Now that it's safe to share

Merry Christmas, Katie!

BroMan

Commission #2 for FallCon was delivered today and yes, you read that right. BroMan. True story. A hero who pops his collar... for justice. There's not much else to say really. You know it!

Fallcon 2012

FallCon has come and gone and it was a spectacular day. Tons of people in attendance and it felt they all stopped by to say hello. Thanks to everyone who did. You all made it a fun and interesting event. A giant thank you to those of you who have been visiting and supporting my work from convention to convention. The impact this has on me as a creator and the appreciation in response to it is beyond words. And last but not least, thanks to the friends and family that help me prepare for and get to these events. Having such a strong and invested support system is priceless. Immense thanks to all of you. I will do my best to improve in order to live up to these gifts you've given. 

Now on to some images from the Con...

A Handsome devil.

A commission. 

A gift for my table monkey.

Dave.

Thanks again and I hope to see you all again in the spring!

Guess who's going to FallCon?

Yup. You guessed it. This guy! (thumbs are pointed right at my chest) And I'm loaded for bear. (pretty sure that's an expression) Three new giclee prints limited to a print run of 10 each. (fully archival) Plenty of original art, t-shirts, sketch cards (halloweeny), and of course, the FIVE DOLLAR BIN! (bargains) Can't find something that fits what you want? (picky) Well it's lucky then that I'll be doing custom sketches all day. (what?) That's right! In ink! (oh my) So stop by and say hello. (I'm often lonely) I'll even let you drive the Batmobile! (not actually something I can do) And grant you super powers! (can't do that one either) See you Saturday!

Fallcon print (1 of 3) revised border.

FallCon is Coming.

FallCon is quickly approaching. In preparation for the event I am working on creating some new limited edition prints to sell. This happens to be one of them. Dropped in the color work today. It will be stared at for the next few days while I decide if it's worth printing and add some final tweaks to the colors if needed. Then who knows. 

Tipsy Pixels: Round 2... Fight!

Things to do when you're mind-numbingly exhausted.

Learn a new skill, like creating an animated GIF, to add on an additional half hour or so and then blog about it. Be sure to click on the image for the cool part. Must sleep now.

Jack Kirby makes my brain hurt

One of the very cool things about teaching comics is that it gives you an excuse to do fun things like inking old Kirby pages during demonstrations. This page got started earlier today in just such a class. I also take in blue line samples of Jim Lee, Joe Mad, Arthur Adams, Chris Jones and the list goes on a bit. But this was my first time using a Kirby sample. And what a great sample to demo with! It's an exercise in varied line weight, spotting blacks, feathered lines, and has spots great for nibs and brushes. Perfect. So why is this the first time Kirby art has been used in a demo?Here's the thing. Kirby is brilliant. A genius. But every time the brush hits the page my brain is flooded with the following signal: "this is wrong. fabric doesn't do that. none of this makes any sense." Objectively I know that trusting Jack will lead to a really cool page when it's finished, but man does it make the old noggin ache like thousand year old hip. This will become a nice addition to the inking portfolio and will no doubt teach me quite a bit about light and shadow, composition, and form. So pass the Advil and I'll soldier onward. ow... ow... ow...

Etrigan in color

A quick bit of color on the Etrigan sketch done for the oh so patient Mr. E. 

Giant manga-style robot mech thingy.

A bit weird looking but hopefully close enough for a guy raised in Ohio to be passable.

Springcon: Day 2

Day 2 was, like day 1, grand. Tons of fun and excitement. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and made it such an excellent adventure. For those who couldn't make it here are a few photos. 

First off there's a new addition to my presence. It has my name on it and everything. More importantly, it has a large image of Richard Nixon and some Pokemon which tends to be an attention getter. Big thanks to Think Sign Solutions for the great banner. 

I may have mentioned learning that people will do silly things for a sketch. This is how I learned that bit of knowledge. 

A figurine of Dave Wheeler's Wonderboy was experiencing some plumber butt. Yet another example of art imitating life. 

There just aren't enough people dressing up like Aquabats. This should change. 

Thanks again to everyone who came out and made it such a great weekend. See you at the next one!

Springcon: Day 1

Day one was wonderful. Saw a slew of folks that have gone unseen for far too long (completely my fault). Did some sketches, sold some prints, originals, and even some t-shirts. That last one never happens. Learned that sometimes you can get people to do ridiculous and potentially embarrassing things in lieu of payment for a sketch. Even got to use the Square reader for the first time to take a credit card payment. What a day!

Mike, a cool dude, has been getting drawings from me for a number of years now and commissioned a piece for Springcon. He wanted a samurai and a geisha in ink. He got this. He seemed happy. So now it resides in his portfolio of original art. That book has some seriously great work in it so it's an honor to be a part of it. 

Thanks, Mike!

I can only hope that this love fest will continue on tomorrow. Again, a stellar experience. Check it out if you're in the twin cities area. And if you do be sure to stop by and say hello. Until then, adieu. 

Springcon is just a week away. I'll be there with limited run Giclee prints, plenty of original art, and maybe even some t-shirts. As always, I'll be doing sketches as well. So stop on by, say hello, and possibly buy something. See you then!

C2E2 2012

If I'm honest, the convention weekend, which began on Thursday, started out a bit rough.

