Dragonslayer Preview

So there probably will be few (if any) new pictures this week. Primarily because I update the site with pictures as soon as I finish them, but mainly because I'm back in Roswell for a bit working on some future blog posts.  So in the meantime, I wanted to post a teaser of my next project (currently titled Dragonslayer).

Dragonslayer is going to be awesome.  I'm biased as hell, but I've been really proud of the roughs thus far, and the finishes are only making the original pictures look better.  I'm using a new workflow for this project: first I'm roughing the pictures using a Cintiq, then printing them out on 11x17 Bristol board and inking them that way.  It's a great hybrid of digital and original art, allowing me to use the strengths of both mediums.

I always miss the textures I can render using traditional mediums (brushes and pens), so now I can lay down the blueprint for the panels using the computer and finish them up using inks.  This allows me to be a bit more ambitious in setting up the pages, and I can adjust character's anatomy more easily if I make a mistake in the roughs.

Below is a preview of the comic's main protagonist, El Diel, a hunter who lives on the outskirts of Bel Brixus, a bustling ancient megalopolis.

Here's a preview of Bel Brixus:

I'll be posting more process photos as time goes on. So far this is feeling like some of my best work.

Original Article

Sketch Videos

Nothing's more inspiring to me than watching other people draw (and hopefully drawing along with them).  Joe Kubert passed yesterday, and since his and his son's art has had a decided impact on my work I wanted to post something up about him.  Facebook friends posted the below video of Kubert, Moebius, and Neal Adams drawing together, so I figured I would tag this video with some other videos of talented artists working.  Enjoy.

Moebius and Pratt drawing:

Eric Canete drawing Psylocke:

Paul Pope:

Hope some of that inspires you. Keep drawing.

Original Article

Old School Anime Intros

Tracing back my love of art, everything began with one cartoon (and more importantly, it's intro):

Bright vivid colors, complex (at least for a cartoon) designs on the Ecto 1 and Proton packs, thumping uptempo music and fast visual cutting all led to an intro I looked forward to each and every time the show would air.  The intro was Japanese animated, although a brief internet search didn't yield who animated (if you know, hit the comments section!)

I was probably four or so when I got hooked on this show, and it was my first real foray into Japanese animation, however slightly. When I was probably 12 or 13, we had a little bit of time before my finals one semester and my Mom took me to our local video store.  I'd been reading video game magazines pretty avidly, and I began to wonder what else was out there.

I loved Japanese animation in video game cut scenes, so logically Japanese animation would have to be equally as cool, right?  Five dollars later and I was face deep in November 2000's issue of Animerica:

It was brilliant.  I didn't really care for (nor ever have) Shamanic Princess...the Cardcaptor stuff was a little interesting, Rayearth seemed original (and was eventually the first manga I ever read), but Leiji Matsumoto's Galaxy Express and the pictures of tech heavy Japan made me pick up issue after issue of the magazine.  I poured through loads of banal 'Top 10 Whatever' lists, and started engaging what Animerica deemed canonical.  The stories were deep, dark, adult, and filled with thought provoking material that just couldn't compare to anything in the west.

That same video store had a small selection of anime, but anything was better than nothing, and I started watching anything that they had on hand.  In addition to the awesome Toonami offerings (Tenchi Muyo!, Outlaw Star, DBZ, Gundam Wing, Blue Sub No. 6,etc.), I started Serial Experiments Lain, Trigun, Wings of Honneamise, and a smattering of class anime films.

Serial Experiments Lain:

Each one was a treasure, and I hit the jackpot when one of my teachers mentioned that she had a friend in California who watched anime and might be able to send me some stuff she had left over.

The box I received in the mail is probably to date the coolest thing I've ever received in my life: a giant box full of Japanese magazines (two or three issues of Animage and AX), toys, and tapes. Recalling from memory, I got the first two episodes of EVangelion, All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, Vampire Princess Miyu, X The Movie, and Mermaid's Forest/Mermaid's Scar.

It was the first time I got to see Evangelion, an anime I had been reading about since I was eight or nine years old.

Evangelion:

I was floored. Each animation (films excluded) had intricate animation attached to a catchy or sometimes pensive pop song. There's truly an art to assembling an intro. Below are some of my favorites, in no particular order.

Gunsmith Cats:

Cowboy Bebop:

Trigun:

GTO:

Samurai Champloo:

Black Heaven:

Original Article

Master Class: Matsumoto Taiyou

 To me, Matsumoto Taiyou is the Wong Kar Wai of the manga world.  He writes brilliant pensive stories that are both grand in scope and intensely and unrelentingly personal.  He is exists to contradict himself-his art is cartoony, but his stories deeply mature.  His drawings are somehow primitive and complex.  His pacing feels both incredibly slow, and yet somehow absolutely dense.  He is, much like the main characters  in Tekkonkinkreet, both Black and White.

