Ebay Auctions!

I just put up a bunch of art on Ebay, so check them out...Time to pay for art school!

http://tiny.cc/3Iy5L
http://tiny.cc/cJECN
http://tiny.cc/Ky5Ti
http://tiny.cc/bre9g
http://tiny.cc/ZJvOa

Fall Semester 09 starts--week 1

Peter did a few demos in class, something I always like.

Yesterday was my first day back in school at PAFA for the fall and it was a fun day, I have Animal Drawing with Peter Van Dyke and Peter brought his dog in to pose for us yesterday. She's a four year old Doberman who's really mellow. Drawing animals can be tricky as they move a lot, and so it's more like gesture drawing unless they are asleep. This drawing was one of several I did in class.

Martians Go Home Issue 1 Done!

I finally finished penciling the first issue of MGH last night after I came home from watching District 9, which was the second good movie I saw this week, the first being Inglorious Basterds.Next step will be inking this first issue up and then coloring and lettering it as I am doing the whole thing myself--something that makes me really happy!

Drawing that little Martian is really fun and I feel like I'm getting to know him as a real person the more I draw him.

Martians Go Home

Here is another page from MGH, Luke is really losing it here. I pushed the warpiness of the perspective in the last panel to enhance his drunken rage. A solid knowledge of perspective is a great tool because once you know it you can then break or twist it to lend the effect you want in your work. Artists like Gene Colan used that approach in his work to great effect.

I will be finishing the pencils in the next two day on the first issue and then jumping straight into the inking so I can try and get as much inked before school starts in full swing next week,

Summer Cartooning Class 09

I just wanted to post something about the summer class on cartooingI taught at PAFA this summer to say how much I enjoyed teaching it and that I had a really good group of students, which makes teaching fun and rewarding. this was the second time I offered and taught a class at PAFA and I hope to offer the class again maybe come next spring and summer time allowing. the age range was good, from early 20's to mid 60's and everybody really got into the swing of things right off. I had two students return to take the class again and that made it fun as well as I could see the progress each hand made since the last time.





Thanks guys and keep cartooning!

More Martians

Two more pages of pencils from the first issue, I will be finishing it up in the next few days....

Martians Go Home

Today I'm posting two more pages from the first issue of martians Go Home, which I will be done penciling this week. I'm really getting to do some fun acting and facial expressions here.

Michelle-2

This is the second pose with our new model in the DPC group, Michelle. I was really going for something a bit bolder and looser as I can so easily end up getting too tight in my paintings, in fact I went back in and busted up stuff with a bigger brush on purpose. Michelle did a good job of holding a tough pose on the hands, which were going to sleep in this pose.

SHAZAM R. I.P.

My great, great dog Shazam an Austrialian healer, succumed to heart failure yesterday, she was about 14 and a half years old. Great dogs make us better people, and she was really a great dog, and of any dog I have ever been lucky enough to have, she had the biggest, strongest connection to me. I recently read that dogs are as smart as two-year-old humans, and I'd say Shazam was at least that smart, she could read expressions on my face a body language so well.

I named her Shazam when I was working on the Shazam comic for DC back in 1995. That seems like ages ago now and the rythm and pattern of my life is very different, but the constant love of a great dog saw me through a lot of good and bad in these last 14 years. She was a fighter, surviving cancer at 7 years, she had such spirit and everybody , all my friends and family loved her too.

Dogs define times of our lives so well, like water carving away a mark on a riverbed. Now that she is gone I feel the huge mark she made on me exposed, and I realize how strong a force she was in my life, the one real constant force in my life that lasted beyond girlfriends, jobs, etc. I got her and my other late dog Buster just a month or so apart. They were so great together and I loved taking them to the park and playing frisbee. Well now she can play frisbee with Buster somewhere in the next click-over on the reality dial. Energy they say never goes away, it transforms, but my house is now very still. Quiet.
This really marks a big change in my life and with my cat Scavee passing just over a month ago leaves me at the current time without any pets at all. I think it will be a while before I get any new little animal companions, I need to give my heart a rest and time to settle and heal and to see where the new school year takes me.

in a few weeks I'll get Shazams ashes back and place her up on the fireplace with the ashes of all my other pets, someday when I go, I want my ashes to be mixed with their's and potted with a tree or something someplace.

New Model

This is a painting of our new model Michelle I started at this weeks Dirty Palette Club meeting, but wiped out twice, so I finished it from a photo. I'm still trying to keep up with doing the portraits and hope we can do another this week. 16 x 20, oil on canvas

The Creepertins

Here is the back to School strip for the Creepertins this month, which is a play off one of the strips from last year. There was a bit of a break when the magazine bumped us 2 months in a row but it seems we are back on the schedule now. It's been quite the mix of jobs in the last few weeks, I finished the Secret Saturdays Kids book for Random House, this strip, teaching my cartooning class at PAFA, painting and now I'm back on the Martian book and finishing up DRAW!--the summer is burning down fast, in three weeks School starts again!

Super Sad Final

Here is the finished painting, after a few more days or a week once it's really dry and set I might go back and slightly adjust things. I tried balancing the lights better on my camera for this shot, it still takes a lot of adjustment in Photoshop. I'm very excited about this series and have two more paintings in sketch stage I will be working on next. the painting is 24 x 30 in oil.

The X-9 Blog

The X-9 Secret Agent Corrigan story I drew a few months back is being published in the latest issue of the X-9 Modesty Blaise magazine which is published by Egmont in Sweden. Johan Kimrin who amongst other things lettered the story has a cool blog devoted to the magazine.

Super Progress

I worked on the painting again, really trying to adjust the background and then reworking the feet and hair. I need to let it set up so i can go back in again and keep hammering away at this thing, so many little areas need to be adjusted and reworked.

Super Sad continues

I finally was able to get back to working on my newest painting yesterday. I worked all day and well into the wee hours on it and then adjusted more this am. I still have a long way to go and I want what I did to set up so I can work back into it. I have two more paintings in this series as sketches that I want to get going on maybe next week.