Can he draw any better yet?

12/27/10 - Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2010 - Rough for color image and the genesis of an idea

2010-12-27T23:19:00.003-05:00

We are are having a real winter here in Kentucky. Our first snow was right after Thanksgiving and now we have had several measurable snowfalls since then including only the 2nd or 3rd White Christmas I can remember! The snow has stirred creative plasma from the past..

Gil Kane (p), Tom Palmer? (i),
cover Marvel Premier #15, 1974

Iron Fist is a comics character I have followed since his first appearance in Marvel Premiere 15 back in the mid 70's. The setting of the characters origin story is a mystical Asian city high in the snowy mountains: K'un L'un is obviously inspired by the mythical city of Shangri La. Danny Rand (the current, and at that time only known, Iron Fist's real name) is only a child at this point and the expedition to find the lost city by his father, mother, Uncle and himself is memorable for the adventure aspect, the tragic loss of a parent, and the search for a more enlightened way of life. All these concepts dug deep into my tween brain. I think I really empathized with the young Daniel's plight and envied the adventure and life he was about to embark on. Men are suckers for stories about sacrifice and honor - that is why war movies are able to evoke so much feeling in us - even among the most stoic and staid of us. We are hardwired to go out and fight tooth and nail against the imminent danger to our families without a moment's hesitation or regard for own safety. Even as children we have this instinct... that is why we are drawn to certain sports or hobbies.

At that time the Martial arts were a great mystery and held me tight in and fascination - people like Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris were incredibly influential role models. This period was near the height of the martial arts movie craze and I remember an incredible poster hanging in the hall at my elementary school Linlee.

Neil Adams, cover
Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #1
Magazine, April 1974

It was fifth or sixth grade and I was absolutely stricken by envy for the fellow artist and classmate (Mark Desmond?) who created this image of Bruce Lee applying a flying leap kick to strike down his enemy. This large, poster-board masterpiece I later found out was a recreated Neil Adams (who would soon rise to near god-like status in my pantheon of comic artists) cover from an issue of Deadly Hands of Kung Fu - a Marvel Magazine. This revelation elevated my ecstatic longing even more since this was a more adult (almost akin to Playboy! not for nudity but intense adventure) form of comic than what I was currently reading and very elusive (much like Shangri La) publication for me to ever attain or read. (For an eleven-year old boy in 1974 there weren't a lot o back issue buying options like we have today! No comic shops, no internet, no eBay!).

So anyway, I was a faithful follower of this Marvel character and very much enjoyed the early story arcs (never liked IF as superhero - but have always felt he was better suited to the adventure genre!

Paul Gulacy (p) Jack Able?(i), HoSC-MOKF #29, June 1975,

I wished he had been treated more like Marvel's other MA inspired character, Shang Chi, who got to live in a Bruce Lee Meets James Bond world.

James Steranko, cover
Doc Savage #3, February 1973

The Shang-Chi - Master of Kung Fu comic enjoyed the best art Steranko never did! Here is a sample of that seminal comic by another 'revered on high' artist: Paul Gulacy.

I was too young to experience most of Jim Steranko's comic work and only saw a bit of his work through his self published mag. But I think I did get this Doc Savage (another influential comic and pulp character on my young impressionable psyche) comic with his cover art. The black and white image is an illustration from the novel based on the Chandler detective series and proof that comics are very incestuous in the way one artist influences another. Frank Miller was thought to be very cutting edge with his graphic high contrast black and white style he used to great success in his noir crime comic series Sin City.

James Steranko, Chandler - Red Tide, pen and ink 1976

Frank Miller , Sin City, 1991-1992

Sites and blogs I have referenced from or been informed by during the writing of this post:

http://nealadams.com/magslist.html

https://spaceintext.wordpress.com/

http://www.giantsizemarvel.com/

http://marvel.wikia.com/Doc_Savage_Vol_1_3

http://www.thrillingdetective.com/steranko.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Miller_(comics)

http://consequentialart.wordpress.com/tag/sin-city/

http://unrealitymag.com/index.php/2009/02/02/ten-of-the-most-bad-ass-women-in-movies/

12/21/10 - Happy Winter Solstice

2010-12-21T04:37:00.002-05:00

Happy winter solstice.