Mashing images that almost look lightboxed or hand traced, yet contain unconfident squiggles and dots proving no mechanical reproduction could have yielded such pictures, Taiyou almost winks at the audience as he plays with perspective, mixing realistic buildings with unrealistic horizons.

The influence of European illustrators (notably Moebius) is undeniable in his work.  

Bibliography:

Straight (1988-1989)

Car&Earth Tentomen (1990)

Zero (1990-1991)

Hana Otoko (1991-1992)

Tekkonkinkreet (Black & White) 1993-1994

Ping Pong Club (Pinpon) (1996-1997)

Gogo Monster (2000)

No. 5 (2000-2005)

Takemitsu Samurai (2006-2010)

Sunny (2010-)

Original Article

Introspection, Inspiration, and Motivation

I'm all about full disclosure.  I think it's the easiest way to live.  So when people ask me about my art (and have time to listen to my long winded explanations), I'll wax poetic about how I'm far and above the dumbest artist alive.

You see, I was born with very little artistic talent.  I say little, because beyond loving to draw when I was a kid, I've never been at a point where I liked what  I drew.  And it never ever ever came easy, at all.  Hell, I still look at my art and see how far I have to go, rather than how far I've come.  But on those days where I can see how far I've come-it's a great feeling.

Nothing puts the distance I've traveled in perspective more than going to my childhood room.  My parents are minor saints for not making me take my ridiculous book collection with me wherever I go (I could probably build a bit of a house of all my books). Anytime I come back, it's like visiting the husk of a person I used to be, which is a shame, because I like who I've been, and I don't care to put all that much distance between the two of us.  It's like a good save point before the final boss that is my future. I can just come back, recalibrate, and continue my fight.

One thing I see when I visit my room is how much progress I've made, and how hard fought that progress is.  For example, below is a picture of how many artbooks I filled up before I left for college over the course of my high school education.

In college, I finished probably about seven or eight comics, seen below the binders up top.  After all that, I was still pretty shitty.  I had my occasional moments of decentness (like a less impressive moment of brilliance), but by and large, my work was still a mess.

I don't think anything was wrong with my stuff per se-I did the best work I could with the tools, training, and time I was given, but if there is an objective standard of 'better', I probably wasn't anywhere near there.  But I naively thought my stuff was pretty good, and kept at it, and I'm starting to fail smarter, which is of course the best way to fail.

When I started this site, I wanted to make a place where I could educate people like who I was.  I wanted to teach kids who may not have artistic mentors, or anyone to tell them what tools to use, when to use them or where they can buy them.  I wanted to introduce people to the artists who have influenced me and what will hopefully someday be my career.  It only takes the right art to influence someone forever.

Case and point? That Trigun image on the red sheet of paper there was the first image that made me want to draw.  I saw that, and thought it was so phenomenally badass that I had to at least try to be as good as Yasuhiro Nightow.  I fell in love with Trigun before seeing a single frame of the anime, or checking out the manga at all.  I just loved that image of Vash, and it sparked me to copy it time and time again.  You can see some of my fanart (probably circa 7th or 8th grade) next to that Akira poster in the image:

Over the years I started decorating my room with whatever comic related shwag I could find.  The back of toy boxes, Wizard posters,  and sketches I drew decorate every square inch of my room.

Books spill out of any part of my room that's not the ceiling.  Obscure weird rare books, like both the Chinese and Japanese versions of Hellboy Volume 1.

Or an increasingly close to being complete run of Vagabond.

Or scores of Matsumoto Taiyou books.

Seriously. It's a pretty decent collection.  My goal is to get as much of this online in some way shape form or fashion, so others can check discover more about the wild world of manga and comics that exists far below the surface of mainstream fare.

Other stuff found while pilfering through my room: AX Magazine, with an article about Cowboy Bebop as it was coming out.

Anime Insider magazine with an EVA illustration by the crazy talented Kaare Andrews:

An old Akira ad for the 2004 rerelease:

The back of the box to the coolest Spider Man toy ever. Spider Man done in the style of Kamen Rider:

Matsumoto Taiyou's Ping Pong Club in large issue format:

So yeah. If you want to see more pictures of my room (more specifically the crazy book collection), I've got those in a previous blog post here.

Stay inspired. Keep drawing.

