Some New Warm-up Sketches...

Mucho Apologies for the lack of post. Tons of thanks to everyone who's reached out to make sure I'm 'okay'.  Also thanks to Karel Kelly who threw up an interview with me here. 

Started a new sketchbook.. probably no new lines I have to make, but sometimes a different size or colored sketchbook makes us *feel* as though there's a fresh start.   New possibilities. Some sense of hope.  Here's some more surreal Trout doodles.. ( or Twout as it's sometimes spelled).. 

My therapy is... usual escape into creativity and doodles... here's a spread from a Mars attack comic that's eventually coming out. A wistful post-martian-attack mom.. fits the mood I'm emerging from. 

You probably already know the drill we all go thru.  Defaulting to "hermit-crab" status... during the impending pre-thanksgiving- and pre-christmas-cluster.... 

....that makes some of us all plunge into various forms of our own private holiday regression. 

No excuses. Not seeking pity. Mostly lack of posts are because of whatever cyclothymic moods I'm trying to push my way through. The good news is... i've remerged and more or less back. 

Most of these are material from either Worlds sketchbooks 2 and 3, 

.....or Nola and Dana sketches. 

But you've probably already figured that out, from all the "Dana" and "Nola" scribbles. 

Plus various other weird little disintegrating faces here and there.... 

just quick most little warm up sketches.. 

Trying to ease back in. Hope everything's cool with all of you guys too - 

... I wish you all the BEST.... a Stress-Fress-Holiday ( whenever possible ). 

Take care,

Sam

Birds, Chickens, Foxes, and a weird little pink creature

Just a few odds and ends today... not taking today off, just enjoying the quiet as others do their fourth thing-ys.

The drawing (above) is a Junko... least i think it's a junko. Some sorta puffed-up kinda bird.  There's probably about sixty or so little animal illustrations i've done for my wife over the years... most  fans haven't seen 'em yet. Figure they can be spread through-out the three 'Worlds of Sam Kieth' art books, just to add some variety.

This one isn't me, i wish it was. Jon's in fire lately and kicking my ass, in a good way.
Dunno if any of you have been keeping up with the last 5 or 6 pages he's done on Chickens ... but he's pumped NEW LIFE back into it,

Above a sliver of a panel from my batch of my chicken contributions.

Jon's latest has re-inspired me to do another batch of nine pages in a row, following his Worth checking out if your into his/and/my stuff.  They way i plan to deal with Jon's fantastic hot streak is to pull against it. Where do worse art... but ... when his gets furious and detailed, i'll tried to go soft and muted. Course we're BOTH so all over the map by now and changing styles in nearly every  page, that any modulating to each other... is out the window.

But that's a good thing actually. It seems to have a momentum all it's own now, after the 6 month of flaking (mostly my fault).

Meanwhile, this little guy is something i threw into the hollows book. Chris Ryall asked to add a 'sam creature' into the story, so this is what came up with. It's a low rez scan, but i kinda like how hand drawn and soft leaded it looks..

While this book had some digital stuff, (mostly blackened panel borders... a few hand done washes i drop into backgrounds), but MOST of it is possibly the most 'organic' looking book I've done at IDW so far.

Here's a couple panels i'm finishing today, it's got this quirky scientist dude (who flies around with weird mechanical wings, (he's body's not finished yet, obviously)..  and another city tree above too. The whole thing just sorta grew naturally from things i liked to draw, even though it's Chris plot.

I need to get a cover for the first issue done this week.

This Fox above is also drawing done for my wife. I did it on recycled paper ages ago.. butI decided to to lose the brown texture in photoshop, but the white version has lost much of the subtly.

Can't decide which one should go in the art book though, any preferences?

Dana & Nola Update: YAY - I've also found a way to pump up the PRESSURE on myself to finish Nola: each week i'll do one page strip of it. They're deliberately drawn 'simple' for the most part ( panel on the left) .. but sometimes i'll go a little more detailed on some faces ( right panel)... it just depends. Nola is comedic telling Dana off she she's cartoony there, and Dana sighs in a more quasi-realistic panel. ( as realistic as i get)

Part of the hold up on finish this book was, some pages are wild off the wall painted and stylized, and others more nine grid less flashy 'story focused' pages. I couldn't decide which goes where, graphic as over 150 painted, stray-toaster style painted ones are DONE. Those were easiest to do. All i need to do left is the sedate traditional strip type pages, but i couldn't seem to finish any.

