Oh boy! It's Christmas card time! Which means Batman be climbin' down yo' chimney.

I have a serious obsessions with octopi. 

An Actual Page!

So, earlier posts (waaaay earlier) were about a project entitled "2020" or "2016" (it was changed), but these here is the second draft of the first page from that project! Finally! Alright. It's not great quality since I took it off my phone, but it was exciting nonetheless.

I actually have spent a lot of time deciding what workflow I wanted for my pages. At first it was just thumbnails, then straight to the finished page. The immediate problem with that was that the decisions I made at the rough stage had to be made again at final size. Thumbnails became useless. After that, I tried taking the roughs, blowing them up, and tracing them, but they were so rough that it didn't contribute much to the final product either (it even made my final drawings stiff and lifeless).

Finally, I created a comic page template which I carefully resized at about 5"x8". I did detailed drawings at that size, blew them up, traced the shapes, and added the details straight to those.

As a result, my artwork looks much more lively, and the decisions I made at the composition stage remain untouched. 

Well, that's all. I hope you all have a lovely evening.

James

The Shining!

So I was inspired to sketch this while a friend and I were watching the Shining. It doesn't seem to match, but I think it was because the hotel manager mentioned Indian burial grounds or something along those lines. Someone asked if he was a caveman. He just has a magnificently large brow, thank you very much.

G'afternoon y'all,

James

The Incredible Man-Tree

I had a waking dream, (or a vision, I guess) of a man who was walking on a narrow path in a ravine. He had cuts all over, but instead of bleeding, branches would grow out of the wounds. Branches continued to grow until roots formed at his feet, and when he stopped to take a breath, he grew into a great tree.

A little odd, but it made for a striking picture. In addition to old people, I love drawing people who are scarred with imperfect, tired bodies. Or odd faces. Heck, anyone who isn't Adonis just seems more interesting to me.

Later,

James

Look! Just a Regular Guy.

I tend to do sketches of faces draped in shadow, because that's just more interesting to look at. While in the studio, I tend to look at a lot of Tim Bradstreet and Sean Phillips, two guys who know the power of heavy blacks. I like old folks, but this guy is just forty. Or a really, really badly aged thirty year old. I like the latter much better.

Have a good night,

James

Inconsistency, Inconsistency...

It would seem that Christmas has gotten the better of me; no worry, I'll make up for it.

I recently saw True Grit, and it made me want to draw dusty textures. Also, I really want to draw crackle-faced old folks.

I couldn't get Jeff Bridges' eyes, but this was from memory, so this is really just my impression of the film.

Man, that is some serious man-scraggle.

In other news, this is Business Tycoon Odin. I read that Wagner's Ring Cycle was reinterpreted for modern audiences, and that just sounded cool. I tried to insert the ravens somehow, but I could only get in one of the two.

That's all for today.

Have a good one,

James

St. Brutus, Saint of Zombie-Killing

One more Christmas card, for my friend Sam. She digs Victorian-era gentlmen, and also monster-hunting.

Have a good night!

Christmas Cards!

So, one of my favorite things to do for my friends on birthdays is to draw them an offbeat birthday card. I usually improvise the whole card the moment I sit down to draw the thing, and it is always a ton of fun. It's also cool because my friends are the kind of people that appreciate time, care, and personal gifts.

Another plus is that I don't have to spend money, which is often a necessity for me.

Anyway, this year I decided to do a slew of Christmas cards for my friends. They were a blast to do, and while they may not always look pretty or polished, they are definitely from the heart.

Sorta.

Well, at least I did them myself.

Anyhoo, here are the first few I did that I liked! I channeled Mike Mignola for some of these, so that was cool to do.

By the way, I did write heartfelt notes for all of these, I just covered those up before posting 'em.

Merry Christmas!

More Superheroes!

So, I wrote a character called "The Warden" who was going to be a street-level vigilante with a prison guard theme. After a while, certain concepts and roles in the story needed to be filled by someone who looked a little less...fascist. But! It was still an early character design that I want to play with in the future sometime.

Later!

Terminals Character Design

Sovereign is the "Superman"-style character of our story. However, his origins and motivations are very different under the surface.

I'd share more, but I don't want to spoil too much of the story. My plan was to have the readers assume he's a Superman-copy (which he seems to be, on the surface) and later reveal him to be much more than he appears. I'm still coming up with a symbol of some kind, or at least some element that doesn't make it look like he's wearing a pair of foot pajamas. I want to avoid that "realistic" style piping that a lot of contemporary costume designers love using. It looks slick, but I see nothing wrong with the traditional spandex look.

Anyway, enough talk. 

Later!

Some Volunteer Work...