There is a somberness to this season, it is a time when nature tries to thin the heard, so to speak. We rage against this fear of letting go with our holiday distractions and gross materialism. However it should be a time of reflection and putting to rest what is no longer essential in our lives. Brace yourself with the FAITH that is a preparation for even better things to come in the next cycle. It is one of the many sized waves of life and death, growth and decline that repeats at different frequencies and amplitudes throughout our lives. Expansion - contraction...these rhythmic patterns are essential to our existence and support the metaphysical/advanced physics ideas that we are essentially vibrations. Turn off your cell phones, walk away from the CRT/LCD - unplug and RECONNECT. Please take a walk in the woods, or park, take time to meditate in a peaceful place and let yourself connect to your intrinsic being and your higher calling. Embrace your human nature as your consciousness modulates between heaven and earth, practical and theoretical, light and dark, cold and hot. We never fully understand either extreme - like Icarus we can come tantalizing close, only to fall back - and thus we are almost always existing in some degree of MYSTERY. All is as it should be.

Did anyone see the lunar eclipse - I was up at 3:45am EST but we are having a little snow storm and I could not see the moon. I understand it would look dark, not black but actually red...

12/11/10 - Coloring Book Style Drawing

2010-12-14T05:00:00.007-05:00

A quick little drawing for my daughter to color while we ate a favorite local Japanese (Korean owned) restaurant. We were all hungry but stoked from attending a good friend's wedding! Yay Duncan and Tomoko!

12/07/10 - Draft for Editorial Cartoon

2010-12-07T14:02:00.003-05:00

This is my first online attempt at an Editorial cartoon - still just a draft really. Just put some of the relevant info in this photoshop comp. How do I take this to the next stage and create a a cartoon?

Update 12/27/10:
Here's a link to a site with a SNL clip about Julian and Mark Zuckerber - funny and really to the point! http://www.mediaite.com/tv/julian-assange-interrupts-snl-to-explain-why-he-should-be-times-person-of-the-year/

01/22/10 - Digital Link to Sketchbook Pro File in Google Docs

2010-01-22T23:21:00.006-05:00

Sharing!

Here is a link to the actual file that the above image was created in from Sketchbook Pro 2010. If you have the program (really nice 15-day trial versions available online) you can download the .tif file and play with it as you like!

Image005.tif - Google Docs

08/16/09 - Watercolor Illustration

2010-01-22T11:48:00.009-05:00

This was done back in August from a photo ref (Target newspaper circular) with W&N Cotman paints on a 8.5 x 5 in sample of Strathmore's Wet Media Illustration Board (thanks to Barbara Faro, our local Strathmore paper sales rep!).

I spent about 3.5 hours (probably much too long for the size of the painting) or so on this - I really tried to do this in a controlled manner and am relatively please with the results. I was striving to keep the look controlled while matching the vibrancy of the photo's colors.

I 'm not sure about the watermark proclaiming my copyright as this is very faithful to the photo which I don't have any claims to.

01/19/10 - Digital - Painter 11

2010-01-21T14:28:00.008-05:00

Two really quick and loose sketches from a new install of the trial version of painter 11. Sometimes a program just clicks on the first take. The tool was the "6B real pencil" it senses tilt with your stylus to the tablet. So you can approximate the the thick and thin lines you get with a real pencil. Nice, when it works. It is still a little buggy...

01/09/10 - Life Drawing - Cabaret Life Drawing at 21c : Bodybuilder

2010-01-11T11:05:00.005-05:00

I attended my first Cabaret Life Drawing at 21c for the new year yesterday. The model, Kevin, is a bodybuilder and depicted both a boxer and a cowboy (sounds like a Simon and Garfunkel song, doesn't it?).

I have recently been working with Flickr for hosting photos and scans so thought I would try something new (and save some of my Blogger resources :-)

Here's a slide show from yesterday's output:

01/10/10 - 2009 Sketches and Doodles

2010-01-10T11:43:00.005-05:00

Here is a link to my Flickr set for "Sketches and Doodles 2009". This set will be scans and photos of traditional art - typically pencil or pen. These were quick and fun! The magic and power of simple b&w images is just incredible to me sometimes!

Flickr Set

10/10/09 - Life Drawing - Takedown of 3rd Annual UK Community Art Show

2010-01-04T13:31:00.004-05:00

This late September and early October I participated in the third annual Life Drawing Show for the UK Community Art Group. This show was held in Reynolds Building #1 in the Barnhart Gallery. Thanks to Arturo and Ben Withers for approving this and assisting!

Here's a little movie I made from photos I took of the show as it was being taken down on Saturday October 10th 2009. I wish I had gotten to take photos earlier - there was a lot of nice work displayed.

