On Vacation Till Friday...

Hey folks,

I'm headed up to that state that looks like a mitten tomorrow in the AM and I'll be out of action until Friday.

I hope everyone enjoys their week!

George

One Day Segue (Still got rhymes, still got dimes)

I was planning on starting work on my Kirby page from a couple days ago yesterday morning when I had a thought come to me.

Something a friend had said to me was on my mind and for whatever reason, thinking about that particular thing lead me to this image...

Kinda.

My original thumbnail was... fine, but I'm much happier with where I ended up taking this instead.

I've attached all of my process below, including a failed attempt at inking a blue-line of my original pencils...

I think this ranks amongst my best work, I hope you all enjoy it!

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Here is the thumbnail I started with...

Here are my pencils...

Here is a failed inking attempt. I tried addressing folds in a different way than I usually do and I just got lost in the sauce... crunchy style.

Much better! These are my final inks...

The finished product!!!

Studying the King (Day 4)

I didn't QUITE finish the page today but I will throw up some quick process...

Check back tomorrow afternoon for the finished product!

Kirby's original pencils...

The blue-line...

Hand-lettering on the board...

My inks...

Studying the King (Day 3)

So, for today's drawing, I decided to try something that would throw me outside of my comfort zone.

Part of the reason I love Kirby's pencils is that they leave a lot of room for embellishments if the inker decides that they want to add their own little flourishes.

For this particular piece though, I tried to stay AS FAITHFUL TO THE PENCILS AS POSSIBLE.

What this means is that I tried to make this look like Jack Kirby and not George Folz. I used NO drybrush, no cross hatching, and pens, ellipticals, and rulers where they were needed.

That last bit I struggled with a lot as I REALLY don't like pens.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that they actually worked really nicely here and I'm going to start using them again regularly again in tandem with the brush.

My process is below, starting with Kirby's original pencils...

I haven't shown my blue-lines in previous posts but I've decided to do so here. It was important in this case because I usually can't ink DIRECTLY onto the blue-line, I need some pencils down first. For this piece though, I skipped my little pencil bits...

Next I did my inks. Again, I tried to remain faithful to what I think Kirby intended when he was pencilling...

Lastly, I added color. Instead of opting for my muted color palette, I tried to do things old school. I was going to have the color completely flat but I felt compelled to add some shadows so I did...

Not sure if I'll get anything up tomorrow... be sure to check back Thursday though!

Studying the King (Day 2)

So, this is day two of Kirby study...

As with the Hulk piece, I started out with a scan of Mr. Kirby's pencils...

From there, I made a non-photo repro blue-line and did my inks...

Following that, I lettered the thing, I also found out the hard-way that the balloons that Kirby drew on that page are probably NOT the ones that were used for the actual lettering... KNOWLEDGE FOR NEXT TIME!!!

Coloring this page was REALLY tricky and most certainly a learning experience. I haven't colored an entire comic page in over a year and it took a lot longer than I thought it would have, that being said, I'm quite happy with the finished product...

Check back later for a Thor Pin-up!

Studying the King (Day 1)

I'm going to be doing some pretty extensive studying of Jack Kirby for the next month or so here as my next big project is going to be a (gasps) *winces* ALMOST KINDA SORTA RIFF ON SUPERHEROES!!!

This is the first of ten or twelve instances in which I'll be taking some of Kirby's pencils, putting my own spin on them, inking, them, and then coloring them.

First up is a pin-up of The Hulk, Kirby's original pencils are below...

I made a blue-line reproduction of the above drawing and then worked over it in pencil making some changes...

After that, I did my first round of inking...

I put in some black for the Hulk's hair, made some ajustments to my inks and then colored the thing!

I'm hoping to do three or four of these a week with any luck... next up is going to a few pages from either Captain America or New Gods...

ROWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWZAY

This one should have been up a couple of days ago but since it's been so damn hot I haven't really been able to draw.

I got an air-conditioner installed yesterday though so now I have no excuses!

This turned out pretty well. The colors are a little odd considering what Ross raps about but at the same time, the dude also hails from Florida which is home to some of the greatest sunsets I've ever seen.

I tried to split the difference here, you'll notice the Maybach, two bricks and a sack in the lower left hand corner... kind of funny considering the dude used to be a correctional officer... doesn't really matter though, I still dig his music.

New website under construction... changes being made around here...

Hey folks!

So today I was planning on doing some drawing... Unfortunately, the weather decided it wanted to be 115 degrees (that's including the heat index) and sitting under two lamps at my drafting table wasn't high on my list of things to do.

However, I did get crackin on my new website and it's about 75% done...

New Site

Also, as I have a functioning website once again, this blog is going to change.

