Comics Commentaries

X-men Rogue

2012-01-12T18:52:00.000-08:00

This week's post is coming a little bit early and I am headed out of town for the next week or so.
I didn't want to leave you guys without a post for the week. So this week I decided to take a bit of a break from the Nintendo book and try something different. I don't normally do superheroes (although I love them)..but since everyone else does it I like to be different. However, in the spirit of doing different things, I decided to try and paint over someone else's lines, which turned out to be pretty awesome.
I have been following this guy and Deviant art for a while (http://weaponx5203.deviantart.com/).
One day I asked him if I could pick something from his gallery and paint over the work.

He said "sure" and below is what I got:

Here are the steps to get to the end result:

1. Below: I picked the sketch of Rogue from the gallery it was the one with the cleanest lines and I was a fan of the sketch. I heard a lot that the key to a great painting is the sketch and the drawing underneath and it's really true. If you have a crappy drawing no amount of painting over it is going to fix it. See the sketch below:

2: Below: then I added a background gradient to set up the color tone of the painting:

3: Below: One tip that I picked up is before you start laying down any permanent lines, you should do some color tests. This means that you can try different color schemes and see which one works the best. Even different color backgrounds as well. In this case I kept the background green because it goes nicely with the yellow in Rogue's costume.

4: Below: I start to add color flats and the shadows and I make the decision that the light should be coming from the top right side of the image.

5. Below: One tip that I learned that also helps was to use a wireframe form lines to try and define the shape. This helps to keep the image from being flat, helps to define the form and helps when adding shadow and defining the form.

6. Below: Shadows added

7. Below I start to go over the lines and do the paintover. I will usually leave the light source indicator in place to serve as a reminder as I work.

8. Below is the final! Shout out to Weaponx for letting me paint over his work!
See you in a week guys!!!!!

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2012-01-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

Tales of Suspense #1 ~ January/1959

Cover art by Don Heck

Interior art by Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel, Don

Heck, John Buscema, Larry Leiber & Steve Ditko

Daydream

2012-01-12T05:54:00.000-08:00

One of the most fascinating books I read last year was Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. It's a strange combination of novel, poetry, and pure imagination. When I finished it, I wanted to draw every city in the book and make up a few of my own.

Order a poster here.

"Tangled Ever After"

2012-01-11T21:00:00.000-08:00

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention "Tangled Ever After", a short film (and a sequel of sorts to "Tangled") that is opening this weekend along with the 3D version of "Beauty and the Beast". It'll be shown on television in the spring as well (at least...as far as I know).

The short has an interesting past: there were a lot of people who wanted to see (SPOILER ALERT) Flynn and Rapunzel get married at the end of "Tangled". We didn't do that for a number of reasons, the best one being that Rapunzel's journey is about much more than just meeting a man and falling in love; she gains her freedom, discovers her true identity, escapes her life-long oppressor and reunites with a long-lost family. So a wedding seemed like not-quite-the-right ending for the movie.

But apparently there were people interested in seeing Flynn and Rapunzel get married, so the idea came up that maybe we should see their wedding and give people just a little bit more of the world of "Tangled" with a short.

Obviously, it was pretty clear to all of us that just watching Flynn and Rapunzel get married would be a pretty uninteresting short. So Director Nathan Greno had an idea that would give a wedding to people who wanted that, but also have a layer of entertainment and comedy that would give some more screen time to Maximus and Pascal, who seem to be perfect characters to have their own comedic spotlight in the form of a short.

Nathan's idea was to have Maximus and Pascal be the ring bearers for Flynn and Rapunzel at their wedding, but during the ceremony they lose control of the rings and they roll out of the church. So while Flynn and Rapunzel are performing their vows, Max and Pascal are out chasing after the rings as they bounce through the town (without Flynn, Rapunzel or anyone in the church realizing that they're gone).