12/08/09 - Life Drawing

2010-01-03T23:45:00.000-05:00

Here is my output from one of the last Tuesday night sessions of 2009:

10/06/09 - Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2

2010-01-01T06:08:00.005-05:00

Another digital sketch - with a favorite program of mine for getting stuff down fast: Sketchbook Pro 2. I saved this with the rough sketch layers on - kind of shows my working process of refining from a very loose shape to a tighter pencil line. Inspired by a college student I saw and drawn from memory.

10/29/09 - Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2

2010-01-01T05:50:00.002-05:00

Catching up on stuff from last year - this was inspired by two things: the clear bright light of autumn and trying to catch a sense of motion (leaves and paper blowing in the wind as the dog lunges). Not to say I did either of these concepts justice - only to document that they did move me.

12/02/09 - Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2

2010-01-01T05:37:00.008-05:00

Here's a digital sketch from memory of a 1970's pinup. As time passes the models from 1970's and before just seem more aesthetically pleasing - before cosmetic surgery became so common.

01/01/10 - Cartoon - New Years 2010

2010-01-01T05:18:00.005-05:00

Here's a quick doodle I did at the end of last year (a couple of hours ago). Red col-erase pencil on letter size copy paper. Wanted to hit some of my new years resolutions with this. Where did the father time with scythe and baby imagery come from anyway?

01/01/10 - Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2010

2010-01-01T05:16:00.006-05:00

Happy New Year everyone!
Here's a quick Santa head I did in Sketchbook Pro 2010. A great program!
The old jolly elf is not so easy to draw and paint. Haddon Sundblom did some incredible work for Cocoa-Cola.

09/16/08 - Location Sketching - UK SCA - Indo Dance

2008-09-16T13:34:00.007-04:00

Revised 9/229/09: Finally added sketches from the event!

This was a wonderful experience and I want to thank Krithika for making us all feel very comfortable and entertaining and teaching us all as well!

My sketches are not so great but catching the movement is something that takes some practice - hopefully more chance ahead! I used a Pentel V-5 ink roller (one of my favorites for writing) and a Pentel Color Brush Pen (a very nice sketching pen - with a really thick line).

Here are some photos of Krithika and her fellow dancer (will try and get her name from UK hosts).

05/30/08 - Digital - Photoshop, Sketchbook Pro and Painter

2008-05-30T20:35:00.006-04:00

Some digital drawings from the last couple of months. Photoshop CS2 , Sketchbook Pro 2 and Painter X. These are all drawn without reference - just from memory and imagination.

02/16/08 - Digital - Photoshop Painting

2008-02-16T20:36:00.018-05:00

I have been recuperating at home the last week after after a week in the hospital. The meds and bed rest had me all revved up with no place to go. But I have been able to get in some time and progress (I think) on my Photoshop CS2 digital painting skills. Here are some pieces created in the last couple of days.

Lady Washington and the treasure cave are from my head and Dorothy and the Tobbogan Lady are from photoreference (but still free hand drawn without sampling colors).

10/27/07 - Character Design - Childrens Story

2007-10-27T14:04:00.000-04:00

This is the first rough (and working version) draft character design sheet for a teacher friend's illustrated short story "Zukes and Cukes!"

Holly and I produced several simple finished line drawings using these character designs to accompany a short story that was developed for project head start.

This was a good experience because we had to produce the drawings in a very short time and it gave me a feel for what must be done to deliver work on a deadline.

08/16/07 - Life Drawing

2007-08-28T01:33:00.000-04:00

Here are two, 30-minute pose ink drawings from the Thursday night open life drawing session at UK. These were drawn direct (without a pencil sketch) onto a 14 x 17" Borders and Riley Bleedproof Board (a cheap alternative to Bristol) with a Series Seven #2 and Koh-I-Noor Universal Ink. I have been drawing with the comics inking tools for several weeks now in Thursday night sessions and I believe I am seeing some improvement.

James Montgomery Flagg's (see links in right sidebar: Illustrators) style is an inspiration for my rendering - it is amazing how he could develop skin tones with such ease and economy of line hatching.

PS: I was pretty proud of this drawing until I put it up next to the Flagg! Boy, do I have a lot to learn!! And, boy, was he ever good!

