No rest for the wretched!

I have been working on some things these past couple of weeks that have been keeping me really busy. If the hustle and bustle of the holidays wasn't crazy enough, I have been working on quite a few things that probably won't even be seen for a couple of months from now. But I thought I would give you a sneak peek of just one of the things I am doing. Obviously it involves a zombie, but I don't think I should say more just yet. But all will be revealed in due time...

Try-out something ...old.

This is from the Marvel Try-out book from 1983 drawn by John Romita Sr. I am always looking for new styles to try out and see what I can do. Practice makes perfect, so I tend to use a couple of pages from each artist I can. With this one I took the rough layouts provided and then would draw over them. I could have stayed truer to the pencils here, but I was trying to get a specific look. I will probably try to get a more accurate feel for Romita Sr. pencils on a few other panels. But I was pretty pleased with how this came out for a first time experiment.

ZVC # 2 released!

Just wanted to let you all know that Zombies vs Cheerleaders #2 was release a week ago and available to most comic book stores. If your store doesn't carry them, please ask them to. It's a great series from Moonstone comics featuring a lot of new talent and fun stories. I was able to contribute as inker to the primary cover by Daniel Campos. Check out my previous posts for the black and white ink work.

One of my Real American Heroes!

I have been becoming an ever increasing fan of Mike Zeck in the past few months. I always really appreciated his Punisher stuff. In fact he did the very first graphic novel I ever picked up, Punisher: Circle of blood. I study this book almost every day. But I have also come to find out he did a large number of covers and comics I loved and cherished as a kid in the 80's. G.I.JOE was a major player in my life and I was studying his artwork on those books even before I ever picked up a pencil to draw. His work with John Beatty are some of the most impressive I have ever seen. So when I had some spare time, I had to give this piece a shot. Inking this was exciting and incredibly fun. I felt just like that 10yr old kid looking at those comics for the first time.

Getting into shadow shapes.

Here is a panel from one of the many Batman books that Tony Daniel has done. I really love his gritty sense of story telling. I was a fan of his work way back when and now I really like the stuff he is doing for DC. I wanted a chance to try out the shading he uses with all the cross hatched lines and strong graphic black shapes. It has a sense of Kevin Nowlan influence to me and I like that.I will have to try more of these to really get a feel for the flow in his work. Very nice work.
I find these pencil works online and print them out to practice over. I would hope that no one has a problem with that. In the past have asked that if any of the artists do have an issue to please contact me here and I will remove said piece. But as no one has, I push onward always trying to better myself in the craft.

Pulling my Herrera out!

Here is another lunch time ink experiment. This panel was drawn by Francisco Herrera and inked by me.He is an amazing artist and you should all go check him out.
I have noticed a real unfortunate trend in my works. As I get more and more work to ink now a days, I tend to want to do less practice inks. I know that this is absolutely the wrong way to go about it. I should want to perfect and challenge myself more when I have the time to "ink whatever I want". But I find that the times I do ink extra stuff are slipping away. I will have to do better and practice at least once a week on a bunch of panels from great artists. It's the only way I can learn and gain more flexibility in my inking techniques.
So much to do and so little time...I feel like the white rabbit.

Signing at Atomic Comics Nov 5th

Short notice I know, but I wanted to get it out there that I will be signing at Atomic Comics Mesa On Friday Nov. 5th from 3pm to 7pm. Steven L. Frank from 5Finity and writer of Zombies vs Cheerleaders with be there along with Ben Glendenning (aka Skulljammer) and myself will be on hand to do signing and sketches of ZVC comics and cards. I even hear that there might be a few exclusive comics and cards available to those who come out and visit us. I will also be bringing the inks from my ZVC #1 and #2 cover for exhibit. So if you have time come on out and get something signed or even just point and stare, we don't mind. See you there!

Halloween 2010!

Happy Halloween folks!
Thanks for coming by the blog and checking things out from time to time. I know I don't keep up with this as often as I should (read: never update this thing). But I have been very happily busy as of the last couple of months. I did a few more sketch card series for 5Finity as well as finished up another comic with Matt Hebb. I will tell you more about that later when I have all the clearances to do so. Wonderdog inc. is now available to order from Amazon.com and another Zombies vs Cheerleaders will be out in November. I did the inks on this cover over the amazing Daniel Compos . This will be the standard cover for the #2 of ZVC from Moonstone comics. So please pick up an issue at your local comic shops. Along with the inks for ZVC #2 I added some of the sketch cards I did for the first ZVC release. I had an idea of doing a morbid Brady Bunch homage for these or possibly a year book like set up. I really enjoyed the characters that came out of these and may just make it a running thing for future head sketches on books and cards. But I felt they definitely added to the Halloween theme for this post. So check in more as I actually have a nice back log of sketches and ink samples to post in the coming weeks.
Have a Safe and Happy Halloween!

SDCC 2010!

