Merry Christmas!

Some new art.

I've been talking to a guy about working with him on something. He wanted a design of a werelion. Here's my first shot:

But the guy felt this was a little too far out and he wanted something a little more human looking. So here's my second shot:

I don't know if this is more like what he's thinking. Nothing is solid right now, I haven't read a script yet, but we'll see!

And The Winner is...

One of the weird "perks" for working for an awards company is sometime you see some cool stuff.

How many people get a chance to hold the actual Heisman trophy?

Pretty cool!

Drain Pin up

I just started attending life drawing sessions and since I go straight from work I got there way early so I drew this pinup of Chinatsu, the vampire in C. B. Cebulski's comic 'Drain'.

'Drain' is a very Japanese-styled painted comic, so I enjoyed giving Chinatsu my own spin!

'Drain'#1 was just released by Image Comics.

Wizard World Texas Photos

C. B. Cebulski and Me

Me, David Finch and D. L. Nelson

Wizard World Texas!

Went to WWT last weekend. Holy cow it was AWESOME! I need to post photos, but this was one of the coolest cons I've been to.

I got to hang with CB Cebulski, Dave Finch and some guys from Activision . I briefly met Ed Brubaker. Took CB to lunch one day.

Best of all, the editor from Dark Horse liked my samples and said he would like to use me in his anthology! I don't know what that means, but its better then 'you suck' which is what I mostly get!

Jury Duty

Oh man I had jury duty this week. I figured, hey man I'll hang out draw some and read a little, maybe leave early.

Oh crap, I was the extra on 2 juries so I had to wait around and LISTEN to the lawyers. And I only got home about 20 min early. Plus, sitting on those hard benches WORE me out!

On the plus side, I got to go into the Okc Metro Concourse, see my buddy Eric, check out the downtown library, check out the bombing memorial and eat at the art museum!

I'm on the SciFi Channel website...

...Well, so of. I'm in the video of Stan Lee, waiting for the man!

My Birthday!

Today (okay, yesterday) is my birthday. I was kinda bummed because I haven't heard from any of all this work I'm talking to people about. Also, I was gonna leave work early, but the guy I carpool with asked if we could ride together. I was going swimming at lunch, but the pool was closed. Finally Michelle was going to work late.

Well, Jon wanted to leave early. I went to a music store after work, saw a buddy I haven't seen in a while and picked up the 'Samaurai Champloo' OST cheap. Michelle's had eaverybody leave early and lastly I got a late call from my ad agency with some storyboard work.

Awesome, I was starting to think they weren't going to use me. I think trying to break into comics is making me insecure!

What's Going On Now?

Well, I'm kinda finished with everything and waiting on the next thing to start. I was working on something to submit to Digital Webbing, but I've lost steam on that. I have the itch to draw a Spider-Man sample, but who knows!

I should work on my website, but that's no fun!

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Meanwhile, this is what I'm listening to:

New art

A friend, Mario Wytch, is drawing Guerra for Unknown Comics. They have a booth at Wizard World Texas this weekend and Mario is going.

He gave me one of their scripts and I drew a couple of pages for him to show them.

The character is Purify published by Unknown comics.

San Diego post #2

Well, my dream of getting discovered in San Diego like a '50s blond in a Hollywood drugstore fountain didn't happen. While I'd love to quit my day job and start drawing 'BIG NAME COMICBOOK', I think I better climb the ladder slowly.

 

I did meet a writer who has sold a script to a fairly big company and he wants me to draw some sample pages to show the publisher (they didn't like the first artist). It's not a done deal and even if I get it, I'm a long way from the BIG TIME.

 

But hey, I gotta start somewhere!

San Diego post

Okay, this is stupid, but nobody is looking so why not. Here's my 'audition' for the re-make of Revenge of the Nerds. Like I'd be in that crappy movie.

Here's me dancing. The stupid webcam missed most of my best moves. Check out my wicked 'Lawnmower' at the end!



In case it dosen't work, here's a link:
http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=10EFBF4A183311DB8D2DF64154DE9F6D

Ronin For Hire

This is the first 5 pages of the ashcan we are taking to San Diego.

Page One
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Page Two
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Page Three
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Page Four
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Page Five
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Freelance Job

I was recently hired to draw some storyboards for a local ad agency. I thought that was pretty cool because I did not think there was a whole lot of storyboard work being done in Oklahoma City.

Here is a sample of some of the boards. This was much harder then I had ever figured, because I was drawing as fast as I could.

Wichita Kansas

This week Michelle was on vacation, so I took off on Thursday and we drove up to Wichita, Kansas to see her grandparents.

There is a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Wichita and it's open to the public (for a price!) if you make arrangements in advance. I've wanted to see this for several years, but it's never worked out. This time it worked!

