Eye on Delancy

Google street view filtered and then one of my doodles overlayed onto it.

Delancy St according to the map.

Well it's moving time again

Been over a month since my Dad passed. So much has happened, All the house goods have been claimed, sold or hauled off. All my crap is the only stuff in the house now and I've been working on packing that up for a move to a new apartment about 8 miles from here. Nice place and near lots of shopping and a clean modern area. Got a lease for only 6 months as the house needs to be sold and when that's done I'll get my remaining cut of the estate and can decide if I'll return to San Diego.

This is all so numbing still. 

Tim's Vermeer

Another great movie. It's a few years old, so I'm a little late to this party, but I just watched it and loved every second. Definitely watch it if you haven't seen it.

Edit to add a lecture by Philip Steadman, author of 'Vermeer's Camera' and professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Graduate Studies. Steadman plays a pivotal role in the development of Tim Jenison's theory about Vermeer. This lecture is nice follow-on to the movie, as he explains his own discoveries about Vermeer's work and also goes over Jenison's technique in detail.

Bringing the project along

Leaving it rough.

WIP still

Logo- Hopefully I'm done

Logo design. 

I like the spatter. If they don't like it, I turn off the layer. 

My first attempt was so bad it was criminal. 

Took about 3 hours and was complete crap.

Did the one above after FIRST google searching bakery logos. Duh.

Wanna see the bad one?

Of course you do.

Maybe I had to do this bad one first.

Not really my strength anyway.

This is a Gorham-Montag talent.

I won one

At the Sunday of the Comic Fest I got away from my job at Artist Alley (doing something important, really) to go down to the dealer room. On a low shelf behind a dealer's table I saw the book pictured above in its slipcase. I asked the dealer to look at it. He slid it out of its slipcase and looked at the back cover. Its list price was $100, so he offered it to me for $50. I whined that it was Valentines Day, and I will see tomorrow whether I have money enough after dinner tonight. He said he was only at the Fest for Sunday. I bought the book. I felt buyer's remorse. Dinner was on a credit card.

 Monday of the Fest I walked to the Market at the Town and Country to eat a personal pizza and look through my book. I was flipping and reading and became curious about the publish date. I looked at the title page and saw the disclaimer that this was a limited edition of 1200 and there was a 132 on an open line. AND there was a Jeffery Jones signature. I removed the personal pizza from the vicinity. Now I have a cool book I can't look at. A similar book here.

Ellis's Grammy-Caliber Performance

You guys absolutely HAVE TO listen to this one. It's Ellis at his most voluble. And hilarious. The "Rosemary's Baby" reenactment is priceless. Do yourself a favor: download it now and start to laffin'....

Better Than Fiction Podcast

New Opera Drawings: Tosca

Sad to think if the whole BlueSky/TAG crew were still in town we could all be doing these together. A night at the opera, if you will.

I liked drawing more of the conductor and orchestra.

It's fun until you want to gouge your eyes out

There is a lot of irony of me being the Artist Alley face of friendly authority.

A hungry Marty joined Eric at his table at Comic Fest.

Here I am enjoying the life lessons from a kid with a book at Artist Alley.

I thought comic art would be the last bastion of libertarians in the world of the arts. I was wrong.

WIP- Spiders

Top one will look like stone

Middle left will look like ice.

Bottom right will look like fire.

When will we move beyond the game cliches in fantasy art? 

I'm ready to make oatmeal. lint and pegboard creatures.

Kidding. I'm happy to do cliches. Easier to find reference for.

Now we shall see the PNG effect.

I was going to put shadows under them but I worry it would hurt the read.

Treated Self to Comic Store

I treated myself to the comic book store today.  It's called the Comic Cave, and it really was a cave.  It was not a big place and every bit of wall space was covered with statues of one type or another... comic characters, movie characters, TV characters, etc.  There were 6 or 7 spinning racks with trade paperbacks and one spinning rack with new comics.  All US comics.  The store mark-up was $1= €1.20... not cheap, but I don't begrudge the store wanting to make a bit of money off of the book (1 Euro and 1 Dollar are almost at the same value right now).  It was pretty clear that the guy's main business are the statues.  The owner is probably a bit younger than me, but still knowledgable about US comics and comic creators.  I'll probalby go back some day soon.
When I was a kid the "weird adventure" (horror) comics were all the rage.  I collected House of Secrets, Ghosts, Plop!, The Witching Hour and Werewolf by Night.  I was aware of Tomb of Dracula, but Colan's art didn't appeal to me at that age.  Now I find it pretty wonderful, and I think Tom Palmer is Colan's best inker.  I've always liked Marv Wolfman's story telling, so this should be a fun read.

