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.

Trying to get the best out of a big #2

I am trying to learn more and more about inking from the greats. This is a piece from Kevin Nowlan doing Green Lantern. I tried to really get to know my #2 Winsor & Newton series 7 brush with this one. I usually stick to the #0 or the #1 W/N as I find the control over the line is tighter and a little more to my liking. But with this one I used the #2 and really tried to get at what I wanted. Not easy with going over the amazing detail in Kevin Nowlans work. But it's all just practice in the end. Hopefully it didn't go to astray.

Moonstone to the Maximum!

I recently did some sketch cards for the Moonstone Maximum series produced by 5Finity. I can't exactly tell you how many I did but it wasn't a large amount. I posted up my only two Artist Exclusive (AE) on ebay for whom ever wins them. But I am willing to add that if you buy the cards and message me about seeing this post on my blog in the payment stage. I will add in a little bonus sketch of the character. For those of you who actually read this stuff!
If your interested in the cards please leave a comment.

Just a few Things.

Just an experiment on working with different textures with in the same character.I decided to do a line up of all the different forms Ben Grimm has taken on while with the FF. I love the classic "lumpy oatmeal" version. I know they were going for a type of smooth rock, but unfortunately it looks like, well, a pile of lumpy oatmeal. The second more traditional look is a staple of great looks. Very tried and true. The final "spikey" version was fun too. But he always seems, to me, to be an evil version of himself. That would be a great story, a Thing throw down!

"Look out! Here comes the Spider-Man!"

I have been really liking what Ransom Getty has been doing on his deviant art account. I like to keep an eye out for new or great inkers working in the biz. Mostly to glean what I can from them and to know what I can do to get better myself. So here is my practice inks over Ransoms pencil sketch of Spider-Man.

Holy Moley!

I managed to get a quick head shot of Mole Man done on lunch the yesterday. Mole Man was always one of my favorite FF villains. He is angry, short, fat, repulsive, and pathetic hiding away from the world. Until the pain becomes too much and then he needs to lash out at the world above. But even though he is none too attractive, he is still charismatic enough to convince the creatures of the underworld to follow his over zealous goals. That... is character!

Being per-snikt-ety!

Been really busy with ink work lately. Have a lot of irons in the fire right now and hope to see some of them come to fruition. But for the mean time I am working on the Moonstone cards and doing a little ink studying. Here is an experiment with splatter effects. I need to get the spray pattern down to a science with out getting it all over the walls. Might have to pull a Dexter and put up some trash bags....

You came and you gave without taking...

Last month I was contacted by 5Finity to do some sketch cards for a few sets. The first was for Dean Yeagles Mandy character. Now I love Deans stuff and I have four of his sketchbooks that he releases every year at SDCC. So need less to say I was very excited to take a shot and doing my version of the character. I don't know how successful they were but here they are non the less. I had a good time doing these and playing with markers and color pencils was so very nice to get back to. Hopefully I didn't shame Deans work too badly. You can probably check with 5Finity on how to get one of the sketch cards from me or some of the other great artists involve. You might even get lucky and get one from the great Mr. Yeagle himself.

Cat's got my tongue!

Took a some time off to work on a few things and get past a rather nasty addiction ( ahem*ebay*ahem) so that explains any lapse in posting. That's not to say I haven't been working on a few things. Cause truth be known, I have. I have several things on the table staring me in the face. A few of them are some sketch card sets, a sketchbook for a museum, and a few pages that will hopefully turn into an ongoing gig. So I have been busy. Just not much in the way of posting. But I will make amends. Just gimme a second (or fifth) chance. And I will try my best to get past that nasty habit.....sooner or later...
Oh, and the above image is of my inks over Phil Jimenez's pencil work on Beast.

"I have inside me blood of kings"

This will be my last Invincible piece for a bit. I have been in an inking slump for a bit and did this panel by Ryan Ottley just to get me back up and running. August always seems to do that to be. I think it's probably the AZ is so unbearable then that it just drains the life out of me. So I will be working on different artists as well as working on a couple of contracted things. Stay tuned.

In-alien-able

Another quick head study of Alan the alien from Invincible. All the characters from that book are just fun to draw. I find I can just sit down, quick sketch a head and it works. Fun character designs. Fun read. Good times!
Oh yeah. Just got another contract for a bunch of sketch cards. I'll tell you all more about it later.

Head trip

I thought I would post up another head shot since it has been a while and I need the practice drawing again. The good thing about inking is that I get better and better at lines, and get to study from people who are really great at drawing and cartooning. The bad part is that I don't get to draw as much.
This one is of Invincible. Probably one of the best superhero books on the market in my own opinion. This might not have all the punch I wanted in it, as I always seen to ink myself worse than when I do other people. I guess I take my pencils for granted and just slap ink on them. I should probably do more of this so I can try and work out those kinks.