The Fear Continues

Another week and another month roll on in 2006. I starting on issue 4 of Fear Agent inking over Tony Moore's breakdowns, which he scans in and puts up on the server, I download and print out in blue ink on comic bristol, and ink. I'm using the Faber Castell Pitt marker and brush pen on this stuff.

Here is a closer shot on one of the panels min progress..

and a larger image of one of the finished pages is
HERE.

Board frame

Here is one of the storyboard frames from last weekend's rush job.

Drawn traditional, inked with a marker, and colored in photoshop.

Six Flags Weekend

This weekend I went to Six Flags with a few friends without even leaving my dining room. Friday I got a rush storyboard job for a Six Flags commercial, and called in a few friends to help me crank it out. My buddy Scott was down already visiting since his mom is not feeling well (get better Nancy) and I used it as an opportunity to hire Echo, one of my students from DCAD to give her some real world training.




Here Echo tightens up the board in pencil

In order to rush this thing through I laid out all the scenes in blue pencil pretty tightly,then handed them off to Scott and Echo to tighten them up in pencil, I penciled some too. Once they were penciled and approved, some with major changes at the last minute, we went to inks and colors. We inked then with markers realy quick and then colored them in photoshop on our laptops and I deliverd the job via the internet.


Scottie tightens up another frame from my roughed in layout

I tell you, Google is the best thing ever for finding reference and that saved precious time when looking for ref we needed for the job. Seems these boards are always rush jobs, crazy late night hours, but the pay can be pretty good too.


Our "studio" for the weekend was my dining room table.

Now back to my regularly scheduled busy life.

Etch-A-Idiot

Something I drew back before the darkest day in modern times on a friend's mini-etch-a-sketch.

Zaffino.com

They have started posting some of the late Jorge Zaffino's comic work over on his web siteJorgeZaffino.com I got to know Jorge on his first trip to America back in the late 80's and we all shared a nice trip along with the Villagran Bros. up to visit with Al Williamson. He was a quite guy, mostly because his english was bad, and my spanish was not great, but artist can always share the lanugage of art, and Jorge was really a great talent who was taken from us too early. I also never saw anyone put as mucj salt on french fries as Jorge.....

Return to blogging

This has been the longest break in blogging I have taken since I started my blog last year. I guess between the holidays and the work load I have in the studio, and my personal life, the blog fell away to low man on the totem. I've been getting back to the gym in a serious way and have been trying the Body For Life diet, which is essentialy eating 5-6 smaller meals a day instead of 3 big ones. I've been doing it for 3 weeks now and it's already done a lot of good and the pounds are coming off, 10-12 pounds already. the goal is to try and get down to 200 by summer, which is doable at 2-3 pounds a week, which is the most anyone can really loose in a week the right way. this job is murder on you in that way, hours sitting, sometimes a bad diet to keep the mind awake with sugar and a cramped schedule means more eating out, but those are all things of the past. I already need to buy a new belt!

I have just finished doing finishes over Tony Moore's pencils on the 3rd issue of Fear Agent for Image. I am posting a few pages here for you to see, I expect the book to hit stands within a few short weeks.




Next week I return to teaching at DCAD, this semester I'll be teaching figure Drawing for Animators and Illustrators, and I'm looking forward to it.

I am also jamming to finally finish DRAW! 12 which is way, way late again. I was doing good there then fell off the schedule terribly. My first goal this year is to get Draw! back on regular schedule.

On top of this I have my weekly work for Minoriteam for Funny Garbage, which will air on Adult Swimm this spring, I have inked hundreds and hundreds of scenes by now, and it's one of the most enjoyable and fun jobs I have ever had. I get to ink in a suedo-Kirby style all day when I work on it, and that's a blast!

And on the drawing board is a solo issue of the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles which I am drawing now, so I have probably never been busier, especially if you add in the continuing development on my project at NIC. 2006 is ripping down the road and I hope to be able to keep up with it. I'll try and keep this blog updated if not daily, several times a week now.

Mike

Happy New Year!