Original Article

DK: NYC

My cousin Brooks asked if I'd accompany him on a halfway-across-the-country trip to New York.  I had loads (and loads) of illustration work to do, but I also spend most of my time wishing I'd be more adventurous and never acting on those impulses.    I also swore to myself that if I went it'd be work and not a vacation.

Fortunately, the trip was definitely worth the time invested. I worked on a few blogs (forthcoming, I swear), as well as knocked out a few illustrations and some concept art for my next comic (below):

We stopped in Washington DC and Brooks caught up with some friends while I did a bit of sketching (above!).  The architecture was beautiful, and it we got to walk by the White House.  We didn't have too much time to be tourists, so we really only spent a brief time walking the DC streets. I loved the architecture.  Interestingly enough, there's some sort of law that says that you can't build a building that is taller the Capitol building in DC, so everything's fairly low to the ground, making DC seem smaller than when I went there as a child.

We then drove up to New York, where a friend of mine was nice enough to let me crash on his couch/floor.  New York City is absolutely amazing.  Having lived in Tokyo, I found that I adore megalopolises.  Endless sprawling cityscapes and the nooks and crannies that fill in the spaces between towering gargantuan buildings are just my cup of tea.  Upon arriving, we immediately bought a metro pass and headed in to Manhattan.

In the train station, I saw the coolest graffitied up Amazing Spider Man poster.  It's kind of inspiring, and I might riff off of this sometime in the future:

We tracked down a Book-Off, where I picked up the volume 33 of Gantz, a Darkstalker's artbook, Yumi Tada's 'Yuki no Kaze', and some assorted other manga.  I'll probably go into what I bought and why in an upcoming blog post.  We then skipped a few blocks away to New York's Kinokuniya.  In Japan, Kinokuniya in Shinjuku was the only store where I could reliably find newer American comics, so it's funny that I came to buy newer Japanese books from the US Kinokuniya.

Inoue Takehiko did a beautiful wall mural of the central characters from Vagabond, and it was really cool to see this in real life.

At Kinokuniya, I picked up Katsuhiro Otomo's Gengaten, this month's Brutus (with Terada Katsuya drawing the Avengers on the cover), volume 34 of Gantz, and the most recent issue of Famitsu (for Japanese gaming news).  Super exciting, super expensive.

The next day, we hit up the Metropolitan Museum of Art and spent about five hours doing research for my upcoming comic.  Research I fully intend on posting here over two or three blog posts (I took close to 300 pictures!).

We dropped by Midtown comics really quickly as well, where I picked up a few Nathan Fox books (Fluorescent Black and Pigeons From Hell).

We were only there for effectively a day and a half, so we kind of jam packed in everything we could, but we had a phenomenal time.  I loved NYC, almost as much as Tokyo.  There was nothing dangerous about the city-I felt pretty safe throughout, which was a pleasant surprise.  I really just wished I lived there! It seems like a fantastic place to run around at least.

Enjoy more photos from the trip:

Original Article

Processes, Sketch Dump

One of the purposes of this blog was as a teaching tool-processes, sketches, etc. for people who want to see how I work. I've been failing miserably in that regard, due to drawing all the time. And work. Mostly work. But drawing too. So if you haven't added me (Devin Kraft) on Facebook or twitter (@cheshirecatart), then you're missing out on my almost nightly status updates of pictures I'm working on.

First up is some Asura's Wrath fanart. I start off with pencils, then inks and greytones, then finish it off with colors and texture.

Next up is a zombie picture for a client who dropped by my booth at Comicon.  He wanted a Walking Dead-esque zombie picture for a project he is working on. Here's the pencils, inks, and the hardest part: colors!

Next next up is a kickass Kick Ass fanart (see what I did there? Because that's a shitty pun.)  I'm a huge fan of Mark Millar, and just finished reading Kick Ass 2 which has some pretty interesting twists and turns.  My friends gave me a giant list of comic characters they've never seen me draw, and I decided to tap into that list and tackle Kick Ass. I feel like I nailed it, and it's largely due to the post Dallas Comicon runner's high.  I kind of hope I never come down.

Last up is a quick preview of my next project, due to start after all of this convention madness slows down (July?). These are just quick prelim sketches. I want to find the voice of the character, so there's still sketching to do.

If you're a New Mexico native, I'll be at Albequerque Comic Expo June 8th-10th, and Roswell's Cosmic Con from June 22nd-24th. Stop by my table and meet Logan and I. We're super friendly, and probably won't shut up. Feel free to back away slowly, smiling courteously.

