The Art of Brett Weldele

the end is here...

2009-02-15T19:41:00.001-08:00

this is the final post on this blog. That's the bad news.

The good news is there's already a blog I started on my site..

http://www.brettweldele.com/journal/

I'm keeping everything centralized on my site from here on in.

Thanks----brett

GrindHouse 4

2008-09-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

This is from last fall for the great Grindhouse Film Festival in Portland.

Lady Django

2008-09-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

A little oldie from the discard file circa 2002. A little project that was abandoned. I have yet to have a project that isn't abandoned. I'm not great on my own followthrough.

death comes a callin'

2008-09-16T09:11:00.000-07:00

Brando punching a Nazi Zombie

2008-09-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

I was asked to do this awhile back. I forgot I did it until I was going through some folders this week.

I'm so bad at blogging

2008-09-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

Whew!

I'll try better.

Ableton Looper followup

2008-05-06T18:01:00.000-07:00

Embarrassingly, I've not done much with this blog for awhile. A few people brought up some interesting points that i should address...

"viktor said...
hello. i found this post by googling. i was wondering if you could answer my question. you said that to begin recording, hit the scene launch button. whenever i do this, nothing happens. at the moment that i click, the clip record button flashes into a green square. thanks!"

I made this demo with Version 5 (tells you how old it is) and it worked fine as stated. I tried it in Version 7 and it's broken just how you said. A workaround is instead of setting the midi to the scene launch, set it to the clip itself. That seems to work.

Jim said...What do you mean by: "Set the loop length up top."

To the left of the pencil tool along the top will set where in the loop it will loop. Default is at one bar, which is a good starting point.

Ableton Live: super looper

2007-08-02T08:30:00.001-07:00

There are no shortage of looper pedals and programs on the market. Just don't let them see what Live can do. They might get jealous.

Let's get started...

I've started with five audio tracks. All are routed to the same input( a guitar in this case) and all tracks are armed for recording. Set the loop length up top. I usually set it for 1 bar at least, so its easy to hit the loop point.

Hold down shift and select all the clip slots on screen. ctrl+click deletes the clip buttons and then put a few buttons back in using the same method. This cascading style in the example allows a loop to continuously play while only recording on the next track in line. Its also a very visual representation of the various layers of a loop.

For hands free use i use a Behringer FCB1010 foot controller. For this example I'm using all 10 of its buttons. 1-5 trigger the scenes and 6-10 control the track stop buttons.

By having the track monitor set to "auto" this will allow you to toggle rec/play with same button. For example, button 1 will trigger scene 1. without a clip present it will start recording one when activated. hitting button 1 again will switch the mode to play and loop the clip just recorded.

I've set up the other buttons to kill tracks. This is similar to the undo function on many looper pedals, but in this case you can choose what layer of looping to kill...not just the most recent. Also you can retrigger these loops at any time.

What's next?

Using Live as a simple looper is cool and all, but why limit yourself to that when you can be a looping band? This is where Live leaves most hardware loopers in the dust with its flexible routing and effects. You're only limited by the number of audio channels your soundcard has and to how many midi channels you can transmit to.

In the example we start with an Impulse kit being triggered by a Trigger Finger. Midi's a bit easier to loop than audio because you can "cheat." Double click the first slot to set up a dummy clip. Set the loop length to the desired beat count. Now its ready to loop. Make sure Overdub is on and you can continuously add to the clip as it loops. This is useful for drums where you can program a hi-hat loop the first round and then add a kick/snare to it later.

The rest is simple. I have a guitar routed to the first input of my soundcard, and a mic in the other input. Another Impulse kit being triggered by another midi channel.

The sky's the limit. Enjoy.

www.brettweldele.com

high rez Digital Inking video

2007-01-25T07:30:00.000-08:00

here's a preview of one video with more to come...
http://www.brettweldele.com/inking_tutorial_small.mov

Photoshop : Digital Inking

by Brett Weldele

Before we begin, it should be noted that this is not a replacement for the tried and true comic book inker. It's not possible (yet!) to simulate the classic brush and crow-quill style. If you want it to look like that, you're just going to have to practice with the real thing. This tutorial is more about a different option. Something geared towards more expressive styles of drawing.

