Museum Reception Pics..

Saturday was awesome! SPECIAL THANKS to everybody involved in putting the whole show on..

.. on mostly to all of YOU for stopping by!

I managed to grab a few pics before the museum opened early morning,

This was the first time I'd seen all the art framed too.  Everyone was super patient with the line, which I tried to keep moving to make sure everyone got something signed at least.

Here's one of the magic boxes, moss and all.  This, and other Trout matters will be explained in "The Big Book of Trout" coming out from IDW next year. ( ..shameless plug much? )

I wish I'd taken more of the folks in line, but once i sat down it was all a blur and i was too busy signing or sketching.  Couldn't really absorb it all on Saturday. Think I should come back on my own when it's there's less people for a second look?  Not in an ego way. Just to... digest it a little?

You'll recognize this guy. These first sandman sketches, and the cover to Maxx 1 never made it into the Museum book, but nearly everything else in the show did.

This plaque below it pretty much explains it, in case you didn't see it in the Absolute Sandman.

Here's the page where Neil picked out the helmet they liked best. Notice I hadn't yet learned Karen's name yet - on the left. Collectors are always after me to sell these two, probably because they were the first two 'approved sketches' of him. But I'd prefer to keep them.

It's interesting, I wonder if my later mixed media paintings sticks out from the old stuff?

Or does it kinda blend right in with the older art? I suppose anything an artist does shows some 'fingerprint' doesn't it? Be it drawn, built, modified, scrawled, screwed glued or tattooed.

Guess It'll always be unmistakably 'Sam-like' to my fans.

Here's a case containing a few more 'Trout Antiques'... plus the original art to the Museum book cover.

Here's what you see as you round the corner, explaining things a little. Weird to see your name so big on a wall... in person. Unsettling. Sorry this pic didn't catch the whole thing, but you get the idea..

Now if you turn to your left, here's the first thing you see, a wall of art, and that weird old box. Kinda a warning of the weirdness your in for.

Finally, yup, my name again up top. For some reason ... in this pic, it looks almost black here, doesn't it?

Weirdly (in the photo below) you can see my name clearly IS colored green against the same wall.  This was taken just before they opened the doors and everyone came flooding in.

I arrived a couple hours early to do those 25 sketches for people who paid. 

I know, some people got sketches for free, but that why i wanted to do a extra nice job for those who paid for a book in advance. 

You never know in advance with a sketch do you? Hit and miss. It's just whatever ... happens to comes out of the pen/pencil in that moment. 

Here's my buddy Josh Hagler, a painter in his own right who's standing in front of a few more Maxx covers. I should have taken some of these... maybe next time.

So much for the budget virtual tour, and again thanks for coming and all those who donated to the Museum, it's for a good cause!

Sam 

Rough Hand Sketches and.... Oval Eyes?

Rushed today as an old artists friends are dropping by today, Alex Pardee of course i've known for years, and and a new guy, an artists Skinner who's work i've enjoyed for years, but never met in person yet.

Here's a few hands i doodled for the Second World's Art book, since I'm already compiling material for that one.

Here's a curious old wooden cup with a vintage Trout Ad on the side ~ this is just luck, but notice how at the bottom.. how the patterns on the wood swirl into the folds of the paper in the Trout ad?  Too weird.  I mean.. what are the odds of that happening? I didn't plan it, i just notice it afterwords.

I don't know why i got so got into crazy rendering this hand with a pen...  must have been in a  Way$hak mood.

Here's that curious effect where even with the same light on my drawing table, depending on how the camera catches the image, it either looks yellowy warm or colder blue. Not thebulb either.

Always a good idea to look at your own hand every once in a while and draw it. Course my vines aren't nearly this pronounced or visible. Or.... my last two fingers quite so distorted as these.

...and sometimes.. Grrrr ~ i just can't draw a hand at all.

So lemme try something else.