Thursday was fine. We packed up the car and made our way to Chicago where we said hi to old friends and got ourselves settled in for the weekend. Some of us made a run to Kinko's for some late night last minute printing. It took a bit of doing but we found some parking, stumbled back to our beds, and went to sleep.

We woke the next day, gathered up our things and headed off for the car. A little piece of advice: when parking in a strange and unfamiliar city write down the address of the residence nearest to where you parked. Why, you ask? Because we could not find it. At all. What we did find was a sign that indicated that the area in question required a permit. We waved down a passing officer and had a bit of a conversation. She then zipped away to check the area for our car as no one was 100% positive of where we had parked the night before.

Upon her return the conversation became a bit confusing. You see, we were under the impression that the car had been towed away so when the officer told us it could take over a year to find we thought, "that seems like a poor way to run a government run process." So we kept asking "who do we call to locate our towed car?" and she kept saying, "your car wasn't towed." "But it's not here! If it wasn't towed it would still be here!"

The officer stared at us as if we were the dumbest people on earth. And then, like a wave of soul crushing despair, it hit us... it wasn't towed, because it was (sob) stolen.

As I contemplated throwing up in the nearby flower bed, because though it is phrased our car it is in actuality my car, my phone rang. It was Dave who had wandered off. He does that. He wanted to let us know that he had found the car on the one section of street the parking officer neglected to check. There was a great deal of relief. I offered to hug the traffic officer which was declined. She was then kind enough to drive us over to the car where we packed up our items and made our way to the convention center. There is no doubt that many representatives of the Chicago law enforcement community had a bit of a giggle that day. You're welcome.

Once properly set up on the convention floor we documented the occasion then settled in for selling, sketching, networking, and people watching. My personal goals for the weekend were to a) break even financially, b) drop off samples to DC and Marvel comics, as well as other publishers, and c) have some fun.

Saturday morning I went to a panel required to submit work to DC comics. It was great. More importantly, it allowed me to gather up the necessary forms to drop off work. Here's how it works currently. You fill out forms and drop off your samples. The editors review them that night and then in the morning there is a board where they post the names of those they'd like to talk with. They receive heaps of packets and invite only a few to have said chat. Marvel is the same way. Over the course of the weekend DC talked to, I believe, a mere 5 people, and Marvel talked to about 18 if I'm not mistaken. May the odds be ever in your favor.

So I filled in blanks, did some stapling, dropped off and went back to people watching.

Bella and her friends stopped by that afternoon looking for a Game of Thrones print. I pointed out that I could draw something unique for her if they didn't find any. They left, searched, and returned. She seemed happy with the results of my labor and brought the friend it was for by the next day. Delightful!

My friend Todd, a Chi-town resident, has recently acquired a home complete with basement speakeasy so Saturday night he was kind enough to play bartender for our merry band. We had Gin Suckers and cookies while playing a round of Apples to Apples.

Having dropped off my forms the day before, Sunday came with the need to check the boards to see if I'd get to have a portfolio review. I stopped by the DC booth and the answer was no. I was not one of the three chosen. Hope dashed I still had to check over at Marvel. It was there that I found Samir. He did not look happy which boded none too well. As it turns out he hadn't found the list yet. We looked. We found. Samir was on it!

And so was I!

Yeehaw! It was, to say the least, a great feeling. There was hugging and possibly some public dancing. Later that day I met with an editor and had my first portfolio review that focused on the things I do well and how to build on them in order to continue a path towards some day possibly working for Marvel. Tee Hee.

From there out the day was some coasting through, eating, shopping for silly things like a super-cool Plastic Man shirt, packing up, saying our goodbyes and driving back to Minnesota for some feel deserved sleep.

As for the weekend as a whole? I broke even financially, got to talk with a major publisher, and even had some fun. Not bad for a trip that started in the back of a police car.

A huge thanks to everyone who stopped by and kept us company, helped support our efforts financially or emotionally, and just made it a cool trip. I hope to see you all again for C2E2 in 2013.

Please give feedback

C2E2 quickly approaches and yours truly is close to making a limited run of prints to sell at the wonderful event. The choice of which color treatment is a real struggle as they all have qualities I like, but, just like the highlander, there can be only one. So here's your chance to be a part of the artistic process. Let me know which one you like. Simple. And then, if you're going to C2E2 you can stop by and purchase one. Or more if you're so inclined. Thanks in advance!

little closer... maybe.

Twisted the image a bit and dropped in some additional texture and graphics. This has been great to pick at a little here and there as I do real work, but it's getting to the point where I'd honestly love for it to be finished.

Maybe better with the blue background...

A bit more still

I have to admit that this is starting to feel pretty groovy.

a bit more color done

Not sure if the skin tone is good or really off, and there's still the jacket to contend with, but for a bit here, bit there it's coming along nicely.

C2E2 is quickly approaching...

And yours truly is frantically scrambling to accomplish a great many things to be ready for it as well as a number of other things (remember to breathe). To that end, the inks are squared away for the matador print I am making to sell at C2E2 (if it's finished in time).

It was also possible to wrap up the color flats for it while waiting on other things (jobs and such). Still quite a bit to do but cross your fingers and say little prayers for increased productivity and maybe it will happen.