More comic work, and more

So I'm still working on this Little Red Riding Hood design. I keep looking at other people's works for ideas for children, but I'm still not hitting it on the head the way I'd like to. I want to make a little 12 page comic with this, once I get the character designs down.

So here's another that I did a few days ago:


I like that its cleaner and much more streamlined, but I don't like the face at all, and the hair isn't what I envisioned at all... It seems the more manga direction I go, the more I lose what I was aiming for.

Now she has become too tall, I wanted her to be very young and short, kind of like Lilo from Lilo and Stitch. I want to give her an ethnic appearance, but with the pigtails, it looked more Native American:



Here's the newest attempt:


I shrunk her head down because it looked too big and manga like the previous time. But now it looks too big and her shoulders too wide. I'm also having such a hard time drawing girl hair. I guess I've just never had to pay much attention to pig tails and bows, and all that frilly stuff.

Besides Little Red, I was sick for a couple days. I had a stomach flu, and couldn't do much but watch tv. There was a House marathon, so I watched that. I really enjoy funny asshole characters like House. I don't generally watch the show, or many shows though, because I don't like to get caught up in it and have to watch it weekly. But since I was sick, I just kicked back. After 20 episodes, I noticed medical shows really bite for tv, and how can anyone watch them for very long? Every episode is the same situation: patient in extreme situation comes in, banters with doctors, doctors have inter-work relationships and fight with themselves, patient almost dies, they misdiagnose (generally Ive noticed on House, they think everyone has MS), then they try a surgery for the patient to almost die again, and then they solve it.

I also watched Magnificent Seven again. I think Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai are the best movies to look at for dealing with a story with multiple main heroes. That movie is so perfect, you could take it to any setting and retell a great story. You could replace Yule Brynner with Aragorn, Steve McQueen with a fast arrow shooting elf, and other characters with various fantasy characters and it would be a great fantasy movie.

Anyway, its a brand new year which is very exciting. There's a lot of stuff happening this year, so I'm pretty happy for that. School starts on the 5th, so I'm going to have to learn how to balance school in the early morning and working in the afternoon and everything else in the evening. It will be a challenging quarter, but I'm glad to be getting more credits out of the way.. I feel like I'm digging myself out of a ditch, I should be able to go to Eastern by next Fall or Winter if I keep up the pace.

Anyway, everyone have a Happy New Year.

More Caperucitas Rojas

Still working on a look for the little hero:



I'm having trouble with the face and hair... Children are difficult to draw.


*update*
I drew a face, and I like it. But I still don't like the hair quite yet..

Thrifty

A friend at work collects old lunch boxes, everyday he has a different lunch box. The lunch box thing got me thinking, I should buy a couple old lunch boxes and repaint them! So I started the hunt today at the Christian Thrift store by my home. I did not see any lunch boxes unfortunately, but I did find something! Super Mario All Stars for Super Nintendo! The game generally goes for $20.00 on Ebay, and I picked it up for $3.00. I was pretty stoked, this has four Super Mario games on one cartridge.
Looking around the thrift shop made me think about how easily we toss things out, and buy new junk, just to toss that out as well. There were many nice and functional things there. I saw a French Press for $3.00! It looked brand new, and those generally go for $20.00 at Target or other stores. I may go back and pick it up for a friend. They had many bags as well. I'm thinking of going on a trip this summer or spring, I'll definitely be heading to a thrift store for a bag to pack my stuff, why pay $50.00+ for something new in a chain store, when I can spend a quarter of that in a charity based store.

I think a lot about how much I spend, and how in the past I burned through cash on ridiculous things. Nowadays, I buy my books either used, marked down, or with a coupon from Borders. I buy my graphic novels either used from The Comic Shop, or I buy several at a time through instocktrades.com, which has free shipping on $50.00+ purchases, no tax, and generally a markdown of 30%. I rarely eat at fast food these days, preferring to buy from the grocery store and spend a couple extra minutes to prepare something.

I'm sure others are feeling the effects of our current economy, the dollar really doesn't go as far as we'd like these days. I'm not trying to be preachy or anything, I'm just trying to share the ways I am being frugal.

Spreading my comic to friends and strangers alike

So, I've been reading about zines for quite some time, but as far as I can tell, they are near impossible to find around town. The reason I got onto a zine kick was because of last year's 24 Hour Comic Day. I wanted to print my comic, and then I started reading online about mini comics and the zine subculture. I want to get into that, and share my comics on a more peer to peer basis.