Hey All,
I will be heading over to the San Diego Comic Con once again. This time I will be signing at the Arcana booth (#2415) on Thursday and Saturday for the limited release of Harry Walton, Henchman for Hire and Wonderdog Inc. Come on by and pick up a copy of one or both books and get them signed. Matt Hebb and I might even be doing some tag team sketch cards for the event, if anyone is interested. Or just come over and say "Hi".

Thursday 2:30-3:30 pm.
Saturday 5:30-7 pm.

Hope to see you there!

Man on the run!

So you're probably wondering where on earth have I been these last few months. Well, I have been very, very busy. My work with 5Finity has been going really well and I can't thank them enough. I have been working on various things to do with the Zombies vs Cheerleaders comic, the P'ups series, The Pro series, and still more in the works. Sketch cards are in demand and I am scrambling to meet that demand. For a while I was on everything 5Finity was doing! But with a recent comic gig showing up I have been focusing on that and pulled back from the sketch cards just a bit. I have a few more commissions to finish, then I will be focusing on the comic for the entire time. I will continue to push forward with the sketch cards, but at a slower pace. I did get nominated in 5Finties High Five Award for Favorite artist and that was amazing! Thanks to all of those who may have voted! I was also a guest on the 5Finity panel at the Phoenix ComiCon. That was a lot of fun and got to meet some great friends! I will also have a number of comic books looking to come out in the next 6 months. So I will keep you all informed on that as well. But for now it's back to the table to work. Talk to you all soon....I hope.

Fire it up!

Just finished a commission for a very nice and extremely patient client named Wild Bill. Bill got a number of these Marvel Project covers and asked several artists to do sketch covers for them. Which you can see here. I was very pleased to get asked to help out. I was all gun ho to start this and managed to get the pencils and inks in. But then things started coming up and needing immediate attention, or I moved and miss placed it (sorry buddy) and I never got the colors done on it. Then as time went on I started getting nervous about the colors and didn't want to undo all my efforts. But slowly and surely I finished it and sent it on it's way. Not bad in the end. And now, on to the next one....

FCBD recap!

FCBD (Free Comic Book Day) was a blast! The event went well and there was a good traffic of people the whole time. This time Atomic Comics had printed up some over sized sketch cards for us to draw on for a donation of $10 to the Hero Initiative and each location had a different card. They came out really nice and make for some great collectors pieces. Anyone who went to all four stores here in the valley and got one from each were entered into a raffle for some cool stuff. I don't know what exactly, but I know I donated a sketch of the Swamp Thing to the pile.
I was pretty worried about sketching on demand, but once the kids and everyone started coming up there was no way I could hold back. I probably spent a little too much time on each sketch, but it was worth it to get those very pleased looks when I handed back the cards. I ended up sketching a wide variety of characters. Jughead, Sonic the Hedgehog, Jason Voorhees, Zombies, just to name a few. I included the sketch of Dazzler I did for my best friend Gerrad to show you what the cards were like.
In the end I had a lot of fun and met some great people. Everything went very smoothly and I was well taken care of. If asked again, I will definitely return next year.

FCBD 2010!

I will be doing sketches at Atomic Comics in the Phoenix Metro location this Saturday. I along with a long list of great guys and gals will be donating our time and sketches to help out HERO Initiative. HERO is a great charity and one my best friend Gerrad has been donating his time to on FCBD for the past three years. So when he recommended that I throw my hat in the ring I had to say yes. So if you would like you can come by one of the official "Kick Ass" locations in AZ and get a sketch by any of these great artist. There might even be incentive to get something from each store!

AE I.O.U's

These are recent Sketch cards I did for 5Finity. I don't usually do a whole lot of these so I can try and improve my skill and have work I am proud of. I usually do a lot more inking, so I get a little flustered when doing these cards because I get real picky about them and want them to look good for whomever gets them. But these last two series of Voltron and Dead@17 have been really fun and I like how they came out. So here are a couple of the Artist Exclusives and I will have more cards in the next few weeks and months as well. So as soon as I can I will post those too. Thanks again for checking in.

it is, what it is...

OK so the reason for a Popeye sketch is thin. Other than I have always liked the character and he has a very Zen philosophy about him that draws me in. " I am, what I am, and that's all that I am."
That's deep.
But none the less, I thought I would post this for some random goodness. Enjoy!

Time of the season for... Zombies!?

So I know I haven't posted in a while but I have been kept busy with a bundle of sketch cards and up coming work. This is a cover I did for the up coming Zombies vs Cheerleaders comic by Moonstone. You may remember that I did some cards for the Moonstone sketch series by 5Finity. Now they are coming out with a comics based on another of their hit sketch card sets. I wasn't able to work on ZVC when the set came out and really hate that I missed the opportunity. However I guess I made good with being on one of four covers for the comic. Check out the Newsarama article here.
So make sure you tell your comic shop to order it. There is even a spot for sketches on the backs of the book. So a... hint, hint.