The house was pretty amazing! I have seen pictures of a lot of FLW's houses, but to actually go inside one was really cool! He was really a master of proportion and composition.

I have a theory that all visual art is related and it's just a matter of figuring pleasing composition and proportions.

Neal Adams says he can tell if somebody could be a good comicbook artist just by talking to somebody and if they can tell an entertaining story, they could draw an entertaining comic.

I guess that gives b=me hope since everybody agrees I can tell an entertaining story!

Either way, if you are in Wichita check out the Frank LLoyd Wright house.

My Favorite Birthday Present, part 2

In the mid '80s I stopped reading comics. Prices went up and I was saving money for my car and gas (it was a whooping $1.28!)

Several years later I started getting interested in comics again. When I was in art school in the late '80s one of the student instructors was Mike Kennedy. Mike (and John Hunter) later became infamous as the owners of Planet Comics which got busted for selling 'indecent' comics.

Mike was also the manger of Planet at the time and he was constantly talking about comics. I was totally out of the comic loop and being a newly married student had no extra money for comics.

(Mike was my first exposure to anime. He brought an untranslated bootleg of Akira to school one evening because he felt the art students should see it. Our minds were truly BLOWN.)

Anyway, when the first 'Batman' movie came out, I kept hearing about 'The Dark Knight Strikes Back" and how it influenced the movie.
So for my birthday I asked for and got a copy of the trade.

I was blown away! To be honest, I thought the art was sloppy. But some of the images were AMAZING!

The panel with Batman kicking in Superman's teeth was mind boggling.

I've got a lot of graphic novels over the years, but the impact of this one has never been topped.

My Favorite Birthday Present Part One

When I was about twelve I got a ton of cash for my birthday ($60 if I remember right). So I bopped down to the TG&Y and what did I see?

MAZINGA!

To be honest, I had NO idea what the heck this thing was.

While, nowadays everybody knows about anime and Japan seems next door, this was '79 or '80. The only 'anime' I had seen was 'Battle of the Planets' and 'Speed Racer' (though I doubt I knew that was Japanese).

All I knew is 'Holy cow that thing is cool!' And MAN WAS IT BIG!

So I bought it. And I didn't know anything about it for a while (I don't even think I knew it was Japanese!) until a family friend who was in the army visited and told me about it. I think he had been stationed in Japan.

You can check it out here:http://www.wildtoys.com/Shogun/ShogJumbo/mazinga.html Not an option in '80!

My favorite toy I had when I was a kid, bar none. Well, except for maybe the Cori Batmobile my uncles brought me from NYC and maybe the Deathstar play set...

Man, I gotta get into Mom & Dad's attic!

IT"S MY BIRTHDAY!!

Whoo-Hoo!!
ahem, er. Today's my birthday.

When I was a kid birthday's were pretty cool. You had a party and a bunch of kids came over. Even when I got older they were still pretty cool.

A few years ago, when Michelle was in school and we were to poor to vacation properly, I ALWAYS took my birthday off and did something cool.

This year with us going to Disney World and me to the SD Comicon I'm down to 36.81 hours of vacation and when you 'tolerate' your job that's not enough to just throw around so I had to go in today.

(Okay, to be 100% honest I am taking off 2 days next week since Michelle is off all week. We are going to the zoo Monday and Thursday night we are going to Wichita to see Michelle's Grandparents. Plus there is a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Wichita we are going to tour!)

The crappy part about today is Michelle had to go to Tulsa for a meeting and didn't get home until 8:00. The good thing is Mom and Dad took me out to eat.

The day passed without a mumer at work, kind of a bummer I didn't even get a card!

Heck, now that I think about it I didn't get a card in the mail. I guess since most of my grandparents have passed (of 3 sets of grandparents, only my Dad's Dad is here) it's not the same.

Kind of depressing.

It used to bum me out on my birthday to think about where my 'career' is. When I was in art school I dreamed about some kind of cool art job designing albums or book covers. Since I have the misfortune of living in an area where art jobs are kinda rare, I ended up working for an awards company. I have kind of adjusted to that and sometimes I get to actually DRAW something. Of course, now I'm in the Tool & Die dept where I'm drawing manufacturing art for rings. Yawn!

That's why I draw my webcomic. It may be a lot of work and my NEVER get published, but I really enjoy it and I think I'm making progress.

Through it all I DO believe God has a plan for me and ultimatly it will All work out!

Rockguy (or something like him)

A few posts down I mentioned a couple of freelance jobs that came my way. This is one of them. A friend works for a solid countertop business and they a rock-type creature for t-shirts. One cool thing is I inked it, which I never do with the webcomic.

Also, this was a chance to work on my 'style' since I was inking it and most issues of 'style' are finishing issues.