Sunday, February 25, 2007

Revan... in color


I did this sketch of Revan ( I think it was at the end of last Summer?) and here it is with a beautiful color job by Mike Atiyeh. Wow, doesn't it look purdy? I think it looks awesome-- he makes me like I can draw.



-B

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Samurai


Ron Marz and Luke Ross have a very cool book out there called SAMURAI. The were kind enough to ask Mike Atiyeh and me to contribute a pin-up to the collected edition of the second series. Well, here's the rough I did for it. I begin by doing a quick gesture drawing on the 11 x 17 bristol board. Once I'm happy with the positioning of all the characters, I put the sheet of tracing paper (Canson Tracing paper-- their CALQUE line of paper is my favorite) over it and do this slightly more refined drawing. The grey rectangles at the four corners are just strips of drafting tape-- I scanned it as a greyscale image to keep the file size down. I'll show the next step next time...



-B

For Aspiring Pencilers Only

Every so often I get an e-mail from and aspiring penciler asking me for advice. I usually end up saying things like "work on your faces, anatomy and backgrounds-- and if you have the talent and the discipline, you'll hone your skills enough to the point where editors have no choice but to hire you." But, honeslty, my instinct is to always say "don't do it!" Go into some other line of work and be happy. This is tough work, the hours are long, the pay is less than spectacular, and even if you are lucky enough to get work you will probably not draw the things you were hoping for. Most aspiring artists have portfolios filled with pics of Batman, Wolverine, etc. doing something heroic or dynamic. They are running, jumping or punching out the bad guys. It's the most fun stuff to draw and probably what you practice most often. In reality, your first gig will probably have you drawing Alfred going to Starbucks to pick up a latte for Master Bruce or Peter Parker going to the library to do some research. Not exactly what you were hoping for when you got the call from Marvel offering you a Spider-Man story was it? But actually those scenes can be fun-- you can draw the quirky kid with his ipod headphones on typing on his notebook while sipping from a cup in the foreground while Peter argues with the librarian. These scences can be fun if you make them fun. The thing is, can you draw all these "normal" people in normal situations? And if so, can you do it for 22 consecutive pages? Chances are that the story you're hired for won't have any action whatsoever. Unless your name is Jim Lee or Frank Miller you have to take what you can get from the editors out there and the assignments given to you will not be very spectacular. Just something to think about if really want to be a penciler. I've heard editors say this in the past-- if you are discouraged by any of this, you are probably not meant for this business.

Now for the other side if this-- say you are a HUGE Star Wars fan and are given the opportunity to draw Obi-Wan and Anakin sparring in a pre-Episode III comic? Wow, they're actually going to pay you for this? Although the job is tough and the hours long (sometimes 12-15 hours a day), in the end you are getting paid to draw, how cool is that. I can think of worse jobs out there.


-B

waaay back in kotor #11



I think this might be my favorite issue of the series so far, at least for the issues I have worked on. I was able to totally re-invent Camper and Jarael for this storyline. As you can see in the character design sheet, I based Camper a little bit on Mr Peanut-- I gave him a monocle and the curled up "handle bars" mustache from the 1930's. For Jareal, it was time to give her a more polished and hopefully elegant loook-- the trick was to not make her look too comfortable in it though, she is basically a short fused tomboy.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Tinkerbell commission

This one has great colors by Mike Atiyeh!

cover for KOTOR #15