I realized a page each week, MOTIVATES me to pile up pages. It helps them come alive for me as characters too. I don't want you to have to wait a year to see who they are. Also it gets them lettered by Oni, so you can get to READ these two sisters story. And i'll throw the finished page up either on this blog, or a new one.

So it's on a (more or less) REGULAR schedule now.  Better than nothing huh? Give me a couple of weeks after San Diego to get them lettered and THEN thrown up to read,  okay?

What else? Chickens, up again. Dana-Nola? Back on track. Hollows, first issue is 98% done. Just fill in a few empty panels. Also, wrapping the last chapter of aliens this week too, so THAT will be done too.


This is off topic... but does  anybody else really into Junko Mizuno's Chibi drawings? I know she's been around a while, (i saw one of her books ages ago).. but i've rediscovered her lately.  Just love her stuff.

Go watch things 'Explode in the Sky' for me, because I'll be fast asleep by then.

Another Dana, Lobo & Another Abstract

Here's the original Logo page for Batman Logo... a photo copy actually. Came across it by accident today.

I've always felt the less color on lobo's face and body, the better. Even the best colorist tend to over-color him.

The way Simon designed him in the first series... white face against black... it just as so much punch in how the contrast is, doesn't it? i just thought i'd throw it up here for fun.


Started this Dana one last week, so i'll finish it this morning.

again, trying for 'less is more' on this version of her.

Side by side..

keeping it light with the face shadows..

everything's either black colored pencils or reg. number 2 pencil. Also a watercolor brush. 

a little more buffed on her arms, small boobs, tighter tummy, rounder checks on her face.  

 sorta apples and oranges really, isn't it? I mean you could waste all day picking parts from each one you like better. 

 I'm kinda surprised, i though i'd like this new one much better, and i do like it. But it's not 'better'... 

just a different mood.  

Much more detail in her orange tank top too. Not sure why i emphasized what i did, i think it's just organic when you redraw something, you lose some things, gain others.. 

Here's an abstract I started a while back, added a little more to it this morning. 

It gets a little busy towards the middle, but the top swirls seem pretty interesting.. 

Abstracts are hard to justify really, aren't they? They barrow against everyone's patience, understandably. 

But i'm still drawn to them. 

with these cropped photos, you can almost get a better sense of it than all at once. It's like your attention gets focused on certain sections... it's almost like comic panels, isn't it?  

I've often use abstract paints I've done as backgrounds in comics i do, just for fun. 

I think i still need to blend some of the acrylic white paint with the white out pen, which is much cruder a tool.. 

but that's about it for this one. no process photos on this sucker, sorry. But you got some of that on the Dana one above. 

The 'mom in the tub' again.. a reoccurring theme in Nola's life. 

okay gang, glad your digging everything so far, have to play catch up this week, but i'll try to get something else up this week for sure! 

- Sam 

A Nola spread, and Dysfunctional Moms & Daughter stuff!

WOW!!! - we made it to 400 followers. Not sure what the heck that means, but it looks cool up along the side, eh? YOU guys did this, so much THANKS to all of you for still checking this sucker out!

..to celebrate here's a splash page from the Nola graphic novel (still in progress) -

Why is the pic above sideways? because if i posed it to the biggest size,  it'd partly be obscured behind the column on the left and we'd not see the mom's face.  Course i could have reversed the pic so mom's face is visible on the left, but then the 'mommy' logo would be backwards. See the nasty complications of digital trickery?

Pssst ~ Hey GALS ( or guys too ) - this post has some 'Four Phases of Mom': which means i talk a little about dysfunctional moms & daughters for a future Nola storyline, so it's all crammed down there in the middle of this post somewhere.

okay... more crap awaits.  Here's another panel for the Nola book. I'm gonna do it twice up, but i didn't have a piece of bristol wide enough, so i taped a few inches on either side..

It'll be a long skinny panel showing Nola's on the living room floor and dad in the upper left corner.

The first piece of paper i drew it on got so ragged from all the erasing that i traced it onto this bristol, which should hold watercolor much better. Hopefully the 'line' where the two pieces of bristol butt up won't show up once it's printed.

This will be fun to paint, SOMEDAY, but not today.. for now it awaits in the corner like all the rest of scraps lying around the studio.

so, what else?  Finishing the arm fox holes guys...

