For Free Comic Book Day this year, which is on May the 4th, (may the 4th be with you), I’ll be setting up shop at Illusive Comics and Games in Santa Clara, CA. I’ll be selling prints and doing sketches all day, come see me, stormtroopers, a big sale, and get some free comics while you’re at it! I will be debuting my new Doctor who print for sale there as well, Which you have seen in a previous post, but now I totally recolored it for the print.
The other news is that, the Hero Envy Comic I did a pin-up for a while back is running a kickstarter. You can see the details of the kickstarter here. Take a look and consider supporting them, and if you contribute 75.00 or more you get a Sketch by me included with all the other Swag!
Hello and welcome to another process blog, I haven’t done one in a while, and so heeeeeere we go:
One of the categories for the SDCC 2013 souvenir book this year is Doctor Who. The deadline was Midnight tonight. Yesterday at midnight I decided to do a pic for it. I am great planner-man!
Step one: Roughs/Layout
Did a rough in Photoshop on my cintiq at 7×9 (the size specified). I only did one rough, sometimes I do more, but I find I am more often than not happy with my first rough, (at least with my personal work). I wanted to include all my favorite heros and villians. I did a rough layout sketch, realized I had to skip villains. Once the layout was done I realized it was too crowded, and I was too short on time to include everyone in it even if I fixed the composition. So I narrowed it down to just The three Doctors and K-9.
Step 2: Research
Grabbed a bunch of pics of my characters and the props and BG elements I would be using .
.
Step 3: Digital “pencils” or rough clean-ups.
Using reference I cleaned up the rough to digital “pencils” again Photoshop on my cintiq. This is too rough to give to someone else to clean-up, but more than tight enough to ink myself
Step 4: revision:
Adjusted David Tennant’s eyes and Tom Bakers hair, added glasses to Tennant, added Matt Smith’s Sonic Screwdriver, and the Bad Wolf Graffiti on the Tardis .
Step 5: Lightbox
Converted the rough to Grayscale, adjusted the brightness and contrast so it would print well and printed it out 8.5×11 (larger than print size will be). Taped it down to my light box.
Step 6: inks
Taped a piece of 9×12 Strathmore Bristol Vellum over the rough and began inking. 80 Percent of the inking was done with the black side of a double sized Japanese brush pen. The rest was pigman pens .05, .03, and .01 for the tardis Bg and K-9, and a 100% Black Copic marker for the space area and the hair and Jacket on Patrick Troughton.
Step 7: white out and a toy
I masked out the outer space area using scrap paper. then I dipped a hard bristle toothbrush into my dr martins bleed proof white and flicked it to create a star effect. I also dabbed it manually to create a few different looking stars. K-9′s head looked a little off to me so I grabbed my figure of him and adjusted his headlines s a bit again using the bleed proof white.
Step 8: Scan it
My scanner has been acting terrible lately. So, I ran to the fedex/kinkos that is open until 11pm and spent 98 cents to have them scan it.
Step 9: Crop, Re-size and Contrast
Back in Photoshop I reduce the size to fit the 7×9 requested size, and crop the bleed off. Then I delete all the white using the magic wand tool with “constrain” off, I then lower the brightness and up the contrast.Finally I set the layer blending to “multiply”. NOw I have a nice crisp black ink layer with no artifacts.
Step 10: color
Made new layer under the inks and colored all the flats with the pencil tool.
Then made several layers between the flats and inks at varying opacities for shading and highlights.
I was literally coloring up to the last second and sent the final in at 11:59pm . While I think it came out Decent If I decide to make a print of this, I will definitely work on the color some more.
The 9th Doctor ,(chris eccleston), sketched in red pencil then tightened up with a .07 mechanical pencil. Drawn on the back of used printer paper.
Sketched this guy up in Flash, on my Cintiq in-between other work I should have been doing.
A digital caricature I sketched up and colored in Photoshop on my Cintiq for the Awkward faces caricature face group on Facebook. Went a little more insulty than last time, but next time I’d like to push it even further
Recently a client whom I had previously worked for on a semi-regular basis for several years, contacted me about a new on-going job. For the original jobs I did I charged him less than my current usual since we started working together when I was more inexperienced and had less work opportunity, also he was a little tight on the budget. This time, I offered him a rate lower than the previous job since this one seemed easier, I also gave him a lower than usual rate since it would be on-going work, with very little editorial oversight. I was actually second-guessing myself for the low-ball offer I made when he responded. I usually don’t publicize my prices as they can vary greatly depending on the situation, project, and work-load I have at any given time, However I feel it is important to be specific in this example to show how reasonable my asking rate was. The following was our e-mail exchange:
—————————————————————————————————————————
Client:
How are things out west?
