Near Art Part One

Whew, the first part of my comic novella is out the door! What a long process it's been. A lot of tweaking, fine tuning, editing, course changing and grumbling from me as I had to be smart and give up on some inside jokes and plot elements that would only make any kind of sense to me. What remains is a better story with a clear plot that gets up and running in no time at all! Twelve pages is not that much to tell a long form story and to keep interest over a month between each is a lot to ask. I've done short comic stories ranging from 5 to 11 pages, and read at once it's a good read.
Page count and time aside my goal from the start was to do something different, hence a pop love story, confection, eye candy.

Of course I can never leave thing alone so I had to keep dumping in a lot of stuff and the whole thing took on a love story ala Philip K. Dick tone. Which would be nice if, again, I had the space and pages to set things up. We, the editor and I, had hoped to do a strip within a strip, a twist on reality, a mobius strip. See, it even takes a while to set up a bad pun about it!

I started by coming up with my (half baked) idea, then doing thumbnails. Visually driven, I wound up falling in love (no, no pun intended) with some ideas.
Bad cartoonist, no credit line!

Since this is the launch, I don't want to spoil it by giving too much away. The magazine described it as semi-autobiographical. I like to think of what the writer Denny Eichorn once told me. I had been illustration a few of his auto-bio comic stories and I asked him if they were true, he replied, "Well, they're true enough."

New City Arts comic novella

My new comic is under way! City Arts magazine was so happy with the response to "The Flitcraft Parable" and the way it turned out that they asked me shortly after it was finished if I'd be interested in doing a 12 part story. They are increasing publication to go monthly and cover Seattle and Bellevue/Eastside as well as Tacoma. Who could resist. Cartoonist accepts offer, comedy ensues!
My first idea was to do another detective strip like Flitcraft, but a good friend of mine said,"You've done two, people know you for tat. You do another and you'll be BRANDED!" So I went the other way, and after months of working on ideas I finally came up with a romance story. Ahh, sweet love!
Of course that was just the start. Initially it was to be a sort of romance ala Philip K. Dick story, with a somewhat circular plot mimicking song structure (say wha!?)
Yeah, well, that was a thought. So over the course of developing the story characters disappeared, merged, split,grew and shrunk. I also fell into the trap of desperately holding onto bits of dialog. So back and forth with the editor, me, and my "In-House-Art Director", till me likkle head was in a whirl! But now the characters are set, all 12 parts outlined, the first strip is written and on the drawing board.
The title is "Near Art", which oddly enough is part of a line of dialog that was pried from my cold dead hands (how to really mangle a metaphor!). It was used as sort of a joke placeholder and has really taken on a greater value and added more meaning to the strip.
So this is the first bit. I plan to post more "Near Art" art in the future.

Granted

Well, after two remodeled houses, a rough Holiday season, a much needed vacation and a glut of work I'm back to posting.
This is an illustration of Alejandro Escavedo. It's my final piece for No Depression magazine. They closed up shop this month, the last issue. I've known the editor, Grant Alden for years. Just about since the beginning of my career. This illustration is, in many ways, much or more about him and the magazine we met on, The Rocket.
The textures of the illo for me hark back to our Rocket days and the over all treatment, I hope, evokes some of the Seattle punk rock era. Pre-Grunge, mind you.
The overall treatment speaks to what I was doing then, not only for Grant at the Rocket, but alongside him. He started type setting then moved to writing and editing. Whenever I stopped by "The Rocket Towers", I would hang with him and whomever was art director or assistant art director. Later, Grant, as Managing Editor, would ask me to create a comic strip ("Alan Bland, Guerrilla Artist")for the Rocket.
If memory serves, he also had me do one of my first illustrations for the Rocket of Camper Van Beethoven. Years later, as editor/art director of No Depression, he asked me to create a six page comic for Camper Van Beethoven's reunion album. Grant is also an illustrator of no small skill. (He's an all-a-rounder, a triple threat!) His eye for illustration, design and type (whew!) made working with him, or just being asked to work with him a joy and an honor. I have done some of my best work for No Depression. I will always look forward to working with him.

"Thor" Energy Biz Magazine

Yawn, sleepy me.
Since I have noticed a lack of updates on my favorite blogs, I knew it was time for me to post something. This was part of the very merry month of December's screamin honkin' stinkin' busy workload. The assignment was a cover, later the A.D. asked for
a full page illus to go with the cover. So being the page hog that I am I came up with a two page spread. The concept springs from the idea of Danish wind power. Thor being the mythological god of storms and wind. The A.D. wanted a bold comic booky feel. I would have airbrushed it to get a moody textural black and white image that I would then color digitally. However due to time limitations I did the base art in Illustrator and added some effects and color in Photoshop, then taking to the Wacom and adding a few lines by hand. THE OLD FASHIONED WAY! Anyway the texture is one I created from scanned airbrush art. A trick I will use on an upcoming series of illustrations for a bank. I'm not overly fond of the windmill in place of Mjolnir. I wanted the hammer itself, but, to paraphrase, "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets." Is that paraphrasing? In the end I would have liked even more texture and moodiness, however I had to leave space for type to appear over the illustration.
If all goes well I will post the bank illustrations as the adjunct textural experiment to Thor, and by the way the "Flitcraft Parable", for which I used a rough newsprint texture.

