discuss

samurai action ensues

I spent the weekend working. Got the typos corrected and EPS files put together for Surrogates issue 4, prepared the local film festival poster first draft image for approval, and got the second cover for Silent Ghost done. busy busy busy.

back to living and breathing Southland as i get the first book done maybe in the next 6 weeks and then onto book 2.

david morrell: comic book writer?

according to this weeks horror reader podcast, David Morrell, creator of Rambo, hints at a project he's doing "with a major comic company" with a "major comic book character." cool.

i'm actually going to do some designs this week for a possible spring project with a really well known author myself.

die! summer! die!

I wake up this morning actually freezing. That seems like so long ago i bask in it until i crawl back under the bedsheets. Portland has been hot and humid for quite awhile now and has been making work very hard. When i moved here last fall, i couldn't find an apartment with AC to save my life. It wasn't a big deal at the time, but since late spring i've been very melty. Trying to draw comics in a pool of sweat has been...challenging. the irony of the apartment building is that everything BUT the apartments are air conditioned. Some leave their doors open and bring the cool hall air in via fan. hopefully the misery is soon at end, but then again fall is my favorite season.

its monday already?

I took a good chunk of saturday off. That was nice, but sunday was full tilt. I got the rest of Silent Ghost #1 down in red pencil, and got the final pencil work done this afternoon. Over the next couple weeks in between everything else I should have it painted and turned in. Its interesting looking back on the issue and realize how loose i went with the drawing and how sped up the process was. I knew when i took the job that that was the only way it was going to work. I almost had to quit when I accepted Southland Tales because i didn't think i'd have enough time for both...and i really don't. Southland ending up working out in such a way that i COULD do both, but its a lot of work.

The more pages I paint, I learn more on what to leave out in the drawing stage. The assembly line comics style (someone pencils, someone else inks, then someone else colors etc.) blueprints the next stage. One person has to communicate what goes into the next stage and so on. Since i'm doing my own shorthand, i can leave the things that would look better as a color effect for that stage. its kinda liberating.

another day...another few pages

Drew about 3 pages tonight..only a few pages left of issue one of Silent Ghost. Yay! And sat down and layed out the rest of Two Roads Diverge. I've been drawing it all out of order ( i always do, i get stuck alot so i just move onto something else). Now i've finally got a rough page count. Its certainly an interesting experience adapting a screenplay to comics. In the end, its probably the most collaborative project yet...so much of the storytelling and pacing are left up to me. Its almost like i'm "directing" the film on paper.

wow! I like Painter 9

I don't update my art software very often. What i do in Photoshop hasn't changed any really since version 5 and Illustrator is not much different. From my perspective they just add more crap i don't need or want. I originally picked up Painter 7 on a closeout from Corel a couple years back for practically nothing. I needed something to replace what i'd been doing by hand (which was costing me a fortune in printouts). Painter filled the need nicely.

So we're up to version 9 and i usually roll my eyes a bit, but i read some interesting things about it...namely the "artists oils" brush system and the mixing pallete was interesting too. So i downloaded it to try it out...WOW!

I'm.so.getting.this.

how to recycle

Here's the cover to Surrogates number 4. I stole the upper portion from the Wizard article image. I hate to waste good art (especially when it was for free) so add a background and you've got yourself something new. Yay!

I'll be starting issue 5 this week. A 32 page whopper! Also finishing up Silent Ghost issue 1(of 4) in the next couple weeks.

I'll hopefully be able to breathe in 2006.

sneaks at southland

I'm currently about halfway through adapting Southland Tales: Two Roads Diverge. I intend to post snippits of art starting soon. Don't worry, i wont spoil anything for anyone (not that i think i COULD really :). Panels will be posted without context. In the end, it might confuse people more than give anything away. ;) I'll let you guys come to your own conclusions about what you're looking at.

and since i get questions about my artistic process, i'll be posting looks at the steps i use from beginning to end on various pieces.
i'm currently designing a poster for a Portland film festival and that probably will be the first "how-to."

the great southland debate

I've never been part of a big film from the ground level, especially one as unique as this. Drawing Southland Tales comics expanding on the Kellyverse is indeed a dream gig.

I admit i find it interesting reading the large debates around the web about what people think this movie's about. Every once in awhile someone get close to certain plot elements, but in the end Southland Tales is as unexplainable as Darko was...( when Darko first hit video, i'd never heard of it but cold rented it. After being dazzled by it, i tried promoting it to friends. I had the worst time trying to explain "what its about").

Southland Tales is a film lovers dream and a marketing departments' nightmare. Its funny, smart and epic. I can't wait.

coming out in december...