Who wants to "open" for Marty?

OK, all you ROCKSTAR TAGsters, who wants to occupy Marty's prime seat next to Eric Shanower in Artist Alley during the first two days of SD Comic Fest (when he can't be there)?  That's the Friday preview night (6-9 pm, with setup at 4 pm) and ALL day Saturday (setup at 9 am).  Call me to discuss. 619-318-0234

Trying to be a Better Citizen

Just for laffs: a shot of the marker monster mash-up in progress:

And a qwik-sketch demo from my animal drawing class. I use a purple Tombow brushpen 'cuz they are very visible. I'm drawing on a giant 24" x 36" newsprint pad--it's this new oversized pad they sell, and they've got an oversized masonite drawing board to go with it. It's the coolest thing, great for demo'ing in front of the class--except the damn clips aren't worth a crap (just like all masonite drawing boards nowadays...). And my arms are so short, I can't fit the thing under one arm--even using the handhold hole (pictured above).

How far I take a painting and then move to the next

I use the streaky brush with no attempt at detail.

So I get painterly because I can't be any thing else.

I consider this close to finish.

I have more EN World freelance coming. So you'll be seeing that.

Improved fishbowl. Jack o lantern wip

Unseen Frazetta

From a Frazetta FB group

One comment said it lead to the Lil Abner gig.

Anyone want to shoot the Fest?

Peter (my bro) is looking for still photographers to help cover SD Comic Fest next weekend (Feb 12-15).  If interested and available, even if only part of the time, please e-mail him at pacsanadi@gmail.com ASAP.  Fest info is at http://www.sdcomicfest.org/

San Diego Comics Fest 2016...?

They asked me to do the program cover this year. Said it was dedicated to Forrest J. Ackerman. Only vaguely knew of him before hand, but once I learned he was the Famous Monsters of Filmland guy, this vision came to me and I knew I had to pull out all the stops (in my mind honoring Basil Gogos, too).

All marker with Photo Shop tuning....ran out of time to really finesse Ackerman's head. I'm only attending Sunday, sadly...but then, hardly any of you, my T.A.G. brethren will be in attendance. For shame!

Superman Artists

Al Plastino

Wayne Boring

Curt Swan

Kurt Schaffenberger

I was so intrigued by Rick talking about the Superman artists of the 1950s that I had to pursue it on my own.  So I looked in my archives and found that there were basically four Superman artists during that period: (from top to bottom)

1. Al Plastino - I was not a big Plastino fan. There didn't seem to be anything particularly outstanding about his style and his depiction of Superman's physical appearance was the least appealing to me.

2. Wayne Boring - Boring's Superman seemed the most "old-fashioned", and was also the most stiff and awkward at times. But his Superman also seemed very "solid", like he was really made out of steel. I also thought he had great style in his depictions of outer space and alien worlds. Like Ellis I loved how his Superman "ran" through the air. One of my favorite Superman stories which he drew the interior art for was "Superman's Return to Krypton".

3. Curt Swan -  Curt Swan was the standard for so many years after Plastino and Boring started to drop out. I liked his physical depiction of Superman, and with a tight inker like Murphy Anderson or John Forte (who drew a lot of the early Legion of Super-Heroes issues) I loved Swan's work. With a more casual inker, he was just passable, I thought.

4. Kurt Schaffenberger - Schaffenberger was my personal favorite of the four.  His Superman was the most fluid and graceful with the best proportions.  Also, drawn by him, Superman's face was very handsome... almost "pretty-boy", though never effeminate.  I loved the way he drew women too. This made him the perfect artist for the Lois Lane comic which was always half-romance book, and he was the regular artist on it for many years.  I'm guessing he did his own inking, which was always excellent.

I'm betting that Schaffenberger is the artist that Rick picked out as being the superior artist. Rick, are you there?  Did I guess rightly?