Here's a couple of half inked panels from the the DC 5 pager. Well, my part is 5 pages, other artists are drawing the rest of the book.

 It's very strange to be plunged into a story where you know none of the characters.  Sorta like walking into a movie in the middle, no clue what's happening. Thankfully the editor had tons of reference.  I warned him my style will just stick out like a sore thumb, but he wanted me anyways.  But it's sorta cool. 

okay, between inking those, i'll take a small break and finish this.. 

i penciled it a few weeks back... totally forgot about it, but it's a nice way to show Nola and Dana's mom in four distinct stages of her life.  

Here's something interesting, i erased the dana figure on the end, because this pages goes in Nola's book, so the only evidence i even drew Dana on this page is thee two photos on the blog. 

okay, i guess it's not all that interesting, but whatever.. i gotta talk about something between the pics, eh? here's i've inking the '60's Mom's' mini skirt. 

Now I'm jumping to 'Earth mother' mom's flowing sun dress. Yeah, that big-add think brush stroke is brush, i just added a colored pencil to soften the edge a little. 

okay, here all the warts as exposed, this is not super detailed on her dress, and since the book will be printed over-sized, it won't shrink down much, so why am i being so sloppy here? 

because years of boo boos have taught me the sorry of kill one's self adding TONS of delicate ornate fine bush or pen work, only to foolishly dumping a layer of color wash over it and watch all that detail  dissolve or get muddied away.  

Any detail i do add will be towards the end. Amazing how crude artwork looks up close, isn't it? 

It's a wonder how much less crappy it looks when your nose isn't inches from the paper. So, Earth mother mom's dress is in pretty good shape. 

now we'll hop over to start in on Dana and the 60's Mom.  Note the total contrast, i love how even the way Nola is painted looks so grungy, hairy eye brows, total bad ass daughter differentiating herself from the slick antiseptic looking 60's mom she grew up under the thumb of.  

Now, that's plot, but it's funny how the characters act, effects not only their body language or fashion sense, but even how the artists rendered them. 

Or maybe that's just me? i'm probably over-thinking it waaay to much.  like everything else i do. 

you might have noticed i added some white 'sheen' to the floral prints on mom's mini skirt, just to make it pop. Acrylic white really separates nicely against that recyclable brown paper. 

So there's our trio so far. First came '60's Mom' in her 30s, then later Nola's mom vision of femininity matured into 'Earth-mother' mom in her 40s. 

Actually i will flip this image horizontally, so that the mom's go from younger to older, left to right. As usual my tendency is to draw things right to left,  even though in my mind i'm thinking of them left to right. 

okay... so while i've been yammering on about the four cycles of mom, who's this red chick i'm coloring? That's the next phase, back to college and professional mom in her 40s. Older women migrating back to college like ducks to a pond. Older chicks dig 'knowing stuff' i guess.  : )  Maybe they are able to absorb more of it more the second time around?

Could be wrong. Maybe it's just THIS mom.. the imaginary one in my head. This is mom at the hight of her worldly powers.. she has it all, money, fab hone, killer career, sex appeal, 

yet something is still missing. 

Bunny slippers and a macrame sun hat... Senior Mom, the autumn years. 60 Mom is sick of competing in the rat race. Her world isn't shrinking, she's just more.. selective where she puts her time and energy. 

She's hopefully older and wiser, but knowing this family, probably not. Note Nola has a pair of scissors with blood on them. They broke in two when mom threw them into a wall during a fight with grandma. Nola names the half pair of scissors called 'Sizzy'.  She pasted a dolls eye in the middle of it. Sizzy talks to her and represents her violent side.  

okay, ENOUGH Nola crap for today.. these zombies just ain't gonna ink themselves, are they?  They been very patience so far during all this dysfunctional mother daughter nonsense. 

and what about Dana? Here i've shamelessly traced Dana's rough shape onto another piece of paper.  now normally tracing is kinda taboo as you recreate the same mistakes (MY mistakes) my last drawing had.  

So why did i bother to trace my flawed imperfect drawing?  Not because i'm vain or think it's worth repeating. But because i want it to have almost the EXACT same proportions, 

so our focus isn't the different proportions or posture of the two figures, but hopefully there will be a difference  in loser more free style in this stripped down version.  I'm already liking this one better... 

Or maybe not?  maybe i'll freeze up all over again. let's find out when i finish it up on friday morning.