I personally believe my printed 24hr comic looks really cool. Yes, some of the art is cheesy, but that's due to time constraints. I'm talking about the overall package. Its manga sized, 5"x7.5", full bleed, and strict black and white. The cover is #90 cardstock, and the inside pages are 24# paper (a little thicker than generic printer paper), double sided, and saddlestitched. I figure if my rush job 24 hour comic looks this nice, imagine actually spending the time to make a nice comic, utilizing screentones and grayscale effects, more time on the layout and design, everything!

This idea is really kickstarting my engines on getting comics out there. It wasn't expensive either. Honestly, if I buy the cardstock and heavier paper and have a print shop print on that, I think I could get even a better deal.

So, getting back to spreading my comics. With my 24hr comic, I have sent it to friends all over the world (seriously), and even to some zine places, and zine fans, in hopes of catching someone's eye. Some strangers out there will be getting a random mini comic in the mail, and I hope they enjoy this random surprise.

I'm thinking if I pursue this, I'd like to offer these comics on my website for sale via paypal. I have tons of ideas, and now I have proof that a nice looking comic can be made from home, so there is nothing stopping me from making my art. NOTHING! :D

I have several one shot stories that I'd like to render into a mini comic, as well as several longer stories. This practice could also help me build a portfolio to attract the eye of a real publisher... Hmm.. This also means that I'll have some comics to hustle at next years Spokane ComiCon.

School Daze

First, my daily art:


On break at work I cleaned up the page, spotted some more black onto Robin's coat which I think really helped. Then I did my usual fun coloring out of boredom. Its nice to have colored pages in a sketchbook, its more striking, even if my coloring is pretty flat. It has been a while since I used colored pencils, I need to get into a rhythm before I start getting too creative.

Now a more imperative topic. School started today... Oh the horror. I could not fall asleep for the life of me last night. If something important is happening the next day, I can't sleep. Anyway, I woke up and got online to check out my online courses. Health and Astronomy. My Health class doesn't seem too bad, but my Astronomy seems to be a nightmare. I will have to be extra organized and assertive to accomplish my classes, art, and everything else I want to happen this quarter.
My Astronomy teacher wrote a novella worth of information. The syllabus, an intro letter, discussion questions, a lecture, this week's agenda. It was a lot. I just read through it and my eyes are bugging out. I had to write notes on just what he expects each week from me! Tomorrow I have to get up early to pick up my books, my financial aid check, and a parking pass just in case I need to do something on campus. I'm frightened by the amount of work this teacher is demanding. I am very interested in Astronomy, but I am hokey pokey about my pace. Maybe I need a fire under my ass to jump start my mindset back into a school sort of pace.

In other news, I totally forgot my Spanish Instructor's birthday party. We are good friends, and hang out a bit outside of classes. I have been so bogged down getting over being sick, kind of feeling in a rut, trying to get art ready for a few events, and mentally preparing/fearing school. My mind was elsewhere all weekend, I totally forgot it and I feel horrible. After I am done posting this entry, I will be drawing her a birthday card. It will be personal and it will mean a lot to her. I also packed up my guitar and a folding music stand. For her belated present, I am going to play a couple classical songs. I was also wanting to paint a sign for her class as a surprise. She just got a new office for her school, and needs to decorate. I am going to hand paint her Spanish class sign, I think she will like it. Unfortunately, do to time constraints, it won't be in her hands until probably next week.

Last bit of info. Last night, during my insomnia, I watched the very tail end of a PBS program. There is a black scientist guy I see all the time on tv. I've seen him on Conan O'brien talking about astronomy, he gets so excited about it. I've seen him interviewed on news networks, he's somehow some kind of big science geek. Anyway, he had some show on, and he was talking about the evolution of writing. I would have LOVED to watch the whole program, history is awesome, especially about things I am interested in. Anyway, he started talking about his crow quill pen (basically the same thing I use to ink, but I use steel nibs rather than an actual cut feather tip). He said that if he is going to write something important like an article or a speach, he uses a crow quill pen. Each time he dips for new ink, he gets about six or seven words before redipping. He states that this process gives the piece a cadence feel to his writing, he thinks a lot more, and there is a unique thoughtful flow that is lost in the 'now now now' technology of a keyboard.
I really think he stumbled onto something so true. Even when I use a brush to ink, I am so much more thoughtful with each stroke. It is so different, and has a more organic flow than any pen.