The beauty of this idea is that you get to have the sincere wedding of Flynn and Rapunzel while the comedic aspect takes place outside, away from the ceremony. As opposed to trying to make the actual wedding ceremony wacky and funny, which would take away from the satisfaction of seeing Flynn and Rapunzel have a nice wedding and finally tie the knot. But if the short was just concerned with the wedding, it would be pretty dry and not fit the comedic and fun world that we established in "Tangled".

Also, I'll be the first to admit that I find weddings rather boring and uninteresting. So this idea has something for people who like weddings as well as something for those who don't.

So Nathan pitched the idea to Byron Howard (the other director of "Tangled" and the other director on the short), Byron liked that idea and the ball started rolling.

Nathan, Byron and I had a brainstorming session early on with some of the story guys and they gave us some great material that helped us figure out the idea. The three of us boarded the whole thing and worked with it and shaped it in editorial. It turned out great and looks every bit as good as the movie, so I hope you'll check it out in theaters if you can or on TV when it's shown later this spring (although it's only in 3D in theaters, of course).

One other interesting side note for me personally was that when I first heard about the short I was really looking forward to working with the "Tangled" characters again. I love all the characters and I know them so well by now that it's really second nature to get in their heads and know what they're thinking and how they act, which is always the part that takes a while to get used to when you're developing new characters.

As much as I loved working with Nathan and Byron and everyone else on the short (and as proud as I am of the way it turned out), I realized that the thing I love the most about my job is the challenge of inventing new worlds and discovering new characters as you build a story from scratch. So even though it was a blast to return to the old characters and their world and work with guys that I enjoy working with, I'm more excited about the prospect of inventing a new world and discovering whole new characters as I work on the next thing that I'm going to be a part of.

So I hope you'll get a chance to see it and, if you enjoyed "Tangled", I hope you'll enjoy the short just as much and enjoy spending just a little bit more time with the characters and their world.

2012-01-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

Barry Smith

The unpublished KULL art ~ circa early 1970's

2012-01-10T18:07:00.000-08:00

Jeff Jones

1944 ~ 2011

Jeff's work at DC ~ 1971-72

Unpublished Witching Hour story!

Partially inked unpublished story!

David Greenberger Tuesday! (Int'l Standard Percentages edition)

2012-01-10T13:48:00.000-08:00

"25% Spaghetti, 25% Ballpoint Pen Springs, 25% Staples, 25% Dogs"

"50% Dogs, 25% Staples, 25% Ballpoint Pen Springs"

"25% Staples, 37.5% Teeth, 37.5% Olives"

Jem Eaton, "The Canal of the Eternal Sun"

2012-01-09T21:50:00.000-08:00

Jem (also known as Jeremy, for those of you who might know his earlier comics such as A Sleepyhead Tale, The Island of Dr. Moral, and A World of Trouble) describes this piece as "a sequential grid, based on certain central conceits proposed in my new novel, Funny Sunday." The novel-in-progress, described by the artist as "a fantastic and darkly-humorous epic tale of sex, murder, theology, philosophy and cartoons, one featuring homicidal adolescents, hard-drinking bible salesmen, horny cartoonists, sinister birds, contemplative parasites, and talking trees," can be found here.

A Good Comic Book Resource

2012-01-09T21:35:00.000-08:00

As I've said before, I didn't really get interested in superhero comics as a kid. Mostly I read Disney and Looney Tunes comics and comic adaptations of movies like "Star Wars". I read Mad magazine religiously too.

Anyway the point is that my knowledge of comics and their "rules" is pretty non-existent. When I decided to try and create my own graphic novel I started looking around for resources to learn more about comics and how they're put together. One great free resource I found is all the articles on Blambot.com. Nate Piekos has written a few helpful pieces, including this one on grammar in comic books, which I found pretty fascinating. I am ashamed to admit that I had no idea that comic book grammar was so regimented and specific.

And yeah, I know there are probably other schools of thought, and more than one way to do it! But what Nate says makes sense to me (and looks right) so I'll stick with it.

