Notable Power Gap

I haven't seen a copy of the magazine yet, but I drew the artwork for the cover of this week's Free Times. It's a piece for an article titled "The Murderer's Apprentice", or, I guess they changed the title to "The Serial Killer's Disciple". I think this piece came out pretty good. I like coloring more and more, and although I'm not a huge fan of some of the assignments that I've been working on in my Raster Based Imagery class, I've already learned a lot. It's simple simple stuff, but because I was largely self taught in Photoshop, it's aspects that escaped me for whatever reason. Maybe I'll post some of my assignments here? Not sure there's any need for that, but it might be fun.



On the other side of that coin is the fact that knowing Photoshop alone can not a good artist you make. Um, I think. I mean, sure. Anyway, here's the negro y blanco of that piece. I spent a lot of time making it right. I used layers upon layers of splatter, both black and white. I used Math and Magic to get the bricks in proper perspective, when I usually just eyeball it. Over all I'm pretty happy with this cover. I haven't even read the article yet so I have no idea how close this plays into it. I can't say I like working that way. When I do editorial illustration I'd much rather spend some time with the actual piece and find the subtleties to work from. Try and illustrate more the idea of the piece in a way, rather than just representational images of actual words from an article. Unfortunately that's not always feasible in the publishing world. That's another thing I find hard to get my head around: the fact that I'm part of the Publishing World. I won't rant on it now, but yeah... being aware of your place in the grand scheme isn't always as easy as it should be. However, it's probably one of the more important things to have a grasp of if you want to achieve any set goals, no matter what they are. Seems obvious, but I think it's easy to lose sight of in the hustle bustle games we all have to play on the daily just to make it to tomorrow.



Finally, here's a self portrait, kind of a work in progress. I'd like to color it, but so far this is where I'm at with it:



I hope to post more frequently, but school is totally kickin' my ass. I'm still watching Samurai movies, but have slowed down a lot. Post to follow. Still working on comics, post to follow extremely soon.

I've added some new links to the sidebar:

Obsolete References is a blog by a guy that works at a CD/DVD store in Seattle. It's always pretty funny, especially if you've ever worked retail, or been to a retail store. He and I used to work around the block from each other in Downtown Cleveland, and it was always awesome to visit him at his crappy job, or when he visited me at mine.

Rick Spears has a new site/blog. Rick is the publisher of Gigantic Graphic Novels and probably the foremost killer scriptist throwing down comics awesomeness for your hard earned dollar. Seriously, he's got Black Metal with Chuck BB from Oni Press, REPO with Rob G and Pirates of Coney Island with Vasilis Lolos from Image, and if you haven't read Teenagers From Mars, or Dead West (both also with Rob G) yet, it's not too late! It's never too late!

Negligent Passing Getaway

It's labor day, and I'm in labor. Giving birth to drawings and comics and bad jokes. I just drew this face as practice and then colored it up to experiment with it. I think it took maybe a half hour. I like how it turned out. I'm not sure where my style is going with some of these things, but I guess that's not really my concern. I'll worry about style when I'm dead.



I'm back to school for the first time in a long time and it's a strange thing. Nothing has really changed but it's all different. It's taking me a minute to get used to the ideas of it all, but I'm happy to be back and in the game and making some use of my time. I like having a schedule.

I traded a copy of the fifth volume of The Caveman Diaries for this drawing. It's by this dude Corey, who, coincidentally enough, I went to school with six years ago the last time I took any classes. I hadn't seen him since then. He approached me at the Normal Love/Giants of Gender/Cave Bear show a couple weeks ago and offered a trade. I think I basically robber the poor bastard. LOOK at this:



Next up is the first panel from the first story from the first issue of this thing called Shiner. More on that to come.