How much can you do a simple comic for?
I’ll need, about once a month or so, a comic to use when I train.
For example, one company sells to librarians, so I want a pic of a librarian offering an objection and the reps going SHHHHH! With his finger on his lips (sweet irony).
Another is a rep selling to a feed store, telling the resistant buyer “It’s cheaper than a vet!”
Thoughts?
Thanks,
xxx
——————————————————————————————————————————
Me:
Hey xxx,
Long time no chat, thanks for thinking of me for this new project.
All is well here, I been keeping busy, as it seems you have too!
So, it seems like you are talking about a 1 panel gag comic like the far side or family circus in color correct?
If so I would charge 75.00 each, same as before where you see a rough first.
Let me know,
-thanks!
——————————————————————————————————————————
Client;
Thanks, I was surprised that xxxx from Bulgaria contacted me on this (my original artist). I’m giving him the work. Over there, average worker makes $120/week. So him doing this for $40 will be good for a semi-starving artist.
Best,XXX
——————————————————————————————————————————-
Me:
Continuing the outsourcing of American jobs.
——————————————————————————————————————————–
-Now I know I may been overstating it a bit, and I doubt this technically qualifies as outsourcing in the traditional sense, but I think the point was made.
What bothers me most, is that the client told me about the other artist at all. It’s a bizarre arrogance or ignorance that let’s someone think this is an OK thing to say to another person. They could have easily told me, your price is too high, I’m going another direction, or your style is not right for the project :p, ect. Why throw in that seemingly passive aggressive information? It’s like breaking up with a girl and telling her, “there, there it’s not you, it’s just that I found this super hot Bulgarian girl who doesn’t know enough to see she can do better than a guy like me, and she is in a bad enough situation that she will marry and serve me just to get her citizenship. (overstating again?…OK, maybe.) I can only think of 2 logical reasons for this information sharing. 1. Maybe the client hoped that I would quickly lower my price so as to not lose the job. This would mean that although the client would rather work with me, they find saving money to be of greater importance than quality of work and ease of communication. 2. It was a F.U. to my “high” price proving that other artists could be found cheaper. This would be a sort of bragging about their business savvy, or indictment of my lack of globally competitive prices. There of course are other reasons that cold have motivated them as well, but they are beyond my ability to easily guess.
Following in a long line of near misses, this was an inked page from a test script for a small publishing company. I met the owners at comic-con 2012, The loved my work, and said they would be in touch. I later ran into one at an unrelated event, he brought up again how they liked my work and wanted to talk to me again about working on a book for them. Eventually they did contact me and asked me to do a sample page. I go the script from their completed first issue as well as come samples from other pages to base my characters off of of since they had already been designed. My Dad was visiting from across the country so it was bad timing, but I managed to get it done. They got back to me in reasonable time, and basically said, ”Thanks, but your style is not what we are looking for on this book, we will probably have another book in the future for you though because we do love your work… just not for this.” I get this basic response a lot about my style not being right or marketable, or what they are looking for. Usually, I assume it is a way of letting me down nicely, or it could be true I guess. Either way, I’m used to it and I’m OK with it. Except when, as has happened several times over the last year or two, people approach or pursue me and then after some work is put in they suddenly decide my style is not right for their project. My samples are not misleading. How I draw is plainly on display and doesn’t change drastically once I start on a new project , I have 3 basic styles and a bit of variation in there, but again no big surprises. Also none of these people has contacted me about the “other project”, or “upcoming book”, they have for me further down the pipeline. Most of these people have still not come out with the book or project they had not wanted my style for either, so maybe no one’s style was right for them…
Also just to prove I have plenty to not like about my own work without all this help, here is the page along with my rough layout for it. Almost all the changes I made in the final I think made it worse and stiffer, yet knowing this and trying to avoid it, it almost always turned out this way. That being said, I still think the page looks good and they should have hired me :p
A quick digital caricature I sketched up and colored in Photoshop on my Cintiq for the Awkward faces caricature face group on Facebook. It’s been going on for a while and has some amazing artists on it, I rarely submit to it, but this time I did with several whole hours to spare! Next time if I have more time/inclination/inspiration I may even try to do a “real” caricature with exaggeration and insult galore.
Had to do caricatures at a corporate holiday party in San Francisco Back in Dec. On the train ride home I sketched up this friend. Red pencil sketch inked with Japanese brush pen. Navy blue color stick added to BG. Done on 11×17 copier paper.
Caricature/Logo I created for a local insurance firm Desando. Done 100 percent in Photoshop on my Cintiq, from reference photos.
