For The Artist on the Go!

In this rapid day and age where time flies and work piles up, it's nice to come across an area on the web where you can work on developing your drawing skills. I found this great site on you tube. The exercises are gestural, the imagery is clear and the models are perfect. So what are you waiting for? Get out your sketch books and DRAW.
This is an excellent resource for novices and pros alike.

Souris, Prince Edward Island, 1920. Digital image.

A Few more Ink Samples...

 More great art by Yanick Paquette. I like how he switches from very angular to very flowing lines with his work. I try to maintain as much of his integrity, but allow a nice brush- like feel to the finishes. I hope I achieve it... this is all digital inking,btw.

Inking Yanick Paquette

This Montreal-based illustrator for DC Comics was great enough to forward me his pencils to ink.... this is a great opportunity to flex the cintiq muscles and actually tackle the comic book page! And what an awesome time! Yanick's pencils are tight and powerful, and full of detail. My first example is of Spider-Man, and I must say.... it was with great pleasure! Please tell me what you think.... I will post the others in the next day or so...

You can see Yanick's current stuff in the new DC's Swamp Thing... get out there and get it!

Inking BLUDD...

James Waley, a friend, asked me to ink a character he created back in the day for the Charlton Comics
Bullseye series. The characters name is BLUDD. James had Canadian artist Dale Keown do a finished pencil for him this past year...

I know, right? Beautiful, dynamic stuff. Classic Keown! I always loved the energy he put in his work which dates all the way back to when he drew for Aircel Comics, up to Hulk and his Pitt stuff. BAM! In your face! James heard I was practicing on the Cintiq, and asked if I'd ink this piece... I said sure. What the hell. I loved inking this, actually. It's like drawing rock and roll. Here's my solution:

Peril at Summerland Park

Peril at Summerland Park, my new Twisted Journeys book from Graphic Universe™, is on track for its January release! I'm once again partnered with writer Paul Storrie. This book will be on the bookstands in January!

Inking Gene Colan...

Gene Colan (Sept. 1, 1926 - June 23, 2011) 

I always loved his work. My first encounter with him was when he illustrated Daredevil, but I began my true admiration of his stuff with Tomb of Dracula, JAWS and Howard the Duck. His work moves your eyes from one point to another, like water. His work can take you on gentle streams at times,  then hurl you into rushing falls. There's a visual poetry to Gene Colan's art... I can't describe it any better then that. Google his work. It's worth the journey!


When I began to practice with the Cintiq, I picked artists that would be a good challenge to work with. Jim Lee, Jack Kirby.... but nothing prepared me for Colan's pencils. Inking his stuff was like learning how to skate on ice for the first time. The fluidity and 'precise looseness' of his pencils really pushed my abilities! It was fun and scary at the same time. Here's what I managed... again.... with great respect one of the truest Masters of this artform. 

Cintiq Attempt 2...

So it goes... here I attempt (once again) to practice with the Cintiq.... this time with the master of comic book art: Jack 'the King' Kirby. Kirby was largely responsible (with Stan Lee) for familiar icons such as Fantastic Four, X-Men, etc. More about him can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kirby
I personally love Jack Kirby's work. I think he redefined comics, and presented the form in a dynamic and powerful way. His 'Kirby dots' were perfect for the Cintiq. In fact, as I worked on this piece, I kept thinking what Jack would do with this technology. His work is mind blowing (especially his cosmic stuff). If you watch the new 'Captain America' movie... check out the technology that is used in it. All of it is based on his amazing work... so here we have it:

First: the amazing pencils by Jack Kirby, and my attempt to dare come close to it's radiance with digital inking... next time: Gene Colan!

Digital Inking with the Cintiq...

My first attempt at using this crazy device. Wow! Very challenging to get a line quality that emulates a brush stroke, but I am getting the hang of it... I think.
The first image is comic book illustrator Jim Lee's beautiful pencils for the new Justice League... the second image is my humble attempt at embellishing his work without it looking traced.... with a cintiq, no less! I am fairly happy with it, but I need to keep practicing!!!

HAL-CON 2011.... RIP

Whew! Busy weekend attending Hal-Con in Halifax Nova Scotia! Ended too fast! Met lots of new people, did crap loads of drawing and sold some original art. Nice! 

Good news on the Canadiana front... may have found a publisher for her. Fingers crossed! For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, but are indeed curious, then please allow me to direct your attention to this archive. We stopped doing webisodes a few years back, but here's a storyline for you to ingest...


http://canadiana.comicdish.com/

I'm quite excited, actually. I think she kicks ass, personally, but you be the judge.

Cheers for now.

The Weight of the Internet...

Who would have thought the internet would possess weight? Evidently Clifford Holliday, author of Internet Growth 2006, has figured it out. It's about the weight of a strawberry. Now we can sleep at night dreaming about what the internet would be like when it's the weight of an ORANGE.



http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/how-much-does-the-internet-weigh/article_view?b_start:int=1

Look Into the Void..