Okay, enough yammering. Time to draw a Birthday Card.

Doodling and La Bamba

I think I mentioned this before, but I bought a new sketchbook. This book is just for me to practice 100% comic stuff. I want to have nice complete work in it, inking, colors, panel layouts, whatever.
So, while watching La Bamba, I drew up this:


All using the pentel brush pen. I haven't erased pencil marks yet because its still too wet to brush an eraser over. Approximately 45 minutes all together. Another thing I am trying to do is loosen up and have fun, when I participate in the 24 hour comic day, I don't want to stall and just stare at a blank page. I did a lot of that last year. I notice if I start doing something, anything, it makes it easier to keep going.

All Spanish Today

He estado trabajando en varias pinturas en los ultimos meses. Quiero tener otra exhibición de arte pronto. Invitaré a todos mis amigos y familia de nuevo. Se siente bien tener amigos cercanos que vengan a apoyar mis intereses.
Hablé con el dueño de "The Missing Piece Tatto" y le gustaría llevar algunas de mis pinturas. Su taller tiene muchas pinturas, muchas de éstas vendidas. Me gustaría vender algunos de mi trabajos y posiblemente conseguir algún reconocimiento.
Este año venderé libros de dibujos, pinturas y dibujos de comisión en la Segunda Convencion Anual de cómics. Algunas de mis amistades han conseguido beneficiarse de ello y han hecho conecciones. Con mis nuevas pinturas, y un portafolio mas grande, me gustaría ver si puedo encontrar trabajo pintando portadas para compañías de cómics independientes. Oni Press y Blue Water Productions son bastante grandes y no lejos de Spokane.

Just practing my Spanish for a change.

Robin in the style of Damion Scott

Sorry I've been so sluggish with the Joker tutorial. I was sick last week, and this week catching up on bills, just lots of stuff going on so I haven't been able to photograph anything new.

I just realized I have been rusty at drawing since Ive been painting Joker for so long. So, to prepare for the 24 Hour Comic Day I will be participating in again, I am filling a sketch book with tons of fun gestures. I want to really make something cool this time.

I've been liking Damion Scott's art a lot, especially his work in Robin: To Kill A Bird. So to try to learn some techniques from him, I drew the same Robin he did as a cover in the back, but with a bit of my style to it. I like his animated feel to it, he's not worrying about rendering everything to infinity like Jim Lee.

The sketch was probably 15 minutes at the most.

Second Daily Sketch in one day?!

I felt since I skipped a day or two, trying to keep the daily sketch going, I'd double up for today. This took about 45 minutes as well, again, its a friend's character, but my own take on it. My friend, Heather, draws with a heavy manga influence, I thought I might try to introduce that a bit more this time.

Daily Sketch, and some thoughts

So I sat myself down at a local cafe for close to an hour today to draw a friend's character my own way. By actually noting start and end times for the drawing session, I realized I am the sloth of illustration. This is what I came up with:



I think a lot of it has to do with confidence with pencil strokes and the capability to move on.. I spend a lot of time loosely sketching, erasing, redrawing, erasing, redrawing.. I also noticed certain things I hate to draw, namely foreshortened limbs (the hand and arm coming up front), bars of a bird cage (I think in part because I had no reference to a bird cage), and female clothing. I think I grew too comfortable with comic book women who just wear lycra.

How does one speed up their drawing? Is it by just drawing religiously, or forcing to move faster?

My left arm has a "driver's tan"

I started listening to Sidebar Nation, a really great podcast that interviews some great people in the comic world. I love to hear the artists' ups and downs, gems of knowledge, how they broke in, and how they work. Its really inspiring!
For those who know, I'm trying to put together a couple comics, so I'm trying to collect as much information I can. I thought I could draw, but a pinup or portrait is so different than telling a story through sequential art. I'm fighting to find my voice in telling a story, so to practice, I'm going to try to share 90 minute sketches when I have time. One of the artists on Sidebar Nation, Eric Canete, actually is doing this daily, and he feels its a great exercise.
As a second exercise, I bought a sketchbook small enough to fit in my cargo pockets of my scrubs. This way I can sketch on my downtime at work. Usually just on my breaks and lunch since we are so busy, but its added minutes to my drawing.

Anyway, these are just some thoughts after going for a long hot walk with my dog. I'll be hitting the sketchbook momentarily!