08/12/07 - Sketchbook - Animals for Clara to Color

2007-08-17T13:08:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday I started doing some animal sketches from Jack Hamm's How to Draw Animals book and the Famous Artists equivalent. The first few were pretty shaky but I started getting into it and then went on to draw this gorilla in ink directly (no pencil sketch) from a Cincinatti Zoo flier. The colors are by Clara. She likes to cut each animal out before painting them with watercolors. Except where noted these were drawn over a pencil sketch with Micron Brush pen and Staedtler Pigment Liners.

This was fun and followed our trip to Lousiville zoo a couple of weeks ago (may later post those very rough sketches drawn from life in the heat...had to wipe the sweat from the pages!). I need to spend more time learning about and drawing our fellow creatures here on earth.

07/28/07 - PleinAir - Joseph Beth Cafe

2007-07-30T00:59:00.000-04:00

Two little sketches - not really great by any means - but significant in that I was able to do some sketching in a public area. I'm usually a little skittish about drawing in public all by myself. Holly and Clara (just returned from Maine) were there part of the time (between trips to bathroom for C) but this was really a pretty nice to place to sit back and drawn in. From the patio at Joseph-Beth Cafe in Lexington Green you can hear the live music and see a man made duck pond with a fountain. Inspiration: Mike Manley, (look for his blog Draw! in my watched blogs section) a pretty fearless artist and great role model.

07/24/07 - Digtial - Painter X (Rocks!)

2007-07-24T02:35:00.000-04:00

Just installed the trial version of Corel Painter X on my home machine and I have to say it quickly sold me on the need to upgrade from version IX!
Here's a quick little piece (Note: I used auto-clone and the pencil tool to trace a photo reference) to look at - boy, is this easier than Photoshop (much more intuitive - you can take your knowledge of real art media and translate to this program)!

06/27/06 - Comic - Digital - Painter IX

2007-07-24T02:15:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not I taught a class on cartooning for high school students last summer (2006) at Berea College for a college prep program called Upward Bound. I guess if you do something long enough someone will eventually take you as some kind of expert (or as a wise friend said to me years ago: "In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king." Quite true Hemang, God rest your soul.)

They were a rowdy bunch and shook my confidence in my ability to teach the class - I won't do it again without a fixed computer lab (try handing out and taking up laptops every class, ughh!!). We created a blog and used Photoshop to computer color their hand drawn original comic strips.

As a demo for the class I created this little comic strip completely digitally using Corel Painter IX.

07/23/07 - Famous Namesakes and Blog Narcissism

2007-07-23T02:01:00.000-04:00

Above is the "Political Johnny Gilpin" from an 1892 Punch magazine illustration (see page 319). Also here on page 31 - this must have been a fairly famous ballad - although I seem to think my relative is getting lambasted?

OK, almost anyone who blogs or builds a web page eventually checks out how their site comes up in search engines...while engaging in this bit of digital ego stroking (searching "gilpin art" on Google) I discovered some very distant relatives (Rev. William Gilpin, (English (Cumbria) clergyman, painter and aesthetic) Sawrey Gilpin (brother of William and famous animal painter), Wiliam Sawrey Gilpin (son of Sawrey and student of Uncle William), Laura Gilpin, American photographer) who each made an impression in art. And also this little story about a "John Gilpin" from a Gutenberg Press archive.

Perhaps there is hope for me to eventually become successful (or notorious) as an artist, after all ;-)

Oh, in case your were wondering, I gave up looking after the twentieth search page for a page ranking from this blog. My wife's school blog came up very quickly even though I don't think she has posted there more than five times!

Holly, you must of cheated somehow! Page five indeed!

10/16/06 - Digital - Photoshop CS2 - Painting practice

2007-07-23T01:27:00.001-04:00

When I stick to B/W images my Photoshop painting doesn't turn out too bad. This was done with the following tools: #2 pencil, conte pencil (both dry media brushes), and airbrush set at 50% flow. I added the layers palette from Photoshop in this jpg so you could see for yourself.

Again, if anyone is interested in looking at the source files for my digital work - post a comment and let me know - otherwise I will just post image files.

07/25/05 - Digital - Photoshop and Freehand

2007-07-23T00:56:00.000-04:00

Here I have taken the life drawing scan (from the previous post) and colorized in Photoshop:

Then applied a watercolor filter to the colorized file (still in PS):

Then backtracked and used Macromedia FreeHand to vectorized (16 color steps) the first colored PS file.

07/24/05 - Life Drawing

2007-07-23T00:45:00.000-04:00

Here is a life drawing from 2005 - a nice composition with a favorite model, Faville ( I guess she has graduated and moved on to greener pastures?). This was a 45 minute pose drawn with graphite on a 11x17" bristol board. Check out the next post for some digital coloring variations on this theme.