He also wrote an article about designing a logo for your comic that I really liked. The same advice could apply to designing any kind of logo and I found it helpful. It's not something many people write helpful advice about, and I always enjoy that kind of thing: analysis of a topic that I never thought about before.

The full page of article topics can be found here.

Blambot also offers some free comic book fonts and sells some as well. I bought the "Hometown Hero" font to use for my comic because I really don't have the patience to write out my own dialogue, it was more reasonably priced than most other font sites and because I really like the font.

Anyway, I really like the site and I found it very helpful. If you're interested in that type of thing, I hope you will enjoy it too!

2012-01-09T19:45:00.000-08:00

So, after several days of lettering, and as a result of the temporary financial (and therefore mental) security of having a job, I was able to dip into my head just far enough to start doing anatomy studies. I have several anatomy pieces in the works for Comic Tools, and one in particular is a lesson on the pelvis, so I doodled stuff for that. Nothing emotionally involved, so I was able to concentrate and draw.

After awhile of that, I started feeling secure enough to dip down slightly more and start working on the likenesses of characters in the story I'm working on with my friend Emily. I hadn't drawn in some time, so the results were crude, but my hand was loosening up. I still couldn't draw for very long without sinking into my head and being caught in the gravity of the unapproachable ball of sadness, but still, some work is more than no work.

Things went on like that for awhile and then around Christmas I started having an idea for a story set in the world of Emily's stories, so I bought a little notebook and starting taking down every little thought that came. The following two pages describe the premise of the story. While it does address my own breakup and my feelings about it, which in recent months I've been slowly able to approach, it also concerns friends and family members whose lives were altered forever by the effects of losing a lover. It's sort of a theme in my family, not ever fully recovering from these sorts of losses, and one I wanted to explore visually.
Lately I've found that the bakery near my work is a great place to get drawing done, and every time I have a late shift I arrive early and draw a page's worth of anything, and send it to Emily. My hand still keeps trying to make marks like I'm drawing Acorn, but slowly my hand is drawing more and more like it's supposed to for this story.

Comic Tools always follows close behind whatever I'm doing with my comics. I'll hit a problem, overcome it, and then write a tutorial. The anatomy entries were the product of my frustrations with the anatomical teaching materials available to me. And it will be like that with this project. As I go along, the things I teach will likely follow close behind the obstacles I overcome in making it. For now, my obstacle is making it through every day with less pain and more art, so that's what I'm posting about.

2012-01-09T18:04:00.000-08:00

Michael W. Kaluta

The DC Title/Intro Pages ~ 1972-73

2012-01-09T09:13:00.000-08:00

So, long term readers of this blog may recall this post on June 7th, 2010. What you might recall about it is that I didn't post a damned thing again until this post on December 12th, 2010. Then I posted some stuff for a bit and disappeared until this post, following which I've been posting regularly, if less energetically than in what might be referred to as the blog's "heyday."

Well, as you might suspect, it all ties into a time line of events you weren't privy to. To put it succinctly, I lost, in part through my own fault and in part through circumstance, three of the most important things to me in the world, in the space of a year. Failed at them and lost them, to be exact. And in each case I caused harm not only to myself but to the other parties involved. Financial, as well as emotional, in two cases. That first post came right after the first, and the second most painful. I needed a jolt of money to have time to do finish the next step in my work on Acorn, the book I was working on, and had been working on for four and a half years. And right then came a project from Patton Oswalt, who, as you've seen, I'd done some posters for. He wanted me to do a comic for his first book, Werewolves and Lollipops. I saw my chance, asked for as much money for it as I could, and being the always good patron of illustrators that he is, he paid me well for it, in advance. About a week and a half later I started suffering from what would become dual illnesses that had me literally bleeding out of my head and my ass at the same time, and that's not even slightly getting into the gross parts. I drew a fevered, unpublishable version of the comic, then drew another, spending so much energy on it I wrecked my recovery and went into remission, and had to finish it sick. It's in his book now. It was a month late, it's the worst thing I have ever drawn, and a man who is a hero to me, who was always nice to me, who gave me a chance, paid dearly out of his own pocket for that piece of shit.

