I'm really short on time this morning (and am attempting to post this g-d thing for the second g-d time), so here's a hastily posted set of 1996 con sketches featuring Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion, each drawn on linen-finish cardsstock and based on photoreference. And yeahp, the last two drawings were quite clearly based on pics from the '96-ish photo shoot of that leather jack...
2019-08-15 13:08:21 +0000 UTC
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DELUXE 8-PAGE DOSE OF HIGH-CONTRAST DAMSELRY! Woo hoo! (Most weekly installments along these lines certainly won't be 8pp long, or I'll be outta material very quickly. Howeva, this story fragment didn't break all that cleanly into halves, so I'm delivering it to y'all in one big clump. Enjoy?)
Behold, an unused Empowered scene—can't quite call it a story as such, though "story fragment" might be more accurate. Drawn circa 2005 or so, it was a semi...
2019-08-14 13:01:02 +0000 UTC
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Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. Above is a recent set from April, while below is one from very early on in the effort (December 2016).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
2019-08-13 13:01:03 +0000 UTC
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Above are my thumbnails for issue #4 of 2018's Empowered and Sistah Spooky's High School Hell, a six-part miniseries written by me, drawn by Carla Speed McNeil, and colored by Jenn Manley Lee. More info on the project here; and below is Carla & Jenn's cover for the issue, featuring the "Junk Food Elemental" in all its majestic glory:
2019-08-12 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Welcome to another installment of Failed-Project Friday!
Back when I was working on the Gen13 Bootleg: "Grunge: The Movie!" arc for Wildstorm circa 1996 or 1997, I was flailing desperately about to line up a crossover—any crossover—between the Dirty Pair and some other, more popular book, in an attempt to boost the DP's profile (and earn some sweet mainstream page rates in the process). As I was working on both books at the time, a Gen13/ Dirty Pair crossover ...
2019-08-09 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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More sketches from 2015, featuring Emp and friends (and enemies) from Empowered drawn in an extra-cartoony style inspired by the adorably superdeformed cheesecakery of the French artist Arthur de Pins. (Part 1 here.)
...Yeah, I don't think DiD (damsel in distress) imagery works particularly well in this style. (Oh, well.)
2019-08-08 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Trying out that new Patreon "image gallery" function with this week's DiD post, folks. Will it work out? Let's find out together!
The pages above are from a commissioned story—well, scene, at least—for a kindly benefactor who didn't mind a sketchy, unfinished "vignette" format, sans backgrounds or non-damsel detail. He was looking for a few pages of Emp "laid low" by a drone, possibly of Advanced Restraint Research derivation. Alas, I have no scan of the first page, in which the ARR drone clamps ont...
2019-08-07 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Yet again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday, once the supply dwindles badly enough, I'll have to go back to one sketch set per week.) Above is a recent set from April, while below is one from very early on in the effort (December 2016).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
2019-08-06 13:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Based on August art requests solicited from the Big Spenders of the higher tiers, here's the first clump o' sketches relating to those suggestions. (Worry not, everyone else, you'll get your chance for requests next week.)
Above is a quick, 45-minute set drawn in the Procreate art app, featuring an Emp sketch based on an undeniably iconic Raquel Welch image; the nasal-centric rest of the set is made up of facial studies influenced by several arti...
2019-08-05 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Welcome to another FFF installment, folks! This time around, the defunct project in question is a pitch I made for a Matrix Online story, back circa 2002 when "RedPill" was commissioning Matrix-related comics to run on their website in the months leading up to the 2003 release of The Matrix: Reloaded.
Note that the main illo above features fine color work by my buddy Ryan Kinnaird; it also features some rather wonky figure drawing, as I was ...
2019-08-02 13:01:00 +0000 UTC
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This month, I'm getting an early start on soliciting some art requests from you fine folks in the two higher Patreon tiers! As before, down in the comments section below, feel free to suggest any characters, intellectual properties, or situations that you'd like to see me draw during the rest of the month, as time allows.
Note that I added the term "situations" above because these two tiers now receive weekly doses of "damsel in distress" commissioned ...
2019-08-02 02:47:20 +0000 UTC
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Random clump of sketches from 2015, featuring Emp (from Empowered, my ongoing "sexy superhero comedy" series) drawn in an extra-cartoony style inspired by the adorably superdeformed cheesecakery of the French artist Arthur de Pins. Not sure why I haven't tried anything even vaguely "SD-ish" in the last few decades(!), as drawing that way wouldn't be impossible for me; I just never seemed to think of it, for some reason.
2019-08-01 13:01:06 +0000 UTC
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Okay, so the page above did actually see print in Empowered vol. 3, but I'm showing it here just to set the scene, okay?
That sequence appears roughly midway through the vol. 3 story "Mysterious Dumbass," which you can check out (and catch up on) here. However, as that webcomic page's commentary details, "Dumbass" was a desperate attempt to meet a looming deadline by combining an incomplete, never-finish...
2019-07-31 13:01:02 +0000 UTC
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Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. Above is a recent set from April, while below is one from very early on in the effort (December 2016).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
2019-07-30 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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In addition to the July art requests I posted earlier today, over the weekend I also cranked out a trio of Hushed Half-Elf sketch sets as further experiments with working digitally. Behold the fruits of my slowly, ever-so-slowly evolving efforts in the iOS art app Procreate!
The four-sketch set above is arguably the best of the lot, as I continued playing with different brushes and settings. The close-up at lower left is a riff based on the character designs...
