From the desk of Joel Vollmer

"How to draw a Pug" sample.

2012-01-18T20:43:00.001-06:00

roughs

2011-12-13T21:40:00.000-06:00

Redneck Sushi

2011-12-10T11:15:00.008-06:00

What is redneck sushi you ask? It's a phrase I came up with some time ago and then thought, "what would that actually be?" The answer: an outside wrapper of bacon filled with mashed potato and a center of chicken and maybe a bit of collard green or some such. This was dreamed up months and months ago and never realized... until last night.

Luci enjoys inviting her deviant and sometimes boisterous coworkers over to her palatial manse for roll your own sushi nights and general frivolity. She was also one of the people aware of the plan for making redneck sushi and was kind enough to open her kitchen and guidance last night to this mad experiment. We decided to take two approaches. Both start with laying down a bed of bacon, then coating the surface with the mashed taters, and then laying down a strip of chicken across the bottom of it. Starting at the chicken end, we roll it up just like sushi.

On the first run we decided to bake / broil the entire roll prior to slicing.

The biggest concern was the cooking of the chicken. We started broiling it and once the bacon had constricted down switched over to baking for about 30 minutes or so rolling the whole thing over once or twice. Once finished, we removed it from the oven and sliced it, which caused some smushing and loss of that nice circular, bull's-eye pattern sushi has. That said, it's overall appearance was still plenty appetizing. The flavor was good and they were insanely hot. If you decide to try this allow for cooling time. Seriously. The bacon grease infused potatoes are not to be trifled with.

The second approach was to slice the roll first and then pan fry the slices. I also decided to add some asparagus and carrot to the center. We used toothpicks to try and hold the rolls together.

Once in the pan this plan fell apart a bit. They did not do well with being flipped, the bacon wasn't really cooking, and the potatoes were just burning onto the bottom of the pan. So we transferred them onto a baking sheet and into the oven to be baked for about twenty minutes or so, followed by five minutes of broiling, flipping and another 5 minutes of broiling.

Some take-aways from the evening. The baking then broiling combo is the correct cooking approach. The asparagus was a great addition both in terms of flavor and health value. Cooking them as slices resulted in a much better result than when we did the roll. Toothpicks became a bit of a semi-hazardous treasure hunt. Either mode of preparation resulted in volcanically hot food that needs cooling time.

Plans and modifications to the recipe and process are already being made but this maiden voyage was a big hit. I am clearly a culinary genius. Yeehaw!

Now that I've highlighted some old stuff...

2011-11-27T16:10:00.002-06:00

Let's take a look at something new.

Three old pages

2011-11-05T14:26:00.002-05:00

What seems like ages ago now there was a book coming together called Dust to Dust, in which an aging Jesse James confronts a young Machine Gun Kelly. It never saw print and the pages have been hanging around as they had no real purpose. Today they were all scanned for posterity's sake and are all now bound for the sales pile. As a last look back it seemed like a good idea to share a few of my favorite pages.

Happy Birthday, Adam!

2011-10-28T23:09:00.004-05:00

Adam is a big fan of Yoko from Gurren Lagann. Who isn't? Really. Anywho... Adam + birthday = quick drawing of Yoko. That is all.

Fallcon 2011

2011-10-16T00:16:00.002-05:00

Here are some highlights and images from this years convention. Overall it was a great day with a great crowd.

Ken stopped by and bought some original work from me. Thanks for continuing to be awesome!

Seeing all the folks in costume is always cool, but every once in a while someone really commits to the role. That level of dedication is spectacular and perhaps, even, amazing. See what I did there?

Again, great day. It was most excellent seeing some old friends and making some new ones. Big thanks to Ron for bringing me paper and helping out with the table. Hope to see you all again in the spring!

FF sketch finished colors

2011-08-20T13:07:00.001-05:00

We'll call this finished. Unless there's some weird color issue I can't see.

Coloring the FF sketch

2011-08-20T09:56:00.001-05:00

Haven't really started working on Reed or Sue yet, but Ben and Johnny look fairly decent at this point. Hoping to finish this later today.

Like many things, it looks rather harmless.

2011-06-02T21:11:00.006-05:00

Part of the creative process seems to always include trying to figure yourself out. Balancing the needs of work and the pursuit of creative impulses with an attempt at mental, emotional and physical well-being. Now I'll probably be mental for the rest of my life but it seems like physical health is obtainable. Or should be. And part of that seems to be finding ways to challenge yourself to do things that seem crazy, and quite possibly, impossible.