THE DRAWING

I start off every drawing with a Col-erase red pencil. This is inspired by the non-photo blue process in printing...only in red. Blue pencils would work probably just as well, but i find the red pencils easier to find in office supply stores. I then do my final rendering with a standard "number 2." I like to turn the pencil on its side to create some nice textural lines.

THE SCAN

The image shouldn't be scanned any less than 600 DPI in color. The inking process drops out some information and if the resolution is any lower the inking will turn out kinda bloopy.

BYE BYE RED

Now that we have the image opened in Photoshop, we're ready to get rid of the red pencil under-drawing. First thing is to switch from the default RGB the image was scanned in. Switch it over to CMYK under the IMAGE>MODE menu. We've now separated out a black channel to retain the pencil work. Make sure the channel palette is visible and click on the MAGENTA channel. SELECT ALL and CUT out the background. Make sure the background color is white. Click on the CMYK layer in the channels palette. You should be left with a greenish pencil drawing. Now switch the CMYK mode to GRAYSCALE.

TIME TO INK THIS PUPPY UP

Click on IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>THRESHOLD. Move the slider to the right under it nears the bottom of the black hill, just below "200." This will take a few tries to get it right. Too little left and a lot of information gets lost and too far right and ghosting from the red image starts to show up. There might be a little grit that shows up. There will be some cleanup involved in a later stage, but it should be minimal if the adjustments are made correctly.

There's still a dirtiness to the line-work so let's clean that up. Go over to the FILTERS menu and load up the WATERCOLOR FILTER. This is going to smooth out some of the rough edges. You can experiment but i like the settings 14, 10, 1.

FINAL STEPS

All we have left is cleanup. There will be spots where the blacks didn't come through right or bits of pencil grit are left. Just use the pencil tool to fix these small items.

Now wasn't that easy? The good news...most of this process can be batch processed with photoshop.
enjoy.

www.brettweldele.com

Ebay. here we go...

2007-01-10T16:38:00.000-08:00

I've posted a couple listings of Southland pages on ebay if anyone's interested.

lack of updates.

2006-11-03T12:44:00.000-08:00

yeah yeah, i know.

Southland book 3 is now done. in fact everything i was doing is done. now i have much more time to blog! ;)

Book 2 is now shipping from the publisher and should be officially in stores shortly with book 3 coming along before 2007.

Grindhouse Film Festival this weekend!

2006-11-03T12:38:00.000-08:00

if you're in Portland and you have love for the exploitation films of a bygone era...well, its that time of the year again. above is a look at the poster i did for this year(my third).

should be a blast!

www.grindhousefilmfest.com

update---sept 1st

2006-09-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

it doesn't look like Southland Book 2 will be out next week. best case, its in stores on the 13th, but will surely be in stores on the 20th.

Currently i'm smashing my way through the second half of book 3, so we can have that out in the not so distant near future. I'm hip deep in the longest flashback i've ever seen. A prequel within a prequel if you will. ;)

Everything is due all at once at the end of the month, so this is going to be a hardcore month. and after that...i have no idea

I grabbed some new software this month to hopefully make everything that much easier. I figured it wouldn't hurt to have some quick pre-viz tools around. So i've been up in the wee hours reading manuals.

issue 3 final cover

2006-08-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

i call it "when Toshiro gets mad, people get stabbed!"

There's so much coming out over the next few weeks, you'd think i was trying to flood the market...

SILENT GHOST #1
THE SURROGATES trade paperback
SOUTHLAND TALES BOOK 2: FINGERPRINTS

Hundreds of pages of art! Hopefully Southland will be out september 6. Its at the printer now. I'll post a definitive date when i get one. I know all 3 books were solicited at 96 pages and the first one actually is...but books 2 and 3 got progressively longer (Richard has alot of story to tell!)...

so Book 2 is 114 pages at no extra charge! bonus!!!

and book 3 is looking to be bigger than that. Richard's turned in the remaining bit of script and i'm about halfway there. I'll post a montage when i get around to it.

