Comic Storytelling

The writer of the comic has a big job, creating the story, the characters, the setting, plotting overall themes, etc., but it is the job of the artist to carry that story, to communicate it to the reader. Here's an example of a very simple moment in the script that required some subtlety on my part to put into pencil and ink.

The scene is of Adrian dealing with his crying daughter by taking her into the bathroom and dabbing her forehead with cool water. All the while, he's singing her a song to calm her down. The script has the dialogue (lyrics of the song), and explains that Adrian is getting progressively more frustrated.



For a starting comic artist, the first challenge is to be able to draw the same character over and over, the same but different. Same face, different positions. The second challenge is to imbue that face with emotion without losing the features that describe the character. This is very difficult to do, and if you look at most cartoons, you'll notice a lot of conventions we've come to rely on to describe emotions, most of them very exaggerated and over-the-top. Manga has a very specific set of indicators that look weird to first time American readers.

So here's an example of me trying to express these emotions subtly, without resorting to cartoon conventions.


In the second panel is Adrian squinting as he turns on the light.

Black Magic and a Princeton 20/0

When I have to do detailed line work like this:


There's nothing better than a bottle of Higgins Black Magic waterproof ink and a 20/0 Princeton liner:


And that is all I have to say about that.

We Ride Boards Show - Friday Night

This will be up at MICA Gallery for the We Ride Boards show tomorrow night. The event is from 7-11pm, I'll be there for part of it. Sounds like a bunch of different types of art will be up, from graffiti to video.

MICA Gallery/Mestizo Coffeehouse
631 W North Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84116

We Ride Boards
Friday, January 29th, 7-11pm
Free Addmission

The event will also be at The Wing Coop towards the end of February.

Per & Silvanus Progress

This is getting close to finished.

Per Gjenganger stumbles upon Silvanus Passerio summoning a cicada swarm.

Pieces like this always start out with a very loose idea -- something from a rough sketch, a previous drawing or an incomplete vision -- and then take on lives of their own, and what could have been a one-off character ends up with an identity. So with these two.

I Love My Studio.

CHE LA Cityscape

Oof.

I have such admiration for artists like Geoff Darrow and Katsuhiro Otomo. I can draw people all day, but cityscapes wipe me out. Hard Boiled is one of my favorite graphic novels, but I have to wonder what kind of mental state it takes for a dude to spend that much time drawing meticulous buildings and cars. I'd love to see Darrow's studio or watch him work.

Here's a panel I was working on today, from CHE LA, featuring a ramshackle future downtown Los Angeles.



Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make bacon tacos and watch Dust to Glory with my lady.

GBTW

New Year's Day I woke up next to a beautiful lady, in a tent, on a beach, south of Loreto, BCS, Mexico.

Now I'm back in Salt Lake and back to work.

Happy Holidays!

Enjoy yourselves! I'll be unreachable until January 4th. I'm leaving today on a ten-day road trip from Utah to Mexico and back. See you in 2010.

Progress

I don't have a title for this piece yet, but here's the progress on it. Most of what I do, I outline in either micron pen or brush and ink, but now and then I like to leave them out and use just the watercolors for the sense of shape. It's good practice and has a very different feel.

Once finished, this piece will be put up for sale on Etsy. Stay tuned if you're interested in it.

Gavin McInnes

I did a little portrait of Gavin McInnes for Christmas:

Studio

This is my studio.


This is what I was working on today.

Christmas Card Preview

Just a little taste. Can't give away the surprise...

General Process

I finished a new Improvised Weapons piece earlier this week, this time on commission. I've done enough of them now that it's a pretty set process for me, and I thought I'd document it.

I have little rules that I follow to keep the series consistent. For one, the kids always have helmets on, and I try to get some variety in what kind of helmets they're wearing. So the first thing I usually do is pick out the helmets, then the objects they're holding. There are rules about the objects, too. First, they can't be weapons. They have to have some other purpose. Second, I prefer that it be something with a handle, something that is meant to be held, to be used for something.

So for this drawing I picked out a SWAT-style helmet and a rake vs. a hard hat with a tennis racquet and dustbuster.



First I block out the general position of the two kids on a piece of scratch paper, which you see at the top of the drafting table. This saves me a lot of back and forth on the watercolor paper, getting the positions right. Sometimes I change my mind between the scratch paper and the final; in this case, I originally had the dustbuster extended in the left hand, and I swapped it for the tennis racquet in the final. On the watercolor paper, I start very rough in pencil to get the general blocking down, then I go around the drawing and get the details penciled, though it usually stays pretty rough until I ink it.



In this case, I'm inking with a micron 03 pen. You can see that a lot of the pencil lines are still rough. Once the piece is inked, I erase my pencil lines and color the kids with watercolors:



And that's it. Here's the finished piece:

September: Gimme Coffee

Dan Bones and I are going to have some work on the walls at Gimme Coffee at 495 Lorimer in Brooklyn, NY for the month of September. Here's a little sample:



Go check it out but for God's sake please don't get any coffee on the art.

Dr. Ph. Martin's

Becca Solow gave me a set of Ph. Martin's concentrated watercolors last time I saw her, and I've been playing with them some. They're vibrant. I like what I get out of 'em. Still feels a little unfamiliar, but I'm getting used to making bolder choices.

Haliku

So this is where it went.

Also, if you're looking for a soundtrack to this image, I recommend The Mofos.

Haliku pencil

did this sketch on bristol at dinner tonight.


This guy's origin was a drawing I did for my brother Aidan. I think there's more to him than that drawing, so I'm seeing where it goes.

Sometimes you draw something that ends up sticking with you; this is one of those. I always liked the muse take on creativity, the idea that inspiration comes not from within one's self, but from somewhere else, somewhere hidden but for those rare moments when a spark gets through and ends up on paper. This is one of those cases where I feel like there is an idea somewhere telling me to give it a face and a name. So I try to pay attention.

Orcus/Submit to Satan

My friend Thom asked me to contribute to his heavy-metal-themed art zine Submit to Satan. This is what I made for him: The head on the monster is an orca skull (a.k.a. killer whale), and they're named after Orcus, underworld god of unpaid debts, or something. There's also a metal band named Orcus it turns out, but I listened to some samples on iTunes and didn't really like it.

Anyway, here it is.

Bike Blog NYC logo

I did a logo for Michael Green of Bike Blog NYC:


It's also a great case study of my process. Michael came to me with a very clear idea of what he wanted: handlebars and stem, fists clenching the grips, visible knuckle tattoos in classic tattoo lettering, with "NYC" on the head tube. With this information, I gave him a few variations from which to mix & match his ideal:

The feedback he gave me was very specific (which I always appreciate) as to which elements he liked and wanted to see in the final product. With some faith that he'd be able to envision the final result from a sketch, I sent him the pencil rough of the final logo:

He loved it, so I went ahead with the ink, and there you have it. The final result, with some minor tweaking in Photoshop, is what you see above.

And that's how I do it.

Badge Design for Dead River Company

My buddy Lindsey is in Brooklyn's Dead River Company and asked me to design a badge for the band. Here it is: