(Feb 17, 2010)
My apologies for the last two weeks of silence. Things have been hectic since I’ve been hanging with my man Michael Caine. You wouldn’t think it if you saw him, but when he comes to town, the party gets started. And if there’s already a party going on, “Sugar” Caine kicks it up to the next level, where they start spelling it with a “double-e”! There are about 60 hours from the last few days that are just lost from my memory.
Don’t eat Taco Bell around Michael Caine. He will cold smack you.
While I’d love to ride the Caine-Train from here to Partee Citee, that’s not how one becomes a Prince of Maine or a King of New England. No, no. Rather, it’s time to awkwardly pull myself back onto the old blogging horse.
This week I’ve been working on my quarterly comic for the Viet Nam Literature Project. This year I’ve been experimenting with using computer lettering for my VNLP comics. The main reason is to speed up the lettering process, as these strips tend to be pretty text-heavy, but I’ve also discovered some other benefits as well.
Here’s how I start planning a page:
Each comic, for formatting purposes, is built on a 16-panel grid. In my sketchbook, I rough out 16 panels and quickly sketch the major “beats” of the story. Once I’m sure my idea will fit the allotted space, I scribble in the text of the comic to see if it will fill up too much panel space. While imprecise, this does let me know if I need to start editing down the text.
Now this is where computer lettering has helped me with these comics. Using a 16-panel template in Photoshop, I add the text from my layout. Now I know just how the lettering in the comic will look.
Other advantages to this method is that this gives me a readable draft that I can send to my editor. Also, when I draw the final comic, I can just paste the drawings into the template, and presto– instantly lettered comic! How ’bout them apples?
Also, here are a few details from the comic AMATEURS, which I’m drawing with Jeremy Massie. I’ll spare you the process details, and just show how the pencils look on the page compared to how they look when I remove the green pencils in Photoshop.
AMATEURS updates will probably take up the majority of my future postings. There’s a lot of pages to draw, and Jeremy and I want to get this book to the people as soon as we can. Unfortunately, the Fan Art Apocalypse of January taught me I don’t have time to draw the comic, and extra stuff for this blog…
…Though that is a lesson that I will completely ignore this week!
Last weekend I went to see UP IN THE AIR, which completes the triumvirant of George Clooney movies released this past holiday season (the other two being FANTASTIC MR. FOX, and THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS for those who may not know). Instead of going into a lengthy review of each film, I thought I’d sum up my feelings in a humble illustration:
I’d hoped to close this post out by mentioning a movie that George Clooney and Michael Caine had done together (we in the blogging business call this “bringing it all home”), but it turns out there are none. Their closest connection is that they’ve both been in Batman movies. Perhaps the world isn’t ready for the team up of Sugar Caine and The Clooninator.
(Feb 12, 2010)
Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Hope the Year of the Tiger treats you well.
If you’re interested in reading your horoscope for the coming year, you can head on over to the Asian Reporter’s website and download the Lunar New Year section in PDF form. Be there!
(Feb 05, 2010)
Nothing fancy this week. Just working on the design of a mix cd. Here are the illustrations without the typographic elements.
I volunteered to do some pro bono illustration work for Hyphen Magazine, so I will probably have some of that process stuff up next week…. Wait, no. Next week is Tet, so I’ll have that image up. Anyhow, see you next week.
(Feb 01, 2010)
This week’s X-man.
A special request from my sister, Jes.
Hopefully, I’ll have more stuff, besides X-men to show you!
Love,
Tyler
(Jan 29, 2010)
Here’s the my wrap-up of fan art January, my favorite scene in Lord of the Rings, the fall and redemption of Boromir:
I’m pretty happy with the drawing itself, though I didn’t have the time to fully color it. I might end up going back and giving it the full treatment sometime down the road.
Anyhow, I’m going to be trying to really buckle down and focus on finishing the last chapter of Americus, so I might not be posting weekly in February. I’m going to try to stay on it, and post as often as I can, but finishing this book is really priority number one.
(Jan 27, 2010)
To wrap up my contribution to Fan Art Apocalypse 2010, I’m wandering outside of Doctor Who the show and casting my metaphorical fishing pole into the larger Doc Who universe (I can’t bring myself to say “Who-niverse”. Nrrd Fail). This week I reeled in Captain John Hart, a character who makes a few appearances in the Doctor Who spinoff show Torchwood. He is a former partner/lover/fighter/i-don’t-even-know-her of last Wednesday’s subject, Jack Harkness.
I, however, like to call him “Captain Crunch”:
I can’t really explain the above, other than it’s a reference to an in-joke that maybe two people besides myself will understand. This image isn’t really representative of the character, but the concept amused me, so quirkiness won the day.
(Jan 25, 2010)
That’s right: this moi.
Didn’t really get any thing done except this little jewel:
and even this is poorly executed. Meh. Sorry Jeremy.
Here’s the thing though. I’ve really enjoyed how these fan art pieces have helped me work faster and more playfully as well as experiment with coloring techniques so I’ve decided to keep doing them. So, I’ve started a new project today: X-man A Week! Will be taking requests. And Jeremy I’ll do another Longshot and Dazzler for ya down the road.
Love,
Ty
(Jan 22, 2010)
Ha! So Tyler and Jason both stepped up their game this week and I stepped mine down. I think I’m starting to burn out a little bit with all the drawing I’ve been doing the last couple of weeks. Anyhow, this is for the Hav.
It’s where Aragorn uses one of the Palantir to show Sauron that he is the heir of Isildur and sort of trick him into marshaling his forces to attack before they’re ready to draw attention away from Frodo and Sam.
I’ll make it up to everyone next week.
(Jan 21, 2010)
This week I thought I’d pay homage to one of my favorite Doctor Who scenes featuring the character Captain Jack Harkness. It’s hard to explain the scene without getting too much into set up and back story, so I’ll just say it shows off the Captain’s resourcefulness when stuck in a situation with only the bare essentials:
Just don’t ask him where he was hiding that Compact Laser Delux™. You really don’t want to know.
(Jan 18, 2010)
Emma Frost:
looks kinda like Shirley Manson to me…
And Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler:
Many thanks to Jake for fixing Emma’s face, and reminding me that Nightcrawler’s Bamf! is always pink… -10 geek points for me, +10 for Jake.
I’m taking requests for next week!
Love,
Tyler
