Still getting work

Took awhile to get an assignment this month. I guess we've both got over the pain of the great Judge Dredd disaster.

I'll add the color finish tomorrow.

I've discovered I can not do this kind of work without a podcast going.

I think desaturated is better.

I also took some of Ben's notes.

Filled shape drawing

Using the free form pen tool in photoshop to draw with. I have an action linked to pressing F1. The Button push causes the path to close, become a selection and  then fill the selection.

You can get the same effect drawing with the magic lasso but the pen tool comes with sensitivity settings that smooth out the lines.

FREAKS

FREAKS

Local author I did an illustration for her (hopefully) continuing story.

Fun story told with great arcs of pay offs and conflict.

Making it look easy.

I gave her a revised version with less artifact issues where she flopped the image.

Tumblr Post link to some PS goofs

The Tumblr Post

Little Change of Pace for EnWorld.

All these characters and IPs are owned by Rebellion.

Here's a page where the art is first showing up.  

The Robot Wars

But revisions will come along next week.

The current level of finish above.

Approval line art

Early rough

And some miscellaneous judge character types.

It was fun. I got better on the Dredd bling as I went.

Never got completely good at it.

png of old art

Don't Need No Stinkin' Bejes

I was asked to ask Artist Alley participants to do badges. When asked to do so, the deadline was too close and no one bothered to read the specs I gave them. Nonetheless, I did my own badges. I am not sure if the powers that be will accept them all. The theme, if you can't figure it out, is the Jack Kirby Centennial Tribute. Specs by the way were a 4 x 3 inch card with one free space of an inch high to allow to paste on a name label.

Here is the finished T-shirt. Since the last post someone came up with a shield design and I had to make more color breaks in the background.

NDA

NDA so these crappy thumbnails are all you get for about a month.

When they publish and tease it, I get to show it off.

Cool project from the EnWorld people.

An RPG book cover.

6 times the usual money.

Comic Fest Guy and Fest Lad!

I spent a few nights on this promotional piece for the Comic Fest. The idea was to take the cover of Captain America 193 and turn Cap into Comic Fest guy, a mascot designed five years ago by Scott Shaw! I wanted to use CA 197 where Cap was alone, yelling to no one, with missiles flying between his legs, but the powers that be liked this composition with the shield rounding through the knee up through the Falcon, leg, and fist. When Mike Towry saw an image issue 193 on my phone he didn't even think it was Kirby because of the strong Romita inks. I found online a xerox of a stat of the pencils and inked them in Illustrator working with 5 different line profiles. The penciled head was kind of undramatic so I picked up the head from issue 200's pencils that I found. I put the crowd in silhouette to save time and because Scot Shaw! had silhouetted characters on his logo (see sdcomicfest.org). Colors had to be changed since the characters are dressed in gold and red instead of blue and white. I have no ideas what do put on the shield and was flummoxed by the Kirby crackle. Romita drew flames and smoke. I gave the shield some volume to evoke a bit of Guardian. I found fonts "American Purpose" and "FantastiFont". This is out for comments. It may be this year's T-shirt.

Injury hurts my mood to draw

It's even worse looking today. But is starting to feel almost normal.

I tore my hamstring a bit. 

And it really hurt. 

Also hurt my ability to concentrate on my enworld stuff.

It's getting better.

I was doing living room karate, super low speed, just sticking sidekicks out at yoga speed.

Still ripped it doing a slow step through side kick.

edit....

But the show must go on.

If someone would flat this for me I'd practically be done.

Cleaned it up a bit.

PNG format. Looking forward to the attic girl detective piece.

color on Sunday.

another struggle.

I sent in a revision I liked better. Told them to use the one they liked best.

Duffy

wings

few roughs

Kirby Hands

http://kirbyhands.tumblr.com/archive

Ben Montag saw my FB post about this Tumblr and did a paragraph of essay about Kirby hands. Which I will C&P here...

"(Warning: deep in the weeds) Kirby drew fists strangely. Most artists when drawing a fist coming at you draw with all the proximal phalanges (first finger bone) flat. The viewer sees where the fingers meet the hand and knuckle formed by the metacarpal bones. The thumb is tucked under and the plane of the thumbnail is angled back. Kirby drew where the fingers bends straight on--where the proximal and medial phalanges meet (mid finger knuckle), the hand then is turned up and you don't see where the fingers connect at the top of the hand or the metacarpal bones. The finger bones can't be portrayed receding back from the second knuckle at this angle without a lot of cross hatching so they really do look like four ovals. When the thumb is tucked under the fingers at this angle, the thumbnail is flat to the visual plane. This is the easiest way to look down at your fist if when your arm is resting on an armrest, but an odd way to throw a punch."