Also I've put physical printed copies of Deluge, Devil and Dr. John, Neverender, The Ferryman, and Neko (artbook) up on the store (http://cheshirecatart.storenvy.com/). Drop by, check stuff out. Cheap commissions, awesome indie comics.

Original Article

Dallas Comicon 2012: The Whole Bloody Affair

A week back I went through what I jokingly called the, "If you can dodge a wrench then you can dodge a ball" method of preparing for this year's Dallas Comicon: I had a few of my friends sit around a table and toss suggestions for characters I might not have considered at me.  My logic was that people will like my art, and invariably I'll be inundated with people requesting a variety of commissions, and I'd have to knock them out quickly and skillfully.

The result? I hit the nail pretty hard on the head for every challenge I was faced with.  I was pretty proud of the end results, and this boded well for the convention.  I spent the rest of last week purposely not drawing.  More than anything I didn't have time to draw, as I was a) prepping signage and promotional material b)cutting signage and promotional material c) polybagging 200 comics d) inserting bookmarks and postcards into 200 bags e) inserting business cards into 200 bags and f) heat shrinking 200 bags.

My thought process was that not drawing for the week would make me really want to go nuts at the convention.  My evidence for that belief is that  usually that's the case when I draw at home.  It's an itch, and letting it burn makes the scratchin' all the more worthwhile.  Unfortunately, either due to lack of sleep, nervousness, or not drawing and keeping warmed up, the morning of the con did not bode well. My shapes felt weak as did my page composition for an initial sketch to get the ball rolling.  My cousin Brooks came along to help back me up, and both of us where trying to suss out the convention game.  Do we work the crowd? Can I just draw and let him bring in customers for me to finish off the sale?  Do I chat everyone up about every franchise I know and love and forego drawing until I'm paid to do it?  We didn't have a clue.

I'd heard from some other sources that the con crowd was difficult to predict: sometimes people would buy comics. Another con original art...and another con nothing but prints.  At about midnight the night before the con, my other cousin Matt volunteered his printer for bringing some of my pieces to life.  We managed to print a good twenty or so of mine and his favorite pictures.  I went with alot of original stuff, as well as a few I just wanted to see make the jump from  a digital picture to a real world 3-D space occupying masterpiece (alright, not masterpiece).   With my friend Josh programming his brains out for a special project that's hopefully coming up, we worked late into the night.  I think lack of sleep was what put me in a terrible headspace for my first morning.

Standardly, I'm an unrelentingly optimistic guy, knowing the depths and horrors and terrible things about the human condition makes people's day to day niceties all the more overwhelming.  My goal for this con was (jokingly) "Please don't get burnt at the stake naked." Anything shy of that would be a success, I decided.  Clothed stake burning? Lucky!

A quick rundown of my six month prep work leading in to the con:

There was more to it than all this, but all of this prepwork factors in to the moral of the story and the odd heart of my mistake: I was trying to sell original comics (/intellectual properties) at the comicon.  Now I'm not naive, or at least my naivety factors in the belief that I'm not, so I knew that Marvel and DC characters will outsell original material 3 or 4-1.  No question, hands down, marketing 101.  In my head that meant that I use the big guns to pull people in, then turn them towards how the big guns influenced me to make these small arms.  People see a Sandman picture, I reel them in, chat about how Neil Gaiman influenced me to write the Devil and Dr. John, and I either make the sale or give them enough free shwag to at least have trouble throwing everything away (I accomplished this by handing everyone who so much as came within seven foot radius of my person a business card, a postcard, and a bookmark: the holy trifecta).

The Dallas Comicon had an outstanding showing. I don't know the numbers, and I don't really truly care.  There were boatloads of people a few hours early when we were setting up. It was an absolute madhouse.  Moving around became difficult, and I think this year they had to 'firecode it' and send one person in as one person came out.  So packed.  Lots of foot traffic, lots of people stopping by.

I was sandwhiched between two seasoned vets who make their living off of traveling from con to con and show to show selling their fanart (Jon Hughes) and (Mike Mayduk) who where up to their necks in customers.  Partially for the quality of their work, but also because they emphasized what I mentioned earlier: known characters sell well.  Mike mentioned wanting to push original characters, but it's a tough sell to a crowd that desires the familiar.  Once my cousin and I figured out this was the game, we put more prints on display and they began selling pretty well.

