1 Day and an epic nap later...

If you ever happen to find yourself thinking 'hey, I wonder if I should do this 24 hour comic challenge thing or not' I suggest you do it. When you do it, there are some things you should know:

1. Bring caffeinated beverages. This is fairly obvious, but if you don't plan ahead, you could find yourself dead in the water

2. If you think you have the time, and maybe even if you don't, you should probably get up and walk around. Going to the bathroom is a good excuse to leave the room for a minute

3. People will complain while they work. This is expected. You should complain too.

4. Have nothing planned for the next day. Maybe not even the day after that.

5. Greasy or sticky snacks are bad news bears. You do not have time to waste in cleaning your fingers.

6. The right drawing and inking tools make all the difference. It takes me most of an hour to do with an unfamiliar pen what I can do in twenty minutes with my pentel brush pen.

7. There is no such thing as planning ahead.

8. Work small. Both times I have done this, I have worked fairly large. It has turned out to have been a bit of a mistake. And also a marker eater.

9. Bring more ink than you think you'll need. You probably won't run out, but if you do you're screwed.

10. Sell the resulting work. There are very few other times in your life where you'll be able to answer the question of what it's about with "I don't even know, man" and have it be a selling point. Also, it's a great thing to trade with other comic artists

11. Get as many people involved as possible. This includes non-comics people. At the very least, even if they don't participate, they can bring you emergency supplies. And if they do participate, then even better.

12. Chances are, the result will not be a masterpiece. If it is, you are a freakish monster and I would like to give you all my money.

13. Give yourself an art-break the day before. Put your feet up, watch some movies, go for a run.

14. Get some sleep, if you can. Most people I've talked to have trouble sleeping the night before because they're too excited.

15. Have fun, dammit!

But of course, that's a small list of things I can think of off the top of my head (because I am simultaneously sleepy and obsessing), and for a more complete list, you should try it yourself.

I plan to post the completed work ...somewhere...on the internet soon. Just as soon as I scan, edit, and find a place to stick it so that it's readable. Possibly here, now that I think of it.

I will also soon post my paintings from Italy (I still have to get good images of them. It's mostly an issue of light, unfortunately. It has to be really perfect, or some of the more conceptual elements of the later ones won't come through.) When I get those up, I'll talk some more about the trip. I'm still digesting it a little bit. It was definitely one of the best times of my life.

I'll probably also spend a post talking about books, which I have been reading plenty lately. Man, I love the summer.

But for now, it's time to hunt down the wild dinner.

Brush Pen!

There have been questions in a couple different places as to what brush pen I'm referring to when I start singing its praises (because....I always manage to forget to link to it. This is your brain on derp.) You guys! It is totally this one and you should buy it:

http://www.jetpens.com/product_info.php/products_id/1793&utm_source=pr&utm_medium=site

No html for you today.

post-SPACE pt1

This post is a placeholder post, letting everyone know that I am back and alive after experiencing SPACE. I still have to go through everything that I picked up, finish a last minute sketch commission from the folks at Ringtail Cafe, and organize my thoughts.

Mostly, though, I need to sleep.

I'll also have a post with one finished and several in progress paintings. Promise!

koosh-llama

Late night blogging. You know what that means, right? That's right! As soon as I get back to school, I am doooooooomed. 8 o'clock classes mean a 6:30 wake up time for off campus students.

Dooooooooooooooooomed.

In the meantime, I have something I'd like to share with you.

I'd like to introduce to you someone I first knew of ('knew of' instead of 'knew', because I am a creepy internet lurker. Sad but true) as koosh-llama, and then lost track of.

But now, with the power of blogger, I can easily follow her blog without having to remember pesky things like urls or where I put the link in my bookmarks menu.

Her blog is here. Go. Go there. Go now. Go now and weep.

If you're running short on time, just check out Kiss the Sky, which is a brilliant little silent comic and I love it.

Wearing my nerdhat

Right, so, I've been waiting to post this somewhere for a while, but couldn't do it in case someone from the yuletide art exchange over at livejournal saw it on accident--wouldn't do to spoil the surprise after all.

This went through....quite a few incarnations. Originally, it was going to be an oil painting. Hence the blocks of color--my painting teacher was a huge fanboy of one of the advanced painting students, so we all went down to look at his work when he was putting on his show and some of his techniques just...stuck with me.

Anyway, after I screwed up the real media version of this (I started working on it the day after pulling an all nighter. Foolish move on my part) I attacked it in photoshop. Everything in this, from the lineart to the textures, is digital, and is probably the first piece that I'm reasonably happy with that I can say that about. Yay!

For those of you that are interested in what I'm doing comics-wise, I will hopefully have some concept art to share with you next week. As of right now, I'm very sadly separated from my scanner, which is the only reason nothing has gone up yet. Almost done with the preliminary thumbnails, too.

Actually, even though this next one is going to be even longer than my last (I just hit 28 pages and have at least two more to go before I can reasonably say that I'm done) I feel better about being able to get it done quickly, because I'm going to be cutting down the detail like you wouldn't believe. I've also decided to try and make peace with the brush pen. I'd try to go for full on brush inking, but every time I try it my work comes out sloppier than I'm happy with and my wrist hurts for days. Besides, the pen is easier to take from place to place.

But I won't say anymore about that until I've actually got some images to go along with it. Hope everyone had (and continues to have) a happy new year.

really? REALLY?

Ok, kids, sit down. Let's talk.

As you may or may not know, I am all about creative commons licenses and open source software. My best work is done when I can rely upon the informed opinions of others. I rarely do a painting or draw a picture or do ANYTHING without outside input these days. And if you like something I've done and want to modify it in some way? Generally, that's cool with me.

