Progress for Pages 3 & 4

Hi All,
           I have finally completed the 8 panel monster of page 3. Below are a few details. This page really was the toughest one for me, considering that it's outside in Boston. Buildings are a pain- I don't care about who you are. If you're an artist, you have trouble drawing realistic buildings (I'm not gonna go there with cars!).

Good thing comics are about people and not buildings, huh?

      Page 4 was visualized when I was at work. I started it yesterday and almost finished it in one sitting.

This page is a lot more fun to draw than the previous one. I try to give myself breaks from time to time. If every page was as grueling as page 3 then I would just quit (not really). In the end, I'm pretty happy that the first 3 pages are finished, as they really are the set up for the main characters in this story. Now that they're established I can just focus on telling the rest of the story, which I promise will be a lot of fun to read.

Stay with me.... there's a story here.... I promise!

-Josh

Boston Comic Con- Day One

Hi All,
           Just checking in after Jake's and my first day at the Boston Comic Con! The show was a success, with attendance somewhere up in the thousands. There were loads of artists there, like us, selling prints and doing work on commission. Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, Joe Quinones, Mark McKenna, Frank Quitely, Dexter Vines, and Frank Cho were there, just to name a few superstars. We had a good position, right out in the front, across from Dexter Vines and Scott Wegener.

We sold some trading cards and posters.

But the main action for me came from two commissions that I did late in the afternoon. The first was for Antonio, a college kid from Fitchburg State Univ., who wanted an entire Spider-man rogues gallery pinup.

He asked me to draw him the Shocker. Having never drawn him before I think that I did a pretty decent job. That insulation on Shocker's face is strange! Later on he came back with the finished piece, and I was blown away! I love what the other artists were able to do with the given space- comic art is something else!

Almost immediately after I did this drawing I was approached by Joe, who wanted me to do a drawing of the new character, Cyclone. I'd never heard of her but I was up for the challenge! I doodled for a minute to come up with a pose and then I started to draw.

Then came the inking stage.

Then the COLORS!

Joe looked pretty happy!

I'm looking forward to tomorrow! I hope that I can get the chance to draw more characters.

Thanks for stopping by!

-Josh

More Art...

Hi All,

I have just finished a new illustration for the Boston Comic Con. This one was sitting around the house for about a year before I finally added some finishing tones to it today. I like this illustration so much that I've made a few variations of it. It's one of those things, like graphic art, in which different versions broaden the interpretation of the piece/design. I hope that you like it!

-Josh

Kisses Kill- ink & photoshop

A Couple of New Things...

Greetings,
               I hope that you've had a great Easter holiday and that you've enjoyed the awesome weather that we've had today! Over the past two weeks I've been busy working on trading cards for the Boston Comic Con, as well as, a poster for the Portugal. The Man contest hosted by Creative Allies. This is my final weekend before the big show so I'm trying to be as productive as possible. Here're my latest creations!

These are pretty much watercolor except for a few obvious instances in which I used some colored pencil and ink. It felt good to be water coloring again. These will be on sale at the Boston Comic Con.

Here's my poster entry for the Portugal. The Man contest. I took the name of the festival quite literally, as you can see! If you would like to support this creation please visit the Creative Allies website and rate my design. Thanks!

We'll see what I can get done to prepare for the show. It's gonna be a long week!

Thanks for stopping by!

-Josh

Figure Drawing- Pt. 2

Hi All,
           Checking in this week with a few new drawings from last week's figure drawing session up in the ArtRoom. I stuck with pencil for the majority of the session and it worked out nicely. I'd also like to mention that our model (Shandra) was amazing. She never broke a pose. Below are some of the better drawings that came from this session.

Week to week I'm having a blast attending these sessions. They're giving me a chance to experiment more with different techniques (you may not have noticed but I used different blending techniques in these drawings). In other news, I've been working on City Girls (page 3) when I can. Here's a rough of what will be going on: 

In preparation for the Boston Comic Con Jake and I are working on some sketch cards of some of our favorite characters. So far I have five done and I probably won't do more than 10. I'll have some pics of my progress later. I just need to get through this week!

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

-Josh

City Girls- Page 2

Hi All,
          I hope that all is well! I've been working diligently on City Girls in my spare time. When thing that is sort of off topic is that I saw the movie Sucker Punch over the weekend. Although the reviews were all around bad, I thought the movie was right on target for what it was trying to achieve. "And what was it trying to achieve?" one might ask. My answer is, "I have absolutely no idea!".  I do have a guess though- entertainment. As a fan of all things awesome I must say that this movie had some moments of magic. I recommend it to anyone who wants to see amazing effects with a hint of story (you can see that I have very low expectations when I go to the theatre). Did I mention that the girls wear leotards and skirts through the entire film? I digress...

Page two of City Girls is underway as you can see:

This is the final pencilled page after I light-boxed over the roughs (below). Unlike with page number 1, a lot changed from the initial roughs. The direction of panel 1 and the hands of panel 4 are the most noticeable. Let's see if you can find any other differences.