My dream was to sell out of all of the comics I printed (200 copies total, 40 copies each of five different comics).  I realized going in that that was unlikely, but as I am attending two or three more cons this year, it never hurts to have more comics to sell.  My initial order was 30 copies per comic, but I upped the order to 40 out of fear that I might sell out.  When all was said and done and the dust settled, I sold 38 copies of my comics, breaking down thusly:

These numbers play out much to what I would have guessed.  Artbook sold the most, religious heartfelt period piece devoid of guns, sex, or action (trust me, I tried to fit these in) sold the least.  I am surprised The Ferryman sold more copies than Neverender, as Neverender has more action, but I'm proud of all of my comics in different ways, so I'm not complaining.  38/200 doesn't look so hot, but 38/150, my initial plan isn't bad, especially when you look at that as the first of three conventions, with the final con coming up being in my hometown where friends and family might pick up some copies just to see what I've been up to.

I sold probably five or six comissions (three pictured below) and drew in three sketchbooks:

I am definitely a fan of drawing in sketchbooks. You really do want to one-up the other guys...it's an awesome challenge.

I tried to post everything I was working on on instagram as the day was progressing, but the internet connection made the updates haphazard.

I think I had four or five project/job offers of varying legitimacy.  We'll see who contacts and who doesn't, but I'm assuming much of it is talk, as project ideas are plentiful.

The best part of the con was when that Double Espresso kicked in at about 11AM and I realized, "Why am I trying to break even?  Why am I worried about the money I put into this?  I planned on sinking a grand and never recovering it just to scratch this off my bucket list...so what if I don't make a dime?  I just have to make sure I keep my clothes on when they try to burn me at the stake." Once that bit of internal monologue kicked in, I chilled, snuck out from behind my table, and just hung out with the crowd.  I met loads of great people, got interviewed by Justin and Chris of Gamefira about the importance of art in video games, had several repeat customers, and heard alot of stories.

The unfathomably kind Kristian Donaldson invited me to an after party where I got to swap con experiences and stories with Chad Thomas, Robert Wilson IV, and Edgar Vega.  If you haven't yet, check out their stuff.  Kristian drew Supermarket, some issues of DMZ, and has a phenomenal book collection that made me realize that I don't in fact have too many books yet as there is still so much wonderful stuff to buy.  Chad has a really fun style with great expressionistic faces, and Robert kicks out beautiful posters for bands. I also got to spend time with the fine folks from Space Gun Studios.

 It's great to see people finding their place artistically, and it also served to remind me of how jankety, rugged, and inconsistent my style is, but being highly ADHD and almost incapable of focused skilled work, I wonder if I'll ever find the refinement I envy in other people's styles or if I should just embrace the chaos and run with it.  A binary struggle if ever there was one.

I'm looking forward to ACE: Albequerque Comic Expo and Roswell's Cosmic Con, and they hold the key to whether or not prepping for cons is worth my time.  I think I could just plan to make my fanart print-worthy and use my existing setup with minor tweaks and I'd be fine spending the rest of my time on comics that may not sell, but are soul gratifying.

My total costs:

1x Banner: $42

1000x Postcards: $30

1000x Business Cards: $80

1000x Bookmarks: $40

200x Comics: $700

Various pickup printing: $20-30

So all in all, I probably spent the $1000 I budgeted.  I made a good chunk of it back, and many of my costs are one-time only.  I left the con with %80 of my stock, which is hopefully a blessing in disguise.  But all of the money was worth it just to meet and hang out with other artists and fans.  I'd sink it a few times over just for the experience.

The moral kids? Support the shit out of independent comics.  I picked up as many as people would let me pay for.

And just for me I picked up Batman: Hush: Oops all sketches. It's kind of cool to dissect Jim Lee's stuff and separate the man from the myth (and the penciller from the inker).

Original Article

Quick Pre-con commissions, updates

Just about done with con preparations.  There was some slight hiccup with Ka-blam (they tried to charge me for page substitutions when I was submitting my comics as new comics, but after a quick conversation the fee was waived).  I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for the banner, my business cards, and a lifesize standee.  It's like Christmas.

So to get ready for the con, I had my friends toss some commission ideas at me, just for preparation.  In order from top to bottom: Prof. X vs. Jean Grey, Batman, Spider-man, Storm, Rainbow Bright, a crazy squirrel, and a leafy sea dragon.  The leafy sea dragon was oddly super fun to draw.  Let's see how many crazy commissions I get at the actual con.

These were all drawn with a Winsor & Newton Series 7 Size 3 brush, which is an absolute pleasure to work with.  Below the commissions is a Venom picture I experimented with, as well as a few pencil sketches from my last few pictures.  Enjoy, and if you're in Dallas, come by the Dallas Comicon May 19th and 20th (Sat. 11AM-7PM and Sun. 11PM-4PM).

