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.

Apocalyptico

As ever, I persist in my efforts to finish this gargantuan task of making a 120-odd page book of Quarter Life Crisis. (A first volume of an envisioned several.) I think this is the most ambitious project I've attempted to date. And so far, I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out. While overwhelmed, I am encouraged by positive feedback from Stripmalling and the continued interest from friends and other comic bookers (who all want to know when this stupid book is going to be done!) I've posted some newer pencils below.



I'm finding myself struggling with a few things:

1) When I began the book, I was consciously trying to work more simply (and with less detail) than usual. This was both in order to save myself some time and to try to emulate illustration work I'm more drawn to. (I really love simple clean lines with few details, but in my own work, I get caught up in all the little unnecessary lines.)




2) I'm having difficulty making the call between composing things based on look or based on realism. Since it's all set in real Toronto locations, I don't know whether to alter the real look of an intersection or building for the purposes of storytelling or not. I just realized I placed an elevator in an impossible spot in the OCAD building, but I'm keeping it there, because it looks nicer.




3) My drawings are getting bigger! I make thumbnails and sketches at a certain size, but by the final product, all the figures end up much larger. I can't figure out what I'm doing. Anyone else have this problem?

Anyway, I'm toiling away at this at almost every free moment I have. And also listening to this new Metric song obsessively, as I feel it fits the atmosphere of the Quarter Life Crisis book so well.

Digital Scrapbooking

Hey blogoverse! Long time no type!

I've been busy over here, making my biggest work of art - a baby in my belly! I'm due around May 1st and know the little one will provide a lot of inspiration for my work. Tyrone and I are super excited.

Not only that, I've also been working on getting my Scrapbook design store going. Digital Scrapbooking has a huge following. It's basically like the traditional cut and paste physical scrapping.. but everything is done digitally in photoshop. I make the elements and papers and people purchase my kits to capture their memories. It's fun, and allows me complete creative freedom.

Here are some examples of my kits. To see more visit my store at Scrapbookgraphics.com

Gotta get the work done, son.

This must be the first blog that won't showcase someone's latest work nor demand critique/praise, but is instead just a standard blog about what's going on. Not that there's been drama in our group (ie. Brian wanting to lay the smackdown on Zen if Zen ever mentions the word "Adam Corolla"), but we've got lives between comic conventions.

Since the start of 2009, I've been working like a thoroughbred on the second volume of AWOL'd, pencilling and inking TWO full chapters. I'm surprised and amazed I was able to pull that off and still balance my full-time job. Unfortunately, the book won't be ready for TCAF in May but a backstory comic to Leeves will be out then.

This whole week, I've been excited to work on a full-colour GIJoe mini-comic for the upcoming Canadian GIJoe Convention. If you want any clues on what the comic is about, I suggest you check out their forum. It's gonna be my best comic to date since I've been honing my drawing skills in the past few months. Straight up, if I was asked to draw this out two years ago, it would have been crap.

So basically, I've been busy working on new stuff to put out on our Sketchkrieg! tables. The same goes with the others. Brian should have a full-colour art book based on the Medicine series ready for TCAF and as well as Evan's new post-apocalyptic 120-page graphic novel Quarter-Life Crisis. I'm sure they're gonna share their progress of their books on the blog (looking at you two).

YO JOE, eh!

Here are some artwork I've done for Hasbro-approved exclusive figures being offered at the upcoming Canadian Joe Con.
On the left is an unknown Cobra dude and the other is Back-Stop, the only Canadian in the GIJoe team.

Marvel tryout book page

This is 85% finished pg 2 of 5 from a book given to me years ago. I finally got the courage to pursue it.