I felt that way some time ago while taking Capoeira classes. Every night seemed to require feats of hope-killing physicality well beyond reason. But the feeling of accomplishment and pride that resulted from getting through it all was tremendous. Even if a move was done poorly it was still done, which was more than expected at the time.

That feeling has once again returned. This time in the form of running stairs. Lots of stairs. Capoeira was always fun. Even when it was grueling the music and history of it all combined with the fluidity and grace of the movements would just pull you right along. The stairs? None of that really. It's just a steady crushing physical grind. That said, it still provides the same sense of accomplishment for barely surviving.

The first attempt involved pain, vomit, and a week of walking funny. Yesterday was the second attempt. It went better. Still rough, but vomit free. It starts with running up and down these stairs four times. Specifically, we go down four and up three ending at the bottom. This is followed by a jog, mostly uphill, to a park for an unpleasant array of ab-work. Then another jog to the base of the stairs and the fourth and final run for the top.

The amazing part is that yesterday in the park, before and during the ab stuff, I started running through some Capoeira. A bit of ginga, some kicks, handstands and cartwheels. It was striking to find comfort in something that once seemed impossible. Don't get me wrong, I'm still no good at it. But that isn't the point. The point is that the impossible has become a sanctuary of sorts from the next seemingly impossible goal. This seems to be a metaphor for life. If so, make sure to find yourselves some decent challenges.

Heaping praise and gratitude to Mestre Senna and all my friends from ABCapoeira, as well as Aaron H for your collective patience and encouragement.

SpringCon 2011 Day 2: the Finale

2011-05-22T20:06:00.009-05:00

Towards the end of Day 1 my assistant for the weekend, AJ, decided to commission a Fantastic Four piece from me. It was roughed out last night leading to early morning inking at the con. A nice way to start any day.

Day 1 saw some confusion on table assignments due to no shows and such, but Day 2 found our merry band with an entire table to ourselves so we spread out and enjoyed our new spacious accommodations. Especially since it allowed more room for the aforementioned inking.

This made AJ and I very happy.

But not as happy as our visit from Kent who stopped by early and acquired an inked drawing of Hellboy as well as swinging by for a couple other pieces later in the day. Awesome guy.

Speaking of awesome people, Adam and Molly joined us in the afternoon. Now you should know that many people enjoy walking the rounds of the convention floor and perusing all the wares while sighting the sights and pageantry. I am not really one of those people. Don't get me wrong. I love chatting and catching up with friends and fellow creator types, but camping out at the table and drawing is the comfort zone. So Adam was enlisted to take my camera and grab some snapshots of fun stuff.

A huge thanks to everyone who came by and made this a great convention experience. It was terrific reconnecting with old friends while making some new ones. Much love.

The Four Horsemen

2011-05-21T21:02:00.003-05:00

Pre-convention this fellow named Mike commissioned a piece. He was sending a number of artists his favorite song lyrics. I got a number of Metallica songs ( F*@# Yeah! ) and was really digging on the idea of a nine to five guy trying to work up the courage to face down impending doom. Enjoy.

Springcon Day 1

2011-05-21T20:51:00.002-05:00

Day 1 was good. The new t-shirt was officially approved by a Japanese person. This would come in handy later when a Filipino gent bought the first one. We pulled up this last pic and he took a photo of it on my camera with his cell phone. Spectacular.

Interested in creating a graphic novel of your own?

2011-05-19T19:59:00.002-05:00

http://www.mcad.edu/continuing-education/illustration-and-comic-art/graphic-novel-summer-2011

This Weekend!

2011-05-17T22:27:00.002-05:00

Come visit me this weekend as I camp out amongst other members of the Minnesota comics community. I'll have prints, posters, t-shirts, and original art for sale. I'll be doing sketches and taking commissions as well. Heck! If you email me ahead of time I'll have your sketch ready and waiting when you swing by. Not looking to purchase art from me? That's fine too just so long as you stop by and say hey. Otherwise it could be a very long weekend.

Ode to MacGuyver

2011-05-09T18:10:00.000-05:00

Now with robot.

2011-04-26T16:39:00.001-05:00

Trying to finish up a T-shirt

2011-04-25T22:31:00.000-05:00

Now all it needs is a giant robot.

