How NOT to paint a comic book cover.

Here's a cover Tim Kelly penciled, and I inked & colored for the Heros Initiative, (which helps out aging comic artists , or just comic artists going through a rough patch.)

Here's Tim's way-cool pencil drawing..

My goal, try NOT to let the original drawing's charm get lost in over-rendering.

rough in come color with water soluble pencils to start..

Ad some inks... these blacks will lose contrast once water color and acrylic paint goes over it, so i'll have to go back in to add more blacks after the color.

Here's some teal watercolor added, so will go back in so he's bluer. Added some texture to his dace but the face is drifting away from Tim's original though.. which i really liked.

But it's to late now, I'm stuck. Since it's being auctioned off, no digital 'net' to fix mistakes of fuss with after the fact.

So thats it, warts and all. It's totally over-worked and lost most of Tim's quirkiness. (Which I *tried* to preserve), but hell.... what are you gonna do? So,  *learn* from my mistakes, know when to quit while your behind. But if someone likes it and helps out charity, my being satisfied doesn't come into it. If it's for a good cause, that's all that matters.

Cheezy Trout Icons

Icons are pretty much everywhere, and i know you could pretty much make these yourselves if you want, but just throwing them up for fun. (At least one of them is an colorized version you won't find in the comic!)

....little bit of both?

This is either a 'collage in progress' ...




or a buncha crap I threw together,





you decide. : )

Sorry this is so brief; up to my ass once again in deadlines (which is a 'good problem' actually, considering how tough times are out there). Try to take care of yourself if you're one of TONS of people struggling right now. Heck, do something fun. Something stupid. Something.... for yourself... or someone ELSE you care about this week. I promise I will too.  Life is too friggin' short.

End of rant.

Crap lying on my studio floor

Knee-deep in Vamps. Trying to finish off the last issue of a "30 Days" series...

Here's the same page hopelessly overworked... sometimes in my case it's about knowing WHEN to quit.

Meanwhile all this OTHER creator-owned stuff keeps overflowing... it seems to feed off the work-for- hire stuff.

Distorted painting, doodles, cartoons and random ideas...

...all poured into these recyclable brown sketchbooks, which pile up in nooks and crannies of my studio. Probably like tons of other artists. It's compulsive, I guess. The Gibson Girls are the latest, drawn by artist Charles Gibson. More on this next blog.

Meanwhile I keep finding all these old vintage Trout ads from the 1900s on wooden antiques. They keep piling up too. The real-life inspiration for my Dana keeps passing them along to me too.

I have such a jones for the 1800-1900s. Below is how I try to keep it all straight..  Kinda cruel that it doesn't perfectly line up like it's supposed too, eh? I wasn't being cute either; I really had to write it down like this for my own sake, just to keep it clear.

In Other News: I did an multi-part interview with a really cool guy names Josh Jones over at ComicAttack. It's not out yet, but when it is I'll throw up a link to it. This should come out next month or so, in several parts. It's all Josh's fault for asking too many interesting questions, and of course... my inability to shut the hell up. As usual. : )

Now I'd better finish off these friggin' vampires. They're piling up like crazy.