I'm probably not going to post a san diego recap after all. That weekend is already becoming a bit blurry.

silent ghost issue 2 preview

2006-07-30T09:14:00.000-07:00

I'm still working on the Con report, but in the meantie enjoy some '70's style samurai violence. :)

the comic con that was

2006-07-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

This year was full of ups and downs, crowds and more crowds, sweating and more sweating, etc. etc. Generally, it was pretty good. I had 2 books at the show and they seemed to be selling pretty briskly. I'll post a more detailed look at the weekend after i recover, but in the meantime..more pictures.

Richard Kelly and my large melon head.

Bob Chapman, mastermind of Graphitti Designs and a good boss to work for.

George Singley, writer of about a million books including Silent Ghost. I'm painting it and its out in august. Notice how the Markosia logo makes a red halo around his head. I wonder what that means.

Chris Staros, publisher of Top Shelf comix and the Harvey Nominated book The Surrogates. They had 150 advance copies of The Surrogates trade paperback shipped to the hotel for the show. There were only a handful left. The book wont be out for 6 weeks and it looks amazing btw.

Rob Venditti, writer of The Surrogates.

Ben Templesmith, special guest for next years show...lucky bastard :)

San Diego Comic Con

2006-07-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

okay, its almost here..again. i'll be there the entire 5 days. My home base will be the Graphitti Designs booth for at least a couple hours a day. i'll also be around possibly Oni press, Top Shelf, and Markosia. I'll have Southland and Surrogates pages with me.

see you there.

or not....

2006-06-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

looks like Southland Book 1 will be out on the 28th. printer boo boo. *sigh*

southland book 1...

2006-06-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

looks like it should be out on june 21st.

new email address

2006-05-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

*sigh*

without even a warning, the email address i've used for the past 7 years or so has been shut down. My new address is on my web page.

new Silent Ghost

2006-05-20T07:33:00.001-07:00

Its been almost a year since i finished the first issue and finally it looks like it'll see the light of day. This August in fact from Markosia. I've been working in the same style for awhile now and i'm looking to spread my wings a bit here. More painterly. less concerned with linework. The first issue will have the old style, and storywise it kinda works as we merge into the new style in issue 2. I really want an excuse to experiment and this is where it should be alright to. that's not to say there wont be future books in the Surrogates/Southland Tales style because there will be. maybe a amalgamation of the 2. I bought Painter 9 awhile back and just haven't done much with it. well here we go....

screengrab

2006-05-07T07:35:00.000-07:00

people have been asking for a look at book 2 of Southland. well here it is fresh off the screen. Just a few little things and this book is done.

also, if you missed out on my highly acclaimed THE SURROGATES minseries, the trade paperback stuffed to the brim with extras is in Previews now.

messin' around with my slr

2006-04-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

tomorrow...

2006-03-28T08:59:00.000-08:00

the big finale of THE SURROGATES comes out and its a big one. 32 pages of story!!!

then onto SOUTHLAND TALES in may.

then onto...?

new preview

2006-03-24T08:06:00.000-08:00

www.newsarama.com just put up a new preview of Southland Tales book 1. you can even read a few pages. enjoy.

a peek inside...

2006-03-13T18:41:00.000-08:00

I got a couple dummy copies of Southland Tales. Thought i'd take a couple pics of the inside. i'm sooo excited about this book.

it's up....

2006-02-22T20:47:00.000-08:00

the new site design is up...along with a few other goodies. haven't been blogging much, i know. up to my neck in work.

www.brettweldele.com

remix number 2

2006-01-21T20:21:00.000-08:00

A few more glimpses at Southland Tales, which should start coming out in may btw. Comicraft is lettering it no less!

things just zipped along this week. put final touches on BOTH Southland book 1 and the final issue of The Surrogates this week. one thing i've realized lately is when things are digital and forever editable, nothing is ever finished!!!! Southland Book 2 is moving along at a breakneck pace. it's been a few weeks since i really drew anything, and its nice to be away from the computer a bit(certainly nicer on my eyes).