And the worst part is it wasn't enough. I was so late with the project I had to get a job, and I couldn't continue on the book. I was demoralized, more ashamed than I have ever been, and still pretty physically crappy. That was when I made the first post.

The second post came awhile after I'd been kicked off a project I started off on as an ass kicking deadline hero, having not turned in any work to speak of for...many months. And there was certainly no sign I'd be able to for...years. It didn't hurt as much as the Patton thing, because at least I owed the publisher a shitload of money, and I never turned in bad work to them ever. That's how bad it was, that owing them $17,500 made me feel BETTER. But at least I still had my girlfriend, right? Well, you'll notice the posts stopped again.

And let me tell you, those are only the top three things out of a year that would have sucked without them. Psychopath boss at a job that made me miserable, landlord who didn't heat our apartment for the better part of 2 months, to the extent that it went repeatedly got down to the high thirties in our apartment, room mate drama, friends moving away... And this was all after the bitter failure and financial ruin of my move to Portland, which I still haven't gotten over, emotionally or financially.

It wasn't even just that I had nothing in the tank. Writing something, anything, involves settling down into your own head for a bit, and I absolutely could not be alone with my thoughts and emotions. The breakup was the last straw. I marvel at it- it wasn't even a bad breakup. It was about as good as could be hoped for. And I've been through a lot of tragedies and rough spots in my life. I've lost friends and family to untimely deaths, been attacked by gangs and hired thugs in school, helped drag my father's body off a couch so my mom could do CPR while I flagged down the ambulance and then had kids say to me "Ha ha, your dad died!"...All pretty bad stuff. And like I said, fairly good breakup. But I have never, ever been in that kind of pain, ever. It was, and continues to be, much worse than I anticipated. I still haven't cried about it. The rest of my life collapsed around me before the breakup, and until I set it back to at least stable, I'm like a paramedic, staying frosty and trying to contain myself until it's safe for me to react to how I feel about what's happened.

The inside of my head was a no fly zone for months, not even for a second, and that definitely meant no writing, no drawing. Hardly any thinking, really.

It's been almost a year now and you were the first to know when the logjam cleared enough for me to write. For several months now I've been able to feel joy, and I spend less and less time each day feeling terrible. I don't feel as good as I used to- the untouchable ball of sadness is still there, waiting for me to make things safe enough to come out, and it's presence dulls all my feelings. But things are better. And I am, at last, starting to work on comics again.

It's that process I'd like to talk about.

Before I could be in my head enough to post here again, I still wanted to make marks. I'm an artist before I'm anything else. Even rendered incapable of doing art, I have to make something with my hands. So the first thing I did was lettering. I knew my lettering hand would be rusty from disuse, so while I was working in the Shaker store this summer I wrote down all the lyrics from the Shaker songs, words from packages on the desk, whatever sentences came to mind. I filled pages with just solid text, trying to make it as even and perfect as I could. It wasn't art, but at least I could feel competence and confidence come back into my disused hands.

This post is getting pretty long, so I'm gonna continue it in another installment. Before I go, though, here's a video of Fabio Moon inking. Christ I love videos of cartoonists inking.

2012-01-08T18:04:00.000-08:00

Berni Wrightson

The Dc Title/Intro Pages ~ 1971-74

Music for a Ridiculous Ensemble

2012-01-08T16:03:00.000-08:00

See if you can spot Dylan, Daft Punk, and a digeridoo. I recently did an interview with a great blog called Illustration Concentration - check it out for some intimate secrets about how Incidental Comics are made and a couple previously unreleased sketchbook pages. For an extended musing on the above cartoon, keep reading.

