Finally, after many years of wanting to, I attended a comic convention not as an attendee, but as a guest and vendor. Andrew Leung, owner of Toy Fusion and ToyWorth was nice enough to have me as a guest artist at his booth at Sac-Con on the weekend of March 12th and 13th, 2016. I wasn’t expecting to do much really, other than draw, pass out business cards and postcard samples, and see if anyone would … Read More
On 2-26-2016, I took a last-minute trip to Yosemite National Park with a couple of friends. I took some pens, a sketchbook, and my iPhone. Yosemite. I had never been there before. And it was great. I love cliffs, and I love trees. The only thing missing was the ocean, cliff-side, but that’s okay: there were plenty of rivers, creeks, and waterfalls. I was sketching with my new Pentel Pocketbrush brushpen. It’s pretty nice, but it … Read More
I recently needed to put together a double-page spread advertisement for a local film festival I volunteer for, the Sacramento Asian Pacific Film Festival. Since I was doing this for a group, and other people needed to approve the design, I did thumbnails. For myself, I only do thumbnails when I need to solve problems. Usually I know what I want. This time, I needed everyone who had a say in the final messaging to approve … Read More
This is a “warm-up” sketch I did on 1-13-2015: The goal was to limit the time spent doing the sketch. This time I chose to work on larger paper. My sketch from the previous day was done in a 5×7 sketchbook, which somehow made me want to work meticulously. It’s probably due to the page space being small enough to sketch fairly freely, but not so small that I was forced to go into “thumbnail mode”, … Read More
I have very rarely done warm-up sketches. I understand the value of warm-up sketches. I admit, when I was younger, I thought, “Why do I need to warm up my drawing muscles? Why can’t I just draw?” Of course it helps to loosen up the fingers, the hand, and the arm before doing any drawing that is meant to end up as a finished piece. But when you have a limited amount of time to spend … Read More
For those of you that frequent my web-bursts via this site or Twitter, you know that I postponed drawing full-sized pages of Payday in order to try doing thumbnail layouts. And you know that I have said on more than one occasion that I really, really, really didn’t like doing them. In case you haven’t heard that before, here it is: I hated doing thumbnail layouts. It’s not that they weren’t productive, overall. My last, full, … Read More
Pencils for page 18: I like this page if for any other reason than the storytelling. I know there are no words written out yet (except in scribble), but the juxtaposition of the characters and the pedestrian traffic light makes for good implication in that particular scene, I think. One thing I re-realized while drawing today is that I need to re-adopt the practice of getting the pencils completed just enough to be inked. The pencils … Read More
It’s been a while. I’ve been meaning to post this page for about 2 weeks or so, now, and I forgot all about it. So here it is, page 15: I like it. In other news, I JUST finished page 17. How sad. It was an easy page to do but I got stuck on a panel, not knowing what to draw. It happens with an unscripted comic, I guess. I do prefer scripted, but I’m … Read More
No real stories. Just pages 12 and 13: I like page 13. It’s simple, fairly direct, and certainly one of the more spacious pages. On a related note, I’ve decided to forego the weekly updates and just do a “Payday Progress” blog. These will, of course, be specific to that project.
I’ve managed to stick to my morning drawing schedule (with the exception of yesterday, but there were good reasons), which I’m proud of. However, this Friday-update thing is, I suppose, too relaxed. I did a good job keeping up when it was every day, but with so much time in between I’ve tended to miss my Friday posts. In any case, here are three penciled pages from Payday (click on the thumbnails to view “full” size”). … Read More
I almost didn’t make rehab today. But here’s what I churned out about an hour-and-a-half ago: I didn’t get to draw this morning because I had to report to jury duty. Luckily, I don’t have to report back, which means my morning schedule can stay intact for now. Most of the sketches above were done using some reference material I have stashed away in a pull file. I was looking for faces I could use as … Read More
A new sketch! It’s been awhile since I posted a drawing. This is a sketch of the main character for the graphic novel I’m going to get my ass in gear for. I also started working on his wife. They’re not finalized by any means; I want to pull some references before I decide on the final look. But, once I get the look of each character down – and there are really only three main … Read More
Today I actually got up at 6:50 AM and got to the drawing board just before 7:00. Woo hoo! I finished inking page 1 and it looks a little better than yesterday. I a little over-worked, but better. I had to stop myself from over-working the page too much because I could feel myself trying to find ways to make the page look better, but any more noodling and hatching would’ve made the page look even … Read More
Back in Winter 2006, David Hopkins, Jim Lujan, and Justin Stewart collaborated on something called “The Henchman,” an idea conceived by Jim and scripted by David. I had the privilege of inking Jim’s artwork. Unfortunately, it never saw the light of day until 10-12-2008 on David’s site. Go read it. I’ll wait… …Alright. What’s available to read, as you’ve just seen, are only the pencils with Vinh-Luan Luu providing the lettering. I finished the inks back … Read More
I never posted this because originally, this was supposed to be an album cover for a “band” called Huge Black Man, headed by my friend (and now business partner) Noah Clark, drummer for Brilliant Red Lights. Unfortunately, that album doesn’t look like it’s going to come out, so I figured I’d post it now. I got to hear the music a while back, and it’s some really good, instrumental-neo-rock-improv. I liked it. I can’t remember if … Read More
click on the image to show at “full” size Done with a .08 Micron marker that was running out of ink. I cheated on this one. I drew this yesterday but posted it today… but everything was done in under a total hour’s time. 😉 — This is an Inkspill. Inkspills can only be done in ink and must be drawn, scanned, cleaned, and posted in one hour, no more.
I don’t usually draw mainstream superheroes-in-tights very much nowdays, so I don’t get to draw like this very often. However, my friends Kevin and Christina are getting married in October, and Kevin wanted them both to be superheroes for a “portrait”-in-frame piece they’re using as their guestbook. This is what I came up with: click on image for larger view Kev and Christina needed to look “superhero-ish,” so I went for a very clean, tight inking … Read More
(click on the image for a larger view in a new window) Daredevil, for you kids who are behind the times. I needed a card for a birthday gift I was giving and didn’t have one. I was giving the ol’ gal (sorry Toni) a copy of the Daredevil: Director’s Cut DVD and wanted to include a copy of the Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller Vol. 2 collection. She loves super-hero movies but owns no comics, so … Read More
For Max Hades I don’t want a slick-looking book, so I’m using a type of pen-sketch inking style. The goal is to capture some of the fun and feel I get when I sketching/drawing with a pencil (obviously, it won’t be exact). I want something sketchy, yet refined; spontaneous, yet planned; quick and “raw,” yet deliberate. Lately, I’ve been doing some practice drawings to help me improve, and become more comfortable with, the style of inking … Read More