2019-07-30 03:34:27 +0000 UTC
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Welcome, everyone, to the biggest dump yet of sketches drawn in response to Patrons' suggestions for content, as solicited on a monthly basis. Here, I'm lumping together previously separate July art requests from all Patrons and the big spenders of the $5 and $10 tiers. (Hope the latter folks don't mind!)
Two weeks ago, I screwed up my drawi...
2019-07-29 13:27:30 +0000 UTC
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For this week's Failed-Project Friday, we're going all the way back to 1993 to check out my very first unsuccessful pitch to a mainstream comics company. Huzzah!
In the summer of '93, I was approached by a Marvel editor about penciling an X-Force annual that would've been scripted by another writer. However, at that time I wasn't interested—and still aren't, today—in drawing any comic that I didn't write myself, as assuming strictly the artist's role just wouldn't work for me. (Not...
2019-07-26 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Been a while since I've done one of these, folks!
Stumbled across this reworked Twitter rant as a series of Empowered webcomic commentaries t'other day. Since this rant ties in to the failure of recently discussed defunct project Cannibal Sun, thought I might as well collect it in a Patreon post.
Shall we begin? Let's...
2019-07-25 13:01:00 +0000 UTC
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After posting the last clump o' pages a few weeks back, I wasn't planning on previewing any more pages from Empowered vol.12's first story—until I belatedly realized that, hey, I could show the rest of the DiD-intensive pages as a post for the $5 and $10 tiers. Yay!
Gotta say, I've gotten really, really sick of drawing these goons' unifor...
2019-07-24 13:33:06 +0000 UTC
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Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. Above is a recent set from April, while below is one from very early on in the effort (December 2016). With the figure at left, the close-up on an interesting detail (the slight difference in how creases) is a neat approach; I should try that again, assuming my g-d drawing hand ever recovers from whatever the hell's been wrong with it since I apparently strained it last Monday. (Ughh.) That's why I haven't made any progress on July art requests in a...
2019-07-23 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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More Empowered story notes from very early on in the series; been a while since the last one of these, alas. And now, some quick annotations.
Right-hand column (because I always write this side first, for some reason):
* "Big Iron" refers to a supervillain with 2019-07-22 13:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Following up from last Friday's initial peek at artwork for my 2003-ish SF comic Cannibal Sun pitched (and, temporarily, accepted!) to Wildstorm's Cliffhanger lane, here's s'more developmental stuff from the (theoretical) series.
These first three pieces are actually con sketches of the project's heroine Skaya, from the now-defunct era when I took commissions home and drew 'em on linen-finish cardstock.
2019-07-19 13:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Behold, one of maaaaybe two published comic pages I've ever drawn that I didn't also write, for the Dark Horse comic The Guild: Tink. To quote the solicitation copy: "Felicia Day returns to her Internet and comics sensation The Guild with a story spotlighting the Knights of Good’s most mysterious member, Tinkerballa!"
Alas, I don't h...
2019-07-18 14:26:44 +0000 UTC
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In honor of San Diego Comic-Con this year—which, alas, I'm not attending, due to hotel-related shenanigans—here's an illo I drew for the con's booklet thingie back in 1990, not long before starting work on the miniseries Dirty Pair: A Plague of Angels. (I think.)
Pencils and inks by me, and lettering by the great Tom Orzechowski. I don't think that my friend Tomoko Saito did the screentones on this one, as the tone choices are too unimaginative and by-the-book to be hers—which means I must have cut 'em m...
2019-07-17 13:03:15 +0000 UTC
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For this week's DiD dump, I'm digging back in the archives a bit, and posting some unused Empowered material. The 2012 sketch above is from an unpublished sequel to the Extra Sketchiness mini-sketchbook, from which I've already posted a few pieces.
Here's another commission originally slated to be (re)used for the nonexistent sketchbook. Note that its text wound up being used as the title for the
2019-07-16 14:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. Above is a recent set (#317), while below is one from very early on in the effort (December 2016).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
2019-07-16 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Per a (seconded!) July art-request suggestion from the big spenders of the $5+ tiers, here's a set of quick sketches of Hopper from Netflix's Stranger Things, drawn in the iOs app Procreate. I should hasten to clarify that this isn't really my interpretation of the character as such, but more of a test for digital-art techniques using pics from the show as photoreference. I might still attempt my own take on "Hop" later, for whatever that's worth.
Speaking of digital doofery, I branched out a little f...
2019-07-15 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Last week, the defunct Kill Bill pitch. This week, enjoy some 2003 artwork from Cannibal Sun, an SF comic I once intended to do for Wildstorm's now-defunct Cliffhanger line. (The image above is from a "Happy Holidays" jpeg I sent around to friends and acquaintances, featuring colors by the great Ryan Kinnaird.)
Cannibal Sun was, in effect, a much harder-edged, fur...
2019-07-12 14:00:00 +0000 UTC
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Following up on last week's Hushed Half-Elf installment, here's more from the rather goofy fantasy/ RPG DiD premise that I'm using mainly as a test subject for art techniques both analog and digital.
Speaking of experiments, the image above was just a trio of damsel-y figure roughs drawn in the iOS app MediBang Paint, using the misnamed "pencil" brush that I do so love to sketch with. Ah, but then, whilst screwing around with the ap...
2019-07-11 14:01:00 +0000 UTC
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As with previous installments of this monthly feature, any of you fine Patrons are welcome to suggest your ideas for a subject or character that I'll tackle for a Patreon-exclusive piece of artwork. (Well, at least initially Patreon-exclusive, as I might someday post the theoretical illo elsewhere in the future.)
Last month, I was able to tackle three suggestions as Procreate sketch sets: HK superhero Inframan, <...
2019-07-11 14:00:00 +0000 UTC
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