Apr 27 2009

The Kirby Uke: Now in 3-D

Here’s something pretty cool: Issac, over at Satisfactory Comics, has posted a 3-D version of  my Jack Kirby-style Ukulele from a few days ago.   He did one version that should be able to make work without glasses, but my eyeballs weren’t cooperating.   He did, though, kindly post a traditional-style version of the image that you’ll need 3-D glasses to see.  I was a little surprised to find that I actually have two pairs of 3-D glasses readily available in my house: that 3-D Steve Ditko comic book, and Grand Funk’s LP, Shinin’ On, which features the glasses because the entire album–gatefold and all–is entirely 3-D.  You kids try to get that in your “i-tunes” internets music store!

uke3drg

Apr 27 2009

In-Progress Sketchbook Grid

Every so often, I post one of these “grid drawings” from my sketchbook, but I never seem to manage to post the original doodles that each panel is based upon.   I should have done so this time before I even started, but here’s one in-progress.  What I do with these things is to grid off a page, do a quick blind contour drawing or doodle in each panel in non-photo blue pencil, then use that doodle as the basis for a little character drawing.  I’ve used Photoshop here to turn the non-photo blue in the remaining squares to black so you can see the doodles better.  I’ll post the final page for comparison when I’m done.

grid_stage1

Apr 22 2009

The Jack Kirby Ukulele

Okay, it’s not really a Jack Kirby ukulele, but a while back the folks at Satisfactory Comics posted one if their “doodle penance” entries (where they draw things from their site’s log of visitor’s search terms) for the phrase “Jack Kirby Machines.”  The post featured a hilariously-accurate “how to” diagram by Isaac entitled “Principles of Kirbytech,” which you can see below:

kirbytech-principles

I thought this was especially brillaint at the time and really wanted to use it to draw some common machine that I use in my day-to-day life… but, alas, this was posted right in the middle of “crunch time” reading for the Eisner award nominations and I could do nothing about it until now.  But, with the nominating weekend over and my Amelia pages turned in, (Yea!) I’ve had some time to give it a go.

I wanted to attempt to do a Kirby version of the machine I most commonly use and my first thought was that I should do a squash racquet–but I disqualified that based on its not having any moving parts.  It’s occurred to me since then that I missed the obvious choice which would have been my daughter’s baby stroller (which I–seriously–use more than our car), but what I settled on was my ukulele.  So… here it is: the Jack Kirby ukulele.  I think I’ve made pretty good use of all the techniques outlined on Isaac’s diagram–plus I’ve added some “Kirby crackle” just from memory.

kirby_uke

Apr 22 2009

Wide Awake Press FCBD Preview

This year, as with the past few years, the good folks at Wide Awake Press are offering a totally 100% free downloadble anthology.  Each year has a theme and this year’s is ancient civilizations–hence the title: The Ancient Age.  Here’s the official skinny:

The Ancient Age presented by Wide Awake Press
On May 2nd (Free Comic Book Day!) revel in a pantheon of illustrated lore from the ancient age. This free comic download gathers fantastic stories about the world’s earliest civilizations, as told by the mighty sequential artisans of today. A monumental mix of new and classic tales featuring heroes, philosophers, creatures, and gods. It’ll be spectacularly epic, epically spectacular, spantafically epilacar—it’ll be good!

And here’re the folks who contributed:

Dan Boyd, Michael Bresnahan, J Chris Campbell, Andrew Davis, Andrew Drilion, Patrick Dean, Paul Friedrich, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Justin Gammon, Bernie Gonzalas, Brad Mcgintiy, Corinne Mucha, Dusty Harbin, Mike LaRiccia, Joe Lambert, Josh Latta, Pat Lewis, Rey Ortega, Katie Skelly, Steve Steiner, Ben Towle, Rob Ullman, Jeff Zwirek

Alas, I was too busy this year to do a story, but I did contribute an illustration.

Here’s a very cool video preview put together by J. Chris Campbell:

The book itself will be posted on Free Comic Book Day; I’ll post a link to it here then.

Apr 21 2009

Amelia Aerial Panel – Final Image, Amela Update

42_43_spread_working

Well, for any of you (three or so) folks following along at home, there it is: the final image that’s come of my various posts on this once-panel now-spread.

Amelia is just about wrapped up now.  I’m anticipating sending off completed files tomorrow; although, I may have to revisit some of my gray layer work.  This is the first time I’ve done a “duotone” book that’s actually going to be printed on two separate Pantone plates, so there’re a lot of subtle nuances to getting the gray underlayer just right that are new to me.  It’s actually more akin to setting up a two color screen print than prepping files for printing as I’ve done it in the past.

I’m dying to post some other pages from the book, but I think I’ll hold off a bit.  With the other Hyperion/CCS books, there’ve been websites set up for the books with sample pages, so I’ll wait until I know if there’re specific pages set up as previews and then post those here as well.