A bit of silliness I will not explain.

2011-04-19T19:20:00.002-05:00

Though if you have not yet seen the Narwhal Song you can (and should) see it here.

The CD is out!

2011-02-20T22:18:00.002-06:00

And I think it turned out pretty snazzy. Can't wait to see the vinyl print. So if you aren't familiar, The 4 On The Floor are a local Minneapolis band who I've been doing poster art and such for awhile now. Their new album 4X4 is out and features an interior spread (depicted above ) done by yours truly. It's already hit #12 on Billboard's Uncharted charts and is available through Amazon, the iTunes Store, Electric Fetus and other options I'm unaware of. Digital copies are nifty but the cd and album are simply cooler. There seems to be something missing...

Oh yeah...

Stomp!

2011-01-28T01:35:00.001-06:00

Possible finished art for Spree's first 2011 event.

Map or no Map? Can't decide.

2010-12-22T07:31:00.002-06:00

Map:

No Map:

Merry Christmas everyone... but mostly Mike.

2010-12-21T21:49:00.003-06:00

It's taken more than a year (sorry about that, Michael) but the shoe is finally done. It began here and continued a bit here and the last update on it was here. I've been picking away at it in between projects and whenever I needed a breather. It was done using acrylic based inks and a series of small brushes. The ink wouldn't initially cover well so quite a few layers had to be applied to get the colors you see on the finished piece. So it was draw a bit. Wait for it to dry. Re-coat. Wait. Re-coat. Wait.Re-coat. Wait. Draw a bit more. Wait. Re-coat. Wait. You get the idea. Fixing mistakes consisted of a similar process.

The inside is my favorite part. Something about Mike, in his Freddie Mercury jacket, singing karaoke that causes others to vomit made it special and heartwarming. Especially since some of the bits of semi-digested detritus become the musical notes.

Hope you all enjoy it and this lovely holiday season.

The election may be over...

2010-11-06T17:33:00.004-05:00

but the classroom project continues. Last week was the start of an Intro to Illustrator course I'm teaching and the course long project is doing pieces inspired by the campaign of Jimmy McMillan. Today we started using the pathfinder and text tools so my students are creating possible logos for the candidate. In between questions I made one as well.

Bugs.

2010-08-23T22:07:00.001-05:00

Finished a page of story while at Chicago Comic Con.

Spirit 2010 Is Go for Chicago!

2010-08-15T00:10:00.004-05:00

I'll run it past a good set of eyes tomorrow to double check skin tones and such, but it feels good to me right now and the test prints look pretty sweet. One step closer to Con-preparedness!

*** Spotted a few off-kilter items that I tweaked this morning and have swapped out the image from last night with the final. ***

Color check

2010-08-12T23:35:00.003-05:00

The Spirit is nearing completion with the woman as the only thing left that needs finishing. Now is a good time to test out the work so far. An easy way to do this is to go in and turn off the visibility of the line art layer. Now all that can be seen is all the layers of color. If the figures, elements, clothing, environment, etc all read as what they are we're sitting pretty good. Time to sleep, but I'll tackle the rest of this tomorrow night after work and then hopefully start making some prints.

Panting and making prints

2010-08-11T13:25:00.005-05:00

Convention prep continues and so does the color work on this piece which will be ready for Chicago in about a week. Femme Fatale still needs work as does the Spirit's clothing. Should be done within the next couple days barring disaster. If you're in Chicago from the 19th until the 22nd swing by the convention and say "hi."

Getting ready for Chicago

2010-08-05T22:17:00.005-05:00

One more print to finish. I started this Spirit piece a while back and just haven't had much time to work on it. With the Chicago Comic Convention mere weeks away there's no time like the present. Coming back to it after so long felt enough like starting over that I reworked a lot of the flats and felt like keeping it closer to a monochromatic color scheme with just a few spots of warm tones to give it some pop and depth. Thus the random femme fatale has changed from blonde to a red head. There's still a ways to go with this in terms of dropping in shading, highlights, and surface textures as well as tweaking some of the colors. My biggest concern though is keeping the skin tones natural, and with the blue shift I've added they may be a bit out of the acceptable range. Once they've gotten to where it all feels right I'll call in a second pair of eyes to confirm.

Nixon finished? Maybe?

2010-08-04T18:27:00.003-05:00

I'll look at it again later, but this kinda feels ok to me.

maybe this is better?

