Web Illos!

I've posted these images on my Facebook a while back ... now you can see it in Blog form ...!!
I did these for the Canadian Sportsman website.

Character designs ...

Hey ... I know it's been a long time since my last post (a real long time) ... But I've been pretty busy with starting a business, taking care of a baby and doing illustration work ... Now I'm working on a new comic ... I'll give you more details about it soon ... Check it out ...

Kenneth Oppel likes my poster!

One of the joys about my job at the library is designing giant posters for our bi-monthly author's display. After reading Kenneth Oppel's Airborn and Skybreaker, I wanted to express my love for his books by painting a poster of his work. Kenneth Oppel was at the Mississauga Literary Festival organized by our library staff and got the pleasure to not only meet him but also use the poster I made as a backdrop for his reading. Kenneth had some very kind words to say about my poster on his blog, check it out!

http://kennethoppel.blogspot.com/2009/10/fabulous-poster.html

Gettin' ink

Hey gang. Not an illustration update, but the first review for Quarter-Life Crisis is in, and it's a good one! My favourite Toronto newsblog, Torontoist, did a story on the book. Writer Stephen Michalowicz gave it a nice review (despite titling the article 'Worst Quarter-Life Crisis Ever'), and included some big images from the book. He also brought up some good points about a few weaknesses that I agree with.

Check it out here: http://torontoist.com/2009/09/quarter-life_crisis.php

Some of you others have read it, and I'd love to hear other weaknesses you notice. So, ideally, I can improve upon them for the second book. Zen already gave me an in-depth phone call that was very helpful, but the more criticism, the more I have to think about, the better.

(I love that one of the commenters noticed the THX 1138 reference.)

The 3 Second Rule

Hey guys,
Just launched this new action/comedy/buddy/hitman webcomic called 3 Second Rule. Arthur Dela Cruz wrote it, I drew it.
I've been heavily inspired by European graphic novels, so I've busted out the 0.3 ink pens which is different because I'm so accustomed to using a brush marker or brush and ink.
The webcomic is updated every Monday, so check it out!

Covered!

Here is a link to a great blog called "covered". It's different artists with extremely different art styles reinterpretting old comic book covers. Some are very well-known covers and some are obscure. They have everything ranging from Marvel covers to Donald Duck covers to old western comics. A fun project maybe Sketchkreig could try in the future.
http://coveredblog.blogspot.com/

The day before Fan Expo...

Fan Expo is only hours away and I originally planned to have the first installment of this new webcomic series 3 Second Rule out tonight and ready to promote at the Fan Expo. But I'm still penciling halfway through the first chapter and Arthur's still working on the actually website. I think realistically this thing will launch in two weeks. Just check back on this blog for more updates. For now, here are some thumbnail pages from 3 Second Rule. As you can tell, there will be lots of witty banter and ass-kickin' action.


Make sure to stop by the Sketchkrieg table at Artist Alley. We should be at table A22-23. I'll be selling the new volume of AWOL'd so be sure to grab a copy! I think Evan will have some copies of his new book Quarter Life Crisis, so be sure to grab that as well! See you this weekend!

It's been awhile since I've posted something but I hope these will make up for my lack of updates. I'm currently working on a Wizard of Oz illustration and these are a couple of designs that I came up with for the Tinman and the Scarecrow.

The one thing I wanted to avoid the most while designing the characters was to go with a cliche, skinny Scarecrow that's dressed in either a farmer's overalls or rags with rope keeping him together. I also wanted to avoid a funnel-hatted or a medieval knight design for the Tinman. So the influence for the Scarecrow came from the uniforms that the American soldiers wore in the Revolution against Britain and the influence for the Tinman came from old trains. I imagined that some wacko engineer came across an old steam engine train and used its parts to build a robot but since he's an engineer and not a surgeon, the robot has no heart so now it has to ask the Wizard for one.

The full illustration will be available as a print at Fanexpo this friday and will, of course, have dorothy and the lion in it as well.

Road to Fan Expo...part 3

I'm currently pencilling this new webcomic project with Arthur called Three Second Rule. It's a buddy-action-comedy about an assassin who gets attached (emotionally?) to his mark. Maybe Arthur (the writer of the project) could fill you in a bit more about the deets. Here are some character concepts I did.

