Widescreen!

This first image is a sketch from Emerald City that I did in between commissions. I didn't get any requests for color this time around but I'm hoping for more of that sort of work next year. I like to work in color because it adds just that much more spark to already fun ideas:

The Great Master Yoda handing down a lesson
This other drawing was done while waiting for food at McMenamin's. Lindsey and I went (with our friends Randi and Wes) to see our old pal Bob Grunau race his bicycle against many foes. He did really really well; he came in 6th place. It was a really big field and all of those guys was working hard to win the promised prize of cake. This was one of his first races and I'm excited to see how he does in future contests.

Left to Right: Bob, Signe, Wes, Randi and Sweet Lindsey
More Convention sketches to on the way so come back soon and be sure to check out the updated Tales From The White Pony site!

Saving Throw Vs. Science!

Hello all, I'm trying to catch up on my Dark Horse work so I'm not getting a lot of extra time to work on images for the Periscope Sketch Blog or this Blog but I have started a bunch of images that will be sweet once they are done. These partially completed works include: Mario Kart, Mad Men, Seven Samurai and Carl Sagan (which you can see in process in a previous blog.)

For the time being I'll offer you this great series of Science related things:



President Kennedy speaking in Texas about our achieving nation's potential thorough science!



PZ Meyers awesome Blog!



The fantastic Gem what-is NASA.
They just put a spacecraft into orbit around Mercury!
Tonight my old pal Rich Ellis invited me out to play a D & D encounter, with Grace Allison and Susan Tardif, at a game store here in Portland called Guardian Games. I had a lot of fun, but as you can imagine, public RPG sessions offer some serious potential for awkward clashes with the unwashed nerdy fringes. We shared a table with three dudes who took obnoxious, narcissistic dorkiness to a level I thought heretofore unreachable.

I did a drawing of Rich and Grace. Susan was sitting next to me so only her dice made it in to the picture. Our DM was a really nice, if somewhat meek, fellow named Dean. We fought an army of Ghosts. I ended up finishing off the main spectre with a magic missile.

Post Con Thoughts

Emerald City taught me some things about what convention appearances are good for at this stage in a comics career. The most worthwhile aspect of it for me was meeting people and talking with them about their convention experiences as a way to engage in community building. A side benefit of our conversations was that, hopefully we gained some readers for our webcomic Tales From The White Pony. We gave out about a hundred free buttons between the start of the con on Friday and Saturday afternoon and if a tenth of those people become regular readers I'd call it a successful campaign.

For next time I'm going to remember to make more of those buttons, more mini comics and some slightly less-improvised signs like the group seen below. I still enjoyed making them out of what we had around but it might be better for getting people to take me seriously if it's printed out. I also learned that name recognition and cuteness are crucial selling points. Since I don't have the latter, I'll work toward the former!


I'm going to keep these prices for con -sketches till next Emerald City. If you want one for Stumptown you can contact me through Periscope Studio or send me a message at my website.

"Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence."

I'm making a good effort to try and catch up to the rest of my studio-mates for the weekly sketchblog challenge. I'm behind on several of the subjects but this time I've got the jump on my colleagues. Here are the first two stages of my tribute to my hero Carl Sagan:


I did the majority of the black and white work on the train back from Emerald City Comic Con. I added Voyager 2 and the gray tones when I got back. My next move is to add some color and maybe a few photoshop effects like subtle gradients or levels of opacity. I'm also going to find a great quote to underscore the image and evoke Carl's wonderful elocution in the practice of exalting scientific thinking.

Trek V. Wars

Yes, Yes it's true I'm back from my hiatus and Emerald city. It was a great time. I have a ton of art and a few bucks to show for it (although after final tally I think I broke even.) The subject of Saturday was whether their was a bigger display of fandom for Star Trek or Star Wars. Nathan and I decided to have a friendly competition (actually more of an experiment) to see which would come out on top. I chose the underdog (Trek) in an effort to seem like I care about something other than Star Wars. This is our tally sheet:


Nathan would tell people which side we were on and after some people threatened me in a half-joking manner I put on my new headphones to let them know where I stand.


In the end we decided that the reason Sw beat out St was that for all the great aspects of the message inherent to the Trek universe like considerate exploration and a positive future for humanity; Wars has a much cooler visual vocabulary to draw from and if you think I'm wrong then I say this to you: Lightsaber, R2, Vader, Deathstar, Chewie, Yoda, Jaba and Akbar are relentlessly referenced in memes of all sorts. The themes of Star Trek are intellectual (which the science-side of me loves) while the lasting legacy of Star Wars is sensory (which has inspired my drawings since I was 3.)


You can see that we did a Batman/Superman-off but it didn't have the same spark of intrigue that our initial choice did. It should be noted finally that my underdog pick also had a boost from the con appearances of many next Next Generation cast members and the Trek overlord, Shatner himself, but still didn't win.

In the end we did see one Herculoids tee shirt and Nathan made special mention of it.