Unable to sleep

2010-08-01T04:19:00.002-05:00

So I started coloring the Nixon v. Pokemon piece. Still a ways to go before it's done, but at least a big chunk of the flats are done. I guess it's time to take another stab at getting a couple of hours of sleep before work tomorrow.

Gotta Catch'em All!

2010-07-05T18:12:00.003-05:00

So when a room of young'uns asks you to draw Richard Nixon, it seems important to spruce it up a bit for the sake of fun. So throw in a couple pokemon-reporters and you have established the president's motivation for catching them all. Woodward and Bernstein, I choose you!

Ready to Rock?

2010-06-21T02:37:00.002-05:00

New poster for the band Four on the Floor.

Can't decide if it looks like Nixon

2010-06-19T22:12:00.000-05:00

Feel free to weigh in, but I need to know soon.

Fish Bites Cop

2010-06-18T19:52:00.002-05:00

An illustration for the short story by James David Keaton.

I guess it was fate.

2010-06-08T00:08:00.003-05:00

This started out as a quick brush sketch of Dr Fate but I felt like dropping in some quick colors in the interest of getting myself back on track.

Pinned down in a thankless job?

2010-06-03T20:22:00.002-05:00

Perhaps you could have an organized group work stoppage with your fellow employees in order to leverage the entire work force for the purpose of collectively bargaining better wages and benefits. That is... if you have the balls.

Client opted for the darker shirt. Can't wait to see them.

Bowling shirts.

2010-05-26T08:19:00.004-05:00

Working on a shirt due this week and because of the specific nature and quantity of pins, balls and architecture I'm constructing all the elements in Illustrator instead of hand drawing them. This allows for me to only have to make one ball and then make as many duplicates as needed and then tweak them for individuality. Also, the shirt will be a one color print so drawing it this way will keep me from over inking it to fit the full blazing color version (in my mind).

The bowling alley still needs some work but most of the components are there so hopefully I can wrap this up tonight and move on to 4 on the Floor's next poster.

All the world is a stage...

2010-05-10T00:46:00.003-05:00

And moving it all around can be a right pain in the proscenium.

A New Shirt

2010-05-04T23:49:00.004-05:00

I've been fighting this friggin' thing for awhile now and it finally snapped into place tonight. For something that felt to be fated for failure it seems to have turned out well. Maybe I'll try to get it through Threadless or some such. But only after some sleep is had.

Poster finishes.

2010-04-20T02:37:00.005-05:00

Inked this bad boy up this evening and then scanned it in and used photoshop to drop in color and text. Fight!

More Four.

2010-04-19T09:10:00.002-05:00

Working on a new poster for Four on the Floor. This time they take on the Palomino. Not sure if that's a bar or another band. Initially drew it way too big for the paper so scanned it, reduced it by about 25% or so and then reprinted it on a new sheet of paper so I'd have enough room for the rest of the horse. I'll ink it up, add some tones and text tonight.

A Tale of Two Posters

2010-04-04T17:11:00.006-05:00

Happy Easter, everybody! They're not eggs and you didn't have to hunt for them, but here are two posters that just got finished. Enjoy.

Brute 2010 ReeeeeeeeeeeMIX!

2010-04-01T00:57:00.002-05:00

Bigger, meaner, and ready to... um... rock.

CocoShopping.

2010-03-20T18:39:00.005-05:00

Facebook's "I'm with Coco" Conan O'Brien group has been having contests in which people submit photoshopped images of the beloved and missed late night personality, and since I'm currently teaching a photoshop / illustrator class it just seemed like a good homework assignment. A couple of the student submissions were downright inspiring so it seemed only fair to do one as well.

It took a while to composite the three separate images and put some little touches like building the sideburns, but the giggling made the time go by quickly enough.

This one turned out way better than my initial test run...

Viva Conan!

Annnnnd... Done.

2010-03-13T01:23:00.003-06:00

Some adjustments, a splash of color, a ton of screen tone, and voila! Though I just realized I never signed it. Oh well. Pretty happy with it.

Finished poster inks

2010-03-12T10:46:00.001-06:00

The Rock Show

2010-03-10T22:42:00.007-06:00

Working on a poster for an upcoming four band show at the Kitty Cat Klub. The process started over on Finger Twitchings with some layout sketches and one still earlier of a drum playing octopus. You see, a pal of mine Gabe is in a group called Four on the Floor who rock it with four bass drums. So when asked to do the poster an octopus made all the sense in the world. It can play four bass drums at once. An elephant, for instance, could not.