Hey everyone,

So I occasionally do work for my local church. It's usually not huge or time-consuming, but it's always nice to contribute my gifts for free. This particular drawing was for a series that our youth pastor started centering on parable of the house in the sand. I spend an evening sketching this from a photo, then inking it. I actually enjoyed this much more than I thought I would. I'm not much for architectural drawings, or anything that isn't human, honestly. In this case, it was a swell time and the inking didn't seem too bad. I think I was subconsciously aping Michael Cho's beautiful work, whose blog is linked to on the right of the page. Seriously, I recommend taking a look at his stuff if you want to see something like this, only several million times better.

So that's it. What I enjoyed most is the pointillism I did on the sand on the house roof.

Later!

Return to Posting!

Hello, future faithful readers. It's been a long time. While I have not continued consistently with the minicomic project, it has still remained percolating in my mind. The idea that has stuck with me the most is the Western cowboy/Arthurian narrative mash-up. It kinda speaks to the things I love. Which reminds me...


True Grit! Seriously, the American story is built on the idea that a man creates his own destiny through force, through sheer will (and sometimes a gun). Not something we can always be proud of, but gosh darn it, if it doesn't get my red, white, and blue blood running, nothing will.

Also, that is President Millard Fillmore
standing in for the horse's anus.

In the meantime, I've been apprenticing at the Studio, and it has been truly educational. I've learned so much, both through experience and direct instruction. I recently did an assignment which allowed me to draw a cartoon artist painting a horse's arse. It's not exactly the highest concept that man can aspire to, but it was a blast to do, and I got to cut my teeth on the coloring part. From step 1 to 13, this assignment was 100% me, a major turning point in my studio career, as far as production goes.

Also in the meantime, I've been working on a superhero project that that has been slowly building in my mind since high school: The Terminals. I'll scan some character sketches later and put them up on here. The basic premise is that a mysterious organization has gathered a group of superheroes who are each suffering from terminal diseases. This organization, represented by a Benefactor, offers this team all the resources they need to make the last few months of their superhero careers the most effective, meaningful, and fulfilling missions they have ever completed. The catch? The missions they accept are the "suicide missions," the ones that other heroes don't mention. These are the ones that, if revealed, would collapse the economy, cause a global panic, and end civilization.

In a choice between succumbing to disease and a glorious end, these heroes are choosing death on their own terms. But what does the Benefactor truly want? What are the motives of this mysterious organization?

Read it...once I finish writing it, that is...

A Little Design Tweaking...

Something once more from the Iain Carson project. He asked for a more streamlined, less "puffy" design, so here we go.

And there shall be...ZOMBIES.

Dude, let me tell you: I frikkin' LOVE zombies. I'm fascinated by them: what they look like, how they decompose, how they run/walk/crawl/grunt-with-gusto, and what the causes of "zombification" is from media to media, from work to work. Most of all, I love how zombies have been used to say things about society in general. I mean, yeah, zombies are also tasteless cultural trash (or something pretentious like that), but out of the classic Western horror monsters, zombies have been used to provide the most social commentary out of anything. There are some heavy themes in Frankenstein that you just don't see in Dracula. In Dawn of the Dead, a book is hiding. How would humans survive in a zombie apocalypse? How would we behave? In our moment of desperation, at the moment that we would most need order, would we give in, or hold strong?

Man, zombie movies are like a cultural test of what our fears are as a society. In the original "Night of the Living Dead," the cause was a radiation fallout. Today? Nine out of ten times, the cause of zombies nowandays is some kind of virus. Kind of telling, isnt' it?

And also, zombies can be funny and horrifying at the same time. This might sound messed up, but a decomposed body trying to run like a normal, healthy, living human can be pretty comedic. The imagery doesn't take itself seriously. There's some room for slapstick, for some macabre humor. And that, in a way, makes the situation even more horrifying in contrast.

There's versatility in zombie media. And if I didn't have such a distaste for movie gore, I might watch more of the films than I have. But I once saw "Night of the Living Dead" (the original) when I was about five,  and it scared the crap out of me. I love that movie. But that's another post!

I also love drawing zombies. My banner up there originally started out as a zombie drawing, that looked a little like me. So I decided to make it a zombified-me, but that didn't work out so well. Now...it just looks like me after a severe accident. Oh well. Anyhoo, here's the point of this post:

I love zombie comics that are intelligent. Rob Kirkman's "Walking Dead" is a great example of what I love about what you can do with zombie stories. It's essentially a brutal, extremist, merciless survivor story. What humans are really going to do at their breaking point. Its psychological, it's brutal, and it's funny at times. Also, unlike most zombie movies, you don't want to kill (mostly) the protagonists.

Anyhoo, that's all I got tonight. A little sketch for y'all.

Tomorrow: a logo!

Behold...The Man-Bear-Pig! (Well, my version, anyway...)

Yeah, its a slow news day for me, I suppose. It's been a productive couple of days, with thumbnails among other things, but its all stuff I can't post. But hey, at least I'm making this blog look somewhat cool, yeah?

But yeah, thought I'd throw this up. Inspired by Mike Mignola's style.

Character Designs!