The recent death of Ronald Searle and the 100th birthday of the late Charles Addams got me thinking about how much The New Yorker has influenced me as a cartoonist. During my sophomore year of college my brother brought a stack of back issues to our apartment. I'd never opened the magazine before, but I quickly became obsessed with it - especially the cartoons. To someone raised almost exclusively on newspaper comic strips, the humor was understated and often weird. The drawings were especially appealing - the best cartoonists had a unique style that couldn't be mistaken for anyone else. I remember puzzling over a full-page spread drawn by Roz Chast, probably in the yearly cartoon issue. At first I couldn't decide whether I hated it or was just mildly annoyed by it. It grew on me, though. A few months later, she was my favorite cartoonist.

The comic I posted above is from mid 2010, but it was directly inspired by old New Yorker cartoon collections. I loved the highly-detailed drawings of full orchestras, rendered in gray ink washes. I was also listening to a lot of Steve Reich at the time, and I wanted to merge the lush experimental sound of a Reich piece with the visual gags of a New Yorker panel. I'm still happy with the way it turned out.

2012-01-07T18:13:00.000-08:00

N. C. Wyeth

1882 ~ 1945

The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

Published by Charles Scribner's Sons ~ 1918

Nintendo Tribute: Double Dragon 2

2012-01-07T06:13:00.000-08:00

This weeks post is Double Dragon (the second part of the tribute--Jimmy Lee). I think that the first character is called Billy. For this one I decided to go against the dark background of the last post, and this time around decided to do a twilight/sunset scene. (I really like sunset scenes/shots.) I find that they are easier to create and develop than a night scene. I also tried out a new signature to make it more official in the 2K12. See below for some steps to see what I was thinking while I was painting this guy.

1) So after the last Double Dragon post, I decided that I needed some help. I wasn't sure where I was going wrong and looked into watching more tutorials, podcasts, etc. etc. I learned a few things such as how to create better backlighting, and also about the sketch process. Basically, the sketch is the key to doing a good piece of work. Lots of times I would scan a sketch from my sketchbook, and then go right into painting. However this time around, I decided to take the extra step and go over my lines, because I was finding that the painting process was getting difficult. What's funny is that I still really look the textured look of sketch lines. So I will have to work to see how to make this more interesting. Anyway below is the sketch phase.

2) and here is the line phase. I created the lines on a seperate multiple layer over the sketch layer (I also set the sketch layer to multiply). I don't know about you guys, but the layer order is the thing that always always always messes me up and gets confusing. (below)

3) Below you see that I start to block in the basic colors on a normal layer between the basic line art layer (above) and the sketch layer that I scanned in initially. At this point I start to determine where my light source is coming from as this will help me make my decisions on shadows later on.

4) Below I start to fill in all of the basic colors as well as determine the background. Since I want the scene to appear in a twilight setting, I decided to go with a gradient background where the sun is the source of the light and everything is hilighted accordingly. I am finding that lighting is the hardest thing to get the hang of, but is another key to making a convincing piece.

5) At this stage I start to go over my lines and paint over the lines on a new layer.

6) Then at this point I have a sense of where I want to go with the piece, what I need to do color wise, and what bits need more details. Usually by this point I have a sense of what I am doing and all of my basic decisions have been made so now it's just a matter of finishing things up.

7) Below is the final piece. In the background I added some clouds to fill the space and then had the colors reflect off of the clouds accordingly. You won't be able to see it really since I made it a point to soften the background. I am sure that I will learn a better way to do this. I also am going to try and work on making the piece more textured and vibrant. It seems a little too smooth. All in all though I like this one and will put this in the book!

8) Next up Ducktales. Yeah....I know..it's a game that was super awesome....and I really loved it. See ya next time.

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2012-01-06T18:03:00.000-08:00

Enoch Bolles

1883 ~ 1976

1 by Andrew R. Clark

2012-01-06T15:11:00.000-08:00

this is from Andrew's blog 88arc88.blogspot.com.