So the question became "what animals would the other bands be?" The Alarmists clearly would be screaming monkeys, and Evening Rig seemed to be best expressed by a suit wearing giraffe. The suit being the evening rig. Koo Koo Kanga Roo took the longest to figure out.

Eventually it started to come together but there was the question of how to fit in the text and the initial placements were less than satisfying. So some quick crappy prints of the roughs and some pens made it possible to test out some other options.

Discussed it with Gabe and moved forward from there. The little tags won out for their continuity. and then having thought of using building signs for the Alarmists led to using them instead for the location, date and time.

So now all that's left is to ink, tone, and prep the file to get off to the folks making the prints. I'd give them a link but have no idea who they are. So enjoy this glimpse of the early inking stages and stay tuned for the final piece soon to come.

Spirit Update

2010-03-07T17:43:00.003-06:00

Ran out of time for inking as it's time to move on to some paid projects. Not to worry. The inks should be complete in a few days and then it may even see color.

The show is over

2010-03-07T12:31:00.002-06:00

Illo Minn: Vol 2 came to a close yesterday so it seems like a good time to show the finished Fishing piece for those who couldn't make it to the gallery.

Happy Will Eisner Week!

2010-03-07T00:08:00.003-06:00

Last year I celebrated with daily sketches of Spirit characters. This year felt like it needed something a bit bigger. Something a bit more polished. Here is step 1:

Some storyboards / meeting slides

2010-02-21T23:06:00.002-06:00

Can't say much about the why of these but I can post them and since they make me chuckle decided I would.

Munny, Munny, Munny, MUNNY!

2010-02-10T20:04:00.006-06:00

***you can now see them all at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cva_edu/sets/72157623322123881/

Illo Minn: Vol Two is right around the corner and today was the drop off day for artwork. Dropped off were my three pieces and the Munny I decorated for the charity auction. So in the hopes of encouraging potential bidders to start saving the 84 cents necessary to walk away with a Vollmer original, here are some photos of my entry.

His name? El Fuego Diablo! Details include the fiery demon back tattoo, and the love / hate knuckle tattoos. LUCHA!!!!

Brute 2010

2010-02-08T00:20:00.003-06:00

Another bike promo for Spree Touring. This and the Harvest ride still need color but should be wrapped up soonish. Then onto getting things ready for convention season.

A splash of color

2010-02-03T01:51:00.003-06:00

Still a ways to go but here's the start of the finished color piece. It will be done very soon as a piece for Illo Minn: Volume Two.

GL v. Wonderboy in color!

2010-01-31T23:39:00.003-06:00

Added some colors to the brush sketch you can see here.

Football and inking.

2010-01-25T00:08:00.002-06:00

San Diego lost last week and now the Vikes get a big fail for not holding onto the ball. At least the inking went well and I am one step closer to wrapping up some promo work.

Some blue line starts.

2010-01-10T23:28:00.003-06:00

A bit behind on things at the moment and trying to catch up. To that end got some promotional illustrations started with the intent of having them all wrapped up by next weekend. Feels like they're fighting me a bit at the moment but the parts are starting to fall into place. Look for the inks later in the week.

The Shoe must go on.

2010-01-03T21:27:00.003-06:00

The inks have dried out a bit now and the thicker ink is working better on the surface texture. Why is there a guy vomiting on the shoe? It was going to be Mike singing Karaoke but looked nothing like him. Spew seemed like the next best thing. More shoe to come as well as Iron Fist.

Hurm...

2009-12-30T23:44:00.004-06:00

Recently, a friend called me out on my neglect of this sight. Now I feel bad. Mea culpa, mea culpa. In the hopes of making amends I offer a holiday cocktail drawn entirely in Pages. That's right. Drawn in a word processing program.

But that seems insufficient, and so in the hopes of keeping the ball rolling I'd like to ask for help from anyone who happens to read this missive. Any characters you'd like to see in a pinup? Or things you'd find amusing to see drawn by yours truly? You need only leave a comment or drop me an email.

Last but not least, I've been checking out some friend's sites this evening to check in on what they're up to and was blown away by the work of one Kyle Frink. Great paintings, great comics, and the series of US senators is truly sweet. Do yourselves a favor and check them out!

