(Aug 06, 2010)
Nothing too fancy this week, just some miscellaneous Willamette Week illustrations that I’ve done that I haven’t posted already for whatever reason.
Oops. I think I just accidentally outed myself as a hack – notice how the first three illustration recycle my stock image for ‘generic textured background’. Ha!
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And don’t forget to check out SaveApathea.com! We went live this week! New pages every week on Mondays, Wednesays, and Fridays! I’m posting on Wednesdays. Be there!
(Aug 04, 2010)
Just posting some sketchbook stuff this week. More polished work next time…? We shall see…
Some more random work: (a) Some character designs of nerds… for the COMIC NRRDS VS THE BIBLE strips I posted a couple of weeks ago. (b) A dubiously agile T-Rex. I’ve been inking sketches I like with the ole’ brushpen lately. (c) Drawn straight to brushpen… Rubbery face! (d) Donatello, posing with his bo staff. And if you’re asking why his bandanna isn’t purple… Sorry. You’ve lost the game.
Drawing Donny got me in the mood to do more Ninja Turtle sketches. I made a few bad ones attempting bad ass ninja poses, when I decided to just draw them skateboarding. I always liked that the Turtles had a hobby outside of punching ninja and aliens, so why not celebrate that.
However, that ended up becoming a bunch of quick sketches of Turtles wiping out:
Nothing against any skaters reading this, but when I watch people skateboard, I see a lot of spills.
I liked the sketch in the bottom corner of one turtle nursing his knee and showing off his still bloody tooth-gap, so I tried making a more finished version:
This was just a quickly drawn ink sketch. Some of the poses are a little screwy, but it might be fun to rework into a full color piece. Actually, Turtles taking spills off skateboards would be a fun series of drawing… if I can ever find the free time that is.
(Jul 29, 2010)
As I mentioned before, I haven’t really been posting here the last couple of weeks because I’ve been getting SaveApathea.com, the website for Americus, ready. We plan on going live next Monday, jumping right into it with all of chapter 1 up and with chapter 2 starting then. We’ll be posting new pages every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday up until right before our publication date in Fall of 2011.
MK and I will be blogging along with the pages and we’ll also have guest bloggers swinging in to post as well. I’ll be in charge of blogging on Wednesdays, so mark your calendars.
I’m a little nervous about the blogging aspect because I’m afraid I’m going to either a.] be at a loss of things to talk about, and b.] keep talking about the same old thing and bore the hell out if people. If you have ideas of topics or aspects of the process that you might want to hear about, please let me know.
The concept we went with for the website design was that it was created by the main character, Neil. If you check out the website, you’ll see that we have a big splash page that directs you to the main blog, with Neil working on the website, while being surrounded by some of the drawings he’s created for the website.
Similar to how I do major corrections, I just did a normal ink drawing of Neil, and then took some tracing paper and drew ‘his’ drawings over it.
I then scanned in both images, layered them into one, and then went ahead and colored the illustration. Here’s the final piece:
All right, even with the blogging duties starting over at Save Apathea, I’m gonna try to be posting here regularly again.
(Jul 21, 2010)
Last week, I heard that the Westboro Baptist Church was planning to hold a protest at the San Diego Comic Con. Apparently reading comics is synonymous with “idol worship” to these wackos (and their history of wacko-ness runs long and deep. Just look at their wikipedia page).
This line from their announcement caught my attention:
“If these people would spend even some of the energy that they spend on these comic books, reading the Bible…”
My first thought is that they would nitpick and argue about the Bible the same way they do about comics. Who wrote the best Gospel, which apostle could beat up which apostle in a fight… that sort of thing. This line of thinking lead to a few of ideas for comics in this vein. Below are the couple that I was able to get done. Behold, the horror of the nerd brain…
I’m now sort of bummed that I’ll be missing Comic-Con this year. I’m hoping the WBC will arrive at the convention and end up facing a counter protest made up of convention-goers. Can anyone seriously espouse that “God Hates Comic-Con!” when confronted by a horde of people dressed as elves and Stormtroopers?
(Jul 10, 2010)
So for the decor of the Americus website, we’re treating it as if it was created by the main character, Neil Barton. The tricky thing about this is trying to draw like I’m thirteen years old. After doing some drawings, I realized that it’s easier to draw like you’re five than you’re thirteen. I think this is because when you’re much younger, you don’t really understand a lot of proper ‘rules’ or drawing, you just kind of go for it and are generally happy with whatever you do.
As you get older you start to pay attention to things like perspective and proportions or what not. You know some of the rules, but you’re not aware of all of them. So when trying to draw like a thirteen year old, I found it hard to forget or ignore some of the rules ad techniques that I’ve spent my whole life trying to learn and master.