10/21/06 - Digital - Photoshop CS2 - custom brush

2007-07-23T00:35:00.000-04:00

More digital work in Photoshop CS2. This time trying to get a custom brush for hair to work. This is probably my best success at creating a custom brush, but I still have lots of questions, such as: can you only use it one direction? You can actually see the group (circle) of different sized dots I sampled to make the brush from on the top right of the image.

03/26/05 - Digital - Photoshop 7 colored scans as BD cards

2007-07-23T00:26:00.000-04:00

Here is a Birthday card design I did for a cousin back in 2005. The line art is hand drawn and inked then scanned. I used PS7 to color (airbrush, color holds on some lines) and add the text.

06/09/07 - Digital - Photoshop CS2 painting practice

2007-07-23T00:11:00.000-04:00

As I stated in an earlier post - I struggle with finding a method to paint in Photoshop. Here I have included a practice piece based on a tutorial from 2dArtist (an excellent online PDF art instruction magazine) by Henning Ludvigson.

Not nearly as nice as what he demonstrates - I have put my questions down on the piece. The basic idea is that you frequently re sample the color for your brush (with less opacitiy or flow?) after you originally block in 3 or 4 shades across a curving surface. The goal is to have a nice blend across the color transtions - NOT THAT I DEMONSTRATE THAT HERE!

01/01/07 - Life Drawing Dump 1st quarter 2007

2007-07-15T20:18:00.000-04:00

Some of my favorites from life drawings done in the first three months of this year.
I took digital photos of these (instead of scanning) as they are all in an 18x24" drawing pad. I think the digital files are pretty close to life size (at 72ppi resolution).

I usually try to record the date, models name, duration of the pose and the drawing tool I used. Often the quicker poses produce better drawings, what do you think?

For the quick poses I used a black Prismacolor pencil (which can't be erased). For longer poses I used a 2mm 4B lead in a lead holder, Ebony pencil or Draughting pencil.

09/16/06 - Digital - Photoshop CS2

2007-07-15T19:51:00.000-04:00

Both of these rough color sketchs were done in Photoshop CS2 with my Wacom Intous 3 tablet.

I am still struggling with digital painting, especially using Photoshop. There are so many ways to approach a color piece and then there is the complication of custom brushes.

Photoshop is probably the most powerful graphics program but it's not very intuitive (good at simulating real media techniques).

07/01/07 - Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2

2007-07-15T19:42:00.000-04:00

This cashier from Home Depot was drawn from memory with a wacom intuous 3 in SketchbookPro 2. When I want to get something down in color quickly and easily this is the program I use.

If anyone ever wants to see the native files with layers and everything just leave me a comment on the particular post and I will add a link. Otherwise I will just post images as a jpg or gif.

06/28/07 - Sketchbook Inking Practice

2007-07-15T18:52:00.000-04:00

Here are two images (actually all on one sheet of tracing paper but too big to fit on my scanner ;-) ) that are inked versions of sketches made in July 2006.

These were done with the my new Pentel Brush Pen on tracing paper. I was still getting used to the brush pen so these are a little rough and sketchy. The line weights on the nude kneeling figure are too heavy on the highlight side but are more a result of not being able to rest my hand on the tracing paper (than purposeful intent).

The clumsily drawn hands I do have to take credit for (need to spend several hours just working on hands!).

On the plaid skirt I was intentionally going for a "dried brush" type of effect to approximate a woolen texture. This brush pen has to be squeezed periodically to get the ink down to the synthetic bristles - so you can get different effects as the ink runs out. Nice for sketching away from home but I don't think I would ink comics with it. Not as responsive as a real brush and you always have to worry if disposable ink pen's ink will bleed through white out corrections.

07/07/07 - Life Drawing - Ink

2007-07-15T18:20:00.000-04:00

Long time since my last post! Here are two drawings from about a week ago using a Pentel Brush Pen (picked this up at Comics2Games in Northern Kentucky - the comic shop storefront for Blue Line Pro) on some nice printmaking paper (Stonehenge, I think) . I pencil sketched first and then finished in ink.