2012-01-05T18:07:00.000-08:00

Gil Elvgren

1914 ~ 1980

New Book - Amorphous Thoughts

2012-01-05T17:05:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

It's been a long time since I've posted - but I've been hard at work wrapping up my latest project, Amorphous Thoughts. This book is a sequel to my 2008 book - Stray Thoughts. (Originally covered by this blog here)

Page 5

You can read the whole book here.

There's a more detailed rundown of the project in the book itself - but I hope everyone enjoys it!

- Chris

TENM (third part).

2012-01-05T13:22:00.000-08:00

the first part is here ; the second is here.

tenm pl. IV

TENM (suite)

2012-01-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

pl. II and III :

Tenm pl. II

Tenm pl. III

2012-01-04T18:08:00.000-08:00

Alberto Vargas

1896-1982

Esquire Magazine ~ 1940-46

2012-01-04T18:01:00.000-08:00

This week: Happy New Year!

First, two great posts about pricing your work from two talented illustrators, Koren Shadmi and Jessica Hische. How much should you ask for for a job? Bookmark these for wherever you'll have to ask that.

I participated in The Beat's annual year-end survey, and you can see my responses here.

This photo is hilarious:

See you next week!

TENM

2012-01-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

Famous Chairs

2012-01-03T20:16:00.000-08:00

Further reading: Chair Blog and How to Design a Chair. Get a poster here.

2012-01-03T18:07:00.000-08:00

Robert McGinnis

Mod 24

2012-01-03T16:59:00.000-08:00

David Greenberger Tuesday! (Maritime edition)

2012-01-03T14:08:00.000-08:00

"Waters of the World"

"The Water Was Full of Periscopes"

"Bottom-Dwelling Sea Creatures"

2012-01-02T18:07:00.000-08:00

Earl Moran

1893 ~ 1984

2012-01-01T19:44:00.000-08:00

A brief editorial comment...anyone that looks in here and doesn't like the content, it's too frackin bad...I sure as hell ain't twisting anyone's arm to visit! I am not interested in hearing from you moaners that complain that I may stray from what they may feel appropriate...especially considerin' all the hours of work I put in providing so many high quality scans of often obscure works of art for five years! Anyone that visits here knows that my interests are all over the place...but to my eye there is nothing finer than a beautiful woman! I never beg for donations...I rarely bore you with what I think of of art or how it should be interpreted (art speaks for it self...if you have to be told what you are looking at then the artist has failed...it's more likely that so called experts have to make themselves feel better by trying to explain what is there for all of us to see!)...I never post self gratifying pixs of myself...who cares what I look like or what I did when I was a teen-ager...I don't get it why so many people go that route...no-one cares! Perhaps it's time for me to leave this forum? I know most of you just are cruising through...probably not even taking the time to really look at the art...I know facey-book and tweetering is far more important than serious art...a totally pissed-off and digusted

Mr Door Tree!

2012-01-01T18:05:00.000-08:00

Rolf Armstrong

1889 ~ 1960

Intercells

2012-01-01T15:36:00.000-08:00

P.S. Wishing everyone the best for 2012!

New Changes Coming

2012-01-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

In March I'll have been posting for six years and it's been amazing - thanks for all your great comments and kind words. I wanted to take a moment to mention some changes that are coming.

This is kind of a long post so here's the tl;dr (too long; didn't read) summary: I'm going to put ads on the blog this year, and also in 2012 I am going to start posting my graphic novel online for free.

Here's the long explanation:

Originally I had a different plan. I've been working on a graphic novel for over a year and a half and my plan was to always post that in installments on a different website online and put ads on that website because I've always wanted to keep this site ad free. But the more I looked at online comics the more I realized that having ads on a comics site really distracts from the experience - it's hard to get involved in them and get wrapped up in the story when there are ads flashing all over the page. So gradually I realized that I didn't want to put ads along with my graphic novel....I just wanted to post my story so people would read it.

