I’m posting early this week because I haven’t posted in forever and also because I plan on being a vegetable on Friday and sleep in with the misses and not do anything.
Anyhow, sorry I fell of the drawing horse for like two weeks. It’s a slippery slope. One week was helping Tyler move, so that was kind of an excuse, and the other was getting adjusted and cleaning and what not after Tyler moved.
Another part of it is that I’ve gotten back into gaming. Well, I say gaming, but it’s really only one game – Legend of the Five Rings. It’s kind of like Magic, but more awesome because A.] it takes place in a psuedo-Japanese fantasy world, so there are samurai, and B.] there’s a story that has been driving the game since day one that provides a incredibly detailed environment that makes the game wicked addicting [even though I don't think the story is as good as it was back in the beginning of the game].
So yeah, if you thought I was a dork before, now you know the truth that my dorkiness really knows no bounds… I can’t help it! As many times as I’ve lost interest or quit playing for whatever reason, I always find myself coming back to it. So a couple of weeks ago, I decided to come out of retirement and play in a couple of tournaments to scratch that itch. It felt good to be playing again and I had a lot of fun. I thought it would be a good excuse to get the rust out of my drawing arm by doing some fan art.
The image is based on the latest story arc, the Plague War:
I will color it eventually, but there’s just so much going on that it’s going to take forever. I’ll try to work on it here and there and post the final, colored version when I get done.
I also did some work for the Willamette Week this week to accompany this article. It took me awhile with all the ellipses and what not. Anyhow, here’s that:
And I haven’t forgotten about A Date in Time and Space! I just needed to warm up this week after the two week drawing hiatus. I’ll try to have new page[s] posted next week. Have a good weekend!
This week I felt like trying to knock out an illustration as quickly as possible. I’ve been wanting to do another pin up of an AMATEURS character, so I did a few sketches and went with my favorite idea. I decided to post progress shots since a lot of Photoshop work went into creating the final image.
I like the concept of this image, though I think I could have executed it better. I’m not too upset though, since the point was to have something finished at the end of the day.
Here’s the first page of the comic I’ve been working on based on a question I asked Jen a couple of months ago – If we could go on a date anywhere in time and space, where would she want to go? [Which is obviously influenced by all the Doctor Who I've been watching].
Anyhow, I had wanted to draw the comic as a present for her for awhile, but I was wrapping up Americus and then some other things got in the way. I thought it would be a fun project to do to keep my drawing muscles exercised while I work on odds and ends and brainstorm on what my next project should be.
Some notes: I decided to keep it simple and keep it on a 9 panel grid and just kind of write it as I draw it, with key plot points in mind. This has been fun, as I’m just trying to fit in gags when I think of them, but also a little annoying because I think the pacing is a little weird, as I think you can tell in this first page.
Anyhow, it’s coming along slower than I want, but I’ll be posting the rest of it as I finish it up. It was originally supposed to be like 2-3 pages, but now I think it’s going to be like 5-6 pages.
Another bit of DOCTOR WHO fan art… I’ll get around to drawing something else one of these days.
“Don’t wink. Don’t even wink. Wink and you’re dead. They are fast, faster than you could believe. Don’t turn your back, don’t look away, and DON’T WINK! Good luck.”
Quick entry this week… I drew a sketch of the following while re-watching this week’s DOCTOR WHO, and thought I’d do a cleaned up version:
I’ve been occasionally sketching with a spare red pencil for the last week or so. I like the look of it… perhaps I’ll make it a thing: Red pencil for sketching, Green or Non-photo Blue for laying out finished work… I’ll see how it goes.
Here’s another quick sketch, this time of Casey Jones of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE fame:
As well as being the anniversary of Mexico’s unlikely victory at the Battle of Puebla, today also happens to be National Cartoonist’s Day. CUL DE SAC author Richard Thompson gives a few tips at his blog on how you can observe this most obscure of holidays.
So May is Asian American Heritage Month and every year for the Asian Reporter I do an illustration to accompany their featured section on the subject. Every year I set out to do a nice conceptual image that illustrated heritage, but every year I end up doing some sort of collage image. Is it possible to show Asian heritage without having a cheesy montage of things like dragons and chopsticks or a crowd scene of different people? I’ve even tried to google ‘heritage illustrations’ to see if I can get any ideas.
NOTHING!
Anyhow, here’s the illustrations from the previous years, with the one I did for this year at the end.
I’m actually not very pleased with it. I thought, thought, thought that I would be able to come up with something really great, but as you can see it seems like every other year is kind of a sucky one. I guess that means next year’s will be better. But maybe that’s the thing – maybe there’s no way around summing up the history and heritage of an entire continent’s worth of people without hitting the major icons of those cultures. I’d like to hear anyone’s thoughts on the subject.
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Other bit of news – I finally updated my website! I didn’t really change it around much, mainly the colors and decor image, but I’m really, really happy with it. I feel like it’s simple and professional, but still has some of the goofiness that defines my work. Here’s the main image I did for it.
ONEOFTHEJOHNS.COM – Tell your friends! Tell your family! Just go there NOW!
My post this week is inspired by a regular segment on KEVIN POLLAK’S CHAT SHOW (an internet-based talk show) called The Larry King Game. The rules of the game are as follows:
Do a bad Larry King impression (since I can’t do an “impression” in a comic, I opted to draw a bad Larry King instead… in my case I used no visual reference)
Reveal something about yourself, as Larry, while on the air.
“Go to the phones” (preferably the name of the city that’s calling in should sound kinda funny)
I recently began following Kevin Pollak’s show, and it’s become one of my favorite things to listen to when I’m working. Kevin hosts long conversations with his guests (usually 1.5-2 hours), often talking about what inspires them to create and how they got started or arrived to certain points in their careers. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to try to do the Larry King Game in comics form, so here we are.
This clip below shows various guests doing the Larry King Game. I thought I’d include it so you all could see some attempts that were actually, y’know… funny:
KEVIN POLLAK’S CHAT SHOW streams live on Sunday afternoons, though episodes are quickly made available on iTunes or YouTube. You can find more info about the show, as well as more clips at http://www.kevinpollakschatshow.com/.
Again, working on getting the brush to really look like a brush. Saw some Paul Pope pages at Stumptown Comics Fest last weekend, which were inspiring to say the least; He works at a very large scale, compared to what I’ve seen of other comics artists work. Any artists out there working with brushes that inspire you?
I just got in from seven days on the road. It was an amazing and much-needed vacation. The Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon were really spectacular, as well as a lot of the scenery all around. My favorite stretch was driving from Bryce to the Grand Canyon from southern Utah to northern Arizona. Anyhow, as you probably could’ve guessed, I didn’t get any drawing done. There was too much moving around, driving, and hiking, and it was hard for me to make time for it. But don’t worry! I have some goodness to share with you on my return.
At the gift shop in Bryce, they actually had some really awesome postcards and posters that were reproductions of old WPA posters. They are pretty awesome. Here’s the four that I nabbed.
I should have some new stuff up next week. While I’m waiting for the Americus edits to get back to me, I’ve got complete freedom on what I work on. I plan on making the best of it!