That being said, there's a right way to go about it, and there's a wrong way to go about it.

The right way:

Ask my permission. Technically, you don't need my permission for most stuff, but man oh man is it an unpleasant shock if something you've worked on ends up in a place you weren't expecting, let me tell you. What's more? The piece your asking about may have been done on commission, and is therefore not available. If you use one of those pieces, we are going to have Problems.

But, like I said, if you ask, we can clear all those sorts of things up.

From there, we'll probably chat a little bit about your concept, but the fact of the matter is that you've flattered me enough by finding something useful in my art and by asking me permission that I will probably grand your every wish. I will ask for credit for the original art that I provided, and to be informed when it's done and where it will be displayed so that I can plug it.

Not too stressful, right?

Here's the wrong way:

I happen upon a piece of mine that's been modded hanging in the hall.

Cute, right? No, not so much.

Besides the fact that whoever did this did not contact me, we've got several issues. First, Ryan Claytor's name has been crossed out. Why? What is the point of that, other than to be vindictive?

Second, 'comics get me hot', really? REALLY? I find this upsetting on a number of levels, not all of which I am comfortable getting into on a public forum, so what I'm going to do now is put on my feminist pants and stand on my box. Caution: the box is full of soap.

Is this really the attention you (specific, mysterious you, not general you) think is appropriate? I can't speak for the intro comics kids, but the majority of the advanced class is female. How is this not going to alienate us? And beyond that, I'm sure we can easily get into a long winded discussion about women in comics in a large context, blah blah blah, so on and so forth and all it will come down to is that this is exceptionally cliche and sexist and quite frankly I don't appreciate it.

And now I'm off my box, so let's talk about how this was done, both as a measure of craft and as art. I'm not going to try to be kind, since I don't know who did this, but I will try to be fair.

The body is what you'd expect out of, say, most mainstream superhero team comics that happen to have a female member. Small waist, slender arms, muscular thighs, and enormous breasts that defy all logic. I'm over weight, and this poor creature's boobs are at least double the size of mine. I'm guessing that her superpower is crazy strong back muscles, because otherwise: ow. Ow ow ow. Fail.

I although, I do quite like her hair.

One more thing on the drawing front: her face. What happened? Are those supposed to be seductive pout-y lips? What is going on with her eyebrows? And I am all for giving women strong jaws and squared chins, but if you were going for sexy, this was a huuuuge roadblock for you. Not hot.

Try this version on for size:

Sorry about the smallness and the low res scan ness, but I've addressed a few facial issues, as well as a few body issues. But let's talk about the face. I've softened her features, made her jaw go back to her ear, raised her eyebrows so that she doesn't look angry, given her lips volume, and given her a few distinctive features (a beauty mark and a lip ring), since you chose whitey mcwhite girl as your subject. (Disclaimer: I am white. So very very white. Still tired of seeing white people in comics. )

Craft wise? There are two posters like this, and the one I posted here is by far the superior. The way the words were traced on top of the pasted on image was a nice touch, almost made me think you had gone and had a second poster printed. But no, of course not.

The paste job, as well, was top notch. And the placement was clever. It covered up the majority of my original image as well as my name. I'm really glad you chose to cover my name, you have no idea. And I like that you went to the edge of the page with this. It's not something I could have done, since I was printing a mass of them and wasn't willing to cut them down to size.

Not too happy that you covered up the credit I gave to blambot, though...but that was probably unintentional, so that's all I'll say about it.

Good job on the colors--> those do look very nice.

End of post was rushed, because I need to go fetch my laundry--there's a signing coming up, and I am determined to have clean clothes for it!

Sorry about the spam, guys

Should have put this up in my last post, but I want to give it some room to breathe.

This poster was designed by myself and colored by the ever remarkable Amber, to whom I would link, except that her website isn't up yet.

Please come?

Digital Native preview

I was thinking about it, and I realized that it really wasn't fair that I was plugging the signing without giving out any samples of what I'll be selling. Shame on me.

Just click on it to view the whole thing (sorry 'bout that--I'll change the layout soon so that hopefully these things don't happen anymore)

So now I offer you two really enormous pages for your viewing pleasure. (EDIT: I have now adjusted the html so that these are actually both visible on the page. GO ME!) These two were some of the earliest pages I finished, and probably one of the spreads I'm the most happy with.

Speaking of spreads, I'm actually pretty happy with my recent typography work as well. I'll have to convert that to pdf for a later post.

An introduction

At the time of writing, it is 2:18 in the morning. It is the week before finals. The week when all the projects are due. I, like most of my peers, and exhausted and reaching the tipping point into the abyss of constant surliness, and this typeface is getting on my nerves.

What better time for an introductory post?

I know, right? There is no better.

I wish I could point you towards my online gallery, but, uh...as of right now, I'm having some serious troubles getting it to work across browsers. You guys know how that is, right? (all it takes is for one margin, SOMEWHERE, to not be set to 0....*shudder*) So, in the meantime, may I offer you my deviant art page? I do tend to update it fairly regularly.

But very rarely do I update it with in progress stuff. That's what this blog is for.

It's also for promoting upcoming events.

FOR EXAMPLE:

If you are in the East Lansing area on December 16th and happen to be free from 5-7, please stop in at 21st Century Comics and Games, where my classmates and I will be having an in-store signing. With real comic books and everything. I'm only a little bit excited.

But it's not just about me. If you've got something awesome and art related (or maybe just awesome) coming up that you want to spread the word about, let me know, and I'll do my best to give it a little bump.

That's all for now. See you 'round the net?