Friday, October 26, 2012

Halloween Card 2012


TOMORROW I'll be attending the Halloween Comic Fest at Stadium Comics in Shopper's World, Brampton! I'll be joined by many wonderful talents, including my #1 collaborator, Fred Kennedy!

Come see me draw my very special halloween card, as seen above, tomorrow morning and afternoon and join in the festivities.



This Week In Drawing...

Beginning here and now is a new weekly segment where I will showcase all the art I've done in the past seven days, aptly titled This Week In Drawing.

While tidying my work space it occurred to me that I'm now drawing more than ever. I don't just mean work on Teuton or other sequential projects, but I'm also doing more commissions and practice sketching than ever before.

This increased output of art is no accident. I'm trying very hard to hone my craft and become speedier. While there aren't always a series of finished pages and pieces I can show off in a week, there are lots of little sketches, unfinished drawings and lost thoughts on paper that accumulate. It's here in this segment those will be shared.

Powie.
This week I worked on two Marvel sketch variants commissioned by a regular patron of Stadium Comics. The dude is a huge fan of The Punisher and challenged me draw Big Pun dispatching the variant covers' titular characters as harshly as I could imagine.



First was The Death of Spider-Man variant for Ultimate Spider-Man #160. Although I didn't read that storyline, I was aware the Punisher was partly responsible for Ultimate Spidey's downfall. So I chose a composition that reflected that particular plot, but also recalled The Punisher's first appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #129. (FYI; my favourite Spidey/Punisher comic is Amazing #577)


The second cover, Wolverine #310, I began loosely without much forethought into the composition. Whenever I think of Wolverine scrapping with the Punisher, I think of that issue by Garth Ennis and Darrick Robertson that saw Logan getting his face blown off and being steamrolled. What I recall most is the reaction of Frank Tieri, who was writing Wolverine at the time, and was so very pissed at how Ennis handled Wolverine that Tieri responded in kind with Wolverine #186. Though I think Ennis got the better of them both. Frank Castle proved to be the far nastier fighter in both comics, and Tieri suggesting the Punisher is a closet homosexual at the end of his respective book felt like juvenile name-calling. 
Anyway, this is all to say I couldn't get the image of a shotgun blast to the face out of my mind. I was really pleased with what came out. I put more work into the pencils than I normally do and got cold feet about inking it...



Another commission that came my way was for a young boy's birthday. The lad wanted a Mega Man, and that's exactly what homie got. Here's the sketch and the final...



And of course there was this weeks entry to Spitballin' Comics: Sailor Moon. As I say in that blog post, she's a character I'm largely unfamiliar with and I had low expectations for this particular sketch. My first draft looked like she was doing something indecent with her wand. Then the water colours caused the ink to bleed. When I thought it was pooched I left it for a time, and when I returned I was able to make it work.


Then there is always my regular comic work. This week I turned in the final page for the Teuton: Volume One reprint. You can see all the new pages for the reprint here and here.


While working on Teuton: Volume Three, I'll also be doing interiors for a story called The Forgetting in the third issue of Undertow, which is written by Luke Donkersloot and impeccably illustrated by Gibson-Fucking-Quarter. Learn more about Undertow @ The 7th Wave, and hear Gib talk about Undertow with the wonderful Alice Quinn from TdotComics here.

Here's some early page roughs and character designs for the book:


Lastly, here's some character roughs for a story I'll be writing as well as drawing. I won't say any more about it just yet:


Wednesday, October 10, 2012

TEUTON Volume One Re-Issue pt.2




I'm really trying to loosen up how I draw and ink. Instead of striving to be detail oriented, like most my previous work on Teuton, I'm now working at capturing fluid motions and really moving the eye across the page.

This is the first balls-out action sequence in this new round of Teuton, and I hope my new approach works well. I'll never stop working to improve, but I think I like where this is taking me.

I'd be happy to hear from anyone on what they think. Enjoy!