An ungodly hot weekend led to getting back on track with the duck paintings. I still owe two, but have the canvases, so I hope to get another couple done this week. In other news I'm about to get back on the inking horse and start knocking out those 'Haps pages that have been gathering dust. Especially in light of Todd's recent news. Then onto NOWERE...

Zuda dump

Since Zuda is no longer around I figure I can share some of my entry pencils with you fine folks. (Especially since I've been lax in scanning my recent stuff.) The remaining three pages are already inked, so I won't repost them until I get everything done, colored and turned into a web comic of sorts. Still moving forward with NOWERE, but it will be some time before I get that sucker done and dusted.

In the meantime:

Post 200

Update: Added a non-cellphone picture of Quatro and the oil painting.

Really wish I had something more exciting to post on such a grand occasion other than a piss poor cellphone snap of last week's duck, but the larger scale meant no scanning. (I still owe one for this weekend, but more on that in a minute.) For Quatro, as he's affectionately named, I decided to go large scale. For the previous three paintings I'd stuck with 4"x6" or 5"x6" canvas. It was a hot arsed weekend (100+) and I didn't feel like dragging Lilah out to the store, but I remembered Angie had picked me up a canvas with the new easel she'd gotten me for my first Father's Day. Checked me paint supply and figured I had enough to cover the larger surface, which I did.

Now this painting does represent Lilah and I's first collaboration. With the smaller size canvases it was easy to keep Lilah's wayward pencil from straying into my composition. With the 2'x4' canvas however she decided to stake out an area to create. Luckily most of that area was covered with the blue, but she did invade the yellow area, which resulted in a heavy layering of yellow to cover up the dark blue lead she's fond of.

All in all it turned out okay. I skimped on the shading and whatnot as my paints were dwindling. Plus, it's a pain on something that large. (I admit it, I'm lazy sometimes.) Lilah loves it and that's all that matters.

As for this weekend's duck, there wasn't one. I've been itching to do some oil painting since I started this duck exercise, so this weekend I had another canvas stretched and primed. I took a cellphone snap of it, but it looks even worse than the above duck, so I'll hold off posting an image of it until I can use our camera. The piece is a total departure from my usual work in the sense that it's abstract, something I've never done. (I like my some subject matter. Be it still life or portrait.) And, it's also all palette knife. No brushes. It was simple, easy, but very much fun. Plus, it was nice to smell oil paint again. (As strange as that sounds.) I'll take a snap tonight and post it for you fine folks.

Sick Day Sketch

I've been laid low with whatever Lilah was juggling through her system over the weekend. I tried inking but was a little too shaky, so I just gave up and started watching horror movies. Most were just background noise while reading comics, but THE DESCENT seemed to garner my attention more than the others. Since I was still feeling the artistic drive I decided to give a Crawler sketch a whirl and see what shook out. Turned out better than I expected and it was fun to play around with the lighting. I'd like to feather and shade some more, but I'm still feeling pretty crappy. Mayhaps when I feel a bit better. Until then, this'll have to stand.

Also, Mafus pointed out to me that as of today Zuda is dead. Oh well, I guess I'll still finish what I've started, though now I wished I'd've drawn it for a regular comic as opposed to their web standards. My luck strikes yet again...

Duck III

Here's this week's duck. Think I prefer last week's piece, but Angie and Lilah both seem to like this fellow, so what heck. It was a nice break to our stuck indoor weekend as the heat has been unbearable here. 100 degree weather and a 3 (or 35) year old don't mix, which led to some severe cabin fever. Luckily, there was plenty of World Cup on. Not so lucky was the U.S. or England or Mexico teams. Oh well. Argentina and Germany should provide plenty of entertainment, that is if the refs can stop ruining the matches.

Did get away Sunday for a couple hours for a Drink & Draw with Mafus over at Legend. Hadn't seen the lad in quite some time, so it was nice to quaff a few, sketch and talk geek. I've been rereading a lot of the old Jonah Hex comics as of late. (Probably trying to cleanse my mind of the recent movie. Haven't seen the flick, but the trailers were enough to leave a bad taste in my mouth.) Hence the Hex sketch. Mafus imparted the wisdom that cowboy hats are pain in the arse to draw after watching and listening to me struggle with Jonah's lid. Think I redrew that hat 3-4 times and I'm still not pleased with it. Oh well, at least the slightly drunk lady at Legend was impressed.

A now for something completely different

(Click the image to play)

Starting to delve back into Flash animation and came across this scene I had worked on for Rex & Roxy's down in Atlanta. I moved back to Richmond shortly after starting the project, which then went the way of the dodo. Still it was a fun exercise, though all that drawing was a bit tedious. I think I had a good 100 or so of them done before calling it quits. As to those drawings whereabouts today, I have no idea. May have to do some digging this weekend...

Character revisit

Didn't really care for an early design of a character for THE HOLLOW, so I revamped him to be a bit more menacing and Cthulhu-like. 'Cuz you can never have enough Cthulhu in your life.

Finally back to inking after mucking up a couple panels, but it's nothing a little Photoshop or white opaque can't fix.