Sometimes images simply blow you away. This image is actually several hundred images (taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope) which has been woven together into a rich tapestry of at least 50,000 galaxies. Scroll to zoom into this incredible view. And Happy Hallowe'en... remember: while you stare into the void when it's veil is thinnest.... ...something may be staring back at you.

 
Source: Hubblesite.org

Fall has fallen-n-n-n!

Always an interesting time of the year, Fall offers cool clear nights for excellent star watching, but also reflects the reality that the days are getting shorter, and Winter is not too far away.
But what a glorious finish!
I love this time of year. Truth be told, I enjoy the beginnings of every season. We had a really wet summer... it didn't actually show up until September! Which was amazing... and perhaps where this weather on PEI is heading toward... who knows.
I'm also reminded that Halloween is just around the corner, and after that, HAL-CON is happening in November! I'm looking forward to driving to Halifax, NS, seeing my daughter (who currently lives there), and enjoying a pop-culture frenzy of fun and frolics! I will be set up with a table in the Artist Alley, so please drop by and say hello. I'll be drawing custom sketches and selling original pages. I'll keep you all posted! The website for Hal-Con is:

Now go out and enjoy this fresh time of year... it's time is fleeting. Before long, we'll be shoveling it!

Happy New Year!

Ah! 2011! New Years Resolution:

I hope to post more on this blog.

How's that for simple? This is a digital image I've been working on. It's SHADE from DC Comics. Fitting for the madness 2011 seems to be about!

Unpublished Works: BLANK

Way back in 1999, screen writer Lars Davidson and I co-created a story we called BLANK. A film-noir style sci-fi story set in a world not very far away from ours. When Lars wrote the script, he didn't include panels, leaving loads of liberty for me (as the visual guy) to invent the pacing and layout of each story. Fascinating way of doing a story, I must confess. These are the only pages we produced. I photographed them (instead of scanning them) just to give you a gist of what we did. I dunno... I think the 'roughness' of the images adds a vintage quality to it... hope you enjoy.

New Planetary System Discovered!

The Observatoire de Haute-Provence in France announced today at an international meeting that astronomers have discovered a new solar system 127 light years away that is quite similar to our own.The star 'HD 10180' is orbited by up to seven planets in a regular pattern, making it similar to our own solar system!
How remarkable this time we live in!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2010/aug/25/extrasolar-system-hd-10180

This was the print that was on the kitchen wall where I grew up...

Millenium Rant.

'So! Welcome to the 21st Century!'

The small man with even smaller eyes beamed as I crossed the threshold, shaking off the 19th Century with a well deserved shrug.

'Thanks!' I answered. 'Though... you do know 10 years have nearly passed since the turn of the Millenium?'

His small eyes squinted... which made them even smaller. Imagine dots on a flesh field, and you'll get the picture. I quickly made my way past him and surveyed the new-ish landscape before me. It didn't look very different from ten years ago, actually. Brother was still killing brother. Earth was still continued being raped and pillaged by rich corporate fat cats and consumed by even fatter consumers (6 Billion and counting, for the record). Politicians were still over-paid jerk offs who still have our tax dollars in mind while enjoying their well deserved breaks in their classy cottages. Many similarities, and everyone seems to be going about, business as usual. Like nothing has changed.

Hmm.

Upon closer inspection however, you begin seeing things in the periphery. This is my list of what I seen develop in the past ten years:

At parties, you'll see people with their heads down and typing/peering/talking into a small communication or dayplanner device. It's creepy, and suggests I'm not a good host.

Actually, you find certain things have reduced in public places:

Land lines

Books

Talking person-to-person.

TV's that take up a small portion of your room.

Magazines

Newspapers

Small cars

Also, there's the social stuff:

Parents more involved with their adult children, treating them like they're still children.

Adult children who ALLOW their parents to treat them like they're still children.

Politicians and corporations getting away with the most out crazzzz-ie things.

The general public allowing it. Close your eyes. Sleep. It's okay....

Which reminds me.

We've been so transfixed on 2012 being the end of time: what's beyond that? Do the Mayans have an upgrade for their new 2013 calendar? Will it be available in English?

Will we find life forms beyond our own selfishness and, when we do, will they want to be found by us? Is happiness a pursuit or simply yet another construct invented to keep us culled and herded?

Will we continue to war against each other, even if Facebook promises only friends and 'like' buttons? Do people still use 'MySpace'? If so... why?

Is Twitter yet another evolution of the internet, and is there a huge AI brain someplace recording everything to start consuming us? Am I paranoid? If so, am I the only one? Why is it whenever I visit a large city center, the advertisements make me ill and crazy? That never had an effect on me before... I used to love big cities.

Why do we allow big business to dictate our lives? Why do products keep trying to convince us that spending money and going in debt is a good thing and normal? What do they know anyway? Can they read our minds? Are we puppets on their strings? Apparently so.

And we allow it. Hooked by branding. Got to have it. It's got to be big too. Nothing small. Unless it's a communication/dayplanner thing-ee. That has to be small. But lots of memory. Because we have dwindling memories.

I looked back at the small man with the small ideas, and realized there was no man there at all.

It was a mirror.