Friday, August 27, 2010

Atomic Robo part deux




Following on from my last post a more refined Robo pic. Enjoy!

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Atomic Robo




So, Red 5 have put out a call for Atomic Robo pinups, and I'm a huge fan of Robo. Tinkering around with ideas for what to work up, and this was one of the things that happened. Might rework this to be my entry, but as it stands its hemorhaging mistakes. This is just an overworked doodle, so I'm cool with that.

Friday, August 20, 2010

DRAGON not lizard, I don't do that tongue thing.



also, THIS. Was giving a talk last week on my workflow, and this was the image I used as an example. Worked back into it since, and I'm quite proud of it. Hope y'all like it!


YOU HAVE SOMETHING IN YOUR HAIR

Quicky for today. That scene in Eternal Sunshine sprang to mind when they were under the duvet; the orangey lighting around that point of the movie was really interesting, generated a great sense of calm nostalgia. Without going to hard into that, I wanted to do something relaxed, and god forbid, HAPPY.

Yeah, I do love drawing hair. Why I gave Melissa the most masculine haircut imaginable is beyond me.

Still can't tell you what's coming up, but I'm totally stoked about it.

For now, for daytime jobiness I'm upskilling with as many tutorials as I can get my hands on, getting my website off the ground and getting ready to knock on the door of every publisher known to man.

Time to get good at what I'm good at, and get paid for being good. At least that's the plan.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Big Things a-coming



OK, so I'm not allowed talk about it yet, but there's a big project coming up, and I'm involved in it.

MORE AS THIS UNFOLDS.

In the meantime, I'm giving a painting demonstration tomorrow, so some more stuff like this'll be on its way- probably over at my deviantart account.

Thursday, August 5, 2010



An oldish drawing test from a job I didn't get. I don't HATE it, so enjoy.

Today's been really prolific, doing some more work for scouting, finishing a painting for private sale AND a quickie ink commission still to be done. If I get time this evening, I'm gonna start coloring on a new project which I'm looking forward to.

Coloring is definitely one of my preferred art chores, purely because I love bouncing lights around in photoshop and playing with how it passes through objects. Which is what really kills the pic above here- with no defined lightsource (it was to be on a transparent background) defined it was tricky to render and I think the piece suffered for it. Add a lack of SSS, and you've got why I'm not really into rendering standalone objects without a world to belong to.

A load of deadlines coming up for different things, but managing OK. The difference getting up early makes is unbelievable.

All the best.

C

Tuesday, August 3, 2010



In the spirit of the 24 hr comic challenge itself, I put a clock on this. And rather than use your silly hours and minutes, I choose the medium of Shawshank Redemption. I THINK its around 3 hours, but I wanted to see how fast I could work without cutting too many corners. Went straight from blue to inkpen for this, which is something I NEVER do, but it got me in juuuuuust over the deadline. That is, just as the film stopped rewinding.

This is all I'm putting up of this comic til October- until the anthology comes out, but I might update this page with tones when I get to it. Let me know what you guys think!

All the best,

C

5, what you waiting for...



Trying something a bit looser, this is where I'm at for the main character in my submission for the upcoming 24 comic day anthology. Just about to sit down and start drawing the first page.

Stay frosty.

C

Monday, August 2, 2010

Quite stylish

Right, back onto the subject of style. I've dealt with this before over at deviantart, but I'm gonna rant a little about it here.

I'm like a magpie. I see something shiny, and I'm all over it. New gimmicks, looks, approaches, media, the lot. I like to try a bit of everything, and at this stage I've dipped my toe into about as many media as I have come across.

Where has that gotten me? A fairly broad understanding of a lot of things, but lacking in a mastery in any particular field. Its like walking down a street full of different restaurants and only getting to eat a mouthful of the cusine in each.

Yes, you taste it, but you don't get the whole meal, the subtlety, the secret behind the sauce.

I think it was something Dan Panosian said that he disliked coloring because he kept trying new things, and it stopped him from mastering any one approach. At the time, I disagreed with him, but in wholly practical terms he was right. I don't see Cheeks painting like Dan Luvisi, and I don't see Dan painting like Cheeks. Masters of different fields.

What makes them both excellent though? I hate to say it, because the idea is as old as time itself, but its the basics. Mastering the basics. Anatomy, gesture, posing, storytelling, colour, light, materials. I recently read something else that said 'style is what you leave out', and this is the main reason I use the example of Cheeks. His work is bold, and minimal. But everything's there.

Seeing as I'm talking about style, now is the time to say 'simplicity is the ultimate sophistication' Maybe. It depends on the intent. We're in the business of storytelling, and style says a lot about content.

Now the key difference in this rant is WHY styles are applied, most notably in comics.

One thing I've noticed recently is that the higher line mileage in a panel, the longer I spend looking at it, the visual equivalent of using big words.
The other end of the spectrum is Scott Pilgrim, whose simple visual style is very easy to read. I got through 2-5 in just under 90 minutes, and 6 in under 30. Not rushing, just that's the speed the books took me at. I'll read them again and again, because they're a great adventure, but the upbeat pacing worked great.

The art and method of pacing is still very foreign to me. What works in a film storyboard is not what works in comics. I've so much to learn, its thrilling and terrifying.

I'm working on two projects at the moment; one of which I'm keeping to very simple lines and cartoony designs, purely as a test to see how it affects storytelling. Also, busy pages take a hella lotta time.
The other, I'm going all out on, and hoping to really make it pop in the best way.


One of these days, I'll pick one style and master it. In the interest of making all of darklight work at some point in the future, I've been gearing myself towards darker, grittier stuff. Am I just kidding myself? I dunno. I've stopped thinking like 'I love XXXXXXs work, I wish I could draw like him'. Now I'm thinking 'I need to work on my gesture/design/storytelling' In a ways, I'm saying 'screw how everyone else draws, I'm not happy with how I make things look. Gotta do something about that'

I'm guessing that's where style is born.