I'll try to post more regularly in the new year.

Dammit Billitteri!

2009-12-14T20:03:00.003-06:00

Hold on to someone's shoe for a few (ok... many) months and they start to get a bit snarky about wanting it back. So stage 2 is now done and the sneaker is all taped up and ready for ink. Now I just need to figure out what to put on it.

P.S. You owe my $6 for the tape, Mike.

Big Beautiful Scanner!

2009-10-30T23:17:00.005-05:00

Today brought the home studio closer to completion with the arrival of a large format flatbed scanner and an equally sweet printer (not yet hooked up). Naturally, something needed to be scanned immediately. So it's old, but that doesn't matter since it could not be scanned yesterday.

Woot!

I love you Epson.

Swine Flu!

2009-10-29T21:19:00.004-05:00

Colin made a request. I was happy to assist. Other slogans:

"Die by the Swine!"

"The Price of Pig Love"

Picnic Bits

2009-10-24T22:13:00.003-05:00

Working on a fun little piece for Digital Picnic and decided to use this as an excuse to better acquaint myself with Illustrator CS4. Started with a simple pen sketch and am now working on building it all up in the mac. Far from finished but thought it would be fun to post the progress.

Fallcon recap and ".faust"

2009-10-15T21:26:00.004-05:00

Fallcon was great as always. Thanks to everyone who showed up and made it a fun way to spend a weekend. Dave, Dave, and Adam were great neighbors and seeing friends as well as making new ones was all kinds of excellent.

As if that isn't cool enough, ".faust, the Summoning" is now up in its entirety at: http://www.sandboxtheatreonline.com/

Check it out. Can't wait to see the show.

Fallcon!

2009-10-09T21:35:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow and Sunday I'll be at the MCBA's Fallcon at the Grandstand of the State Fair grounds in St Paul. I'll have some minis, prints, cards and original art for sale as well as doing sketches. Should be a fun weekend but be sure to swing on by and say hello. If it was Fullcon I'd say "there's no Fullcon without U!" but it's not so I can't. So maybe, "there is no "fail" in Fallcon"? At any rate, be sure to come for a visit.

Faust!

2009-10-07T19:13:00.005-05:00

Done and in full color. For some reason Blogger is creating weird color shifts on the jpgs, but no worries. You can see all six pages at http://joelvollmer.wordpress.com/comic-art/

Big thanks to Dave Wheeler who provided assists with the color.

Brock Sampson makes me happy.

2009-10-04T02:28:00.002-05:00

Thank you Mr. McCulloch, and thank you Mr. Warburton. This one's for you.

I'll have to do one last color check tomorrow for oddness but this feels pretty good to me.

Now up and running with CS4

2009-10-02T23:49:00.004-05:00

So after hitting the wall with my real work, I decided to take a few minutes and play around with the blob brush in combination with my wacom tablet.

Fun stuff. Once I get a better feel I may have to do something a bit more ambitious.

Flatting colors for Brock

2009-09-24T22:57:00.004-05:00

Lots of work still to do but most of the flats are done so selecting areas to work in will be easy.

*** A ton of color work was lost on this file due to a hard drive failure. I'll get back to it as soon as I can. Sheesh. ***

Instead of going to bed

2009-09-24T00:25:00.003-05:00

This happened.

or this.

Not sure about these as the finished colors but it feels like it's close.

Time for bed.

** Maybe this. Thanks for the suggestion Terry. **

I feel slow this week.

2009-09-23T21:48:00.001-05:00

Yet everything is hectic. Weird.

Colors in progress:

More to come. Hopefully soon.

Tabasco!

2009-09-19T18:27:00.004-05:00

Today was day 2 of an intro class I'm teaching on Photoshop. I gave them all the assignment of making some type of promotional / marketing piece using things they could collect on google. It seemed unfair not to do it myself and so...

It made me giggle and then I realized without the spirit of vengeance it was actually a pretty decent ad piece. Go figure.

Thanks to whoever owns the images I used.

The K is silent.

2009-09-14T00:04:00.003-05:00

Based on some sketches from last week, it seemed like a good idea to make some illustrations and put some t-shirts up on etsy or something similar. My theme is "surf sharp". To this end Surf Sharkp is now underway. Still some decisions to make regarding use of text and / or a greater visual presence of wave. Still kinda fun. If anyone has reccomendations on a good sales on demand place let me know. Later.

