Spencer & Locke 2 is Nominated for a Ringo Award!

 Hey y'all, I hope you're doing well in the quarantine/world being on fire. The state of things has left a lot of people feeling depressed and this summer has been super hard to concentrate on making the comics. There have been a few bright spots, but it's hard to celebrate anything knowing that people are suffering out there. But this post isn't about my depression, it's about spreading some hopefully good vibes? Seriously though, stay safe and keep spreading good, the world needs it!

But yeah, I got the email about this years Ringo Award Nominations, and I must have been exhausted because I didn't even notice Spencer and Locke on it, but we were nominated for Best Single Issue for Volume 2 Issue 1!

I'll include some of my inks for that issue, which was a very different experience than drawing the first issue of volume 1. I decided to try using G-pens and other Japanese art tools because I wanted this issue to have a more scratchy gritty feel since we're essentially jumping into a war story. It was a lot of fun to play with these tools again, having left them aside for brushes at SCAD, but now I use a hybrid of both when I'm making comics. My tools on these are: Deleter G-pens, Zebra brush pens, Raphael watercolor brushes, Yasutomo Sumi Ink, and Pentel Hybrid Technica pens on Stillman & Birn Zeta paper.

Our team on this book is:

David Pepose - Writer

Me - Pencils and Inks

Jasen Smith - Colors

Colin Bell - Letters

Spencer and Locke vol 2 complete!

Hey all, time sure flies! This is a quick look at some of the art from Spencer and Locke volume 2 which finished its 4 issue run a few weeks ago. The book is really well received, so thank you all for reading! Also, below in the pages, there will be spoilers, so maybe don't look until you read the issues!

Materials: Deleter G-pen, Sakura Sumi Ink, Pentel Color Brush
Paper: Stillman and Birn Alpha and Zeta paper

The snowmen of this issue were a blast to draw. Monsters are a lot of fun!

Issue 4 was a great end to this arc, but also a good way for us to really make some things pay off that we started in volume 1.

Spencer and Locke Volume 2 Going Strong!

Hello, welcome to the end of May! I thought I had posted something about S&L volume 2 but that apparently didn't happen, so here's a quick little art gallery of some of my favorite pages that are being shared of the book! These are just my inks, so you can see some of what I was sending to David Pepose, Jasen Smith, and Colin Bell which is our team on the book. I hope you enjoy the quick gallery!

Materials: Deleter G-pen, Sakura Sumi Ink, Pentel Color Brush
Paper: Stillman and Birn Alpha and Zeta paper

 

 

Patreon Page Launched!

I'm on Patreon!

This Spring, I've decided to put together a Patreon to promote my comic making endeavors! If you become a patron, you'll get access to my sketchbook studies, start to finish process for fan art and prints, characters designs, and my entire comic making process! And if we can reach a certain monthly goal, I'll be able to start updating my webcomic Curse of the Eel twice a week instead of just once!

I don't intend to hide any of my work behind a paywall, so I'll still try to post on here and on my other social media regularly, but if you wanted to get sneak peeks at things I'm doing or pdfs of the comics I'm completing, please consider donating to my Patreon if you like my work!

Thank you!

Curse of the Eel ch7 Cover Process

Here's a little look at my art for the cover of Eel 7. I don't have the pencils scanned, I was really excited to ink this. At first, I did not plan for the cracks on the face of the red side. My theming with these, was to show the difference in planes that was so prevalent in Lovecraft's work that inspired me to make Eel. His thoughts were that the universe was infinitely vast and complicated and humans grasp of it was limited, so I tried to visually show two opposite but complimentary worlds: human and non-human. With the end of Eel 6, that split is breaking, and upon inking this cover, I had the idea to show that cracking here. For the first time, the two worlds are linked, and based on this cover, it can't be good.

My tools here were:
Inks: Raphael 8404 #4 brush and Deleter Gpens with FW and Maxon black inks
Paper: Stillman and Birn Beta paper

I hope you enjoy the cover and Eel 7 when it's out.

Curse of the Eel chapter 6 page 1-4 pencils

Hello! So yesterday I was a madman and drew 4 pages of pencils in 3 hours for Curse of the Eel. I haven't had time to really sit down and vibe with my own projects in a long while. I've been drawing pages for an Action Lab comic that I can't announce yet, so here are the pages I did yesterday.

I like to pencil loosely, I used to spend a lot of time drawing things out exactly like how I would like for them to look inked. Looking at amazing pencilers like Stuart Immonen will do that to you, but he is working with an inker, so all of that detail is needed. In my case, once I became a confident enough inker and penciler, I tried to pencil less so my inks can feel more like drawing. That has really improved my speed, to where if I had the time I probably could do this entire chapter, pencils and inks in 2 weeks or less. Sadly, I've got other things to focus on but for now: here is what I'm working with! I'm aiming for this to be out for SPX 2016 which I have a table for! More details soon!!

C is for Connie - A to Z Challenge

C is for Connie, and continuing on with the A to Z character challenge thingy is the goth girl who was the focus of my Thesis.

Connie is an introverted high school student with more books than friends. I think she has... 1 friend. And that friend is an Eldritch like creature she summoned in an abandoned cult house by accident. Curse of the Eel is a high school comedy drama with a splish splash of Lovecraft inspired horror, where the ever changing Eel is not the scariest monster to be lurking the halls of her high school. Here is a link to the first chapter and the first book is still available in my store although I'm running short on copies.

Tools: Pentel Pocket Brush and Color brush
Paper: Stillman and Birn gamma sketchbook

Requiem Sonata Cover process

I recently finished the first chapter of Requiem Sonata after taking a short hiatus form it. Life has been lifelike but I'm ready to drop back into the regular groove of comics again. So here's my process materials for the cover!

Zhi is a troubled young pianist and often times what she says, what she does, and what her face telegraphs are contradictory. In order to get that across, I wanted to display on the cover the various facets of her personality. I then split the two in half to create this awkward cuts for the cover. Why use them if they're awkward? Because I want the reader to feel like something is wrong, get them feeling like something is false in her expression. I believe that there are "rules" to good illustrations, but I think breaking those rules can be just as effective. Yeah, I'm punk like that (not really).

To deal with the uneasy feeling of the actual art, I decided to go with simple text and one color to make it very easy to read. I think what could be damning for a cover like this where I'm trying to show unease is having something overly complicated that just makes the art look like I don't know what I'm doing. By making the cover this simple, with all this negative space and having one color, everything feels more deliberate. I hope so at least. I chose a duotone for the cover because honestly, I love it! I love black and white images and swapping out the black for a color changes so much about the image in infinite ways. In the original inks, she's just there, but with this desaturated red-brown, it conveys a lot more about the tone of the book than just a simple black and white image. I will do covers like this whenever possible, mainly because I prefer simple images to convoluted ones. I like a cover with fancy details and all that, but a cover that evokes the spirit of the book will always win out to me over something that is just a technically sound but emotionally hollow image. I wrestle with this a LOT in my comic covers, they're the hardest part for me, and sometimes I strike gold. But even if this is fools gold, I'm happy to be tricked by it.

Thank you for reading! I hope it was informative, I want to do more process posts like this so leave a comment if you liked it, share it too, and consider following me if you have a blogger account! Either way, thank you!

EDIT: I got some feedback from my friend Celin, and made some changes to the text on the back cover. I moved all of the social media stuff to the last past page of the book. Thank you for the advice!

Tools: Zebra Fine Brush Pens, Copic Multiliners, and the Pentel Color Brush.
Paper: Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook
Colors and Text: Photoshop CS5