March Penciling

Hey y'all. My progress on Symphony Number Six has been pretty slow, but I'm still getting some good penciling in. Here's a sequence:

And here's a panel I just drew yesterday, depicting Cincinnati Music Hall. I love placing my vanishing points really, really far apart!

Bride of the Water God Fan Art

Hey guys! I know it's been a while since I've posted anything here. Symphony Number Six is chugging along (slowly) but I took some time out this weekend to do some fan-art for Bride of the Water God, a deceptively compelling manhwa by Mi-Kyung Yun, published in English by Dark Horse. ("manhwa" is, I believe, Korean for "twelve educations of the adulterous winter," but I might have that wrong.)



I drew the titular water god, Habaek. He's a pretty interesting character - short-tempered, haughty, but also quite loving. He's trapped in the past in more ways than one - figuratively because he can't move on from his ill-fated first marriage to a human woman, and literally because every day when the sun rises his body transforms into that of a small child.

BotWG has more wrist-grabbing than I've ever seen in a comic or anywhere else. A panel of a wrist being gripped by somebody's hand occurs probably 7 or 8 times an issue! Sometimes it's erotic, sometimes it's violent, sometimes it's humorous. Mi-Kyung Yun clearly loves to draw grabbed wrists!

February Figure Drawing

I went figure drawing with the Periscopalians yesterday. Erika Moen hired a terrific-looking model. I'm please with some of the rapider sketches, but as we transitioned to longer studies my still-lingering inadequacies as a draftsman became more apparent. I was sitting on the floor for most of this, so my point-of-view resulted in some funny foreshortening.







Here are Steve Lieber's renderings of the same subject - can you tell where he was sitting in relation to me?

I'm Still Drawing, I Promise!

This month I began my next comic, "Symphony Number Six." Since it'll only be 32 pages long, I'll be releasing it all at once and won't be maintaining a regularly-updated website as I did for SNitLoE. But for my friends who want a behind-the-scenes peek, I'll be posting the occasional panel on this blog. Here's panel one:



Yes, I am once again beginning a comic with a car driving toward the horizon. Looks a lot better than last time though, huh?

New Years Revolutions

(click for larger image)

Man, what an amazing year! From January to December, I was filled with so much hope, even though many movements met brutal opposition and the struggle still continues everywhere. Here's to the People in 2012!

From left to right, Juventud Sin Futuro (Spain); South Sudanese secession (South Sudan); "Russia Will Be Free" (Russia); Camila Vallejo, Communist student leader and leftist dreamgirl of the decade (Argentina); Generic Union Guy; Old Man 2011 with Baby 2012; "Islam is a religion of Justice and Tolerance" (Tunisia); Egyptian Revolution (Egypt, where hundreds of protestors swept up their own mess); Wall Street Occupier (U.S.A.); "Indignants in Syntagma" (Greece); Madison, Wisconsin Occupier (U.S.A.)

Happy New Year! Proletarier aller Länder vereinigt Euch!

Merman

Just fooling around with mermaids for a potential 2012 project.

Christmas Card 2011

Hey guys. Okay, by now it should be very obvious that I did not complete (or even really begin) the 30 Characters Challenge. A busy month, what can I say.

Here's the postcard I designed for Christmas this year. The Hebrew text at the top reads "Let there be light" (Genesis 1:3) and the large Latin text at the bottom says "and the Word became flesh." (John 1:14)



I knew that given my recent re-involvement with Jesus Christ I couldn't get away with a snowy, jingly "secular" Christmas image this year. I also knew that I didn't want to fall into the sort of sentimental trap of many religious Christmas cards, where the manger scene is played for cuteness or pathos or the Maji for Oriental mystery. Babies are cute, sure. A baby born in an ancient barn is an interesting story, I guess... but the point of the incarnation is that this particular baby was the same person who SPOKE THE UNIVERSE INTO EXISTENCE.

WHAT!?!?

Merry Christmas, y'all! I'll probably have some more drawings up before the 25th.

By the way, if the image looks a little weird it's because it was optimized for print using a tutorial by the digital print sorceress Christianne Goudreau.