Tattoo, of course. But tat-shoe?

2009-09-10T11:57:00.003-05:00

A co-worker asked if I'd be willing to potentially ruin one of his brand new shoes by drawing all over it. "Sure," says I. "Why the hell not." Ink sticks but the nibs don't work so well so I guess the whole thing will be done with brush. Now I just need to decide what to put on it.

No one voiced an opinion...

2009-09-09T00:27:00.001-05:00

so I went a little crazy putting in a ton of little feathered lines.

Venture Bros (inked?)

2009-09-08T00:22:00.002-05:00

Just finished the first pass of ink, keeping the line weights pretty even and now am conflicted. The nice clean, crisp quality seems good so it's tempting to just scan it as is and do the rest in colors. Then again, it seems like some variation of line weight and some spotted blacks would expand the space and add some visual pop. Pondering will happen. Voice opinions at will.

"Why must you be the screen door on my submarine, Brock?"
- Hank Venture

"They hit me with a car!"

2009-09-05T00:47:00.003-05:00

In preparation for Fallcon I'm working on a couple pieces to use as limited run prints. Hellboy is the first, I'm undecided on using Wonderboy, but it's now official... there will be a Venture Bros Tribute print chock full of Brock Sampsony goodness. Just finished the blue line roughs. I'll do one more after this. I'm thinking something a bit more on the sexy side but haven't picked the lucky fictitious lady yet. If there's someone you'd love to see me put to paper give a holler.

Sorry for the rather sad digital pic but these are the available resources for quick posting so we all must cope.

Finished Faust inks

2009-08-29T16:12:00.008-05:00

Soon the colors will be in at which point I will drop in the text and send them out.

New day. New header.

2009-08-28T13:51:00.003-05:00

Seems about time to change things up a bit, so it felt like a good time to make a new header. There's some internal back and forth on these two options at the moment and it seems likely that I may just do a fully custom header instead of using snippets from recent work. But this should do for now.

More Faust previews

2009-08-21T22:25:00.003-05:00

Vacation was great and now I'm back and almost finished with the inks for FAUST! Then it's back to work on my favorite project as well as trying to get some stuff ready for FALLCON. Yeehaw!

A Brief Hiatus

2009-08-05T23:34:00.004-05:00

Friday marks the first day of a vacation long past due, so there won't be anything new here for the next week or so. On the up side, I'll be working on a whole mess of stuff as soon as I get back so no worries. Until then, here are some pics of a current project to tide you over.

Finished Hellboy... I think.

2009-08-01T11:32:00.002-05:00

I ended up really liking the texture. So I made some tweaks to a number of spots I missed and then added some shifting color to the water to give it a bit of form. Last i cropped the image down to get rid of the messy edge spots, bumped the canvas size back to 11X17, and dropped a small outline around the image. This should be it barring any weird color issues I may not be able to see.

More colors for Hellboy

2009-08-01T01:15:00.003-05:00

Despite a looming deadline, I felt the need to work on this a bit today. Still unsure of how to work the water ( or even wether or not I should ) since the original plan was for simple flat colors. If I detail it too much ( at all? ) the swirly graphic elements won't make sense and if I leave it flat it may not match the rest of the piece. This is where I'm at:

Now normally this is close to where I stop, but I had a notion and started playing around with various ways of adding textures which lead to this:

And soon after this:

Not sure how I feel about it and am now considering the final output. Time will tell.

Hellboy Flats

2009-07-28T23:56:00.003-05:00

Dropped in some flats today. Not thrilled thus far. The plan was to use flat colors so it would mimic Mignola's stuff a bit in tone but just doesn't feel right. A few days away from it should allow me to come back to it fresh and we'll see then.

Stuff from an Inking Demo / Hellboy.

2009-07-27T22:00:00.002-05:00

Last week I was doing an inking demo for my class and gave them the choice of Catwoman or Hellboy. The vote was 9 to 1.

I also put together an inking practice sheet for them comprised of pencil samples from some amazingly talented guys and, well, I just couldn't resist taking a stab at it myself. My god it was fun. Almost has me tempted to build an inking career, but the storytelling issues are what I love figuring out so maybe not. Still... fun!

Finished... no... really.

2009-07-22T00:12:00.002-05:00

Finished?

2009-07-21T21:51:00.004-05:00

I just don't know any more but am leaning towards yes. (?) Hope this ongoing breakdown, of sorts, has been fun and or helpful.

