Roxy Rewind pages 1-4

 Super late on taking advantage of this when it was online, but last year I worked David Pepose and Jim Campbell on a short story for Project Big Hype,  a comic anthology on Kickstarter! The funding was successful and I hope everyone enjoyed the comic! These pages were shared on Twitter and other places, so I'm sharing the first 4 of our story here! This is a different kind of book than I usually do, but it was a fun change of pace! I've never really drawn superheroes comics before, so this was fun!

These pages were drawn on Deleter B4 manga paper, which I haven't used in years! I used mostly G-pens and the Nihonji pen and used Photoshop to create the digital halftones. I'll include some pencils down below the inks!

 Story & Script: David Pepose https://twitter.com/Peposed

Lettering: Jim Campbell https://twitter.com/CampbellLetters

Pencils

Ether City Police Department

Hey all! Just a quick Sunday post with some pages from a short comic I created called ECPD! It's my own take on a Cyberpunk universe with my own personal flair, so it's sure to be weird! Anyhow, I hope you dig it!

Tools: Deleter G-pen and Sakura Sumi Ink
Paper: Stillman and Birn Zeta paper
Tones: Photoshop CS6

B is for Bellona - A to Z Challenge

B is for Bellona! Continuing on the A to Z thingy I started yesterday, which I hope the people who read this are enjoying it as much as I am!

Bellona is a character from my story Hybrid Ghost, an update of the old "Hibrida Prima" comic that is lost in the dusty hallways of this blog. The updated story focuses on espionage and diplomacy. After decades of long brutal fighting, a tenuous peace has been established, but like any real conflict, not everyone is done hating and fighting. Bellona's father was a soldier for the humans and he was stolen away from her when she was very young. She holds a grudge against all aliens but especially the one who is responsible for ruining her family life. Bellona is half Irish half Hispanic and is a strong boorish woman with no empathy for anyone who doesn't have roots on Earth. She is a main figure and villain in the story by the halfway point and she is one of my favorite characters to write because villains are oh so INTERESTING! I'm not giving a ton of detail here but I hope that sounded at least somewhat interesting.

Tools: Zebra brush pens, Copic multiliners, and the Pentel color brush
Paper: Stillman and Birn Gamma sketchbook

The Caverns, cover and 5 page preview

So first, let me explain why I even did this: because I had to. I LOVE art, not just comics but all media: watercolor, pastel, charcoal, etc. If I can draw with it, I want to learn how to use it, because that informs my comics. So after telling myself I wanted to do something again with markers and watercolor, it wasn't until I picked up the Fifth Beetle by the amazing Andrew Robinson that I got excited enough to really hammer a story down to give these "mixed media comic" think a try! Since I was reading a lot of Lovecraft tales at the time, I decided to make a horror story.

Now for the what: The story is about a failed detective, booted out of the force and his badge taken from him. Why? You'd have to read it to figure out. He hears about a missing child named Anne, who vanished without a trace from an abandoned home in her neighborhood. He goes looking for clues thinking this could be his way back into the force. And he finds more than he expected in that house.

The comic has 2 distinct realms, one rendered with Copic markers, the other in watercolor. I also played around with comics flow and readability to try some solutions to a few interesting reading gimmicks. Remember when books asked you to turn them clockwise and hte pages read top to bottom? I'm giving that a try, and from the people who have read it so far have said, it works well. It's not forced like I feared, but you'll have to decide for yourself!

I'm aiming to have this book at Heroes Con this weekend, but I need to call my printer and see if that'll happen. If not, I'll print it up and sell it on my sites as well as on my online store. If you can make it to Heroes Con I'll be set up with Crystal Jayme at table #1621. Come check us out and pick up some fun comic books!!!

The New West, Li pages 3-5 Pencils and LATE LATE Heroes Con report

I do still draw comics, I swear! I've recently been lucky to do some try out pages for a possible book, and in the interim of waiting to hear if I got it, I've been trying to keep busy by doing some personal projects. This passed week I finished these 3 pages in a really scattered fashion, but they're completed as far as the pencils go.

I'm trying to incorporate some manga techniques into these pages, like the dramatic funny moment, or the large panel of just an angry face. It took me a while to get my anatomy and storytelling to a place where it's actually solid so now it's time to look back and incorporate some of that energy and emotion that manga does so well back into my new comics. There are already great artists utilizing manga effects and storytelling techniques in their comics, so why not take mine in that direction, especially since I spent 8+ years studying them and did at least 1000 pages trying to learn the skills.

Also, a MONTH ago, I went to Heroes Con but I never made a post about how it was. It was glorious, and I REALLY needed it. Life's been kicking me in the butt lately so I needed a good weekend away from all the worry and fuss. I shared a table with Mike Freiheit, as I think I mentioned in the first post, and wow, thanks Mike for being an awesome table mate and for making me feel welcome and not so alone at my first time exhibiting at a professional comic show. I made a bunch of new friends, made a little bit of folding money and generally was happy to hear that I didn't suck. I'm always afraid that eventually I'll get the portfolio review that ends with "I think you should cut your hands off." I got some really great and helpful portfolio reviews from Tradd Moore, James Harren, and Andrew Robinson; I had dinner with Scott Chantler and Conor McCreery; and Matteo Scalera and Eric Canete came by my table and got a couple of my books! That weekend was the highlight of my year, and when I left I felt ready to attack the world after a good nights sleep. I also owe that entire experience to Shawn Crystal, the head of the SEQA department at SCAD. If it weren't for him I would have missed out on such a great weekend at my absolute favorite convention.

Okay, next time I post, it'll be with pages for an anthology I'm working on. One page penciled, 5 more to go!

