Super-Con

Today was the first day of Super-Con in San Jose, CA and I got a free trip down there with the comic company I am now a colorist for. Was very cool. I had been wanting to go anyway simply because two of my favorite artists were gonna be there: Travis Charest and Adam Hughes. So I not only got to sit at a table all day and do sketches but our table was directly across from both Charest and Hughes. While I would have loved to get a sketch from AH they were priced at $200 so that wasn't happening, but Charest was cool and doing free quick sketches and I was one of the first to get one. Was amazing to just watch these guys draw, they make it look so easy and effortless, just pulling whatever character you wanted out of there head and putting it on paper.

Frank Cho was there, another great artist. I almost bought one of his new Jungle Girls sketch books which had some great art in it but I had to keep to a budget. Paul Smith, a classic artist, was there. A really friendly animated guy. There were actually quite a few old pros there and it was incredible to see them working. Real old school pros doing ink washes and watercolors or just beautiful pencil sketches of fantasy scenes and super-heroes. Very refreshing and inspiring to see, especially when everything these days tends to be done digitally.

The show in general was pretty slow otherwise. I think the oppresive fucking heat kept a lot of people away, even inside the con it was balls hot. The fat dude from Lost was there doin' photographs and I can only imagine that motherfucker was soaking wet. I did a couple sketches while there, nothing special, I was pretty happy with one of 'em and the guy said he'd send me a scanned copy of it when he got home which is cool.

Anyway, here's that Charest sketch. It may not look like much, but trust me, this guy is an amazing artist.

First comic book job

Well, I just got the word tonight that I will be the colorist for Relic and Ego (a comic published by ECVPress) starting with issue #1. That's pretty exciting. Not a huge deal, but it's a start. And it pays; not much but it's money. Hopefully this leads to more and more work, maybe even a penciling job.

Here's a little practice sketch with colors I did of one of the characters from the comic.

-beefy

Cpt. America 'n Canteen Boy

So today was Free Comic Book Day and as a member of the Sacramento Comic-book Creators Group I had a free table at this small con at a local comic book store. Was fun I suppose. Wasn't expecting much. Hoped to maybe sell a print or two, but seeing as everyone was there for free shit they weren't really in the buying mood I suppose. Don't think anyone sold anything. I gave out some sketchbook/business cards so maybe I'll get some commission work from that. If nothing else it was a learning experience. I learned that table location is pretty important and that I need a better display to get more people's attention. I'm attending a bigger con in June and since I have to pay for table space there selling shit is kinda a must.

Anyway, while sitting around there today I started this sketch:

Need to fix a few things, like the tiny ass shield, and then do a background and color it in Photoshop.

-beefy

Some Dr. Strange love.

More messing around with Photoshop. I've been trying to develop my style into a more simplified way of working to accommodate my limited time and this was kinda of an experiment that I'm pretty happy with. I usually go nuts with my pencils filling in the detail and this is the most minimalist approach to pencilling I think I've ever done. I then just imported it into Photoshop and started painting. Didn't take very long, about 3-4 hours one evening. I think I'll be attempting more stuff like this in the future.

The Sorceror Supreme:

And the pencils:

Later

3 months

So my little girl turned three months old last week and that made her old enough to be able to come to the gym with me. More specifically to the childcare that CalFit offers and of course, the pool. Here in Sacramento it's hot as balls already and I've just had my first sunburn of the season. Gotta love being Irish and living in sunny, O-zone depleted California. Anyway, little Morgan did pretty good for her first time in the pool. Didn't know what the hell was going on at first but she got into it pretty quickly. We'll have her swimming like a fish in no time. And I'm getting back in shape again, was without a gym to go to for a good 6 months since we moved, been waiting for April 1st to come around for the new California Family Fitness to open up near our house. I hate being out of shape. Hate it. Months of playing WoW and then not having a gym was turning me into more of a doughynutcase, but that's over with.

I quit WoW in December before my daughter was born and haven't even considered playing it again. That alone has increased the quality of my life more than I thought possible. I know people who still play/love that game will mock me or think I'm just being a douche but that game is a poison. It changes everyone who plays it and never in a postive way. I've managed to get a couple people I used to play with to finally give it up and they love NOT playing WoW now. They actually go do things they enjoy doing and have much more energy and free-time. I'd urge anyone who stills plays to just walk away, sell your account and never look back. Rediscover the joy of casual gaming as opposed to career gaming where there's no payoff and no closure. I sold my account to some jackass for $500 and used that money towards my gym membership. It still blows my mind that some moron paid five-hundred dollars for my toons. And another $50 on top of that to transfer them to another server. And he already has a lv 70 Warrior in full Vengeful gear... he just wanted to see what playing as a Shaman was like... I feel a little bad enabling him like that, but if he's determined to throw his money away it might as well be in my direction, I definitely need the money. Well, that's my WoW rant and with that I'm done speaking about that game. I'm stepping down off my Epic High-Horse.

There's a couple comic-cons coming up in the next few months that I'm gonna have a table at and will be trying to sell some stuff. So I'll be busy trying to get stuff together for that. It's been slow going with taking care of my daughter all day so it's gonna be a grind finishing stuff up in time but I won't start getting stressed about it until the week of the first show.

Now, here's some pics of my ladies at the pool.

And some recent work:

Later