Artistic weekend and initiative

Had big bad weekend, as it was the first back with Lilah after 11 days. Farmers Market, art museum, art supply store and then painting. Lilah did a nice green painting with her new brush, but I had to do one as well. Since I've already done one Rubber Ducky painting I decided that I'd do another, which blossomed into the idea of a weekly Rubber Ducky painting. For another 51 weeks I'll attempt to complete a painting of a Rubber Ducky, which will turn Lilah's bathroom essentially into a Rubber Ducky Art Gallery. Hope you enjoy #2.

Testing the Beta

A prelim sketch for a larger drawing for one of Lilah's favorite heroes, Beta Ray Bill. Need a better pose, but this is mainly an exercise in feeling out the character anyway, so I'm not sweating it. Look for bigger and better in the near future. (Though it may be a while since Lilah returns from her 11 day beach vacation with my 'rents tonight and I doubt she'll let us out of her sight.)

This a non-stop flight?

If only real flights took just one panel...

Where does this map lead?

We may never know...especially if I don't keep on inking these pages.

Panel peek

Here's a quick look at Argus from my Zuda entry story THE HOLLOW. As Zuda's fate is up in the air, and I'm actually inking again, I thought it wouldn't hurt to keep the postings going and show what I'm striving to finish inking before Lilah's return. If Zuda comes back and I decide to enter I can always take these posts down, too, as their rules used to state.

Truly bummed about the Flyers losing game six last night, but the Hawks were the better team and, heck, they did end a 49 year Cup drought in the process. Oh well, there's always next season...

Two weeks later...

Finally polished off Hellcat yesterday. Think it turned out okay for being rather rusty. I'd've like to kept tinkering with it, but decided it was time lay down the brush and get started on finishing THE HOLLOW inks. We're Lilah-less for another eight days and I'm hoping to get the remaining seven pages inked in that time. Pretty sure I can make it, especially since I also polished off RED DEAD REDEMPTION this weekend. A darn fine, immersive game. It's got me watching DEADWOOD again, much to Angie's dismay.

Also, my tooth finally appears to be in proper working order. Woo-hoo!

Coming up for air

As you may or may not know, Mafus has challenged me to a sketch-off as I haven't posted anything is about two months. He chose Hellcat for this auspicious occasion, a character I know next to nothing about, only that she really likes the color yellow. Since I've been wanting to paint I decided I'd use watercolor and gouache for the challenge. Due to the long break in my creative endeavors I'm creaking like the Tin-Man with a severe case of oxidation, so I'm still on the underpainting portion of the piece. (Sorry for the crappy phone pic, but it was easier than scanning at the moment.)

I hope to polish it off in the next couple o' days as it's been energizing to pick up the brushes again.

Progress update:
Haven't gotten as much done as I'd like, but dealing with a bad tooth. (Root canal in the morning! Woo-hoo!)

Ides o' March

Finally got around to polishing off the inks to Patrick's drawing. Think I got a little carried away at times. Especially with the background. There wasn't one drawn and the liberties I took didn't really pan out for me. Ach! Ink and learn, my friends.

Also finally got some nice weather this weekend and we took advantage of it. Lilah seems to be a bit of a natural when it comes to football. (I speak of the English sort, not American.) Two sunny days of kicking and passing with plenty of deck-time. Sucks to have to go to work on another 66 degree day.

Still plodding away on Zuda. Lost my mojo with these side projects/pieces and utterly missed my March 1st deadline. Shooting for finishing the pencils by St. Pat's and hopefully get a good jump on the inks for an April 1st deadline. Then there's coloring and lettering...

In the interim...

Still chugging away at the Zuda entry, but already plotting another entry with some cohorts this time. We're trying to figure out the division of labor, so we're doing an inking swap. We both draw a monster menacing a damsel in distress and then the other will ink it. As I was watching BLACK DYNAMITE again, I was in a festive, campy mood and my monster turned into a '50's sci-fi movie monster. I'll post the inks to Patrick's piece once I've finished 'em. And if you haven't seen BLACK DYNAMITE already I highly suggest you rectify that situation. Can you dig it?!

Done

Back to Zuda!

Only have lettering left...

Starting off February right

Here's an uncolored, unrefined piece for the AFRODISIAC contest being held at Velocity. Jim Rugg, one of the authors will be at the shop this Friday for a release party and will be judging the contest: AFRODISIAC vs. (?). I think you can guess who I placed him up against, but there'll be some slight modification with Toho's moneymaker before I'm through.

Still working on my Zuda entry and currently have four pages pencilled and a fifth started, but wanted to get something in the Velocity contest, so Patrick has a solid showing on Friday.

Crazy snow down/up here (guess we're technically almost in the middle) and they're calling for more tomorrow and then this upcoming weekend. Damn. I left the Midwest for a reason.

Halloween came early

Lilah got into Angie's eye-shadow and zombified herself. I've been working on a Zuda submission and their rules state you're not allowed to post the artwork elsewhere, which explains my lack of posts so far this year. That said, things may be a little dry until I finish up my story.