Hella Days - Page 5 [WIP]

Here's my comic I've been working on... well, the fifth page of ten, anyway. Still got issues I wanna fix later and some minor polishing touches but all that's gonna wait until I've got all the pages up to this level so I can do the finalization all in one pass and have it look unified. No text for youse... buy the print version at APE (November 1 & 2) in San Francisco or shoot me an email around that time to get a copy.

Thoughts on this so far: Gotta adjust the contrast here and there for clarity. Forgot to put a few sideplanes on the truck windows. Add a few more car components missing in a couple panels. I really love Jack in the first panel... badass Jack is the funnest Jack to draw. I love her facial expressions in the two upper right panels, her nonchalant pose in the 6th panel, and then the 11th and 12th panels in general. Oh yeah, Jack's kinda cute in the 5th panel even though cute ain't my thing and cute Jack is A MYTH. A lie, dudes. Fallacy!

For those not in the know, the main character here (Jack... the gal) is from my former long running comic and future graphic novel, Of Rogues And Robbers. This short story is not a part of the novel's story arc, however. I'm going to ink/tone the novel a totally different way, too. I'm thinking almost black and white. Real contrasty and angular. The story actually gets pretty dark... it's a criminal drama.

Yeah, buy the anthology at APE, please. And also the first chapter of the graphic novel, when it (hopefully) comes out next year.

Like A Rhinestone Cowboy

He's a-lookin' for his hawse.

Uh, this was a really stupid doodle that just got out of hand, as drawings often do. I was thumbnailing poses for an illustration and even though this one was a reject, I did a larger sketch of it because I thought it was funny. Then I went ahead and inked it. I was just gonna do basic cel colors on the guy but I was having fun with it so I really polished it up. I like his funky twisted torso and noodly legs. And yeah, I know his arm is wierd. Whatever.

Well, shoot.

Non Sequitur

Some non-sequential sequentials for ya. These are some rough panels from a comic short story I've been working on. I've got 4/10 pages ruffed out so far. The characters are still off model at this point and there are obvious anatomy and perspective issues to work out when I take it to clean up. You might've noticed I love drawing facial expressions. Mouths, in particular, are especially fun to draw. And hey, look... Jack! Yeah, for anyone interested, the story is about Jack versus Ice Cream Man. It's going to be part of an anthology available at Alternative Press Expo (APE) in San Francisco this Fall. Working title for the story: Hella Days. It'll also be good to have it as a nice, little, self-contained short story supplement for the portfolio.

After I finish up the comic next week, it's back to work on the regular portfolio for me. I'm sorely lacking in environment pieces yet that's all anyone seems to want to hire for right now...

Face Time

Some faces drawn over the past few weeks. A few of these characters went on to larger projects you'll see later and others are just isolated doodles. Plus a couple Jack sketches for good measure.

Back in the habit

My poor neglected sketchbook. So I finally got the chance to do some work in it again! I was pretty busy with work for a while. My productivity has also decreased by like 80% this summer upon my introduction to Avatar: The Last Airbender... thanks a lot, Jon. Countless hours spent on reruns and general related geekish activities.

I'm still not fond of this new sketchbook. Either I need to start using dry media and markers, exclusively, or I need to get a different book because this ain't working. I'll give more markers a shot, I guess. I actually hate most dry media. Plus, the smallness of this book is really limiting... I can hardly hold onto the damn thing let alone do a long study in it. At any rate, I have gotten a few drawings I like out of it.

Jacking lumber since 2008

Don’t anybody sing the lumberjack song. Don't you dare. This is a little something from some freelance work I’ve been doing, “The Physics of Animation”. It’s mostly been diagrams up to this point but we’re starting a chapter now that requires a lot of character work, which is awesome for me. This illustration is to show balance. I needed to do a front and side view of a character in a balanced pose and then a front and side view of an unbalanced pose similar to the first one. The character had to be top heavy and have small feet to emphasize the out-of-balance pose. I chose to draw a lumberjack since I’ve been wanting to do one for a while and he fit the description. I originally had him posing with his ax but I had to change it because adding another mass would have complicated the physics being explained so I opted for the same pose, but with him holding his suspenders instead.

I need to get out and work in my sketchbook soon. I've been in a wierd funk lately and the little I've done outside of work isn't worth scanning, let alone posting online.

I'm a winner!

I just updated yonder portfolio. FYI.

I wish I had more work to show but I've had the misfortune of being ill for the greater part of the last week. How I managed to catch a freak head cold in the dead center of summer is beyond me. It's like I found the only cold bug in the entire Bay Area that survived the end of Spring... like I won some kind of sick lottery. Anyway, that's done. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Above: I did these 2 pages over two weeks ago. The ones on the right side were done at a food court in a mall while I escaped a heat wave. I need to start drawing people in areas where they're more active. Like the park, or something.

Above: I was invaded by bees when I drew the messy hillside so I wound up rushing through the values and it looks kinda crap. Some old, swaggering drunk biker dude came out of an honest-to-gawd saloon and started hitting on me when I was drawing the motorcycle. I promptly relocated. And I drew that little, elderly Asian woman when she was entering the "Jurassic 'Fight Club' Sweepstakes" at a movie theater. It seemed really out of character... actually, I don't think she knew what she was entering.

My friend, Ellen, is the one in color. This new sketchbook loves soft pastels so I think I'm going to start doing more color sketches.