This is Axel, the cool assassin guy who gets shy when it comes to picking up girls. The fourth drawing is the one that will be used in the webcomic.


Shane is Axel's womanizing bud. From reading Arthur's script, I thought of Michael Madsen or the Super Size-Me guy for the look of Shane. Then after some discussion with Arthur, he wanted someone a bit younger in his late-twenties so I thought about a douchebag-you'd-find-at-clubs kind of guy.


Here is a waitress in the story that Axel is fond of, and another assassin in the story.


Time for me to get back to work on the webcomic. Next update I'll show you some thumbnail pages.

Road to Fan Expo ... Part 2

Like Loo-bot, I've also been chained to my drawing table and computer, finishing up the first book of Quarter-Life Crisis, trying to meet my printing deadline. Since I'm getting it printed where I work, Coach House Books, my deadline is a little later. It's going to be tight, but I think I'm going to make it (knock on wood).

But I'm really excited to have something new and something I'm proud of at the convention this time around. I'm happy with how the book is coming together.

Here's the cover spread for Quarter-Life Crisis. Thoughts? Like or dislike?

Road to Fan Expo...part 1

It's been a long time since our last blog post...but I'm sure we've all been respectively busy. I just recently finished the second volume of AWOL'd and sent it off to Lulu to get it published. Now I can enjoy whatever's left of the summer! Well, sorta... besides getting back into video games, watching Battlestar Galactica vol 4.5 and wrestling dvds, and chilling outside, I'll also be busy working on an exciting new webcomic project with Arthur called "Three Second Rule". In the days leading up to Fan Expo, I'll be posting some works-in-progress of the webcomic and I'm aiming to launch the website with several finished pages ready right before Fan Expo weekend. But for now, here's a preview of AWOL'd volume 2: UNDER COVERS.

Cover to AWOL'd volume 2

I've finally inked all the pages to AWOL'd volume 2! Now I have to worry about the boring but necessary stage: Post-production...greyscaling, word balloons, book layout designs...
If you observe the subtleness of the characters' eye direction carefully, you may get an idea of what each character will be up to in the second volume. It's like looking at a Soprano promo poster before a new season airs.

The Revolution is now!

Thought I'd post a few penciled pages from the climactic Dance Dance the Revolution scene, as I enter the homestretch. Been listening to a lot more Prince these days. Not sure how it will affect my drawings. Also, I figured out a few final script details that were still causing problems. Good times.

Manga Jams from Teen Anime Club

Most of you guys who know me would know I work for the Mississauga Library, conducting programs and all other fun stuff. One of the things I'm proud of is establishing the MLS* Teen Anime Club (or M-TAC for short) which is a growing after-school program where teens can discuss Otaku culture, play video games, and screen new Anime titles. Manga Jams has become one of our popular activities where one person draws a panel and passes it on to whomever to continue the story.

You can check out some of the Manga Jams from our last meeting here:
http://mlsteenotakuclub.blogspot.com/2009/06/manga-jams-june-12th-edition.html

You can find lots of wackiness in these pages, hahaha!

Reading Comics

Photo of Alan Moore courtesy of acb.

Question time: has anyone in SketchKrieg! read their comic books live before? And if so, what approach(es) did you take? What worked well? What failed miserably?

I've got a couple of 'reading' opportunities coming up (including the Taddle Creek comic issue launch party on Friday night), and I'm trying to step up my live performance game. Working in book publishing, I've been to my fair share of readings, but whenever I tend a comic book event, it's more likely a discussion of the creation of the work or interview. Straight readings are pretty rare.

That said, I've done comic book 'readings' before, usually paired with a projection of the images. And at this point, I'm probably better at using Powerpoint than I am with a pencil or brush. Not too worried about the readings, but I'd love to hear if anyone else has comic performance experience.

Interview on rgbFilter

The kind folks from rgbFilter interviewed the SK gang at TCAF. Check it out!

J'Adore les Bande Desinees!

