I'm Old Fashioned (Page 1)

Page 1 finally arrives!!!

Going in on page 2 after a nice long walk around Lake of the Isles... please pray that I don't get mugged.

Makin moves uptown...

Had some MAJOR set-backs today as I unfortunately had to re-draw about half of yesterday's page. A few of the compositions and some of the storytelling was not up to snuff so it had to be re-worked. I was also have trouble placing my blacks and I only really got to work on the first panel.

That being said, I think this is probably one of my stronger compositions done in a comic and I think the blacks (while not perfect) are definitely getting somewhere.

As it stands, this is about 90% finished... have a few more things to add and I have to consider whether or not I want to add hard black on the figure.

Check back tomorrow for the finished page (for real this time)!

Young juice (bless you?)

Pencils for my new 8 pager (this one's actually going to get finished too).

Inks for this and pencils for page 2 tomorrow (hopefully)

07 state of mind that I'm in...

- in my prime so for that time I'm Rakim?

I watched American Gangster for the second time the other day... couldn't help myself with the link up there...

I also attended a figure drawing session for the first time since WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY back in 2007 and it yielded some fine work. The top four are of the model from today's session and the bottom one is of my friend Schuyler drawn the day earlier.

From Life...

One of the few regrets that I have about my career at art school is that I never took a REAL figure drawing class. I had "figure drawing lite" my freshmen year and while that established some things, I wish it had done more. As this is the case, I've taken to doing an observational drawing of a person a day from life.

I actually resolved to do this awhile ago but I was a little slow in getting the ball rolling. Above is my first real attempt at things, starring my good friend Phong who was working dilligently on his MONSTER 20 painting senior project!

COMICS!!! (Again)

For this page... I was challenged!

The wonderful Ms. Dylan Meconis (a member of Periscope Studios, where I interned this summer) took a look at some of my recent work and made some suggestions about how I might go about handling blacks on the page. She pointed to Jaime Hernandez as well as fellow studio-mate Johnathan Case as example of people to look at and I did!

For this particular comic that I'm working on, she suggested that I work only in solid black and solid white whilst penciling the same way I usually do. It was tricky (and took a long time, especially in the first panel) but ultimately, this was a very rewarding experiment that gave me a lot to think about in the future.

One...

A little something I created today... more details and part two within the next couple of days with any luck!

COMICS!!!

Mood Music

Sorry to all whose ears that offended... I've got a soft-spot for really bad gangster rap where the same word is rhymed between three and five times.

Above is my first fully realized foray back into comics since graduating in December.

I'm pretty darn pleased with this in terms of both storytelling and composition/drawing. I'm finally figuring out how to use black effectively and it feels good.

I was going to color this but after seeing some of Howard Chaykin's old work (and I mean REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY old work) I became intrigued with the idea of toning it instead and I think I may have stumbled across something kind of awesome.

If you prefer one to the other... speak up!

Welcome (Coltrane)

While I can't say because I haven't finished this yet, I do believe that today will mark the beginning of a new era for me; one where that which makes me unique as a cartoonist begins to show through more and more.

Inked, lettered, and colored by tomorrow with any luck. Be sure to check back!

No Slee... I mean... Drawing! Till June!?

Today I was supposed to start drawing comics again. Doing my roughs was like pulling teeth and actually pencilling things was worse. After pencilling two panels, I went to ink the first panel hoping things might get better. They didn't and now I'm back into funk mode and I just can't get anything done.

I'm choosing to look at this as a blessing as now I can focus exclusively on becoming a better writer and putting together the script for my debut graphic novel. While I'm not keen on forcing myself to create art, I'm setting myself a deadline of June 1st (at the absolute latest) to begin drawing again.

So, here's to then! See you all in a few months if not sooner.