Background: The webcomic serialization of Empowered is currently working its way through a bondage-intensive story that contains most of vol.7's more or less mandatory damsel-in-distress content.
As I write the commentaries for that episode's pages, I'm spotting multiple Emp poses that were based on older rough sketches either drawn as DiD commissions (for a patron who appreciated such loosely sketched sets) or as random, between-pan...
2020-08-05 13:01:04 +0000 UTC
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So!
I had forgotten that, six or seven months ago (or longer), I was gradually working my way backward through the posting the work stages for the cover illos of Empowered. (The last one I tackled was vol.9, but I don't feel like dragging my ass through this site's sprawling archive of posts to find it.)
To fill today's open slot in the weekly schedule, I was planning to post the work stages for vol.8's cover, which has always been a bit of a disappointment to me—but then I realized that I might as wel...
2020-08-04 13:07:16 +0000 UTC
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Yet again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from May 2018, while the second set is an example from February 2017, still fairly early on in the effort.
Below, enjoy(?) the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
2020-08-03 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Behold, a quartet of vintage con sketches featuring Cammy from the videogame series Street Fighter! I was clearly trying out a bunch of different stylistic and character design approaches with these pieces, which is something I tend to do when drawing the same character repeatedly.
TOMORROW ON THIS HERE PATREON: Very likely another preview from Empowered vol. 12, as I've just restarted work on the book.
2020-07-31 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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UPDATE: Whoops, accidentally scheduled this post to go up at 9:00pm instead of the usual 9:00am timeframe. Wellp, I'm publishing the g-d thing immediately!
I don't think I've posted this piece before on Patreon, but aren't 100% sure about that. Welcome to the perils of posting here every g-d weekday for almost a year and a half, folks; you tend to lose track of what went up when or where.
Anyhoo, above are my work stages for an illo I drew for the Wildstorm 25th anniversary hardcover, featuring ...
2020-07-30 16:42:57 +0000 UTC
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A few more Vintage Con Sketches of the Dirty Pair in distress for y'all!
A few words:
The dastardly lass distressing Kei and Yuri in the 2002 piece above is the freaky-looking, Yasushi-Nirasawa-armed character "Ng Mui" from 1995's Dirty Pair: Fatal But Not Serious (though I don't think her name appeared during her brief appearance). She was the shady tech...
2020-07-29 12:58:40 +0000 UTC
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Wellp, it's been over two months since my last Empowered vol.12 update, as I stalled out over lack of interest in drawing this long and very important conversation scene. (You might want to check out the previous installment or two if you've understandably forgotten the narrative thread.)
Anyhoo, since then my interest in drawing this g-d volume might—I say, might—have been revitalized by a truly bold and radical (IMHO)...
2020-07-28 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Yet again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from May 2018, while the second set is an example from February 2017, still fairly early on in the effort.
Below, enjoy(?) the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
2020-07-27 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Behold, another bunch of Bubblegum Crisis con sketches from various years, following up on last week's post. I have a worrying feeling, though, that I might've already posted one of these pieces months and months ago; if so, my apologies in advance, folks.
This one's based on photoreference of my friend Elin Winkler that I shot back in 1996...
2020-07-24 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Here are a bunch of con sketches from 2019's Phoenix Fan Fusion that, for unknown reasons, I posted on social media last year but never got around to posting on Patreon, as far as I can tell (with one notable exception).
Alas, these jpegs are fairly low quality as they're harvested from Twitter and not taken directly from my phone's camera roll, due to the sad fact that said phone crapped out last year and I lost months worth of photos when I restored it from the wrong backup; oh, well. (The process of restoring the g-d thing was so tr...
2020-07-23 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Here's a pair of recent—very recent, as in finished yesterday—Patron commissions drawn in the 11" X 14" two-color format I use for con sketches, featuring Empowered characters bedamseled to varying degrees of distress.
A few words:
A photoreference-based piece, featuring some very tricky and difficult to interpret foreshortening on the models. Still, worked out decently enough.
I def...
2020-07-22 13:15:44 +0000 UTC
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Following up on last week's belated post of the 1997 "How to Draw in the Manga Style (Sorta)" piece I wrote and drew for Wizard magazine, here's the cover illo I did for 'em in late 1999. The theme was, I assume, the idea of manga—or at least manga-influenced adaptations—of mainstream American properties; not sure, TBH, as I lost my comp copy of the book years ago.
A few words on the images:
2020-07-21 13:01:02 +0000 UTC
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Yet again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from June 2018, while the second set is an example from February 2017, still fairly early on in the effort.
A few words on both:
That close-up shot at lower left is still a personal favorite, g...
2020-07-20 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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No time for an elaborate post with time-consuming commentary today, so here's a quartet of Bubblegum Crisis con sketches from 2002 (medium-contrast pencil on linen-finish cardstock) and 2006 (Sharpie marker on Bristol board) hastily scavenged from my hard drive. Enjoy? Yes, enjoy, dagnabbit!
MONDAY ON THIS HERE PATREON: Another double shot of life drawings, as usual.
2020-07-17 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Note: You can check out I Am Empowered's previous installment here.
And now, back to Emp's first-person narration in (old) Twitter-based 140-character format, taking place roughly around the beginning of Empowered vol.1.
We've hit the point in this loose jumble of episodes that no remaining chapter is complete; all the remaining material from this...