Happy new years guys, I have some back log I need to upload as well as new stuff in the works, but here is a quick post of a job I did over the holidays.
Commissioned to do a family as the Avengers from photos.
Completely done in Photoshop on my cintiq.
Getting into my Copic cool grey set as you can see. I love working in grey more and more. These are the main characters from my forever unfinished and unpublished comic “the Null Set.” Maybe this will inspire me to get it done, but at the very least it inspired me to use Copics more :p . I light-boxed the roughs (done in pencil on copier paper), onto Bristol Board inked with Japanese brush pen, and of course tones done with cool grey Copics.
My first attempt at using Copic markers on a piece. Done as a Father’s day present. Used a black Japanese brush pen, and the cool grey Copic marker set, on Bristol. I like them quite a bit sort of a lazy man’s watercolors. I do think I need to get the Warm grey set now.
So recently an old friend contacted me about designing a flyer image for her new company: Game Dev House – dev classes for gamers The face book site is up now, and the main site will go live soon. The idea was to have FPS characters from games she has worked on, and/or will be teaching having a lan party. Enjoy, and if you are in the NJ area and know someone interested in game design send them her way won’t you?
Done 100 percent in Photoshop on my Cintiq.
Hey guys, so this past weekend, I was at Miss Misery’s Day’s of Terror Horror con, Hocking my wares and rubbin shoulders with other humanites.
While there I had fun, and met some cool people.
The Phantom Zone Radio show stopped by and took a few pics:
I was also interviewed by The Mouths of Madness podcast guys which you can listen to here. Skip to 28:46 if you are impatient :p
Did a few free kid sketches:
Also had time to work on some blank sketch variant comic covers, which are up on e-bay for your generous bidding!
Here he is, a rock elemental type guy! I made up this chap to resemble something you might see on a magic card. Unfortunately, my style sets it far apart from their usual fare. I used green energy as a BG, since rock elementals always seem to be around fire and lava, and I wanted this guy to be more magically animated rock and less living earth spirit.
Brush pen and micron scanned and colored in Photoshop.
Another blank sketch comic cover I was commissioned to do is up for sale on EBAY:
This was inked with brush pen, and microns.
Sketched this guy entirely during league of legends down-time. Blue pencil with H black lead over it on copier scrap paper.
As a bonus you get to see me covered by 2 of my 3 cats while watching Larry King interview Jessie Ventura.
Recently through my Deviant art page, I was commissioned to do a mascot/logo for an new game site. They liked my Be-bop from TMNT, and wanted something similar but with a warthog in fantasy garb, instead of a boar in punk attire. I did the pencil sketch in blue and then cleaned it up with an H pencil on copier paper. Then I scanned it into Photoshop to remove the blue and touch up a few things like the swords. Printed that version out and light-boxed it onto a sheet of Bristol for the inks. Inks we done mainly with Japanese brush pen and a little bit of .8 .5 and .1 microns pens. Scanned that in and colored it in Photoshop on my Cintiq.
Recently, some friends asked me to create a space/robot themed scene to be a sort of framed poster version of a wall mural. A lot of creative freedom on this one, which is always awesome! Roughs done in pencil and bic pen on copier paper, cleaned up in Flash on my Cintiq.
About a year ago I was hired to do some designs and simple animation for a proposed series of interstitials for MTV, via the Goo. Unfortunately, it never got past the initial animation phase, but the designs were still fun to work on. The concept was to mash up hip-hop artists and pop-culture celebrities, then show four extreme close-ups to give people a chance to guess who it was before the reveal of the main veiw. Below are the four designs I worked on, done completely in Flash on my Cintiq:
Not my usual style. Did this on copier paper with a regular number 2 pencil.
Recently I was contacted to do a cartoon of three dogs from photos. The guy ended up wanting it a lot more realistic than cartoony, and after several heavily referenced revisions, here is the final product done 100 percent in Photoshop on my Cintiq:
So This Fouth of July, I celebrated our Independance Day, by lying to a woman for 10 minutes. Then I got paid. Her boyfriend asked me to pretend to be set up doing caricatures on the docks in san fransisco, and then after I got them to sit for me, I pretended to draw this pick below that I actually did at home from photos. She was confused he proposed, yay love!.
At the Big Wow comic con a few months back, a guy commissioned me to do a sketch cover for him. This was the first time I had done one of these. Since then, I have done several more. Some were for a private collection, some to be sold on ebay. These are images from the second batch I did, that have all been sold already. The third batch is finished and when they go up for sale I will post about it.
About Me
If you would like to contact me regarding commission work, art, illustration, or whatever my e-mail is fcyclops@aol.com
Gazbot on Deviant Art
Random Image
