Rex Banning - Lawyer in the Stars pencils

Why hello internet! I have here some things to share! I got the opportunity to work with Conor McCreery and my pal Brian Prince on a comic for an anthology called MONSTROSITY II. Here's a link to the Kickstarter and I'll share some of the pencils for the comic.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/408859396/monstrosity-ii

On this team, I was the penciler, toner and letterer. I worked on these pages in the middle of my last quarter at SCAD and I think they turned out pretty well. Conor was our writer and Brian was the inker on this comic. I hope that if you can, you'll support the kickstarter and help this book get off the ground.

I don't really know what else to say without giving away too much. If you like lawyers, space, frog lawyers, frog judges, and frog lawyers, this is the comic for you! Did I mention frog lawyers?

Art wise, this was an experiment for me in a few ways. On this comic I was using Stillman and Birn Alpha paper, which is 100 lb. drawing paper. I've been using S&B's Beta paper on my pages for the Curse of the Eel, which are 180 lb sheets of watercolor paper. Texture wise, the Alpha is a little more toothy but it's less heavy than the Beta, so I wanted to see what changes it made to my drawings. This may seem like pointless trouble, but part of what I love about drawing is overcoming a new challenge or trying out a new method of working. I'd get bored doing the same thing each and every time so this stuff is fun for me.

Turns out the Alpha is perfect for comics provided you don't be too rough with it. The vellum surface is great for my pencil hardnesses (B and F) and it didn't leave any ghosts when I was erasing things away. The only downside is that because the paper is thinner, it is more likely to buckle under you if you erase too hard, but if you move your eraser outwards and away from you, that's not even an issue. So yeah, perfect for comics! I didn't ink this one, but I've tested nibs, markers, watercolor and brush inking on the alpha and it's brilliant at all of it. I'm considering actually switching from the Beta to Alpha for my more regular projects and using Beta for things that require heavy watercolor use. The Alpha is also a bit cheaper to buy by the sheet so I can get the pages for a bit less, which is always a plus.

Other than that, there's not much else to say other than: Thank you Conor and Brian for letting me part of your team! I'm hoping we can work together again, and I hope everyone else gives that Kickstarter a little love, since it'd be cool to have another anthology with my name in it out so soon after I graduated!

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 Curse of the Eel chapter 2 inks and cover

It has been a long LONG week. After having finished up my final quarter at SCAD, I had but a few weeks to prepare new works for Heroes Con. Sure I've drawn and printed a bunch of comics since last Heroes, but nothing super recent. Wings of Irene is from December 2013 and the Looming Deadline wasn't super substantial, so I really wanted to put out a nice fat book to celebrate my freedom from school. So I completed chapter 2 of my thesis comic, which took me about 5 days after classes were over to finish penciling (which is slow for me) and last week at this time, I was sitting down to ink it. I finished inking the 20th and final page early this morning. And I whipped up probably the best cover I've ever made in about an hour or two. I am running on pure comics enthusiasm. I missed having this kind of imposing deadline and the drive to put out a book for no other reason than I have something I want to tell.

This story, if you've read this far into this pretty nonsensical post, is the continuation of the story from the first chapter, about a goth girl named Connie who has summoned her own Eldritch style Eel god. But now what? I guess still go to school, because you have to. This chapter was a lot of fun and a great test for how I draw environments. The first chapter was mainly forest and a trashy old hillbilly house, not much to really do with perspective or drawing buildings and such. This chapter was fun in that it posed some interesting challenges like "now that I've established this way of inking, how do I ink a bus? Or a school? Or lockers, cuz there are a TON of lockers in this comic. Granted, I don't hit every note perfectly, but honestly that's not important anymore. Comics are about fun and expression again, so when you look at these, I hope you can feel the mood or the feeling I tried to convey and weren't just looking for tangents.

I think I did hit the right notes in my character acting in this chapter. I also found the opportunity to use body language and not just faces to really help sell my ideas and I think they came out great! I sure hope I can get this book by Heroes Con so I can share it with anyone who reads this post! The book will be 40 pages of story with the color cover above. i think it's gonna be a nice little book to own! This is also the comic where I made the switch over to Stillman and Birn Beta watercolor paper. Its surface is so much more fun to draw on and more resilient than the bristol boards I've used in the past. Even the cover was inked on Alpha, which is the thinner vellum paper and it looks gorgeous. Even on 400 series bristol, the page would have warped into annoyingly hard to scan shapes, not to mention it fights me with every stroke. It's important to find the tools that make you as creative as possible.

DC Ladies in Watercolor

These are some watercolor sketches from my Stillman and Birn alpha sketchbook. I was painting these in between assignments last quarter and I think they turned out well. I'm not really all that interested in accurate depictions but more on doing my own interpretation of them. I find their outfits to be kinda silly, like why wouldn't Wonder Woman wear Greek like armor? Why is she going into battle in a one piece swimsuit?

My favorite is Hawkgirl, that one came out the best I think.

Curse of the Eel, chapter 2 pencils 1-5

Guess who's back and with a bunch of pages to share?! No, it's me. I've been working hard this quarter, my last quarter at SCAD. Partly I'm sad to go, but mainly I'm ready to Shawshank Redemption it and tear my shirt off and stare up at the rain.

Back to comics though, I've been working hard to get chapter 2 of my thesis comic ready to go for Heroes Con. Also I think I've settled on a name: The Curse of the Eel. Sounds like fun I hope! Here's to more Lovecraft inspired fun with my favorite goth and her annoying friend Eel. These pages I made trying my best to top the first chapter and improving on all my weaknesses, one of which is texture. I had a great portfolio review with Mike Martz this quarter and he said the work is good, I just need to pay more attention to texture. So I accumulated my favorite texture artists and started studying their powers. I've been trying to Frank Quitely all over these pages and I hope it looks more refined than before. I plan to go back and add some to the first chapter of the book too. My goal is to have both chapters in black and white for Heroes Con in one 40 page book.

Oh yeah, I'll be at Heroes Con this June, sharing a table with one of my best friends and comic warriors, Crystal Jayme. Come by our tables for comics, prints, commissions, and dances if you purchase a lot. Seriously, I'll dance if you buy things. Try me!

Anyhow, I have one more page almost ready to go into my final project for class, so I'm gonna get to work on that. Have a great day, because the age of comics is almost upon us!

Instagram Sketchbook 1

Some of my favorite images from my Instagram. I thought I should share these for people who don't follow it, cuz I think they're kinda nice.