So, my friend Iain, who is a driven young filmmaker and probable creator of movies you will certainly see in the future, wrote a screenplay that he wanted to adapt into comics. So he called me, and voila! Now we're working together on something. And since I actually promised current artwork when I restarted this blog, here are some character designs for one of the main characters. Enjoy!

The Minicomic Project, Part 2

I finally got my sketchbook back, and with that, I can start...Part 2!

So, a couple weekends ago I went for a midnight swim with some friends. After this, feeling particularly revitalized, I wrote down the first five ideas that came to my mind. However, of those five, only one is really improvised; the other four are stories that have themes I've had on my mind forever, just dressed in different kinds of clothes.

As a disciple of Jesus Christ (man, that sounds weird, but just saying 'Christian' sounds too general), the themes of Christian living really appeal to me. The things that spiritual people are concerned with, deal with, and think about are as unique as a separate culture, and just like any culture, I find it interesting (and many times, frustrating). As someone who found Jesus and my faith during high school, there were a whole lot of things I had to wrestle with: insecurities both with myself and the standard I held myself to, a balance between being a loving and accepting person, being spineless and without a purpose to my love, and being a merciless douche about all the things I found right or wrong. Think high school, but times three for those who felt like they had to be saints in the middle of Las Vegas.

With that in mind, I came up with the character of Doug Willard, the quintessential uptight Christian freshman. He's not the stereotypical kind of Christian, who's 100% sure that whenever he verbally beats down an Democrat he's doing what Jesus would do. Doug  wants to be sure, and wants that kind of conviction, but isn't sure its the right kind of conviction he's seeking. There will be two parts about young Mr. Willard, both dealing with his introduction to a young woman with strong convictions and love for humanity...but not for God. And before you write it off, the conclusion will NOT be your normal Christian-bash-fiction, where the faithful kid questions everything and finds that God is in everyone (sorry, just ain't the truth), but it won't end with her seeing the error of her ways, either (that doesn't happen all that often either). Possible title for this will be "Doug Willard, The Monk of Santa Valle" (I'm trying to come up with a convincing name for a fictional Southern California suburb).

Another story will be a whole lot more off-beat, and lighthearted. For this one I'll be watching every classic Western in the filmmaker's library, and I'll also be reading about every Arthurian and/or English "dragon" story I can find. Why? Because, my friend, using these classic myths and legends, I'll be crafting my OWN "Knight Slays Dragon" story...set in a mythical Old West. I know, it sounds like an English project for underachieving seniors, but hear me out. I learned a whole lot about the "Hero's Journey" in my myth classes and readings, and since I scored a copy of "The Hero With a Thousand Faces," I'll be applying those principles to our classic Lone Cowboy. Yes, there will be a real dragon. But it'll be like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid...but with magic guns and an awesome-looking mythical creature. Look for sketches on this one. Our possible name will be "Johnny Stonewall and the Silver Mine Dragon." I'm doing this one for fun. There isn't any real depth of purpose behind this one, besides a quality story with some awesomeness.

This one has a working title of "Lamaze Class," only because I haven't discovered the title yet. This one finds some inspiration in the many ideas that my friends and I come up with in the middle of a town with very little to do once the sun goes down. Here, two friends (a guy and a girl) find themselves with a lot of quirky energy, but nothing to do. So they find a lamaze class (you know, for expectant parents) and sign up, just because they can. But what started out as an afternoon joke becomes a whole lot more as...okay, honestly, this one isn't all that developed in my mind yet. Feel free to help me out. The seed of the story is there, but I wanted to explore some of the awkwardness and sweetness that comes from your closest friend being of the opposite gender.

The last one is undecided as of yet. I wanted to do something that addressed the dynamic between father and son, and how so many sons become their fathers, one way or another. But that one might be a little too biographical for me to write anything worth reading. There's being close to a story to provide depth and accuracy, then there's being SO close that you can't bear to write the truth, because it may not be something you want. Then my friend Kristen suggested a story of her taking over Dublin whilst traveling in Europe. It sounded funny, but I have no idea where that would go.

Anyhoo, that's what's floating around in my mind! Comment, share ideas, gimme links of people who did it better! Come on now, people!

'Til next time,

James

A writer said it WAY better than me...

So, last week I wrote about how hard it is to say no, and even though I meant what I said, I'm not entirely sure I said all of what I meant. But then I found this article, written by a particularly amazing screenwriter, that described exactly what I was feeling. But with punch, verve, and cursing.

http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/why-he-will-not-read-your-fucking-script/

Seriously, he describes it perfectly for people who are professionals in the entertainment industry. And I'm not even a pro yet. So tone down the anger a lot, and that's where I'm at.


Soon, I'll post up the story ideas for the minicomic project, and will post a page from another side project...as soon as Jake gets me my sketchbook.

Later guys!

This would be an AWESOME thing to do...

An idea I had a year ago, and never got around to actually doing...