The third panel, if you look closely, is shifted to the right. I did this because I had to extend the panel on the right side. The dimensions were then adjusted on the left when I light-boxed over it.

Oh wait! There's more!

Here's a sneak peak at panel one of page three. It's a street view of downtown Boston where two new characters are introduced into the story.

Still more work to be done, but the perspective is all worked out.

I'll be posting up some new developments soon. The Boston Comic Con is just around the corner!

Thanks for your support,

-Josh

Figure Drawing: It's Just Like Riding a Bike...

Too bad I don't really know how to ride! Jk.... or am I? Anyways, yes, I believe that figure drawing is "just like riding a bike- once you learn how to ride, you never forget it..."! In my time at Salem State University I had a great drawing professor by the name of Haig Demarjian who taught my figure drawing course. He taught me to really see the figure and how to get the whole thing on paper quickly. We would do quick 1 minute warm-ups and then move up to longer poses. This was a great exercise in getting the important stuff down first and then moving onto the finer details. I've kept this approach with me with everything that I do. Start from the general and move to the more specific details. It's a rule that you can't go wrong with no matter how often, or not, you draw from life.

The reason for why I'm talking about this is because my brother Jake and I found ourselves at the lovely Art Room up in Topsfield yesterday. We braved the visually amazing March flurries and headed up old route 1 north to find that the Art Room is actually part of a small strip mall off of Main St. The space is cozy and inviting- and there's even a gallery up in the front. Check out their blog. Jake and I brought compressed charcoal as well as vine/ willow charcoal, Strathmore 18"x 24" white paper, assorted pencils and some ink for ink washes.

Trying to escape the clutches of the omnipresent line

First and foremost, I like to consider myself a comic artist with fine art tendencies so when I draw, I rely on line to describe the forms. Fine art tends to be the exact opposite- whether it's painting or drawing, everything is rendered with soft edges. This is where it gets tough for me- if I predominantly use lines in my work how do you I break this habit and begin to render things as they actually are? Below you'll see my attempt at trying to do this (I ultimately used line for everything!). I'm still satisfied with the results, as it had been about 3 years since I'd drawn from the nude figure (wayyyy too long for any artist!). I'm going to be doing this much more often now that I know where the Art Room is.

Jake likes the way that the face came out here.

"Maybe she's a little too voluptuous here Josh?" :P

I had to force some of the shadows because the lighting wasn't strong enough.

The bigger the contrast the more tones one can work into each drawing.

Notice the tones on her back that carve our her muscles. This is

how things actually are rendered in our world. No lines are required.

I should sign this one: Moebius!

Don't mind that second drawing...just terrible!

Page One Progress

Hi All!
I've gotten into the first page- it's coming along the way I had envisioned it. My process is simple. First I rough out the pages, as you saw in my last post. After that I begin to draw the full-size page on 11x17 pages that I cut down from 18"x24" Strathmore drawing paper.

Once I get it to a point that is semi-rendered I then grab a piece of Strathmore 11"x17" smooth drawing board. I overlay this on my lightbox and begin to work on outlining everything cleanly with a lead holder. Of course I do change certain things and add new parts to the page too. I picked up this technique from talking to Lienil Francis Yu about his process.

The fourth panel was taken directly from the movie Psycho (the infamous shower scene of course).

Here's a look at some of my tools.

So, that's all for now. I'm working on the next few pages, at the moment, before I start to ink, color AND LETTER this page! Man, this stuff is so time-consuming!

Thanks for your support!

-Josh

February Is for City Girls

Hello,
It's been a very long time since I posted anything on here. I've been really really sick as of late. January was a forgettable month as I did nothing but get sick and work. I finished up January with a few good drawings and a lot of good ideas for the next 3 months. I've got a plan to make my first City Girls comic, now that I know what I want to do with it. My comic mentor, Gary Reynolds finally just said, "What happened to that idea?" and I didn't have a good answer. I started out this blog with the intention of doing a comic called City Girls, and releasing the pages as they came to me, and I got sidetracked. Now, I'm going to do exactly what I said I was going to do! Below, here are a few "warm-ups" and rough page layouts.

The layouts aren't particularly interesting but I think it's important for me to open the doors and reveal how my mind works as I take you along this process.

Thanks for your support. I think it's also a good time to mention that I'm involved in a contest for The Stan Lee Foundation and Todd McFarlane. If you haven't checked out the site, please do, and if you'd like to it would be great to have your support. Vote for me please!

-Josh

Space 242- Good vs Evil

Hello Friends,
                      I don't have any new artwork this week, although I did start a new synopsis for a short story, over the weekend. What I mainly want to share with you is that I'll be participating in a group show over at Space 242. The show is called Good vs Evil, and there are a bunch of great artists participating in it, including a friend of mine, Caitlin Ryan.