11/18/06 - Life Drawing

2006-11-20T00:51:00.000-05:00

We are lucky to have an open drawing session on Saturday mornings at the University. Here is a 55 minute drawing (last drawing of the day); 4B lead on bristol. This was interesting because, besides the model being dressed, she was holding a sitar. This made for a very nice scene but was more than I could accurately record in the time. I wasn't able to depict the pattern on the fabric of her dress nor get much texture on the instrument. Andrew Loomis talks about the necessity of simplifying, exaggerating and diminishing various parts in your drawing (from the intro to Figure Drawing For All It's Worth), so I just tried to go with those suggestions.

08/29/06 - Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2

2006-10-10T00:07:00.000-04:00

Digital piece from this August. Really just some small pencil sketches from my imagination that I colored. All done with Wacom Intuous 3 tablet and Alias/Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 2. I start with a 2B pencil for the sketch. Then create a new layer - swap the order - and start coloring flats with the wide brush. This is a really neat aspect of SKB2 - you can go right to coloring without worrying about layer blending mode - it just anticipates that is what you will be doing. There really aren't that many tutorials available for this program, perhaps because of it's simplicity? But the Autodesk site has some if you become a member (lower level membership is free!).

Look for SKB2 native source file here (.tiff) PS: this won't work in any program although it looks like a common tiff file!!

09/10/06 Digital - Painter IX.5

2006-10-09T23:57:00.000-04:00

Some more digital work, drawn from my imagination, done last month, this time done in Corel's Painter IX.5. I read a quote recently that said you don't sketch anything you haven't really looked at...I guess you can see what I pay attention to. Here's the link to get the trial version.

Watch here for a link to the Painter native format source file (.riff)

10/08/06 Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2

2006-10-09T23:14:00.000-04:00

Well it's been a while longer than I mean since my last post...

Here is a recent piece (from imagination) I did in Alias' (now Autodesk's) Sketchbook Pro 2. I really like the feel of the default pencil tool for this application. SKP2 is not really made for highly refined pieces but it has a much easier interface to learn than Photoshop or Painter. The interface was designed so that you don't have have a keyboard - nice for tablet PC users. It is very intuitive and easy to go from your pencil sketch to a colored version. There is a really nice 15-non consecutive day trial available from the publisher - it's worth trying out!

Here's a link to the source file.

03/26/04 - Sketchbook - Inking Practice

2006-02-27T21:57:00.000-05:00

Scanned as grayscale so you can see the underlying pencil drawing. These were done on bristol, pencilled first (from my imagination/visual memory) then inked with Raphael 8404 #3 brush and Black Magic ink. The park bench scene was inked with a Hunt 102 crowquill pen.

My big problem with the brush is line weight. I tend to keep it too uniform. Outlines on the highlight side should be thinner and even break up a little. Jack Hamm talks about the "T" and overlapping shapes in his book Drawing the Head and Figure. This helps give some depth to the contour line as opposed to it looking like the edge of a cutout.

02/02/06 - Sketchbook

2006-02-27T21:53:00.000-05:00

Some sketches done in pencil then inked with Faber Castell Pitt Brush pen.

02/19/06 - Comic - TWD 1 roughs

2006-02-19T23:12:00.000-05:00

This is Project 1 for a local Comics Creators Group I am a member of. The assignment was to rough out the first four pages of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead #1. He has a scriptbook out with the first several comic issues scripts.

These were done 1/4 final size or 3.75" x 2.5". This is the stage of drawing where you work out a lot of the logistical problems and should really be experimenting. These shoud be small but clear. It's easy to become attached to your layout if you put too much work into an early version. Don't always go with your first version. Save the detail for the final pencils. Otherwise you will lose a lot of life and energy from the layout to final pencils.

1993? - Comic - Watermelon

2006-02-19T12:41:00.000-05:00

I'm having to kind of guess on the year for this one (Kids: always remember to put a date on your drawings!). Here's another complete comic page: all done by hand. Scanned in color so you can see pencil lines and everything. Other than the borders and the lettering, all inking done with a brush.

1980 - Comic - Silver Surfer & Thanos

2006-02-19T12:32:00.000-05:00

One of my earliest attempts at creating a "professional" comic page: bristol board, india ink, 10"x15" image area.

02/18/06 First Post - Life Drawings

2006-02-18T19:39:00.000-05:00

Hello. Comments, especially constructive ones are welcome. Here are some drawings - from today - despite our little snowstorm I was able to make it to a local life drawing session.

Pencil (4b lead) drawing from Saturday life drawing at the University. (Click on image for full size image at 72 ppi).Here is a pencil (HB lead) sketch that I inked with a WN Series Seven #1 brush and Rapidograph Universal ink.