I just came back from a 9-day vacation in France and one of the things I like to grab when I'm anywhere in Europe is a graphic novel (or bande desinee, in French). The Europeans really know how to draw out a comic! There's lots of commitment and discipline in their penciling, inking, and colouring, which is something I aspire to have someday. Some of comics are still coloured traditionally with gouache and watercolours. Every panel, every drawing is so tight and well-referenced. Every character drawing is loyal to their design and the backgrounds are well-detailed. Overall, so confidently done!






One European comic artist I admire is Italian cartoonist Milo Manara, who has done a lot of erotic comic art. But check out this video and be amazed. No pencils required!


Now I got enough fuel to get back to working on AWOL'd volume 2.

TCAF on Video

A video made by Vepo Studios and Open Book Toronto about the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. They interviewed me (for some reason), alongside Bryan Lee O'Malley, the Tamakis cousins, Chris Butcher and others.

TCAF 2009

Thanks for everyone who came by our table.
Thanks to everyone at TCAF and their volunteers who made it special.
Thanks for checking out the picture below.

Postcards from the edge

Since I failed so hard to get the actual book done in time for TCAF, I decided to make a postcard. It's like 1/120th of the book:



Though I fear I may have made it too hasty. I hope it looks all right.

Poster Girl

Here's an image I did for my printing company that I recently started up (www.GuerillaPrinting.ca). The image was for a contest that just ended in April. The version we used was the image that's seen above. Check out the original (below) before it got all half toned ...

These are a couple of digital sketches i did just for fun. These were slightly inspired by the works of Rion Vernon and, although I'm nowhere near his level and these look nothing like his work, Ashley Wood. They can be found in the "Medicine Artwork" book which will be available at TCAF (May 9 and 10). 

Also, I am no longer the newbie member of Sketchkreig. I would like to welcome Kieran Casey McCarthy to the fold! The next generation of Sketchkreig begins now (and the inevitable revolution can't be far behind either) so congrats to the new parents of a potentially new illustrator!

I'm still alive ...

A post to demonstrate that (a) I'm alive, and (b) working on Quarter-Life Crisis as hard as I can. Also to congratulate Tyrone and Alana on the exciting news -- I'm sure we're all disappointed the name 'Logan' was not more carefully considered, but I was so delighted to read the news on Facebook this morning.

So, some images from new sections of Quarter-Life Crisis. A couple pages from a flashback scene, both in original thumbnail (and crudely scripted form) and in penciled form. Then thumbnail sketches and final pencils of a scene of our protagonists staking out a Shoppers Drug Mart in the pouring rain.(I've actually been working a lot on getting a new website up and ready before TCAF.)










Unfortunately, as I get close to finishing pencils on the entire first book, I realize I need to add a couple scenes. Namely, one between Harper and Sonja ... one that involves the robot 1895s. (Otherwise, they only make one appearance in the first book.)





I also want to add a scene hinting at the sinister projects going on at the Rogers Centre, but haven't thought of a good way to do that and maintain the book's perspective. The book is entirely from Harper's perspective. There's not a scene in it that doesn't include him, and he narrates the entire thing. I don't really want to show a scene with the Rogers that he would have no access to ... It's a bit of a stumbling block for me at this point.






These last-minute additions also make me wonder what sort of extras (if any) I should include in the final printed book. Any requests? Sketches? Maps? Pin-ups? A mix-tape listing (a la AWOL'd or Scud before it)? I'm taking suggestions now.

Know your enemy: Comic Sans

A very insightful article about the font we love to hate: Comic Sans

I found this article from a friend's Facebook page. Did you know that Comic Sans was inspired from the graphic novels Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen? Funny that I don't see the resemblance. But I do cringe knowing it's the one thing in common between porn ads and child daycare brochures *shudder*.

Leeves, GIJoe, and SK bookmarks! Oh my!

I can finally check a few things off my list! A while ago I had the pleasure of drawing a GIJoe comic for the upcoming Canadian GIJoe Convention. It will be included in their convention exclusive toy box set, but you can view the 7-page comic in this month's Joecanuck newsletter here! It was awesome drawing some of the stuff I grew up with like the Armadillo tank (one of the first GIJoe vehicles I owned) and other vehicles you can find in the scrapyard page. As a GIJoe fan since I was three and a half, I hope to do more work like this in the future.



