Saturday, October 30, 2010

Just finished reading the first two of Si Spencer and Sean Gordon Murphy's Hellblazer run. Its pretty great.

Took a nap, now to draw! :D

Monday, October 18, 2010

Good weekend for me. I drew alot, still haven't worked terribly much on the script, but thats ok. Jameson will be coming to see me next week for a few nights, and I plan on using that time to work quite a bit on the changes. Its strange not having the comic as a primary drawing focus at the moment. It is actually a little disturbing to me because of the fact that I have been so intent on "the next page" that I feel a little empty.

Its all for the better however, so I am not to concerned about it.

Im currently installing Halo: Reach onto my xbox. I haven't played a game in near a week and a half, and then it was barely a few minutes. I plan on finishing at least one level tonight, I hope that actually happens, Legendary is quite difficult.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

1 hour Comic

Tonight I was quite tired when I got home from work. This is really not saying much, I'm usually tired when I get home, but it was really bothering me as Tuesday is typically one of my "drawing" nights.

I read Sean Michael Robinson's blog about 24 hour comic day at HU this morning when I woke up, a few minutes before I left for work. It had me thinking about making comics fast all day long. I decided that I wanted to do that challenge some time in the near future, but I wasnt quite sure when.

I got home, did an ink portrait of one of my characters, and then when I was done I noticed that it was 11pm. "I wonder if I could do a page in an hour" I thought to myself, just a one shot, nothing super complicated, but I did and here it is!

I'm pretty proud of myself, I'm not gonna lie.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

It has been all to long since I have drawn. Yesterday I did a sketch of Noble Six. I also did a quick still life of some plants so my parents could practice a little with some matte board.

Im drawing now.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Marcos Mateu-Mestre, Wings A Shadow Cast, and That Infernal Artist's Block

"If we are going to tell a story. we need to believe in it and its characters. If we are going to move an audience, we need to be moved ourselves first. We won't be able to give something that we don't have"

Marcos Mateu-Mestre, Framed Ink

I bought this book the other day. and so far its excellent. That particular passage has inspired me as I have been struggling mentally with my own graphic novel, Wings A Shadow Cast, that I have been working on this summer.

I think MMM is right, we must be moved. I believe in my characters, I believe in the story as a whole, but I don't believe in the script I have in front of me. It's wrong. I couldn't place my finger on it exactly, but tonight as I began to work on another page, frustration leaking out of me, I realized. The script just doesn't make sense to me.

I don't know what I'm going to do about it just yet, but I'm definitely going to have to change some things up a bit. I already realized that I wanted to redo some of the pages that I have already finished sometime down the line, but for the time being I was just going to push through and finish it all regardless.

I don't think I will though. I had given myself a deadline of May, as I wanted to first book to be finished for SCADcon, but I think I would rather give myself more time and be confident in what I have, rather than rush it and be diffident about it.

I realized that the artist's block I have been feeling toward any of the pages is because I didn't agree with most of them. I talked with my girlfriend alot about it tonight, and during the course of that conversation came to that conclusion. I just don't a have the confidence in the script that I need to have.

She told me that I just came unblocked, but now was frustrated about it. I think she is right. Now I know why I had the block, why it wasn't coming out how I wanted, and now I have to start over. But this is a story that is very personal to me, and it has to be done right. No half-assing or cutting corners, and if that means starting over then I'll do it.

I would like to that Marcos Mateu-Mestre for writing such an excellent book that I can read and learn from.
Just finished inking some pencils that I got off of Deviantart. They were very "super-heroesque" and it was good practice for me.

Bob Schreck told me one night in a bar in Savannah that you won't ever get better if you don't ink other peoples work. While I don't totally agree with this, I do understand what he means. If you only work on your own pencils or work only on your own stuff, You can get caught up much easier in bad habits etc.

I make my drawings with the intention of the ink being the final work, and not the pencils. If no-one ever sees my pencils I'm fine with that as long as they think my inks are sexy. Having some-one else do the pencils ahead of time takes away alot of the "creator" aspect, but it doesn't make the art any less yours. Inks have a way of fleshing out and finalizing what the penciller has wrought, and making it whole and complete.

Inking over a drawing someone else has spent their time on is very interesting. As I sit there drawing over it with my brush, I criticize some lines, scoff at some blacks, and wince at line weights. But would I do any better? If I gave pencils to someone, what would they think of mine? Inking work is very personal to me, because its like seeing into the other artist's soul, for better or worse.

Ultimately I think that all the inks I have done have bettered the drawing, but does that really give me any room to think negatively of the penciller? I dont know, but I do know that without the work they put into them, I would be stuck drawing on my own...

and maybe even getting stuck in bad habits.

Friday, October 8, 2010

In the beginning

I figured it was about time to get one of these. A URL with my name on it.

I will probably make the same updates here as I would on my deviantart, but then there is always the chance I will end up using this more! We shall see over the coming months!