I know my website is sorely lacking in the update department. that's why i'm completely overhauling it. give it a fresh coat of paint and all that.

more art soon. again.

been awhile...

2006-01-09T23:47:00.000-08:00

With the holidays now over, everything returns to normal...sort of.

I'm wrapping up The Surrogates this week. The biggie conclusion hits in March.

Silent Ghost is no longer at Speakeasy. Its moved over to Markosia. News on that as it happens.

new Southland Tales art soon...

the long weekend

2005-11-25T12:54:00.000-08:00

If you have nothing to do saturday night: Will West, myself and maybe others will be jamming out some acoustic folk blues over at the Mudai Lounge on NE 8th and Broadway in portland. Should be fun and chilled. go to www.willwestmusic.com for more info.

I get asked fairly often about my process, so i started playing around with screen capture software and am putting together a few quicktime tutorials on some of the quick and dirty tricks i use. some of the initial topics covered will be "digital inking" and "film noir lighting"
if these go over well i may be inclined to do something of a full blown dvd covering digital painting and coloring techniques as well. we'll see.

happy thanksgiving.

a wild weekend to come

2005-11-09T08:56:00.000-08:00

some notes-----
the portland Grindhouse film festival is hitting on friday, and i can't wait. Should be a blast!
my blog still won't allow me to load images right of my computer...maybe there's a mb limit. so now its back to the slightly more convoluted method.
apparently there's a page of the Southland Tales comic in the new issue of Giant. i haven't seen it yet. hopefully today i can find a copy.

hmmmm...

2005-11-06T13:06:00.000-08:00

i've been trying to load up new images, but it keeps "error"ing me. my blog's broken for the moment it seems. :(

well, it happened...

2005-10-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

what was seemingly a wierd clicky noise coming from my powerbook was a warning of things to come. the hard drive siezed on tuesday night. BOOOO!!!! i've NEVER had a problem with a computer. i guess it was inevitable. it didn't make for a happy week. luckily i'd taken the warning mode to heart and backed up like crazy.

i took it as a sign to upgrade.

I've entered the world of the G5.

flu's gone. back to work.

2005-10-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

i was completely wiped out for a few days thanks to some virus making the rounds. now i'm back and slightly more behind than usual. i'm working through the last stages of Southland Tales book one. i've been going through tweaking alot of images to be more inline with the film. i drew a chunk of this book before filming started (and there's a good reason not to). i sort of realized this project might not work with the typical comic book assembly line. i can go back into the files at anytime and fix what needs fixing in no time. and my style's sketchy enough that changes dont really register.

oh, and THE SURROGATES #2 finally came out. go buy it. it printed amazingly.

lil comic con

2005-10-10T22:40:00.000-07:00

i went to the biannual portland comic show over the weekend for the second time. Had a great time. Its mostly regional comic sellers getting rid of backstock, so its a great place to grab recent goodies at at least half off. as such, my reading pile has grown a bit. tasty.

the weird thing is always seeing my own work in the liquidation bins. poor unloved books, i hope you find a good home.

almost there...

2005-10-07T08:37:00.000-07:00

Southland book one is all down on paper, now its on to tightening up the drawing and then coloring. should be done in the next few weeks. the consecutive books should take alot less time now that there's a film locked in.

computer scare

2005-10-02T11:15:00.000-07:00

i woke up saturday morning only to have my computer sound the death rattle, or something that sounded like it anyway. it started making horrible clicking noises so i shut it down immediately. when trying to boot it, mr powerbook did the same thing and it wouldn't boot on top of it.

i felt ill.

the computer's barely a year and half old and i had a bunch of stuff i hadn't backed up on my Lacie. i should know better. I did however grab a couple maintenance programs last year. So i threw in Techtool Pro and it fixed everything. Techtool Pro, you rule.