TCAF is only three weeks away and I won't have AWOL'd volume 2 ready by then (still need to work on 32 more pages). But for any followers waiting, I've prepared a 20-page supplementary comic of Leeves' origins. For those that really know me, the story was inspired by my experience with a certain individual. 'Nuff said! Hahaha...



Also, I've prepared some freebies for those visiting the Sketchkrieg tables at the TCAF, Fan Expo, and Word on the Street this year. Sketchkrieg bookmarks!


Now I need to get back to work on AWOL'd volume 2! It's the last thing I need to do before I can fully enjoy the summer.

Frank Miller is the worst, Part One

I'm taking a bit of time off from posting my own work to critique some comics I've been reading. I borrowed a friend's copy of All-Star Batman and Robin, and it is shamefully bad. It's almost an art form, how bad it is. Yet I continue reading to see how much worse it can get. It's a train wreck my eyes can't avoid. And the worst part about it is that it sold millions! Way more copies of a comic book than all of us combined will ever sell.

It also further demonstrates my ongoing theory that Frank Miller is one of the worst comic book writers of all time. (At least, within those that are highly regarded.)



I'm not sure what offends me most about the book. Is it the complete wrong characterization of Batman and Robin? (Why bother using the characters if they act nothing like them? Batman laughing maniacally? Beating kids? Mocking Superman?) Wrong characterization of everyone? The pervasive and casual misogyny? (Vicki Vale is just so excited to be on a date with Bruce Wayne! Wonder Woman, since she's a strong woman, obviously has to hate men.)

Not even.



It's the little things:

Horrible attempts to be hip

Did Robin actually say something 'blows chunks'? Um ... thanks, Wayne. I also like how the twelve-year-old's point of reference for 'tough guy voice' is Clint Eastwood.

That Batman does no detective work

He's the world's greatest detective! Do some snooping, take some fingerprints, use the computer, for God's sake. But no ... just relentless beatings.



The immense waste of time

Did I just read an entire issue detailing how Black Canary finally got fed up with the sexual harassment at her job and fought back? An entire issue? Any writer-illustrator team worth their salt could have told that tale in two pages, max. And I think it was the fifth issue and Batman and Robin were still flying around in that stupid car. Is there a story here?

There's just too much to criticize. Did anyone like this?

TCAFing

It's been a looooong while since I've posted, so here I am trying to get the ball rolling again. (with old art, no less!)
As some of you may know, I do a sporadically updated KISSING CHAOS webcomic as part of the Transmission-X crew. They are printing up a newspaper like comic thing for this year's TCAF, and here's what's going to be on my page.

This was originally two episodes from my webcomic... now it's one print page. It was hard to pick two pages (the max we could fit on the broadsheet page we are using for the TX comic), and I thought these two episodes were contained enough to tell a somewhat of a story, and leave the reader wanting more!

ADC

Great font making tool

Font Generator - http://www.yourfonts.com

This is an amazingly simple way to make fonts from your own handwriting. Perfect for the comic artist. All you do is print, fill out the template, scan it in and their online program does the rest. I had a font of my handwriting in less than 10 minutes.

It says they'll be charging a small fee soon, so play with it while it lasts!

- Alana

Here is the original pencil drawing of the cover image below.

This is the cover for my upcoming Medicine artwork book. The conception of this book came about when i realized i didn't have enough time to finish Medicine book 3 by summer of this year. But i still wanted to have something new that was connected to the series to show. At first, i thought of doing a short preview book showcasing some of the first chapter from book 3 but i decided i didn't want any of if to be shown in hard copy until the actual book comes out. Then i thought of doing a small black and white sketch book but decided that i wanted to do something different. So I wanted to show off, in FULL-COLOUR, the talents of my fellow sheridan grads and their interpretations of my characters. As well, i could now have, in print, full-colour images of all the illustrations i did myself of these characters, some of which have never been seen before. On top of all that, I've always wanted to do a flashback story of how some of the characters met each other but never found the right time to do it within the flow of the series, so this artwork book gave me an opportunity to do just that. It will be coming out in early May just in time for TCAF. It will be 50 full-colour pages for 12 Canuck bucks. I really tried to keep the price tag at 10 dollars but colour printing was way more expensive than i had thought. Hope to see everyone at TCAF.