I'm not going to be posting a lot of finished work on here anymore... instead, this blog is going to feature a lot more sketches, doodles, in-progress pages and things like that. If you WANT to see finished work, that's what the website is going to be for!!!

I'm hoping tomorrow is going to be less brutal as I do have an illustration that I'm working on right now that I'd like to post some in-progress shots of...

Be sure to check back!

Flexing that DESIGN muscle!!!

In the wee hours of the morning, I finished my cover submission for Dark Horse's Re-Create Hellboy cover contest.

Upon waking up though, I decided I wanted to go back into things and push the image and graphic design angle a little bit more.

While I'm still VERY pleased with the original, this one looks more professional and has a better flow to it.

I'm going to do another cover re-creation this afternoon and then spend tomorrow working on some script... Look for a page from my new comic Saturday or Sunday!!!

Re-Creating Hellboy (Part 2)

Man... I made the midnight PST submission deadline with 6 six minutes to spare!!!

I got called in to work this evening and that's not something I had really budgeted for... That being said, it was a lot of fun to work furiously under a deadline and force myself to come up with something.

This cover is RADICALLY different from the original (seen below).

I wanted to do something completely original and on that level, I think I was pretty successful.

I have the whole day off tomorrow so I'll be throwing something up, be sure to check back!!!

Re-Creating Hellboy (Part 1)

Dark Horse comics (publisher of Hellboy, Sin City, 300 and The Mask) have a contest going on right now in which artists are being urged to re-create their favorite Hellboy cover. The winning submission gets printed and the winner gets some great swag and exposure.

I've been a great admirer of Mike Mignola's work for a long time (his Mister Freeze design for Batman: The Animated Series is just awesome) and when I found out about this, I couldn't turn down the opportunity to take a crack at his signature creation. I've included the original cover below as well as mine once more so you can see the side-by-side...

My plan is to do two more of these before the deadline of midnight tomorrow... Be sure to check back to see AT LEAST one more and hopefully TWO more!!!

Going on hiatus for a little while...

Hey all,

It's been kind of difficult for me to figure out a good drawing schedule with the new job and I've also been feeling a bit burnt out as of late.

I'm going to take a break here, see you all in a week's time or less.

George

The Great American Guitar Hero (Now in FULL color!!!)

I already spoke at length about this drawing and Mr. Hazel in my previous post so I'll simply say that I'm really happy with how the color kicked things up a notch in here.

Rock on, Eddie, I'm sure you're frying grey matter in the great beyond!

The Great American Guitar Hero

When people ask me who my favorite guitar player is, I'll usually name one of three people depending on how I'm feeling that day.

The first name I'll potentially give is Carlos Santana's.

The second is Jeff Beck.

The third is Eddie Hazel.

Those last two elicit a lot of blank stares, the latter especially so.

This is really sad as Eddie is one of the most fantastic musicians to come out of america.

Most people who are passingly familiar with him know him for Maggot Brain. This makes sense as it's probably his crowning achievement. Unfortunately these same folks can be equally quick to brush him aside as Jimi Hendrix-lite which he most certainly WAS NOT.

Maggot Brain is far from Hazel's ONLY achievement and anyone who picks up Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow, Maggot Brain, Standing on the Verge of Getting it on, or Games, Dames, and Guitar Thangs will find out that dude could do so much more than just melt your mind all afternoon with the most gut-bucket and foul fuzz-drenched nastiness you've ever heard in your life.

In addition to being able to blow people's eardrums out the side of their face at will, dude could write a mean song and cook up riffs just as well as anyone else.

Unfortunately, he also had some serious drug problems and passed away at 42.

While Eddie wore rather flamboyant and larger than life outfits like the rest of the p-funk boys, his playing also had a... sensitivity about it that I think was just as important as the overtly raunchy qualities that are called to mind when one things about his axe work.

This bad boy is getting colored and done up BIG-TIME tomorrow so be sure to check back!!!

Paint Your Face with Shadows Child...

I first saw The Crow when I was fifteen or sixteen.

I haven't ever made it through a whole story from the comic as James O'Barr's art terrifies me, but I really like the film and I just watched it the other night for the first time in many years.

There's a scene in the movie that blew me away the first time I saw it and it still strikes me as pretty profound.

When Brandon Lee is transforming into the Crow, The Cure's "Burn" comes on and compliments the visuals in a way that's indescribable. The scene is about perfect in every sense of the word.

The song has become a favorite of mine and until yesterday, I always thought the lyrics for the beginning of the third verse were, "Just paint your face with shadows, child"

Upon looking them up so I could have them right for this "six-word story" drawing, I found out that the actual lyrics are, ""Just paint your face" the shadows smile".

Honestly, I like what I hear better and I think it fits in better with what's happening in the film and with the illustration above... Something about Eric Draven being called, "child" is just wrong but also so right considering how twisted and gothic the movie is.