Well, I Failed.

OK, so I didn't get the comic done. Between going to see the Rolling Stones, having The Parents over for Thanksgiving, spending all day Friday and Saturday at Disneyland, and yesterday being a day of total exhaustion and laying on the couch...

Well, I didn't have any drawing time. So I failed. Sorry everyone.

New comic will be up on Thursday as usual. I'm a week behind, so I'll try to add a bonus comic sometime in January, which will be the earliest I can make time. I have sketch cards and Eon project to finish, sigh.

Always too much to do, never enough hours.

This Week's Comic

Is probably going to be a bit late, though I'm going to try to get it up on Thursday, because I got surprised with a pair of Rolling Stones tickets for my birthday, and the show is Wednesday night, which is when I usually do the comic. Since TGF's parents are coming to visit, we have a lot to do tonight (Tuesday) in preparation, so I probably can't get done by Wednesday night.

I hope you will be patient... for sure it will be up Friday, so come back then to see it. Thanks!

Sketch Updates

First, here's some heads I did at the CAPS meeting last night, where our guest was Drew Struzan:


(Click to enlarge) These are sort of stemming from all the character work I did on Sopranos. I learned a huge amount about how heads and faces are constructed from doing all those photo-realistic people, but until I did these I haven't really been going after that sort of art away from work (haven't done any since finishing Sopranos at work, either), and seeing Drew's work reminded me that I'd done a lot of it, and maybe I should try some more on my own.

These two heads are done without reference, just out of my head. I liked the one on the left, but when I scanned it in I did something that I do all the time when drawing digitally that can be hard to do on paper; I flipped the image horizontally, and found this:


(Click to enlarge) Now, the older bald guy still looks pretty good, but you can clearly see the flattening distortion of the other guy's face, and his eyes are not situated properly, one is lower than the other, and the ear is at a funny angle. Actually if you cover up the top half of the guy's head, covering the eyes and higher, the lower half of the face looks good. It's nothing I wouldn't be able to fix, it's just a lot harder using traditional media.

Now, here's some quick new stuff for the Eon challenge, also done during the meeting - when else do I have time to draw??



(Click to enlarge) These are a couple of quick views of one scene that I might illustrate, just going for layout and composition.



(Click to enlarge) And this is a take on what I saw in my head for another scene, which could become a component of yet another scene I might paint. A couple of other artists are also messing with this scene though, so I would really have to nail it and feel extra confident to complete that as my final submission. I'm probably going to develop as many as five or six different ideas up to color comp stage before choosing what I'll end up finishing out.

I have a "Me Weekend" this week so along with all the other stuff I'm doing I will squeeze in some more sketching on this.

Hellboy Sketch Cards, Sopranos

I've got a new project coming up! I'm doing a set of sketch cards for the Hellboy: Sword of Storms animated film that just recently aired on Cartoon Network! Here's the announcement page with a couple of my sample cards shown on it - scroll down a bit. I'm psyched! :)

I've had to turn down quite a few outside jobs since I started here at Seven, because I've been really busy here and we did have quite a bit of crunch time up to when we finished the Sopranos game. And that's okay, but I do like doing the sketch cards, they're relatively quick and fun and a good way to keep my name out there. This particular set is a great opportunity and the logistics are very compatible with my schedule, so I jumped at the chance. I mean, come on! Mike Mignola's doing a set of these! Along with all the other great artists, it's some good company.

As always, many thanks to Tone Rodriguez for giving me the call on this.

The cards won't be out until next year, but of course I'll let you all know when they come out.

There are a couple of my sketches up on the Sopranos game site, which you can see here (may require you to enter your birthdate, but nothing else, for age verification). Mine are just the first two on the Bada Bing page. They're drawings I made when we were trying to figure out how to lay out the Bada Bing in the game, it explains that. The funny thing is, I'd already been in the "main bar" area a few dozen times, because it's a strip club called Satin Dolls on Rt. 17 in New Jersey. They don't film the inside of it there now, but the original pilot and some of the first season they did use the actual location, and they still use it for exterior shots. We had a lot of trouble figuring out some of the interior, because the set changed in some pretty fundamental ways over the first 3 seasons, so we'd be looking at shots from episodes and things would be in different places every time! So we came up with a good layout that kept everything in but still made sense and feels right in the game. And all you Jersey buddies of mine who've been there will get a kick out of seeing it and walking thru it in-game.

BTW, the Sopranos game ships tomorrow, and should be in stores either tomorrow evening or first thing Wednesday morning. Go buy it, it's fun! Assuming you're over 18, of course... it's a "Mature Audiences" only game.

I haven't been doing Eon project sketches because I'm still reading the book and taking notes. There are some really great scenes that need illustratin', but I want to get all the way thru before I choose what I'm going to do. I'd like to do a really wild environment that integrates some of the main characters, and there's no shortage of such scenes. I should be able to finish the book by this weekend, and then I'll really start cranking. It's actually quite an interesting story - I was a bit worried as it felt a bit slow at the start, but it's going along very well now and I'm enjoying it a lot. It will be fun to paint a nice piece or two for it.