So eventually I'll be posting my graphic novel for free. It's turned into a massive undertaking and I can't quite start posting it yet. I need to get farther into it before I can start sharing it. And my work schedule is always changing so I don't know when exactly I'll have enough done to start posting. Sometime in 2012 for sure.

I would leave both sites ad free if I could. However, my children are getting older and, of all the things that keep me awake at night, one of them is that I'd like to set more aside for their college funds. So it seems appropriate to take any money I might make off this site and apply it towards their education. I appreciate your understanding on this and I hope the ads won't negatively effect the experience of visiting the site.

Working on my graphic novel has definitely cut into my blogging time over the last year and a half or so, but I am excited to get to a point where I can post it and I hope you will all check it out when I do.

Best wishes for a happy 2012!

2011-12-31T19:20:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

A is for Abbie, two Adrianna's, Ali,

Amanda,Amy, Angela, Anna & Ashley B is for Bar, Bettie, Bo Brigette & Brooklyn
C is for Cameron, Candice, Caroline,

Cheryl & Claudia

D is for Diane & Doutzen

E is for Elisha, Elle, Emmanuelle,

Estella & Evangeline

F is for Famke

G is for Gina

H is for two Heidi's & Helena's

I is for Irina & Isabella

J is for Jamie, January, Jean, 3 Jennifers,

Jordan, Julie & Juliet

K is for two Kate's, Katherine, Kathryn & Keira

L is for Lake, Laura & Lena

M is for Maggie, Malin, Martine, Mathilda,

Milla, Mindy, Molly & Monica

N is for Naiomi, Natalie, Natasha, Nell & Nicky

O is for Olga & Olivia

P is for Peta & Piper

Q is for Qi

R is for Rachel, 3 Rebecca's, Rhona,

Rita & Rooney

S is for Sara, Sienna & Stephanie

T is for Taryn, Thora & Tricia

U is for several unknown gals!

V is for Vanessa & Violante

W is for Willa & Winona

X is for Xun

Y is for Yvonne

Z is for Zhang & Zoe

Chapter 4

2011-12-31T16:13:00.000-08:00

Avalanche

2011-12-31T08:36:00.000-08:00

It's the winter :

2011-12-30T18:10:00.000-08:00

Winsor McCay

1867 ~ 1934

Editorials ~ 1910-1932

best possible new year to all

2011-12-30T15:15:00.000-08:00

2011-12-29T18:04:00.000-08:00

Vintage Airline Luggage Labels

1924 ~ 1952

New Year's Resolutions

2011-12-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

2011-12-28T18:11:00.000-08:00

Arthur Rackham

1869 ~ 1939

Hawthorne's Wonder Book

1st published 1922 ~ This edition Garden City

2011-12-28T17:57:00.000-08:00

This week: Recommended animal anatomy video

You all should all already know about this week's topic, which I heard about on James Gurney's blog, because I've told you many a time about how great and useful James Gurney's blog is. I post things from it all the time, it's in the links sidebar, and any of you who aren't subscribed to it are fools shooting your artistic education in the foot.

So, being as you already read this post this morning when it popped up in your blog reader, I'll skip to saying that it intrigued me so much that I bought the video and found it to be worthwhile enough to recommend that you do the same.

Yes, I know, it's 39 bucks. Yes, that's a lot of money. Last year was the first year in three years I had to even file income taxes, having made an average of $8,000 a year after gross adjustment in those years, and this year I'm a clerk working for $9.75 an hour, so I don't wanna hear any clamouring about anyone else's budgetary constraints, especially not from anyone with a smartphone, or who buys coffee with any regularity. For 39 bucks you're getting more information than you'd get in three decent hour-long collage classes, from a very gifted professor, for way, way less money than you'd pay just for the lecture time, let alone the cost and time expense of putting together the graphics for the videos. These are worth the cash, if they suit your needs.

