Magic Bullet

Coming soon to the DC Metro area! You may see a stack of these sitting around somewhere or being handed out in and around DC soon. Be sure to pick up your copy!

Doodle from the day job

Obamanator

I've been falling behind on everything this past month... I blame the day job. But that should change now with the new manager in place. Anyway, here are a couple warm-up sketches for a cover I'm working on. Smeared mechanical pencil, Spit and a White Out pen. I added the color to Sarah in photoshop.

I was digging through some old files on my computer and found this. I completely forgot I even did it. It was part of a small anthology of sorts a few friends and I tried to put together way back in '03/'04 sometime. It's not great but it's not bad either. I think it is the last time I actually lettered a story. Anyway, it was written by Angie Bantel, art and lettering by me.

Strathmore 500 series

I love this paper. Oh man, it's so smooth and no bleeding. It even took some acrylic paint. I will be using this from now on. Thanks to Eric Orchard for recommending it.

Page 8

Thumbnails for page 8 of the story “The Stars Are Not Wanted Now”, a futuristic re-telling of Pinocchio. Written by Jason Rodriguez (art by me, duh). The panels that look like they are missing the outer edge of there borders are full bleed, the image will run to the edge of the paper. Got the idea from reading Paul Popes 100% in which he used lots of full bleed panels like that. Great book, by the way. But I like the way the full bleed panels looked in print, we shall see if I can pull it off as well as Mr. Pope.

Break time

Spending too much time on these thumbnails... But, i am happy with where they are going so, fuck it, right. Quality over quantity... Whatever, back to work.

Unaltered

More from the day job. Thought it would be interesting to show what these look like without any photoshop enhancements. So here you go, this is what they look like when i bring them home from work.

Rocker

Had so much fun sketching Gypsy Punk I thought I would try it again. I would like to do more of these: Mod lady, Hip Hop Lady, Indy Lady...

Pinocchio and Geppetto

Again, more sketches from work. The thumbnails are drawn out, I’m currently assembling them in Photoshop. Once I finish thumbnails I like to scan them and build them to size in Photoshop. It’s an added layer of editing where I can crop images, change panel compositions and further tweak the thumbs. I also use photoshop’s grids and guides to lay in the panel borders so when I go to do the pencils I don’t have to measure anything, I can just put down my ruler and drop in the panel borders and start drawing the fun stuff. Anyway, more to come.

Gypsy punk

Something I was doodling at work, I thought it came out kinda nice. Tweaked the color Photoshop.

Holograms and water in my ear

So, here is a color sample and a sketch from the new project I’m working on with Jason Rodriguez (aka: the writer). I still need to play around with the colors more, maybe add a texture or two, but that will have to wait. It’s time to shift this project into third gear and get rolling. Thumbnails are next.

On a side note, I just took a shower and I now have water in my ear that wont come out. I hate that…

I will post more as the project comes along.

Edit: Oh and please, I would love suggestions, comments and constructive critiques. This has a good chance of being published along side many other short comic stories in an anthology, I want this to be one of the best stories in the book. All comments and suggestions are welcome, thanks!

Rose nose

Did this one a couple weeks ago at the day job. I couldn't decide if it needed another coat of coffee stain, finally said no, no more. Then it sat in my back pocket for about five hours yesterday before I brought it home from work. I was drinking a lot of green tea this past week, tried to use it as a stain... not so good... perhaps if i let it steep for an extra 20 mins, but then I wouldn't be able to drink it. If I can't drink it whats the point?

Julian Strong Lake III

aka, Grandpa.

Ruby lips

Yet another coffee stain from work. Black ballpoint, red pencil and the secret ingredient of course. I’m thinking about getting these matted and framed, see if I can get them in a gallery or a art show or something. The thing I like the most about these is they aren’t perfect, there are wrinkles in the paper, folds, creases, rips and tears, crude coffee stains. Place these on a nice clean white matte and encased in a nice pale whitewash frame, I think that would be a good contrast in textures. I think one could come up with some good subliminal meanings behind the contrasting textures if one was so analytically inclined. But that could be stretching it.