UNFINISHED

Once again, it has been too long since my last post. That means I've been working too much on stuff I can't share and not drawing anything new that I can share. Well, I have to move that Dragonborn post down the page somehow, so here are a couple of sketches I came up with a while back but never finished.

I drew the Berry Faery several months ago. I remember feeling kind of down one evening when I was struggling to draw, so I abandoned whatever it was I was working on and picked up a new sheet of paper and sketched out the figure on this sketch without much thinking. To my surprise, she looked pretty good, so I quickly snapped a photo of the page with my iMac (didn't feel like messing with the scanner) and sketched in the rest of the concept digitally. I was all fired up to finish it when I hit a wall- I couldn't decide if I should attempt to paint the final piece traditionally (my initial instinct) or to just do my usual digital thing. I put it on the back burner and eventually abandoned it.

The Medusa was another misfire. The idea for a Medusa portrait just popped in my head one day, and I could see it pretty clearly. I drew the figure in pencil without reference, thinking I would get something stylish and pushed like the image in my mind, but much to my dismay, my pencil was stuck on "realistic" and I wound up with this boring portrait of some lady. I scanned it and tried to make it work in Photoshop, but only made it worse by adding more rendering and lighting to increase the photo-realism factor. It was going even more in the wrong direction, so I had to abandon it completely. There is just no way to "stylize" something after the fact. You have to go big in the first place and whittle it down.

Perhaps given the time and motivation I will revisit these two ladies, but for now, they are living on the island of misfit drawings.

On a side note, some folks have been asking about original art sales. I am working on a new online shop and hope to have it up soon. I'm going to be selling whatever remaining comic art I have, including covers and a few interior pages, along with some sketches and the like. I'm still figuring out the print situation, but hopefully I will be able to offer some prints, too. I'll post another notice when I get closer to putting the shop online, so interested parties should stay tuned.

Thanks as always for stopping by. I'll try to come back soon.

DRAGONBORN

Once again, it has been too long. LEGEND OF KORRA is in full swing, so I am pressed for free time but I am loving every minute of it. I'll be talking about Korra plenty more in the future, but for now here is an image I don't think I posted yet. It is a book cover I did a while back for a new edition of DRAGONBORN by Toby Forward, which I understand is quite good, so I look forward to reading it once I get my hands on a copy.

For all of the nice folks who have contacted me over the last few weeks but did yet receive a reply, please accept my apologies. I am painfully behind on my e-mail, so it is going to take me a while to catch up. I'll do my best to get back to everybody eventually.

Thanks!

LEGEND OF KORRA

I'm thrilled to say that I will soon be joining the incredible crew of Nickelodeon's forthcoming THE LAST AIRBENDER: LEGEND OF KORRA animated series. Here is the limited edition poster I drew of Korra astride Naga for San Diego Comic Con.

GREEN ARROW

Here are the covers for Green Arrow issues 13 and 14. I have included the issue 13 pencils and inks for those of you interested in seeing the progression. Once again, I tried to keep these fairly simple with traditional pencils, inks, and colors with more flat areas and cuts than soft edges.

I think that's enough of the superheroes. I'll post some of my own stuff next.

WONDER WOMAN 614

I'm going to keep these posts coming with another Wonder Woman. This is the regular cover of issue 614. I tried to keep the colors simpler on this one- almost without exception, I prefer very simple colors with minimal rendering, yet I often forget that when coloring my own stuff. So, I made an effort on this one to focus on the drawing and palette, and to let the colors be more graphic without a lot of fancy light or effects. It was a nice break from all of the rendering and glow of the previous cover, Wonder Woman 613 (previous post).

I few folks have asked me if these DC covers mean I am coming back to regular comics work. No, not really- I have been working in animation since the end of 2009, and on my own projects, but I was able to complete a handful of covers for DC over the last few months. Along with the two Wonder Woman covers, I did two Green Arrows and a Batman. They almost led to a regular assignment, but sorry superhero fans, turns out it was just a brief visit to the old house.

I also drew a couple of fantasy novel covers along with the DC stuff, but I can't show those quite yet. I'll post them as soon as I can.

I'm currently sketching for myself, working on a couple of larger personal pieces, and generally trying to improve my traditional technique. If I get something good, I'll be sure to share it. That's a big "if" at the moment.

MORE WONDER WOMAN 611

WONDER WOMAN 611

MORE OF THE LADY

EYE THERE

Just a little note to let you folks know I haven't forgotten the blog. I'll be back with some news and some new images soon. Thanks!

Scarlet Witch

Here is one more red sketch I neglected to post earlier- Scarlet Witch. It was done at the same time as the Poison Ivy and Red Sonja, and just like those two it is color pencil and marker.

I don't know anything about Scarlet Witch, but I had a lot of red markers and she was the only other red character I could think of at the moment. I probably should have stuck with a faerie or something. That'll be next.

Poison Ivy

Here's a scan of another one of these color sketches, this time of Poison Ivy. Well, it really could be any red-haired nature girl, but the foliage is poison ivy, so I figure that's enough. Ivy was actually the first one I did, followed by a Scarlet Witch, and then the Red Sonja. Apparently, I like red.

Also posted is a scan of the Red Sonja, as requested in the comments. I couldn't quite capture the subtleties of the original with my scanner, which I now realize is not great at color images. I'll have to upgrade if I keep working in color. Damn.

Now that I am getting a little more comfortable with my materials, I plan on tackling some more involved subjects and more refined drawings. We'll see what happens.

I'll post the Scarlet Witch once I get a good scan.

As always, thanks for stopping by.

Red Sonja

Meeting cover

This is the cover for the forthcoming young adult fantasy novel MEETING by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, the sequel to THRESHOLDS, from Viking Press. I finished this several months ago, but had to wait to show it until the book was announced.

More soon!