The videos do for basic animal anatomy what I endeavored to do for human anatomy in my anatomy posts (and will continue to do, several more coming at an undetermined time), but from someone much more expert and gifted than myself. His insights into simple but profound differences in quadruped and biped anatomy were revelations to me, in that way when you hear someone perfectly articulate a concept you've only barely understood by instinct. After watching these videos, I will look at animals and my approach to drawing them on a wholly different way.

I have a small issue with his basic shape exercises. I notice that he has a tendency, like many instructors, to assign beginner students different basic shapes for learning anatomy than they themselves use when drawing, which I feel hampers rather than enhances understanding of shape and ability to construct. However, he makes up for it by reversing the usually backasswards process I see in so many well regarded and in my opinion useless how to draw books by encouraging you to start with a gestural sketch, and use basic shapes to help you true the parts that seem off. Or, to use them as a separate intellectual exercise altogether. He's also very clear that you may use any basic shapes you like that help you understand your drawing better.

He's a gifted instructor, and it shows in his student's work, which is sprinkled all through the videos. You can tell he's taught them to really SEE differently. The music in the videos is ridiculous, but evidently it was composed by his son, so what can you do.

If you're someone who's ever had trouble drawing horses or realistic cats, which is everyone if we're not lying to ourselves, you really should invest in this tutorial.

Speaking of horses, I love these drawings from Fabio Moon showing the thumbnail drawing for a panel and the final artwork. This is what it means to take an adequate composition and push it into a good one.

Mark Kennedy posted this great analysis of how one out-of-place element in your art can throw your entire reality out of whack. Seriously, what was the artist thinking with those damned stars?

Finally, Kate Beaton did some great holiday comics. Yes, I know it's redundant to day she did some great anything.

See you next week!

2011-12-27T18:07:00.000-08:00

Bud Plant

A tip of the hat to Bud who announced

his retirement earlier this year!

Nintendo Tribute: Double Dragon

2011-12-27T16:54:00.000-08:00

Ok, so the next in the Nintendo tribute series is Double Dragon. You played as one of two brothers or friends (I think), who had to fight your way through hordes and hordes of street gangs to rescue your girlfriend. For this particular piece I decided to try to work on anatomy, but do it in a simplified manner to suggest the form, but not go overboard with the details. Hm. It took me a while to post this one, because I wasn't too hot on how it came out, however since I need to finish things I decided to post this one as a means to move onwards and learn from my mistakes. (Practice practice practice).

Steps are below:

In the end, it's not the worst, but in practicing I learned a few tricks a long the way to make the painting process easier. If I go over my original sketches and create a simple line drawing, that will eliminate having to work so hard when starting the color phase. Also, anatomy anatomy anatomy and values. Very hard to master, but I will be psyched when I get it. So that's it for this one, next up is Jimmy Lee (Double Dragon part II).

http://murdockink.tumblr.com/
http://moebocop.deviantart.com/
http://twitter.com/mauricemurdock

Subway Guy

2011-12-27T16:27:00.000-08:00

Something quick that I did for practice.

http://murdockink.tumblr.com/
http://moebocop.deviantart.com/
http://twitter.com/mauricemurdock

David Greenberger Tuesday! (Sixties edition)

2011-12-27T14:20:00.000-08:00

"By 2009 No One From The Jimi Hendrix Experience Was Still Alive"

"They Kicked Out Pete And Then Ringo Joined"

"The Dying Off Of The Mamas & Papas"

2011-12-26T18:03:00.000-08:00

Innocent Art

2011-12-25T18:08:00.000-08:00

Maxfield Parrish

1870 ~ 1966

Portfolio I

Published by Foaming Crank Press ~ 1972

2011-12-24T21:48:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T21:23:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Folks!

2011-12-24T17:06:00.000-08:00

Arthur Rackham

The Night Before Christmas

First published by G. G. Harrop ~ 1931