a bit of a new song

2005-09-29T21:39:00.000-07:00

a friend asked for a bit of music for a trailer he wants to create for his recently released photography book. i had a few things around not quite finished, so i played around with one in Ableton Live 5, the coolest sequencer around (all the cool kids are using it) and glitched it up. almost all of it is one drum loop sequenced in Reason and then treated in different ways. check it out...

here's the song

local

2005-09-23T16:15:00.000-07:00

Had a bit of a reunion of sorts this week. I did a pinup for the upcoming Oni series LOCAL. i did a book with the writer, Brian Wood back in 2001 called COUSCOUS EXPRESS (frankly the best turkish scooter mafia book you're likely to find). It was really the stepping stone for where i am today. So of course i'd agree to do a pinup.

what's a "spoiiler" ?

2005-09-23T15:57:00.000-07:00

its days like this i really dislike the internet. I remember a time not too long ago when you could go to a movie and not know about an upcoming blockbuster until you saw the attached trailer. thanks to the internet people know too much and those with a little bit of knowledge are dangerous. where they can hide behind clever aliases and not feel accountable for what they say. their journalistic integrity so high, they can't bother to run spellcheck. they're the kids who sneak a peek at everybody's christmas presents and ruin the surprise for everyone. it makes me sad and angry all at once.

you(you know who you are)suck.

remix1

2005-09-21T15:49:00.000-07:00

southland remix

2005-09-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

starting next week, i'll start posting pages from Southland Tales, but the thing is they'll be comprised of random panels of my choosing hence the remix moniker.

ignatz nomination

2005-09-13T18:42:00.000-07:00

cool. it looks as if my current mini-series THE SURROGATES has been nominated for the Ignatz award in "oustanding debut nominees" if you're not already reading it, here's some fine testimonials...

"Good science fiction is hard to come by, but Venditti's blend of technology, crime drama and social commentary makes for the most original sci-fi mythology in years. The Surrogates should satisfy your post-'Matrix' itch. Accept no substitutes!" -- Jake Rossen, Wizard

"I wouldn't be pushing the filmic correlation so strongly if I wasn't wholly convinced that this book is bound for the silver screen, and soon – I wouldn't even be surprised if it had already been optioned on the strength of the first issue alone." -- Gary Butler, Rue Morgue

"A classic sci-fi tale, in a similar vein to William Gibson or Harlan Ellison." -- Hilary Goldstein, IGN

"First-time comic writer Venditti flexes considerable storytelling muscle here, displaying a kind of storytelling confidence usually only seen in veterans like Moore and Gaiman. . The Surrogates #1 is a thoroughly impressive foray into the mainstream for Top Shelf, an engaging exercise both in idea-driven science fiction and confident storytelling." – Dave Howlett, Buzzscope

"This comic is a damn fine debut issue. . The Surrogates could easily be a blockbuster movie -- and one well worth seeing at that." -- Eliot Johnson, Broken Frontier.

holidays dont exist for freelancers

2005-09-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

boooooo. A lovely labor day weekend spent working. actually pretty much every weekend involves working...name of the game and all that. worked on the aforementioned film festival poster all 3 days and still didn't finish it. the version posted here is "in progress."

i was going to do a "how to" and drag readers through the process. honestly i dont know how i did this one. Its a lot of give and take with me. put stuff in, take stuff out. i was always fascinated by those "how to paint in oils" or whatever books. it always seemed so easy. no questioning of color choice, design etc. just a simple step by step.

either those books have all the problems edited out or i'm making things difficult on myself.

"the rising" no more

2005-09-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

i'm no longer going to use the title "The Rising" for my zombie graphic novel. When i named it awhile back, i had no knowledge of the Brian Keene novel. It seems its gaining popularity and just to avoid confusion and for my work to stand on its own i'm ditching the title. Its kind of a shame. the rising title worked two-fold. one, obviously for the living dead and two, for the main characters gain in celebrity.

Don't know exactly what i'm going to call it yet. i'm kicking around a few ideas. i'm tentatively putting it on the publishing schedule for oct 2006. i have to make a decision on that by years end if that's going to work. we'll see. It'll be manga sized like JULIUS was. i'll be posting the first few pages here soonish. to give you an idea of the books tone the tagline i came up with reads...

