ComicConfidential

OK, one week away from ComicCon and the pressure is on. These images are actually from a children's book I'm working on with the woman I did my first book with. Our first collaboration was a pirate book for children, entitled "Prissy Pink and Pirate Purple". This new book is about an elementary school girl in the 3rd grade with a bunch of monster children training to be witches and warlocks. She becomes upset because the other monster children have two eyes and she has only one. The first image is from the line in the story, "Kati is a little shy and hides her head in books, because she only has one eye, she is bothered by her looks".   I spent more time on the book titles than I did with the illustration. I'm pretty proud of "Witches are from Mars; Warlocks are from Venus". 

This second image is supposed to be a class photo. I really didn't want to come up with an entire classroom of monster kids, so this became a photo of the kids mentioned in the poem. "All of Kati's other friends have so many things, all eyes and legs and tentacles some even have three wings. Bella has a skinny tail that she swings around the room. Leon has six tentacles that glue him to his broom. Feta has a slimy tongue; it drags down to the floor, and instead of having two wings, Spindle she has four. Kati always felt so odd and very out of place. Why is she the only one with one eye on her face?"

Off to San Diego in one week. I promoted this on Facebook and I thought I would throw it out to blogreaders. These two pieces below will be something I will be handing out as a business card at ComicCon. Come by the SLG booth, buy an autographed issue of Sanctuary, and get a model sheet!

And of course, Cleo has to have her own. I have some big plans for Cleo in the next story arc....

I will be in San Diego for ComicCon from Thursday, July 12th until Saturday, July 14th. Please come by and say hi!

Unnecessary Cosplay

 I've only been to 2 comic conventions in my entire life. Both in San Francisco and both have been wonderful  experiences. Part of the great experience is seeing all the people that come out of the woodwork and  parade around in costumes. The second wonderful part is seeing the aging celebrities signing autographs at the booths and finding out whether they've aged well. Most of the time, they have not. One of the celebrities I encountered at my first show was Erin Gray, who played Wilma on Buck Rogers (aged well). Recently, I started watching Buck Rogers on Netflix and was horrified. I have fond memories as a child of watching Buck on Sunday mornings and loving every second of it. Now when I watch it, the scripts are terrible, the acting is terrible, the special effects are laughable, and since the show came out in the time of disco, all the actors wear disco outfits! Please don't Google Gil Gerard, who played Buck (did not age well). Remember him as he was. (Pictured left)

I had come up with an idea a few months ago to do a "people waiting in line to see a celebrity at a comic convention" illustration and had sketched out some ideas. When I was asked to sign copies of my comic Sanctuary by SLG for Free Comic Book Day, I was excited. I try to do a brand new illustration for every themed show (see previous posts) and decided to dust off this idea and make it work. I had to have a Lord of the Rings person in there. I had to have inappropriate cosplayer and an old guy wearing glasses over his costume. By the way, Cosplayer is a term used to describe someone that dresses up for comic conventions. 

   

Of course, there are some Cosplayers with no shame. Some that do not have access to a mirror or anyone that can tell them that what they're wearing is not appropriate. That was when the idea came to me. The illustration would be "people that should not dress up for comic conventions" or "Unnecessary Cosplay". 

 

The gentlemen above must not have anyone in their lives that can tell them to stay indoors, when dressed up. They can't possibly. This is what it would look like if Spiderman's worst enemy was all-you-can-eat-shrimp-night at Hometown Buffet. When I started sketching out ideas, I drew a fat man in a wonder woman costume first as a tribute to Lynda Carter (aged well) and went on from there. The poster in the back is clearly an homage to actors and TV shows of the 80's. Although the actor on the poster looks like Chuck Norris, it was more of a reference to Gil Gerard or Tom Selleck. The Viking woman in the background was inspired by a book I recently purchased that was about the art of Jack Cole, who was an artist for Playboy magazine back in the 60s.   

Below is the completed version. Sorry, I didn't put in any thumbnail sketches. I think it turned out pretty well and many of the people that purchased copies of Sanctuary on Free Comic Book Day received a postcard-sized version of this. If you're interested in a print, contact SLGcomic.com. 

While searching for suitable images for this blog post, I saw this unsuitable image of Buck and couldn't resist.  Can you?

Pirate Arrrrrrrt.

To all the artists in the audience:  Have you ever been drunk and playing Uno with friends and came up with what you thought might be great idea for an illustration?  Allow me to present... (**using your best pirate voice**)  "Draw fourarrr!".

Ninjas in Love

OK, OK. I know this is a hot-button issue. Do ninjas fall in love? And, has there ever been a story told of two male ninjas falling for each other? This illustration came to mind while I was watching the horrible 80's movie American Ninja, last week. A predictable plot, horrible actors, terrible dialogue, and only two scenes with actual ninjas in them. You know, it's so bad that it's good. While watching, I was trying to come up with ways to turn this movie around. Space aliens, cowboys, or even if the two ninjas started making out. Anything. 

Yes, that movie poster says, "The deadliest art of the Orient is now in the hands of an American". Classic. Later that week, I sat down in a coffee shop with my wife and began sketching. Sometimes I felt bad because she was working on her dissertation (boring) while I was drawing two ninjas making out (interesting). These images below are some of the originals that I drew at the shop that night. Then something strange happened while I was putting it together. It actually started looking good.  I was just as surprised as you!  Things began to take shape and it wasn't bad, from a technical/composition perspective. I even drew them in a heart-shaped embrace, which was unintentional, but I liked the effect. 

Ok, let's really put them in a passionate embrace. Masks on. The cloth of their costumes still over their mouths. All the ninja weapons should be in view (Katana blade, throwing stars, quiver). Maybe they've never seen each other's faces before. Maybe it's forbidden, but they can't help themselves! I sat down to paint it pretty quickly after the final sketch. This was going to be a Valentine's Day illustration for the show coming to the SLG gallery on the 1st of the month. People already thought I was strange for the romantic zombie illustrations in November's show so, what the hell. The final piece was done in about 2 hours in Gouache with colored pencils. It is currently hanging in the gallery. Yes, I used very warm colors to accentuate their passion. 

Actual dialogue from the movie American Ninja:

Shinyuki: The Black Star Ninja has betrayed the code. 

Joe: Then... he must die. 

How did the Academy Awards miss this gem?