It made me think of a book I read recently, Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. It is coming of age story about an kid who decides he wants to go to the white school across town instead of on the reservation. The main character, Junior, is a cartoonist and throughout the book Ellen Forney did the illustrations and cartoons that Junior has ‘drawn’. She did a really good job of getting into the mind and skill level of a thirteen year old. Here’s an example:
And here’s a collage of images I did for the background of the site. I think mine look a little less convincing, but they work in the sense that you understand that someone younger and less refined has drawn them. What do you think?
Anyhow, besides doing little illustrations like this, I’ve been busy doing menial work like reformatting pages and relettering the first chapter. It’s coming along. We were going to try to have things up in a couple of weeks, but now we’re shooting for early August so it doesn’t get lost in the Comic Con media blitzkrieg.
Hopefully once we get this all done, I can post some personal illustrations or drawing [like finishing A Date in Time and Space!].
(Jul 07, 2010)
I wanted to do a quick piece this week, since I don’t want to show off anything I’ve been working on yet. However, most of my ideas have been some sort of fan art or AMATEURS-related, of which I feel I’ve been posting too much lately. As Jonathan put it, I wanted to think “outside of the dork-box”.
So today’s image is inspired by an old photograph of a family friend. The details in the photo aren’t very clear (one of the reasons I’m not including it in this post), so there was a lot of room for invention when drawing branches and details. I also had a chance to play around with inking… I think the final result is a little labored-over, but I feel I got the “essence” of the image down well enough.
(Jul 04, 2010)
Happy Birthday, America! Here’s a little audio clip Jason captured years ago that sums up the matter quite nicely.
A special 4th of July message from BPB!
Bonus points if you can figure out where it’s from.
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This year’s Finder magazine the WW publishes came out this week. Jen and I hit up the release party a little too late for the free grub, but got some free beer that unfortunately made us feel weird the rest of the night. It wasn’t a bad time, though – I finally got to meet the esteemed Ben Mollica, the art director for the WW who is kind enough to send me the work he does, and I also got to see Tom Humphreys again, a former WW art director who got me started doing illustration for them.
Anyhow, it’s a great resource for anyone in Portland, whether you’ve been here six year or are just visiting for a week. It has recommendations and locations of most of the good restaurants and things to do around town. Plus it’s FREE! Go pick one up!
Here’s my spread in print:
And here’s the illustration I did for the paper this week for this article:
I’m still busy doing behind-the-scenes stuff for Save Apathea, but if all goes according to plan, we should have it up in a couple of weeks. You’ll hear about it here first!
Have a good 4th, everyone!
(Jun 30, 2010)
An excerpt from the AMATEURS trailer comic I mentioned last week. Hoping to have the whole thing done and ready to show off soon.
See you all next week.
(Jun 25, 2010)
Some big news – First Second has asked MK and I to serialize Americus online. Details are still being hashed out, but we’re hoping to have the website up and ready to go around the middle of July. I am pretty excited, though I’ll admit it’s kind of funny too. I think the standard approach is to do your webcomic and finish it up with hopes of having a publisher picking it up. We’re doing the reverse – we’ve got the book finished and have a publisher, but are doing the webcomic to help drum up interest and support for the book before it’s release date next fall.
Like I said, I’m pretty excited. I’ll give you more details as they pop up.
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I also did some spot illustrations for an entertainment piece for this week’s Willamette Week. There is a free, all ages music festival happening in the St. John’s neighborhood this weekend. If you get the chance, check it out. I haven’t been to St. Johns in years and years, but it’s a beautiful area and the third annual No. Fest seems pretty awesome.
I’ve finished the next page of A Date in Time and Space, but I’m gonna put it on hold for now while I work on getting saveapathea.com ready to get rolling.
xoxo- jonathan
(Jun 23, 2010)
So yeah… the posting to ye olde blog has been sporadic as of late. Apologies to anyone who’s been waiting for us to get back in the swing of things. We’ve all been pretty busy, though hopefully we’ll be getting back to regular updates soon.
But today I have some piping hot artstuffs fresh from the oven. Join me as I put them on the counter to cool…
Jeremy and I recently got the idea to do a “trailer comic” for AMATEURS. Here are the pencils for the first couple of pages:
Inked, lettered and toned pages to follow. Stay tuned!
Also, I should mention that Jeremy has inked and lettered the first few pages of AMATEURS, which he has been posting on his blog. Check ‘em out.
I got an illustration assignment from the
Willamette Week. I was asked to draw two “Transformer-like” beings attacking City Hall:
Sometimes I’m amazed you can be hired to draw crazy stuff like this… Below are some process bits.
A rough sketch I sent to my editor. Originally I had the Mayor running from the carnage at City Hall, but I was asked to focus on the background scene instead.
A scan of my inks and pencils… Usually on tight deadlines, I just fill the black areas with Photoshop to save time.