"UNDEAD...ITS THE NEW LIVING."

ayyaz asks...

2005-09-03T20:39:00.000-07:00

"I was curious about something. For Southland Tales you mention that you're working off screenplays... So Richard wrote screenplays instead of "comic scripts"(if there's such a thing)?. I guess more importantly, how are you used to working? What does the artist usually get, since i'm assuming it's not screenplays. Am I right to assume that the ST prequel comics were entirely scripted out as screenplays, and then left up to the artists to interpret as you mentioned before?"

Richard wrote the first book as a screenplay, i haven't seen any of the others yet so i don't know there. There are quite a few places online and in print to see what comic scripts look like. Screenplays are mostly alike in their presentation, but depending on how comics writers work it varies greatly. Some write page breakdowns with temp dialogue and then write final dialogue based on the art. some write very detailed scripts describing what every panel should be (in film terms, its like a screenplay and shot list all in one). The big difference between screenplay and comic script is the delineation of pacing. How much information is covered page to page. comics storytelling gets complicated fast and i could sit around all day talking about it. here, how about i show you. there was an article recently where the writer of a book of mine called Surrogates talks about process. it has script to final art analysis and commentary from the writer on the process. Rob is one of the more detail oriented writers, which provides less freedom but also makes my job easier...so its a tradeoff. the pages featured are mimed so its 100 percent visual storytelling. the hardest kind i think.

http://www.comicfoundry.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=122

i've also been asked a couple times about where to find my books for purchase online. Amazon seems to have copies of COUSCOUS EXPRESS, JULIUS and SHOT CALLERZ available. SURROGATES is currently being released comic book style and is readily available through publisher Top Shelf's site(link is over on the right).
If you have a comic store nearby inquire there. All these books are in print and easily available.

questions answered

2005-09-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

Gunji asked a few interesting questions in a previous post...

Q:Did you and the illustrators (I'm assuming there are more?) for the other novels work closely with Richard or get photoshoots or something?

A: No photoshoots. Richard went over what he was looking for early on. i'm drawing the actors in spirit, as doing exact likenesses brings in other people to approve and disapprove. We're keeping it simple. You could say i'm drawing the characters who resemble certain actors.

Q:Or do the novels take place so long before the movie that it's not really a concern?

A:i don't think that's really a concern, no, but the project has revealed certain situations. Despite all the freedom i have in interpreting Richards script, it also has to fit in the big picture. Its his vision, and i have to stay true to that. Having said that i get to put in little bits of myself in it too. Its sort of organic. Things change in the screenplay affecting what i do or have done in the comic. its not a perfect process. Concepts change, props change, actors change. You just have to roll with punches and forge ahead.

Q:Or is every illustrator coming up with his/her own unique style so it's totally different every time?

A: I honestly don't know.

If anyone has questions about anything really and they don't have a blogger account to post them, they can certainly email them to me and i'll answer them here as best i can.

discuss

2005-08-30T18:03:00.000-07:00

samurai action ensues

2005-08-30T17:43:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-08-30T17:36:00.000-07:00

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!

2005-08-23T23:17:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-08-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

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

2005-08-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

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

2005-08-18T23:32:00.000-07:00

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

2005-08-13T19:32:00.000-07:00

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

2005-08-13T15:24:00.000-07:00

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

2005-08-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

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...

2005-08-12T20:45:00.000-07:00

"Faux Frazetta"

2005-07-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a pic i did over the weekend for a Speakeasy pinup book. I don't get too many opportunities to do this type of fantasy art. I grew up on Buscema's Conan and Frazetta's powerful paintings. Its great fun to kind of riff on that legacy.

more art...less waiting

2005-07-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new blog. This is going to take priority over updating my website (which i still will periodically). This will allow more up to date info on my various projects and progress. Let me know if there's anything you're interested in getting sneak peeks at more than others and i'll see what i can do. Enjoy----