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!

When I Draw

One of my silly little one page comics. I'm posting this up just to keep the site sort of updated. I could post up more sketches of the day but I'd rather have more comics on here. I am working on some test pages but I don't think I have permission to post them up here. So yeah, I'm doing stuff, I swear!

I drew this after an all night comics binge. I penciled 2 pages rather quickly and I think it's owed to good thumbnails and a blazing hot playlist. Music is so important to get me into the state of making comics that if I don't work to music, I go a lot slower and over-think things. I can get small things going, like commissions at a convention, but for me to dive into the scene I'm drawing in a comic, having some good mood music really helps .

Heroes Con & The New West, Li pages 1-2 pencils

Here are the first two pages of pencils for a summer project I'm playing with. Right now I'm just trying to work on conveying form with my pencils. Before I would just draw a shape and be happy with it, but I wasn't really implying form the way I should have. I'm finding its in the curves, like the way you draw an eye ball, you can draw a curved line easily but to make a line that implies a round form is something I needed to work with in my pencils. I'm doing my best to incorporate it here with everything and while they're not perfect I think this are my most successful pencils to date. At least to me anyhow.

I also just wanted something new in my portfolio for Heroes Con which is this weekend. I'll actually be sharing a table in the Artist Alley with Mike Freiheit at AA-1113. Check out his artwork, it's really cool! I'll be selling copies of Calla of the Sea, The Feat of Nobody and Portraits of Mom, as well as doing any commissions I can. If you're coming by please stop by and say hi!

Man Up, Digital Comic

Here's my Thrillbent style digital comic, tentatively titled: Man Up. This was my project for studio 3 this spring and I am both proud and not proud of it. Proud because I completed it, despite surgery woes and all that I managed to complete the project. Also because I think I finally nailed digital coloring, or at least finding a way that works for me that is both efficient and sufficient.

Not proud because of the inks, they need work. A LOT of work, but this was an experiment in more loose inking so while it's not where I plan to have my inks in the future, it was a good learning experience.

This is the first 10 screens of this comic, I may do more depending. Although I hope you enjoy this little experiment in digital storytelling.

Sketch of the Day 5-31-13: Wesker

Another late post sketch of the day: Albert Wesker! I had fun with this one which has been the point of these sketches. I spend so much of my day worrying about stuff, be it art, bills, school, etc, that it's nice to just draw a picture and be like "there, I got that out of my system." So while these aren't gonna be perfect, they're meant for me to cut loose. Like I wouldn't probably pencil this rough in a comic page, but why not play with it here?

Portraits of Mom

This is one of my school projects this quarter, a 6-pager done for my self publishing class with Chris Staros. It was a great class, I learned a lot about the comics industry and now I think I have a more pointed and professional way of approaching it. In addition to lectures we also had to do a 6 page short story and print it out into a mini-comic.

This comic I didn't do as well as I could have. I was going for a chunkier inking approach and in the end I went too far and sacrificed precise lines for more haphazard ones. I've gotten praise for the art and I got a good grade on them, but in the end I feel like this was a fun experiment in artistic styles that I'll take a ton away from, but the next work will probably be a hybrid ink style of this comic and my Calla of the Sea pages.

Story-wise it was fun to do something emotional again. I haven't really been able to tell a story like this since KCNO so it was fun to stretch the tear jerker muscles again. I think this is a fairly decent story with a responsible ending to the sadness of mourning. I'd like to do more of these shorts related to art, but we shall see. The summer is long, they could be drawn!