It's been a while, ooooops

Well, so much for my continual updates! A bit has been going on and most of it is good, so here's a recap:

Emerald City Comicon just finished, and as you didn't read here I was there with brand new work! So glad I shared about it. TRASH BRIDGE, written by Ryan Browne and Steve Seeley and illustrated by me, was unleashed on the world at ECCC. There was a limited run of 300 and we're halfway through those. The future of TRASH BRIDGE is uncertain, on a knife's edge as the saying goes, so get your copy while you can. Ryan has put it on his etsy page, here's a link:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/584761162/trash-bridge-issue-1?ref=listing-shop-header-0

Cover by Tradd Moore

So that's pretty cool!

I'll also be at C2E2 here in my home town in April, so keep an eye out for that!

And I'll have news about EDGEBRIGHT & LEOFWYN soon, I promise! I'm still chugging away at it and having a wonderful time.

Thank you to everyone I met or hung out with at Emerald City - you made the trip a success.

Dec 29, 2016 I'm A Terrible Blogger #pencilling #comics #art

If anyone is paying attention, you must have realized by now that I'm awful at "blogging". Most likely I've been dispensing my personal brand of wit and wisdom through other various "social media outlets", and hopefully you've found me on one of the 3 I frequent. If not, MY BAD.

Anyhoo, Christmas has come and gone and now the New Year is upon us. Been a miserable ride for most of the world lately, and I won't get into my personal opinions here (most of you know how I feel about things anyway), but I'll try and post some more art as the New Year progresses. After all, it's about all we've got left! (Slipped an opinion in there)

So here is the 2nd level of page creation (according to my process, 3rd if I wasn't writing the page)... THE PENCILS! In this particular instance I worked on 100lb Bristol paper, unlined. I'd recommend using a better quality paper if you can, I worked with what I could afford here at the time. In the end I don't think it makes much of a difference other than finesse and time (I've heard stories that the paper Jack Kirby used was so cheap and pulpy that a certain inker had to literally IRON them down before he could lay any ink), so use what you can afford!

At this time I was using a regular old #2 pencil, like the one us old fogies used to fill in "Scantron®" tests, because I didn't know any better. These days I use a blue pencil, which saves an incredible amount of time due to NOT ERASING. I can't tell you the hours spent erasing after inking, then having to clean it more in photoshop when it'd been scanned. With the blue pencil it's a matter of erasing the blue lines in the computer, and poof! they're gone. But again, here I was just using a standard pencil.

As you can see here, I went ahead and wrote the lettering in there. The publisher was a little taken aback by this, as it is far from standard these days to include letters in the art, but that's the only way I knew how to do these things. I felt (and still do) that it's part of the composition and should be treated as such, and thankfully (with the weight of O'Barr behind me) the publisher accepted this with no problem at all. I just wish I were better at it.

So now it's all laid out (I darkened them in photoshop for the publisher's sake) and ready for ink! Yay!

6/17/16 I Think I Got Lost In This One

Every once in a while I like to do an elaborately inked, strenuous illustration and then put a clown in the middle of it, just so nobody will want it. Here's a little piece I like to call "DANTE'S COMA"

4/20/16 #Godzilla! Awe Yeah Mini-Con! Sideshow Gallery!

Folks, just want to let you know a couple things going on this weekend: I'll be at AWE YEAH COMICS in Skokie on Saturday! Part of their Awe Yeah Mini-con, it's seriously one of the best groups of people you could hope to meet and I'm looking forward to it.

Also, I'll have a piece in THE SIDESHOW GALLERY's "Mythical Creatures" show, which opens on April 23 from 7-11 at 2219 N Western, Chicago. Even if you don't make the show, stop by their shop - it's super bad ass.

Hope to see you at one of these! In the meanwhile, here's Godzilla.

4/12/16 Back From Emerald City

Well, Emerald City is over, I'm back from Seattle and trying to get things back in order. While I was at the show I met some very fine folks, and thank you so much if you were there and stopped by to chat or pick up some art. Gonna take some time off and get some work done, but I'll be posting here as often as I can. Next up is AWE YEAH MINICON, which I'll let you know more about shortly!

In the meanwhile, here's a disturbing image.