It opens this Friday, January 28th, and comes down on February 4th. If you're in the mood for an anecdote, this show was originally supposed to go up way back in June, but it was post-poned due to a few break-ins. I was going to enter this piece:

but I decided after several months that I had produced newer work that better suited the direction that I'm going in. This piece is a character that I created, called Arshile. I created him during my junior year at Salem State University as part of a directed study that I did with professor Haig Demarjian (Die You Zombie Bastards). There's an 8 page silent story that I made to go along with it but it was never properly finished. One day I'll go back to you Arshile, I promise!

So, if you're wondering which piece I chose to enter into the show you'll just have to come out and see for yourself! Also, did I mention that there will be free beer?  There will be free BEER! I hope to see you there!

-Josh

What's a Skullkicker?

Hello Friends,

Here we are three weeks into 2011 and I must say that the time is flying already. This post should have gone up yesterday but I was unable to find the energy to write with (actually I was too busy playing Call of Duty: Black Ops). So, I hope that you'll forgive me for not staying true to my weekly blog entries. This entry is all about a comic that I've found very interesting called, Skullkickers. I've mentioned it before, but I haven't really said too much about it. Allow me the opportunity to say a few things about it.

Skullkickers is a monthly action/ adventure comic put out by Image Comics. It's the creation of, writer Jim Zubkavich with art by Edwin Huang. This comic is extremely entertaining. Every issue is clearly defined and packed with action and humor. I like it mostly because it's a break from the world of 

superheroes. The story so far follows two mercenaries as they roam a fictional landscape reminiscent of the Middle Ages in Europe. The only difference is that this land is inhabited by monsters and other strange creatures. For the first arc (I'm only two issues into it) they are looking for the killer of a Chancellor, who was mysteriously assassinated. His body is then abducted by a gang of thugs and this leads the two mercenaries on a wild goose chase. As for the third & fourth issues I'm not sure of where it's headed. I just look forward to seeing what kind of crazy situations Jim & Ed can conjure up for the duo as they travel into unknown territories.

You must be asking, "Why is he saying all of this about the Skullkickers?". Over the past month I've been working hard on a piece of my own for this comic. I've been working through new techniques that I learned from those great tutorials that I keep talking about from Digital Art Tutorials.

It even seems like Brian Haberlin has something new that he's working on with Philip Tan (Taleweaver, Batman & Robin), called Captain Wonder 3D, being put out by Image Comics. This is of course, beside the point. I won't get sidetracked any longer and I'll just show you what I've been up to!

Finished Colored Piece

I had a whole lot of fun experimenting with new techniques for this piece and drawing the Skullkickers guys was a lot of fun too! Edwin must have a blast working on these guys every month. He's very lucky. This was a three step process that I really didn't document in great detail. My advice to anyone doing this kind of work is simply this: be patient! Coloring takes twice as much time as drawing does. You have to give it time when you're coloring or it just won't do your pencils justice. For this piece, I skipped the inking process. I made a very dark photocopy of my pencils at a reduced size of 73% and scanned that in. I did this mainly because I don't have access to a large format scanner. The original piece is 11"x 17".

Step One: Pencils

I really was satisfied with the pencils that I did for this piece and that's why I skipped the inking process. I was able to get the crisp line that is common in comic art. Plus, with a little photoshopping I adjusted a few tones here and there. Inking is still essential to comics but I just didn't want to go through with that mechanical step as this was all about the colors! Yes, you inkers out there are all work and no play!

Second Step: Grayscale and Flatting

This step is really not fun at all, but necessary to the final product. The idea here is that you have to create your foundation to color on top of. Once you've created your gray tones you should keep them all on one layer. Here's a look at my layers palette so that you can see what I mean. 

The reason for why you do this is so that you can make quick selections of your areas from the graytone layer once you've begun your coloring stage. You need to be able to select areas easily without having to constantly make new selections for the same areas. That's how comics are done.

It's really all about efficiency. In most cases, a "flatter", or a guy who lays flats, will lay in all of the graytones before the colorist goes in and starts working his/ her magic. This is mostly a practice done in the USA and some European countries. This is not the case for most Asian comics, which are mostly grayscale. Digital coloring has gotten to such a point, with the latest technology, that the possibilities of what one can do are just about limitless. The scariest part is that Photoshop hasn't changed all that much. The technology was really just waiting for people to catch up. Now we're here at this point where comics have never looked better. I'm looking forward to producing more work like this in the near future. As usual, thanks for stopping in and seeing what I'm up to! If you have any comments or questions please drop me a line. I'll check back in later this week.

Wait...more Skullkickers stuff?

Here's a picture that Jake took of me with Edwin (right of me) and Jim (far right). I got the chance to meet them when they came by Woburn for one of Larry's Saturday Comic Shows last month. They're very cool guys and I was lucky enough to buy the first two issues of the comic off of them (it sold out).