New (Semi-Secret) Project!

I'm working on a project for Thrillbent with Lori Matsumoto that will be announced more officially at San Diego Comic Con but I thought I might preview a bit of it here. I am designing characters based on real people so that I can draw it more like the Tragedy Series and use reference to speed up my process. I won't tell you too much about it now other than the fact that I'm excited about the story and the format where it will be published.

This is a series of haircut ideas for the main character based around an actress that she will resemble

This will be a butler/confidant character and I wanted to see if a different ethnicity (other than white) could work in the part but you run the risk of falling into stereotypes and I don't want to piss people off when I'm trying to be inclusive.

These were my first attempts at a main character, the villian and ideas for his mask. He isn't themed (like 'the scorpion' or something) so I wanted to keep it simple and iconic if possible. I want it to read really small- as a good tag.

I went a bit crazy with mask ideas but I kept seeing new ones in my head and I wanted Lori to have a bunch to choose from.

This is a design for the hero/nemesis of the bad-guy. I asked Lindsey what she would want to wear if she were going out to be a superhero and she said 'something supportive.' I thought that was an interesting place to start so I started with a full bodysuit and went from there. I kept thinking about that scene in 'The Incredibles'... "No capes"
If you are going to SDCC this year be sure to Check out Mark Waid's panel, on Thursday at 12:30 in room 24ABC, and tell me how it went. I'm working on a piece of promo art that should be featured on a big screen (I assume) at that panel.

This is taken off the SDCC website.

Wedding In The Woods.

I am getting married! It is a funny transition to make in some ways because it isn't a huge shift in my sense of commitment or love for Lindsey (we have been together for almost 6 years) but it does make me feel more grown up for some reason. Lindsey asked me to doodle up a wedding invite to send out asap. We're getting married in a state park near where she grew up. The logistics are complicated, but since I am not a church-going man and she likes trees, the woods seemed like the best place to have our ceremony:

She wanted something more simplified and cartoon-like without being a cartoon. I think she was leaning towards a 'folk-art' type of illustration so I tried my hand at that using (ironically) photoshop so I could adjust the colors to match what she was looking at for inspiration. I like the foxes and I hope you do too.

Chicago For A While

Lindsey and I went to visit our friend Michelle Alba in Chicago last week. It was great! We went to the Field Museum, The Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium where I took many photos of historic astrolabes, armillaries and orerries; if you read my web strip then you know I'm that sort of guy. I am also the sort of fellow who LOVES pancakes. There is no better place to get pancakes, in my opinion, than The Bongo Room. It is highly recommended; it make what most people call 'pancakes' unworthy of the name.

I fit in a few sketches. Otherwise we were having too much fun and absorbing the great sights and company offered only in the Windy City.

This sculpture, located in in Millennium Park, is officially titled 'cloud gate' but colloquially it is called 'The Bean.' there is a constant swarm of people around it because it is beautiful and irresistible. The construction of this fine object is really worth reading about.

This was a family eating at Giordano's Pizza. One of the kids was busily mashing buttons on his gaming system, the parents not acknowledging each other and the other two boys just stuffing their faces with famous stuffed pizza. It seems quintessentially American so I did what I could to capture it. I was drawing while enjoying my own stuffed pizza with green peppers and, a rare treat, a root beer; it was wonderful.

The Spoils Of Stumptown

This year I got a last minute table at Stumptown Comicsfest. It was a good time overall but, my hasty preparation, throwing poor Lindsey into the deep end of assisting me on the show floor, a diet comprised almost exclusively of doughnuts and coffee, appearing in the comic art battle, the inconsistent traffic of day 2 combined with my exhaustion from work and being fresh off the energy of ECCC made for a near-breakdown by the end of the festival. I did make some nice commissions (mostly on day one) and here they are:

I make T-Rex red. Maybe it is a latent affection for devil dinosaur that I'm not paying attention to.

This was for a 'super-pets' themed sketchbook. I like the Green Lantern and I love cats; this produced Meow Jordan.

I think this might have been done on day 2. The theme of this sketchbook was batman villains. I always liked Killer Croc and Poison Ivy so I did a quick doodle of them both.

I had a hard time deciding on a pose and I don't know the Sandman characters very well but I get the impression it is a really enjoyable series. The people who like it show a rare devotion to the stories and the characters. I like drawing fish even though I'm not great at it.

Here is my darling Lindser and me posing in a rare moment of mental composure. I think she is a gem.

What's My Name?

A few weeks ago I did a bunch of live drawing for the Dove Lewis Animal Hospital blood-drive at the Lucky Lab. People would bring up their pooch and I'd do my best to get their likeness in the limited time that the noble creatures would hold still. A few of them were better at it than people. Most of the pet owners were very nice and appreciative. I would do it again. It helped me get used to the idea that not all dogs want to eat my face off.

The First Family Of Comics

I've done another hero initiative cover. I'm not sure when the auction will be but I'll be sure to let people know via twitter and Facebook once I find out. It is a great cause (one I might be in need of someday) and I love the opportunity to try for the most fun and dynamic image I can make as a physical art object:

I used gouache, ultradraw ink and prismacolor colored pencil for this image. I like the way Galactus turned out and, as Jeff Parker pointed out, it looks like Johnny Storm has decided that he has better things to do.

Here is a picture of me painting it before I cleaned up my area of the studio, hence the rumpled paper bag behind me.

This is the sketch I did. It may have been posted a while back but there are things I like about it more than the finished piece (in some ways) so I'm going to hold onto it for a while until someone wants to offer me mad cash!

I Practice All The Time

Many of my studio-mates are natural cartoonists in the sense that cartooning was the first drawing language that they fell in love with and subsequently made concerted efforts to master. I was always more interested in 'realistic' or observed drawing for the same bravado-laced reasons that many aspiring young (typically male) artists often have. I assumed that because cartooning involved fewer lines and a distortion of visual norms that it was easy; I have learned just how difficult it actually is to capture the heart of a gesture, expression or setting with the perfect line. I have, after being inspired by the brilliant work of my many cartooning fluent studio-mates and comic art heroes, set about the task of revisiting the fundamentals of both construction and cartooning.


One way that I practice is to focus on an area I have trouble with like hands, mouths, placement of features on a face, torsos, feet etc. I go through issues of comics drawn by artists I like and copy their solution as closely as possible. In this case I took an issue of avengers and mimicked as many Stuart Immonen mouths as I could for about 2 hours. I learned a ton. I don't use that sort of thing when I'm making my own drawings because that would be plagiarism; it is totally fine to do it as a practice exercise in the same sense as learning a great Eric Clapton solo when you're trying to master blues guitar. It is worth trying to step into the shoes of your hero and get things from their perspective.


Michael Hampton's book on structural drawing has become a favorite of mine and I'm going through it bit by bit and trying out all the systems that he has developed. I highly recommend it to any of you that are experiencing a similar internal or external prompting to reexamine your stylistic leanings and tendencies. I plan to fill this sketch book with practice drawings and get as good as those artists I admire so much while simultaneously avoiding clear imitation in my final work. I'm only a little way into the process and it has already been a huge boon to me.