Original Article

Digital Artists Monthly, Dallas Comicon, Manga Studio Interview

Life has been crazy recently. Work has geared up something fierce, and I've risen to overcome a near insurmountable challenge.  So hooray for that.  My test copies of my comics came in from Ka-blam last Friday, so now I have a week or two to make some changes before I send them back to Ka-blam for my big print run.  I'm currently planning on printing about 40 of each comics, so we'll see what sells and what doesn't, and if that was adequate quantities or not. Here's what three of the four comics look like:

My checklist of things to finish up is as follows: 1. Reletter everything. Only about 90 pages. 2. Redraw any panels I'm unhappy with within those 90 pages.  3.  Proofread everything. 4. Finalize art books. Send off to printers. 5. Finalize comics, send off to printers.  6.  Order business cards. 7.???? 8. Profit.

In other awesome news, I'm published in this month's issue of Digital Artists Monthly in an article about beginning painting apps. Below the article is the interview in its entirety.

When did you first start using Manga Studio?

Manga Studio actually found me in the Summer of 2009. My grandmother had to be flown to Albuquerque, NM for emergency medical treatment. In-between shifts watching over my grandmother, my mother and cousin went to a Mac store close to the hospital for a break. While they were out shopping, they came across Manga Studio Debut 4, so they picked it up for me.  At the time I thought it was just another,“create comics using your computer” software package where people can put captions and manga-esque effects on home photos, so I was skeptical.  After firing it up and getting settled in, I found I actually preferred the tool layout to Photoshop. I sketched up a quick page to test the program out, and loved the page so much I went on to draw another 50 or so pages in Manga Studio, just to compliment the initial page.

What are its best features, and what do you use them for?

The best asset for me is the way that Manga Studio is a program dedicated to comic artists.  Open up a new page and you’ve got your blue pencil layer ready to go.  Switch over to the pens and you’ve got the manga pen nib staples (Maru, Kabura, School) on hand. The pen brushes and their responsiveness add an extra touch of play to your lines.  Once you’ve finished up your illustration, adding tones is surprisingly easy.  You simply color in where you want the tone, and you can play with the density of the dots later. I don’t know if there’s been a significant crossover from traditional to digital in Japan yet (oddly they market Manga Studio as ‘Comics Studio’ over there), but when that day comes, manga could experience a new renaissance.

Lettering comics and inserting word bubbles is also far easier for me to do in Manga Studio than Photoshop.  You just have to find a suitable balloon, then position it and insert the dialogue.  The program even keeps track of all the dialogue in a given file, so you can make changes without going into every single page, or mass modify the fonts more quickly. For example, I entered several manga contests in Japan, and it was relatively painless to swap out the English dialogue with Japanese dialogue- I just had to resize the balloons, and retype the text.

Manga Studio is also really good at keeping your pages organized. This comes in handy when seeing your entire comic/manga laid out with the pages being placed side by side.  Their print guides help you ensure your comic is print ready by denoting the trim and bleeds.  I’ll definitely be using Manga Studio to prepare my art books for the 2012 Dallas Comicon, as I’ll want to see the overall layout of the books quickly, and I may need to reorganize pages.

My favorite feature, by far, is the transparent brush.  In Manga Studio, just like Photoshop, you can have two colors on your palette, but there is a third, transparent color in Manga Studio’s palette that is functionally an eraser using your current pen settings.  In Photoshop you would have to set up both your brush tool and your eraser tool to the same brush and switch back and forth between them, but in Manga Studio you just select the transparent color and erase out what you don’t need.  It’s really handy.

Is there anything it can't do that you wish it could?

I find it difficult to find custom brushes for Manga Studio.  They exist, but due to the widespread nature of Photoshop if I need a specific grunge brush I’ll find it more quickly for Photoshop.

I’ve been leaning on Photoshop more heavily recently, primarily due to an increased use of textures, blending modes, and gradients in my work.

The other problem is that because Manga Studio is geared towards comics/manga, you’re less likely to think outside of the box to find a solution.  Sometimes I’ll accidentally luck into reverse engineering a Photoshop feature intended for photography into something cool in an illustration, and that’s less likely to happen in Manga Studio.

Do you use other apps too, and if so how does Manga Studio fit into your workflow?

From 2009-2011 I used Manga Studio almost exclusively.  Photoshop didn’t work with my tablet PC’s drivers, so if I wanted to do anything digitally, Manga Studio was my program.  I recently bought a Cintiq, and I’ve since transitioned to Photoshop, but Manga Studio is absolutely indispensable for toning and inserting word bubbles into my comics.  Neverender, a 55 page comic, was penciled, inked, lettered, and toned exclusively in Manga Studio.  I completed the whole comic without having to pull any of the pages into Photoshop. The program is definitely versatile enough to create a comic stem-to-stern internally.

