Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Comicon 2008

Is over, and what a great time it was this year! It started off right as I sat on the airplane going from JFK to San Diego. The guys next to me (from Major League Gaming) were taking bets on whether I was heading to Comicon because I was sketching. My apologies goes to the guy who lost a few bucks when he didn't think so!

Day one was a good start, met up with Stephanie and Catherine, along with their old high school buddy, Alexis. Visited a few publishers in the Exhibitor's Hall to hand out the Pinky Swear comic and overall, I think it was received pretty well! The only panel I think I saw that entire day was for Minx which was awesome since Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly were there. I also met up with Stephen who literally just came back from Japan and straight to Comicon! Here's hoping he's coping with the jet lag and time zone changes accordingly! The evening ended with some really great Thai!

Day two began with the longest walk known to mankind. It was also known as looking for the end of the line to the Heroes panel. After making our way around the entire convention center and two hotels beside it, we realized we were right back where we had started and simply gave up. Here is the elusive end of the line that we finally discovered:

Afterwards, we decided we might have more luck at the Spaced panel (after seeing the end of Craig McCracken's panel on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and Powerpuff Girls' 10th anniversary) where Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes Stevenson, and Edgar Wright did a fun Q&A and cheered about the fact that American TV failed to recreate their amazing British series. I cheered too!

Thanks to Catherine's impeccable eyesight, she spotted Fred Savage over at Mcfarlane Toys as we were passing by. And while he was excited to see the toys, we were excited to see how down-to-earth he was! He graciously let us take a picture with him and was real nice about it. Thanks Fred Savage!!
Here's a great shot of Stephen's reaction to our photo with Fred:

Afterwards, we decided to head out to grab a bite to eat when we noticed an Ice Cream truck, plastered with Sci-Fi's Eureka ads all over it, was handing out free ice cream. Little did we know that the stars of the show were the ones HANDING OUT said free ice cream!! It's pretty crazy to see the people whose faces are posted on the entire side of a truck right in front of you inside of said truck!


After lunch, we spotted Bruce Campbell at the Dark Horse booth (I wished I had a stick of Old Spice for hims to sign..) as well as James Duval who was incredibly nice and an all around a great guy!

The day was winding down with us giving little gifties to Giant Robot's co-creator, Martin Wong. Who was really friendly and posted a photo of us with our gifties on his blog (bottom image)! Much thanks goes out to him and the whole Giant Robot booth! At the end, some great dinner meeting up with Melody and her husband, Nicholas.

Day three - started with roaming the exhibitors hall. This was when the long days started taking their toll. I bought quite a few books, from Flight, Blue Sky Studios, Top Shelf, and Ragnar; all were signed by the artists respectively! A large portion of the day was spent relaxing while Catherine waited for a portfolio review with Nickelodeon. For dinner, we met up with Nicholas, Melody, and her family for some good conversation and great food!! The end of the night was complete with a sketch-crawl in one of the hotels around the convention center. I now have sketches from old friends and new ones in the book!

If I'm able to go again next year, I can't wait! I hope everyone had as great a time as myself!



Thanks goes to Alexis and Catherine for their photos.

Monday, July 21, 2008

WIP - Kite River


Obviously this is nowhere near done, but I've just been dabbling in the photoshop paint stuffs for half this weekend and just after work today. Again, I'm working very differently than I'm used to. While I sketched the image on paper and scanned it in, the inks were done in Photoshop this time around to see how it would go. I'm much more satisfied with the way it came out than trusting my hand with a brush.

Actually, I remember a conversation with Aisleen in which we believed each other to be insane; me for using a brush, her for using pen nibs. I think she wins that argument. No matter how well I cared for my brushes, they still would deteriorate from the permanent ink and I think a lot of my illustrations suffered for it. I've always wanted to do more painterly looking works and this is by far the closest I've come to uh... something that looks remotely presentable I guess. Don't even ask to see my past attempts... yuck.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Cover



...This is extremely out of my comfort zone though it feels new and exciting. But I think it works. On numerous occasions, Randy and I have scoured through NYC's comic book stores. We discovered we became disappointed when a comic has this truly amazing cover on it and the inside artwork is either done by a different artist that doesn't hold up to the cover artwork, or the interior is black and white while the cover has amazingly vibrant colors. It's true, it really is hard not just judge comics by their covers when it's supposed to be the thing that catches your eye while it's sitting on a rack.

I suppose I wanted to do a sort of opposite effect for the cover. Not fully colored cover with a fully colored interior. Maybe it'll be my downfall!
Did I mention the title changed? 'The Promise' kept reminding me of the asian film by the same name. I just didn't feel right if I kept it. I guess this has a more playful childhood feeling. Less ominous.

This image is sized for printing when I do the 8.5x11 folded paper bit, saddle-stitched with staples over the next week.

In other news, Society of Illustrators West 46 is finally up! You can check out my piece in there along with everyone else that's in it!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Mission...COMPLETE.

All that's left is the cover. ...And a title. Which I know will change in my head before I get it down on paper. Again. ...If only I could make up my mind. Here's pages 18 and what could be considered a back page, or simply a page 19.

Hope you enjoyed this strange 'lil story.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

3-day weekend


Granted I was away for half of it. Here's what I got done in the second half.

Page 17. One page to go, plus a closing page, and something I'm still tinkering around in my head for... a cover... ayaah. So close, so close...

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Frenzy


Yes, yes, that's the perfect word. It is officially July and I need to finish this comic, plus put together a new postcard for San Diego. ...Cutting it close, much??


Page 16!