Calla of the Sea Cover Colored

The cover has been colored. I have to state again, color is not my strong suit and I struggle against it constantly, but I did my best to convey the idea of the comic without over-rendering it or just losing any sense of subtlety.

Also, super thanks to my friend Melody Ledford who created the brush I used to get the lighting and shadow effects. She used it on her art better than I did, but it sure did make conveying different layers of depth a whole lot easier. Check out her art at: http://sheet-music-melodies.tumblr.com/

Now to head home and get this thing into a pdf!

UPDATE: Added the file with the title and my name.

Calla of the City Cover Inked

I inked this yesterday and started working on the colors and forgot to post it. Here it is; I really think the china marker brings this image together. I inked it with my Raphael 8404 almost completely, mainly to give it a sense of the buildings covered with algae and other settling elements. This was also a chance to play with fun composition and more explicitly show the city wasteland that isn't really important to the main plot of Calla of the Sea but one that I feel gives the story an added element of dread.

I also like that this image could be either be the start of the story, or even the end, with Calla finding a new boat with potential love interests. Oh ambiguousness.

Calla of the Sea Cover Pencils

I need to take Calla to the printers soon, but because of school and other things I've not had a ton of time to dedicate to a cover. I painted one before but I think this is more interesting. I'll try to ink and color it before the 28th so I can get to an early bird discount at my local printer. The inks will be coming soon!

Calla of the Sea complete!

Here is the finished art for Calla of the Sea, inked and lettered.

These pages I inked with a Raphael 8404, which is a change from the usual Winsor Newton's I use. Honestly, it feels like a perfect brush, I had all the control over it I could ask for and it felt more sturdy in my hand. I still like and will use the Winsor Newtons but I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked the Raphael.

My inking strategy this time around is trying to focus on bounding lines and keeping the art unified. I love the use of bounding lines in Wade Von Grawbadger's inks so I was trying to channel him while at the same time trying to keep things that I like in there. Overall I think its a success, concentrating on an area and the lines within it really helps me stay focused on line weight and how that influences the panel. I was still able to do wispy lines, but they feel more controlled now, so I'm happy with that. I also tried to break away from as much of the dark noir shadows that I've tended to use a lot. My inking professor Shawn Crystal recommended I try to find a balance of their use, so here is my first attempt at it.

I'm happy enough with these pages, which I'm sure will change in a few days. But I did my best on them, so it's time to move on to other things. Next time I want to try inking while channeling the inks of Chris Samnee who is an artist I very much so admire. I played a little bit with it in the bodies in the last page of Calla. I think that's a good natural step, as I've spend the last year getting better at drawing the figure, so now I can start focusing on good use of contrast on them.

Thanks for reading and I hope Calla was enjoyable! It's certainly a step up from the pages I was working on a year ago.

Flowers for Venus Inks Wave 1

Not every page from pencil wave 1 has been inked, but Dragon Con is this weekend and I needed some fresh inks for my portfolio. So here are the first three pages.

Page one was fun and interesting in that the most amount of work went into the environment. I would say that's the prevailing focus on all of these pages, is making the environment something foreign and creepy. Since this comic is meant to be read digitally (once I figure out the program to add in all the panel transitions; if anyone knows, please share the program please!) the comic will actually begin on a pure black screen with the first panel (with nnnCHK) simply outlined in white. There will be a transition to panel 2, where you see sparse lighting effects; I was trying for that funky flashlight effect, where it stutters before coming to life fully. The third panel was the most fun, which I mainly did with the G-pen nib, using the brush only for the figure and the black spotting in the crater.

Page 2 is mainly establishing the character of Noah and his struggle out of the crater. I've not drawn the final transition panel yet, which will cover panel 3. Here he's looking down, but in the transition which will fade from this panel, Noah will be looking up and seeing where he is before the reader will. There's less to say on this one since it's more obviously straightforward.

And page 3, we see the surface of Venus, which is really interesting. Venus has such thick greenhouse gasses in its atmosphere that very little light ever makes it down to the surface. As such, the planet would be insanely dark, so I was trying to illustrate it based on a NASA photo I was given on what a composite of Venus would look like based on radar data. Venus also has a HUGE amount of pressure on the surface equal to about a kilometer into an Earth ocean. So I was trying to simultaneously show the darkness of the planet and also the swirling wave like torrent of pressure that exists on this planet. Venus is very interesting, so I had fun trying to get all this across, which ends up having a Van Gogh Post-Impressionist painting feel to it. I don't mind it, but I hope at least that even if it doesn't look like Venus that it at least looks like this man is on an alien terrain. I can't wait to draw more scenes of the Venutian surface, although it did take me a while to ink the sky. I used brush exclusively on this page. I was also testing out some ideas I've taken from my professors at SCAD but also applying inking techniques I've seen used by Wade Von Grawbadger when he inks Stuart Immonen. It's less evident here as it will be in the next page. Which I'll try to post up as soon as I can.

Thanks for letting me share!

Flowers for Venus Pencils wave 1

Here are the first 8 pages of pencils for Flowers for Venus. While I will print this up in the end game, the ultimate goal is for these pages to be read on a tablet or a computer so I hope the flow and panel counts make sense when that's kept in mind. I pencilled these on Stillman and Birn Gamma paper, 11x14 which was just big enough to fit into my carry-on while I was away. Penciled in F lead, I played around with using blue line (both shades) for my character underdrawings and I had mixed results. The non photo blue is too light for me to really make a good drawing call on and the blue col-erase lead is so dark that it's hard to remove with erasing or even adjusting the curves in photoshop. I may just stick with my 2H pencil and F lead holder for these, as that's what feels most natural.

I hope these make for an interesting read!