dang...impending doom?

makers mark

well, as much as this leia commission was a struggle, im a little happier with the results and starting to know how to attack with markers. kinda. somewhat. more than the previous post anyways. one of the awesome artists i worked with (and learned a ton from) at upper deck, chris ortega (see link) used to always talk about his struggle with line vs my struggle with form. his natural mode is more on the painting side, and he'd stretch a bit to find the line in comics werk. according to him the bulk of a painting you dont have to decide on the specific contour, you can kind of blur shapes. and of course id always be marveling at his painted work precisely because mark making with lines feels natural, could never wrap my head around how he defined form with chunks of color. anyways, this recurring discussion was on my mind alot with this leia, because i didnt think i could get a likeness for her, or round out R2 without pulling off this trick. even though theres line, it wasnt enough. not real successful overall, but what i started to notice was how much better the line looked when the color bled out and around it, the fuzzier the line the more i liked it. so, i guess thats the first tool or trick or whatever ive come across in trying to figure out markers.
just moved to charlotte, nc, and got eaten alive by mosquitoes- other than that its nice. i missed living somewhere with a skyline. it means there have been a couple weeks where i couldnt draw, so the hand doodles are just warm ups. mid doodle there was a guy on npr talking about "texting", and he referred to it as "the revenge of e.e. cummings" which brought out a chuckle. look e.e. up if youre bored, hes one of the few poets that got through to me in high school, and prolly the reason im an aggressively lower-case typer. chris be don't text.
enough rambling, there's a Loose Ends page on the table right now......

rough stuff

just some commissions im trying to soldier through. still dont know what im doing with prismacolors, the paper is pretty unforgiving, but the only way to figure it out is keep on keepin on, be willing to look bad and learn somethin. couple more left, then back to pages.

Dark Knight

Let me tell you a little story. First, my day job at Indigo Ink Digital Printing is nuts because we print a lot of stuff for people that will be going to the SDCC. I've worked a few 12+ hour days in the past week. Wednesday my plan was to leave at a regular time to spend some time with my wife and little girl. However, on the way home, my wife calls me, " My friend has a friend that has some free passes to see that Batman movie tonight, do you want them?" Huh?! "Where's it playing?" I say. "It's down in D.C. at the Uptown at 8:30." What?! My favorite movie theatre on the face of the earth?!

This place is a beautifully restored theatre from the 30's with a huge curved screen and a sweet balcony! Anyway, now I'm going to see Batman (my favorite superguy), at the Uptown (my favorite theatre), and for FREE (my favorite price!)! So we plan to get down there an hour and a half early so we can sit together. I'm all geeking with the butterflies in my belly, I've heard this thing is an awesome crime drama, an interpretation of Batman that I enjoy. We arrive to a line wrapped around the block! We hop in line, I'm all excited, an hour goes by, and some spokesmodels come out and let us know the theatre is full and we should shove off. Yeah, that was one sad walk back to the car and an hour drive home.

That's where the sad story ends, I got to see the movie last night. 3 hours well spent friends!! If you haven't seen it yet, get to it! It made me feel like this!

I'm sure you've all seen it but I don't want to spoil anything so we can talk about it more later.

Lisa, Angela, Pamela, Renee

Hey folks-
The kids are back and recovering from our adventures in Charlotte, North Carolina. Heroes Con was a blast like always. Shelton, Dustin and the gang put on my favorite comic convention. It was great catching up with old friends and making some new ones.
We unveiled the Loose Ends preview book at the show and I've heard positive things from people that picked it up and from our peers, so that's encouraging. We met Swain from my favorite podcast, SiDEBAR, very cool guy. I love that show! Check out the link over on the right.

Anyway, I know you guys come here for pictures and not to read my typing, so, here ya go...20 years in the making...

gone fishin

hey, yeah, sometimes there'll be a lot of posts, sometimes, not so much. anyways, heres some pages thatve been posted before, just lettered now so they look all for real an sh*t. i always get a kick out of seeing the finished comic, its really not done until the word balloons and logos are on, and even then not as much as when it gets folded or develops coffee stains. god bless comics ;p the writer for the comic, jason latour, is really a comics dynamo and in general a one man supergroup. anyways he did the letters and because latour draws like a mug they came out with a great dose of personality that locks in with the story. the other good news is that since i finally did the grey tones, we'll be able to follow ricos process thru the colors, if you're allright with seeing these pages again. we spend a long time staring at em too ;p
there was some other jibber jabber i wanted to put out there. working on the string of marvel cards was so much fun i couldnt stand it. having done 3 dud paintings in 30 years, working wih prismacolor, bic and crayola let in a lot of fresh air. that so many other folks worked on them as well brought back this heavy drawing-in-study-hall buzz. although overused, yellow highlighter covered up with whiteout pen always shined, the ink must mix cause they glow together. an india ink really grounds everything, and the scan (even adjusted) did no justice. will have another set to do before november, and a list in a drawer is growin (black cat, black widow, lilandra, beta-ray bill, forge, winter soldier, gwen stacy.....open to suggestions) ive stacked up 7 blank Camel packs to do Loose End color drawins on at HeroesCon in Charlotte NC, so ill be up to the same tricks soon enough. Rico ran up a bunch of Loose End Demo's for the show, 16 BW pages+ color cover, along with some other good things- polaroid prints on thick plastic-y type paper! and another print that we started in like 2003 and finished last week. David Williams and Ed Brubaker canceled, dag, but looking foward to seeing Dusty and the rest...

touch of grey

hi! had wanted to jibber jabber about this stuff, but ive been up since yesterday and am incoherent. will blah blah blah tomorrow, take it easy.

PS the converse are andy warhol and the ruby shoe photo is of pj harvey.