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A few months ago I finished a cover for a comic called Dragonstorm, put out by Unstoppable Comics.  I didn’t know if I had permission to post it or not so I would just check out their website from time to time to see if I saw it.  Alas, I’ve yet to see it but I did run across an email from them saying it was OK to post on my website, so here we are.  I really loved doing this and it’s my favorite digital piece I’ve done so far as the process was the closest I’ve gotten to my traditional painting.  It hard to explain but to me there is a difference between doing something in Photoshop and painting in Photoshop.  This piece felt like I was painting.

I wrote and drew a one-shot horror comic a few years ago called “5 More Minutes.”  I would tell you all about it but my fine friends at “From the Tomb” Magazine have done it for me.  Check out the review and if you missed the comic the first time around you can still order it from indyplanet.com.  Click HERE to read the review.  Click HERE to order from indy planet.  They’ve got the first few pages online to check out too.  I even got a write up in the art magazine Imagine FX which was really cool.

I’ve got a bunch of cool content and post coming up.  Everything from new art to a series of posts on the basics of creating an illustration, so stay tuned.

Here is the Domino commission I’m working on after the first painting session.  I’ve probably got 3-4 hours into the whole thing so far.  I’d probably be a lot faster if I wasn’t trying to watch “Weeds” season 4 on DVD at the same time I’m painting.  I have to apologize for the pictures.   They are photos taken in low light so they are not the best.  I can’t scan wet oil paint.  I’ll take some good ones of it presently as I have some daylight left.

I just put the finishing touches on this last night.  It’s 100% oil paint.  I painted it to donate to the upcoming Heroes Comic book convention art auction.  The proceeds of which go to help Heroes comic book store owner Sheldon Drum put on the Heroes comic book convention every year.  It’s the best comic convention I’ve ever been too because the focus is almost exclusively on comics, the books, the writers and the artists.  It’s a great show and I’m very excited to be able to set up a table in artist alley there.  If you get a chance stop by and say hello and bid heavily on the painting at the auction Saturday night at the Westin Hotel in downtown Charlotte, NC.

I really happy with how Jean Grey, aka the Black Queen  came out but I hate to say that for better or worse the original looks so much better.  Most people don’t realize the short comings of photography and scanning.  They just don’t do the original justice.  I’m an amateur photographer but I often wonder what I might be missing that a professional photographer could do with my work.  Oh well, when my paintings  start making a lot more money I’ll pay for some lessons from a pro.  Until then you’re stuck with my Nikon D80.

I hope you like the painting and remember, I’m always open for commissions and job offers.

I’ve recently been giving my work a lot of thought in regards to what I want my art medium to be.  To that end I’ve decided that I’m going to focus more intently from here on out on my oil painting.  This extends, hopefully, to my commissions.  I’ve never painted this fast before and I hope it’ll turn out well.  Whereas I normally do an oil piece in 2 to 3 weeks this time around I’m going for 2-3 days.  Last night I did some thumbnails and figured out an image I thought would be fun to paint.  Then I took some quick reference.  If I had any guts I share that too but this is the Internet and since I used myself as reference, that’s not going to happen.  Yes, I know Domino is a hot babe and I’m a slightly above average manimal but you’d be surprised how the artist mind wields reference shots and imagination.  My wife got a good laugh out of it asking me why in the world was I standing like that.  Here are the pencils before the paint.

And just for FYI, I’ve finished the oil paints on the black queen image I’d been working on.  I just have to wait for a few of the white parts to dry some I can put some retouch varnish over it to bring back the colors.

Next on the project list was to ink Hela.  I use to use a brush a lot in my work but found over time that I really like a “dead” line and for that I’ve found inking with a brush to difficult.  I use Sakura Pigma Micron Pens for the line work and an old brush and black magic (or whatever is handy) ink to fill in the large parts.  The fact that I don’t do a ton of ink work probably reflects my lack of a favorite ink.

I don’t like to use a lot of halftone as I really like large areas of black and white.  Plus, I’m leaving something for the color to do beside just fill in white areas.

I won’t talk a ton about it as I’m working on an upcoming post about the subject of reference but I will mention that I do use it.  I combine photos from the Internet, magazines, and many that I produce myself as I’m also a novice  photographer.  This image is a combination of 3 or 4 photos that I put together in photoshop where I can digitally paint over top of them to create special effects or retool the lighting so that it all matches.  I’ve found through hard trial and error that the more time I take with preliminary things to prepare for a drawing or painting the better (and easier) they come out.

After I’ve got the photoshopped reference printed out I transfer it to my 14×17 bristol board.  I do this with a classic grid method.  Be careful if you use this method as if you don’t already know how to draw it can become a significant crutch.  I use it to make sure my proportions and angles are correct.  I bounce back and forth between drawing from reference to straight out of my head because while I want a correct looking drawing, I want it to be my drawing and not just a reproduction of the photos.  This can be a very fine line and the line is different for different artists.  (This topic sounds like a post in it’s own right)

Now that the ink work is done it’s on to the colors which I’ve already finished but I’ll give you a few days to absorb the ink before I post the color.