2020-07-16 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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For this week's Distressed Damsels post, I'm breaking out the ol' Vintage Con Sketches in the form of some late-90s commissioned DiD pieces featuring Dirty Pair's Kei & Yuri. More specifically, this is the costume and character-design iteration I've dubbed "the hot pants & garter belts version," developed because I had become really, really bored with all the DP sketches (DiD or otherwise) I was cranking out en masse at th...
2020-07-15 13:01:03 +0000 UTC
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After posting the first page of this stuff last Friday for a "Rando's Cornucopia" grab-bag post, I was vaguely startled to realize that I'd apparently never posted this material on the ol' Patreon before. (I was likely working under the assumption that most Patrons would already have seen this long-ago article, TBH.) So, here 'tis!
From that golden year of 1997, during a short-lived era of optimism and positivity when my comics career was on the upswing with the publication of both Titans: Scissors, Paper, Stone
2020-07-14 13:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Yet again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from June 2018 (though peculiarly misdated on the sketch as May), while the second set is an example from February 2017, still fairly early on in the effort.
Below, enjoy(?) the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
2020-07-13 13:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Time for another installment of the sporadically recurring Patreon feature The Rando's Cornucopia, aka "a grab-bag post of miscellaneous odds & ends lurking on my hard drive."
And now, a few words on said odds & ends:
First off is an illo I drew circa the early 2000s depicting Jaeger from my friend Carla Speed McNeil's great comic Finder, with purty colors provided by...
2020-07-10 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Note: You can check out I Am Empowered's previous installment here.
And now, back to Emp's first-person narration in (old) Twitter-based 140-character format, taking place roughly around the beginning of Empowered vol.1.
We've hit the point in this loose jumble of episodes that no remaining chapter is complete; all the remaining material from this...
2020-07-09 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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As we take a few weeks off from serializing longer-form commissioned stories—or, ahem, "stories"—here's a few random odds& ends.
First off is a hot-off-the-iPad Clip Studio Paint sketch set based on DiD art requests from Patrons of the $20 tier:
Even though I'm far—nay, faaaaar—from satisfied with how the CSP "design pencil" brush renders "pseudo-pencils," I'm still seriously considering drawing at least a few chapte...
2020-07-08 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
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(You can check out the previous part of this serialization here, assuming I remember to go back and insert the correct link.)
Wellp, we're continuing—nay, concluding—serialization of my page roughs and scripts for Empowered and the Giant-Size Issues, a never-published, two-issue miniseries intended to be drawn by a Special Guest Artist.
As mentioned previously, I...
2020-07-07 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Yet again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from June 2018 (though peculiarly misdated on the sketch as May) based on a book of 1930s-era celeb photography, while the second set is an example from January 2017, still fairly early on in the effort.
Below, enjoy(?) the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments. &nbs...
2020-07-06 13:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Welcome to another installment of FAILED-PROJECT FRIDAY, folks! (First one in quite a few months, I'm afraid.)
I'm going way the hell back for this one; I was working on this project at the same time that I was cranking out my first bunch of (unpublished) Dirty Pair stories, back in my second and third years at the Joe Kubert School circa1987-88. The project's failure was no great loss, but I hope it will serve as an object lesson re: how a failed project can be cannibalized ...
2020-07-03 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
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<Note: You can check out I Am Empowered's previous installments with this tag.
And now, back to Emp's first-person narration in (old) Twitter-based 140-character format, taking place roughly around the beginning of Empowered vol.1.
We've hit the point in this loose jumble of episodes that no remaining chapter is complete; a...
2020-07-02 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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With this week's post, we're continuing—in fact, concluding—serialization of a 2003-ish commissioned DiD story featuring my iteration of Dirty Pair's Yuri that I've actually considered redoing as an Empowered episode, for reasons that will eventually become obvious (especially by the concluding pages of the story).
You can check out the previous installment of this goofy narrative here — assuming I remember to update the correct link, that is.
(Perhaps...
2020-07-01 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
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As I reluctantly close down the art-request Patreon feature for the $5 tier due to lack of available worktime, here are a final trio of Clip Studio Paint sketch sets based on suggestions from said tier.
A few words on each:
TBH, kinda sleazed out on the "high-level cleric" sketch of the half-orc from 2020-06-30 13:17:36 +0000 UTC
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Yet again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from June 2018, while the second set is an example from January 2017, still fairly early on in the effort.
Below, enjoy(?) the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
UPDATE: After considerable confusion, I've belatedly figured out that I don't...
2020-06-29 13:00:02 +0000 UTC
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The good news? Time for the 140-odd Patrons of the $5 tier to make their art requests for the rapidly dwindling month of June!
The bad news? Starting in July, I'm going to have to discontinue the option of regular monthly art requests for the $5 tier (as I had to do last month for the $1 and $3 tiers), as I find myself swamped with suggestions overall and increasingly short on worktime to draw 'em.
I'm hoping to restart work shortly on Empowered vol. 12 with a bold and frankly bats**t n...
2020-06-27 13:50:20 +0000 UTC
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Behold, several sketch sets of mainly Party of Two suggestions from the $10 and $20 tiers! As of July, the "art requests" feature will move solely to those tiers going forward, as I just can't spare the worktime for extensive digital-art tests any more. (I'll try to address this topic in more detail shortly.)
A few words:
Some especially amusing Party reqs from the $10 tier! (Drawn in Clip Studio Paint, BTW.)
2020-06-26 14:47:28 +0000 UTC
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