Nowadays, I find I can’t replicate that texture that ink on a page creates, so I usually pencil and ink traditionally, then import the pages into Photoshop to adjust the levels and clean up any stray marks on the page. I also add in any textures or apply any grunge brushes at this stage, if need be.  After this step, I import the page into Manga Studio and insert word bubbles, letter the comic, add tone, and make minor adjustments to the overall picture.  From there I export and upload or send the pages to the printers.

So there's the interview. And as to why I probably will be a bit laggy updating the site with new art, it's due to the redraws for printing. Here's a few examples below:

And here's a few B&W versions before I photoshopped 'em up a bit. Enjoy!

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Work work work.

I usually have a few blog posts saved up for a rainy day.  The biggest storm I've seen in awhile passed through Dallas and wiped clean through my reserves.  So just a quick update on what I've been up to, etc.

Dallas Comicon is coming up quick, so I'm trying to get everything ready for that.  I could use another four months, honestly, and I've been working like crazy for the last three.  I should get the test copies for my first four comics back soon, and as soon as those come in, I'll kick up pictures here.  I'll also start re-editing the hell out of everything.

Coming up? Three artbooks: Hajime (Beginning), Manaka (Middle), and Owari (End). Here's  a little teaser:

...and here's all the variations of the kanji I played with to arrive at the top three.  I'm no shodo expert, and I had to look up the stroke order (I'm great at reading kanji. I have to look up stroke orders to three of the most commonly used kanji. FML.) but I like the way they came out.

Here's a variation of Star Wars picture.  I felt I was screwing it up trying to add color, so I'm posting it in B&W.  What do you think? I wish I had the time to actually color this up, but I've gotta' keep moving.

Here's the pencil sketch.  I was doodling during a particularly vicious work meeting, so Luke looks extra angry. I inked over this one in Photoshop.

And just to round out the behind the scenes, here's the B&W version of last week's Yoshimitsu picture.  The uber-talented Kagan McLeod (artist of Infinite Kung-Fu) gave me the stupid-simplest brush tip, and I was testing it out:  ink in the darkest parts first, when you're brush is heaviest with ink, then move on to the fine details.  Seriously, how do I not figure that out?  By drawing in a vacuum, alone, that's how.  Moral of the story, find other people who draw, and ask them as many questions as is socially polite.

I read Jason's Left Bank Gang. Absolutely loved that book. I can't wait until I have time to do sequential pages again.  Preparing for this con is taking all of my sequential pages energy out of me. All of it! But I'll strike back with a vengeance.

Oh! Business cards to be ordered soon:

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Staple Comics Convention 2012

So yesterday was Staple, Austin's premiere comicon for independent comics.  At last year's Mini Comic Book day (an event which was more or less 24 hour comic book day, but only 12 hours and only 8 pages were required), while I was drawing Mano y Mano, I had several people drop by and tell me how awesome Staple is.  I unfortunately had just missed it by a month or two, so I had to wait until this year to attend.

My friend and I drove four hours from Dallas to Austin to see what all the fuss was about...and it was well worth the drive.  Right off the bat I ended up discussing Japanese horror films (Uzumaki, Tomie, etc.) with a psychologist who was working on a political satire of the last election, but set in medieval times...with cellphones and all. Probably one of the craziest concepts I've ever heard of.

The initial hall looked a bit small, and I was initially worried that the vendors in that hall were everyone who attended. Fortunately, there was a second hall, and plenty of interesting people to talk to and swap tips with.

I first chatted with Jose Esquivel about brush techniques. He recommended an art shop in Dallas that sells quality brushes.  I've been thinking of making more of a leap towards brushes, I just never know where to find them, so I'll be hitting that store up as soon as possible.

After checking out a few more booths, I ended up spotting a magazine with MF Doom on the cover.  Ghetto Manga's on of the coolest ideas for a magazine I've ever heard.  It covers hip-hop culture, manga, comics, and everything in between.  They hipped me to Peepo Choo, and recommended I get on picking up King City and Prophet stat.

I dropped by Sam Lotfi's table to wish him luck with his upcoming graphic novel, "Reckless".  The guy has a great style worth checking out.  I also stopped by  David Hopkin's table to pick up the second half of Astronaut Dad, because the first half was so damn ominous I had to know how the story ended.

Kristian Donaldson provided some great insight into some Manga Studio techniques for finishing up work, in addition to highly recommending using Google Sketchup for reference work.