*** sigh ***

Or this:

Picking away at colors.

2009-07-21T00:26:00.003-05:00

Some screen layer highlights, darken layer shades, saturation adjustments and a lighten layer to give some greenish highlights to his shirt as well as some just general details added into the regular color layer.

Flats

2009-07-19T18:21:00.004-05:00

Dropped in some initial colors. I try to keep the flats close to what I think I want in the finished piece.

***************** Update

Just couldn't keep away from this so been picking away at it and here are the colors in progress. Still a ways to go but I need to sleep.

Finished Wonderboy

2009-07-19T15:15:00.003-05:00

Once all the touch ups were done, scanned it, did some clean up and level adjustments.
Enjoy.

Inking Wonderboy

2009-07-17T23:15:00.006-05:00

Step 1: Using a thick weight calligraphy nib and a crow quill, I go through and outline everything. I start with the foreground elements and try to work my way back so as not to accidentally ink something that will then need to be taken out later.

There's some attention paid to line weights but only in the sense of foreground, mid-ground, and background. So at this point the sense of space is still somewhat flat. The important part is that everything is clearly defined.

step 2: Using a medium sized brush, I go through and fill in all the solid blacks. I've added some weight to the foremost robot hand, but for the most part haven't touched any of the line work from step 1.

step 3: From here on I'll use a nicer brush and the crow quill to add in line weights, feathering details, hatching and so on until it all feels right. Then touch up any of the solid blacks and clean up mistakes. I'll post the finished piece once it is scanned and ready to go. Hopefully there'll be enough time prior to Sunday to drop in some color as well. Partly because Wonderboy's chucks, which originally were black, are now red in my mind. Stay tuned.

Wonderboy

2009-07-12T20:01:00.004-05:00

Working on a quick piece for a buddy. Partially blue lined and will ink it at some point this week.

Inking demo: Hulk and Spidey

2009-07-06T20:25:00.002-05:00

I'm teaching teens comic art and whipped this together for the inking demo I gave. It's no Crappy Batman but still fun. Spatter included free of charge.

Why must I always over-complicate?

2009-06-20T17:12:00.006-05:00

Simplification is always the last thing I think of after countless work hours. Case in point:

Oh well.

Promotional Materials

2009-06-20T14:41:00.005-05:00

It has been awhile since I worked on self promotion so I've spent the past 48 hours or so putting together a postcard. Still not sure about the back of the card but am pretty happy with the front.

Some quick bits of food.

2009-06-05T13:51:00.003-05:00

Bread and shrimp. Is that a meal? Maybe if there's enough wine and a sprig of parsley.

Brutess in color

2009-05-15T00:48:00.006-05:00

This past week has been primarily spent doing color work on a set of illustrations so once they were finished the workflow was still going so it seemed the time to finally wrap up the full color version of the Brutess. Pretty happy with it I guess.

Hopefully more work will follow soon.

Opinions welcome.

2009-05-11T21:01:00.000-05:00

So I've been thinking that trying to maintain multiple blogs is crazy and am now considering merging Finger Twitchings with From the Desk of in order to simplify things. If that happens Finger Twitchings will be the one to go as this one is what I have on my business cards. To me the idea is somewhat awkward since they both feel different in tone and nature but it also feels like one or the other is constantly being ignored.

So what do you, the viewers, think? Should they merge? Not merge? Are people willing to keep track of both? Please let your opinions be heard so as to aid in the upcoming decisions.

Thanks.
the Management.

The Joel Vollmer Museum of Art

2009-05-03T23:00:00.007-05:00

Family concerns had me in Toledo, OH this past week and while staying with my folks it out of nowhere struck me as funny that their house has transformed into a bizarre little museum of my work. Walk in the front door and a really hideous sculpture (good in concept / bad in execution ) stands atop the piano. On into the family room and you fine a far better sample of my sculptural works and a print adorns the wall. Down the hall to the bedrooms and you pass the first comic submission I ever sent out.

My old bedroom has a lovely sample of early influences.

But two spots in particular seemed like weird little galleries. First the basement, where a collection of large charcoal works hang amid bags ready for the rummage sale, sewing machines, old hi-fi, lawn chairs, book shelves and the like.

Last but not least, the small gallery. Home to some nice little prints and complete with seating so one can gaze and admire.