This will probably wind up being a nola drawing..

her face is really rough.. eyes totally simple so far.

wondering if i can pull of trying for keeping her simple oval eyes, but do a little shadow around the edges? Implying there's some skin folds those eyes are embedded in? 

but for now let's juts finish her hair. 

why not go for a dramatic swirl at the bottom? 

okay, now i wanna *avoid* darkening her hair, for a change. Least at the bottom... keep her lower hair and figure light and diffused.. 

only get detailed up by her face... 

or as detailed as i get on this one.. which is to say pretty damned simple. Pastels to wake me up a little. Breaks me of the color pencil-ink cycle i usually lapse into so often. 

some warmer skin tone shades, crimson, vermilion, 

maybe a little vandyke brown. some pale orange.. but not to much. 

mostly intuitive choices.. possibly mistaken ones. 

just seeing how they mix together. But outside of her eyebrows, nose and llips... i don't wanna get her too over-rendered.   

So, it's getting there. I think the colored pencil hair and red-ish top is a nice contrast to the thicker more oily pastels on her skin.  a little shadows around her oval eyes too.. 

kinda disturbing when you try to render Nola isn't it? 

Kinda funny how often we see these round hallow eyes... Little Orphan Annie, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbs.. i don't know why i'm so drawn to them. 

Sometimes people ask me why i gave Dana and Nola dot or oval eyes... sometimes i revert back to 'normal' ones in a panel or two... but it is something that just makes characters seem ... more lost? vulnerable? 

I remember one of the producers of the aborted Four Women movie ( back when there was one, which i was directing... a lifetime ago).. movie telling me how he never realized how much my round eyes made the cindy character's revenge against the rapists seem so much sympathetic, even than the other woman who had 'normal' eyes. 

What do you think? 

... is there something compelling about oval eyes?

Plugging myself and crap lying on my studio floor.

Anna Breslaw wrote an insightful and cool article about my stuff HERE, so thought I'd pass that along if you haven't seen it ~ thanks Anna!

Also, (and it's a little cheezy plugging myself), but i got word from DC the Batman Hater book popped on on the New York Times top ten list. I am just vain enough to say: yay. Course, being Bruce Jones WROTE it, and Batman being IN it, i''m sure all of that that didn't hurt either.

Here's a peak at the type which i cut and pasted into this very blog.. in dramatic RED highlights.. (subtle huh?)



HARDCOVER

1 X-MEN: SCHISM, by Jason Aaron and others. (Marvel Entertainment, $24.99.) Cyclops and Wolverine are at odds over the future of the X-Men.

2 BATMAN: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, by Bruce Jones and Sam Keith. (DC Comics, $22.99.) This original graphic novel tells the tale of the first meeting between the Dark Knight and the villainous Mad Hatter.

3 THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, VOL. 1, by Hergé. (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, $18.99.) Three adventures, one graphic novel: "Tintin in America," "Cigars of the Pharaohs" and "The Blue Lotus."

 

Okay, enough sam shamelessly plugging himself crap.. here's some ART - cool stuff i grabbed off the studio floor because i'm LATE on a bunch of comic stuff.. 

Above is the original (un-photoshoped) Secrets cover i'm sure you'll recognize... (since this is sort a 'batty' post.)  

.. also un-used poster for the comic book legal defense fund.. with a bunch of characters from the trout-a-verse all tied in together... (note the skinner Dana, before i added a little meat to her bones!) 

..and lastly, a panel from the Nola graphic novel I'm still monkeying with. 


Just wanted to add... without all your guys reading me over the years, stuff like the the Bat book,  or Anna's article, or YOU guys continued patience, comments, jokes and never-ending SUPPORT on this friggin' Blog, you guys are the reason  i keep cranking this stuff out! 


I'd like to think we inspire each other. Judging by the amazing art work many of you are all doing too, my greatest contribution may not be any one published series of comics i did, but inspiring weird wonderful artists out there, that they are NOT alone... and weird, is good. Tolerated. Can even flourish. Hey, if a madman like me can find fellow minded weirdos, then there's hope for us all, eh? : )  


Okay, THIS... will have to do (for a few days) ~  until i slay this current batch of deadline - wish me luck gang! 


- Sam 

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.