Top Shelf Comics had a whole wall to themselves, and I got to chat with Kagan Mcleod about his book, Infinite Kung Fu.

We swapped brush techniques, and it was amazing watching him work.  He'll definitely go far in the industry.  I'm stoked to read Infinite Kung Fu, as the art looks glorious, and the story looks pitch perfect.

  After sitting through a panel where Kagan discussed his upcoming project, and the difficulties in being both a magazine illustrator and a comics illustrator, I headed to Dragon's Lair comics to meet up with a friend.  Picked up some used books before heading over to Austin Books and Comics, which is thus far the biggest comics shop I've been in in my life.

It just keeps going. I picked up three random issues of King City, an issue of Prophet, and skipped out on buying Orc Stain, because I'm an idiot. I'll have to pick that one up when it gets reprinted.

Next door was a pretty phenomenal vinyl toy store that had only the best art books on display. Great presentation. Kind of wish I lived in Austin right now;)

Learned alot, pretty inspired...off to draw now.

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Frank Quitely Sketches

On Frank Quitely's Facebook fan page, there are a plethora of con sketches and pencils for different projects. I figured I'd collect them all in a blog post. Be sure to drop by Facebook and like the page.

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Kim Jung Gi

To me there are men, artists, and gods.  Otomo, Moebius, Taiyou, Darrow, Katsuya, Pope-these guys are gods. Artists whose talent is not only unquestionable, but practically unimitatable. Not to say people don't try. Me included, for sure.  Kim Jung Gi first came to my attention when Alvin Lee posted up a video of him freestyle sketching on his facebook:

  And here's some excerpts from his 2007 and 2011 sketchbooks (images from Parka Blogs and this Chinese site). For Kim's official site, check out Superani.

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Master Class: Frank Quitely

One of the first western comics I ever actively read was Grant Morrison's New X-men.  Being a huge film buff, I approached comic books with the same trepidation as most people: superhero comics were largely formulaic, where a protagonist chose some life altering event to base his crime fighting career around while battling thematic enemies with similar dispositions.  Spider-man fights Venom (he was popular in the 90s, so I thought he was Spidey's core nemesis), Daredevil fights Kingpin, and the X-men fight Magneto.  Except two issues in to Grant Morrison's run on New X-men Magneto gets killed. Well, shit, there goes everything I understood about comics.

Grant Morrison's brilliant genre bending trope reinterpreting legends are the kind of innovation that made comics what they were in the 60s, and no one realizes Morrison's work better than Frank Quitely.  I believe that Morrison and Quitely, constant collaborators, are two sides of the same coin.  Morrison's plot arcs are like Quitely's art:  relatively simple, if you break it down to it's core shapes, yet when these simple shapes are combined and modified, the amount of depth they can convey is staggering.

Frank Quitely, born Vincent Deighan (his name is a play on the phrase, "Quite Frankly"), was born in Glasgow, Scotland.  He worked his way over to the US by gaining notoriety for his work on Shimura (a side character in the Judge Dredd universe), as well as some work for Dark Horse Presents.  His first collaboration with Grant Morrison was Flex Mentallo, published in 1996 by Vertigo.  His popularity slungshot him into more work, leading to him penciling his first graphic novel: Batman: The Scottish Connection.

I find The Scottish Connection to be profoundly insightful into taking apart Quitely's art.  The story is fairly reminiscent of the formula mentioned above, but Quitely's core understanding of anatomy and physical shape and form is evident throughout the book.

    Quitely's understanding of the human body, most evident in the way the skull shape is evident in all of his faces, is what lends weight to his figures.  They occupy a space in the world's he builds.  He is an efficient storyteller, usually focusing solely on what needs to be realized with few, if any, superfluous embellishments to his backgrounds or irrelevant prop pieces.

  Quitely's ability to render different textures is another hallmark of his art. Most notably skin: when the opportunity presents itself, Quitely practically renders pores.

      The first cover for American Virgin is a great example of just how much effort he is willing to put forth in realizing  a picture. He also has a phenomenal grasp on how to translate the texture of leather onto the page.  Also pay attention to seams...he loves drawing seams on clothes to further flesh out a picture.

      Another notable aspect of Quitely's work the ability to destroy his environments, brick by brick and piece by piece.  One of Quitely's major influences is Otomo Katsuhiro, and there's no doubt in my mind that his love for destroying his sets was inspired by Otomo.

  I'll let Frank shed some more light on his work. Be sure to check out the rest of this video series as well. Also, a bit of Frank drawing:

Notable Works:

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