Live fast, draw hard.

Flitcraft Comes Alive!

Okay slight pun with the title. But, "The Flitcrfat Parable" is out in the Jan/Feb issue of City Arts Magazine. Check it out if you can and let me know what you think. A blog like mine is like mine is like a message in a bottle. Oooh, another bad musical reference.

The Flitcrfat Parable: Sam Spade, a rather pleasant blond Satan.

The Flitcraft Parable is done, completed! My wife (a designer by trade, the "In House Art Director")made a few last minute lettering changes, corrections, and gave me some art direction. So in a few working hours the finished five pages plus cover illustration will be in the clients hands, or server. Since I've posted a fair amount of the stuff I'll wait and let City Arts magazine publish the story before I post anymore of the final art. It should pub sometime in January. In the meantime here is a rough color test I did over the final inks of a close up of Sam Spade. I tried to stay as close to Hammett's description of him.

"Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another smaller v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose,...He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan"

Live Fast, draw hard.

The Flitcraft Parable: Layouts

TFP is coming along great. Here is the first page with the title in place. Spade is based on the description in the novel, and Brigid is based on Louise Brooks, NOT what's her name in "Chicago"!


This is how I'm working the tight pencils in place of the roughs. I'll print these out onto bristol board after placing the type in Illustrator, and ink on the prints.
Well that's what happens today…
Back to work.
Live fast, draw hard.

The Flitcraft Parable title lettering

Here it is. The main titling that will open the story. I wanted it to evoke the era but be a bit modern. I have changed most of the narrative to dialog and stayed close to the original era of the late 1920s into the 1930s. Layouts are done but I have to have the "In-House-Art Director" take a look at them before they go any further. Meanwhile, I'm chugging away on three other assignments. Live fast, draw hard!

The Flitcraft Prable!

Lets start at the beginning, sort of. The Flicraft Parable is the tale that Sam Spade tells Brigid O'Shaugnessey in "The Maltese falcon" written By Dashiell Hammett. The parable appears in the first part of the Chapter "G on the air" just before Joel Ciaro, Brigid and Spade all meet in Spade's apartment. It's an interesting little tale that appears to have nothing to do with anything, that involves a Charles Fltcraft from Tacoma WA, who vanishes one day on his way to lunch. I won't go into too much about the story other than the more you know about it, Spade and Hammett, the more layers it seems to have. Although the simplest answer is most likely the best.
So, flash forward to a few weeks ago, I was contacted by City Arts magazine to illustrate the parable! Okay, I'll cop (no pun intended) to being a huge Hammett fan, and the fact that we both live/lived in Tacoma is another huge plus. The editor, Jefferey, was more than kind to pay my normal rate and let me expand the tale from 4 pages to 5, plus a cover illustration of Hammett.
So we were of to the races, kind of. My first instinct was to do a slavish adaptation, word for word taking every detail that Hammett put down and drawing that and only that.
Jeffrey, calmly let me know that I may want to really adapt the story. After three wimpy attempts at layouts for the pages, I finally took his advice. Some of the best adaptations are just that, adaptations, taking advantage of what the new medium has to offer and working the story so that you get the basics, the and best. Now I was free! Narration became dialog, Flitcraft became a speaking character, and the sexual…tension between Spade and Brigid became a visual, physical thing. Also the art moved from my wanting it to look old to being new, and having the same tough, noir feel that the book and film have.
My initial layouts sucked!. They gave me a good feel for how the story should break down, but they struck me as uninspired, dull and less than worthy of the story. By un-tethering myself from slavish adaptation, I found ways to express (in the layouts) the tension between the characters and the somewhat surreal nature of a story within a story within a story!
the images above are my tests for art style, inks adjusted and colored in Painter and Photoshop,and my first sucky attempt layouts. Right now I'm changing more narration to dialog and doing more layouts.It's happening fast, I'll do my best to keep the posts coming.

Three Months at McSoft with images!

Finally I can show what I did while at Microsoft. I consider these "Image design" and not so much illustration because there were things to consider and, approaches to, the visual that were outside the normal realm of illustration and somewhat in the realm of design. There was even a little consideration to user interface.

The first two are images for Prom. One shows the main art stripped and the other with most of the type and modules in place. We also worked the modules, some more elaborate than others, active and inactive, selected and various states of the links and type. Yee ha!

Next is Superbowl Party. I like the theme, but anyone that knows me, knows I am not a sports fan.

Moving along to Valentine theme. This stripped main art was a fun trick. My starting point was the title graphic for "I love Lucy", which I think was a heart on satin. I created a satin background. This is not a photo. All the work we did had to be free of all rights restrictions. No stock art or illustration. (also no words or language, international market you know.) And I never did anything in my own style(s).
The velvet was total CGI. So for all you lovers out there if you need that satin feeling, give me a call. I'll post more themes later. You can go to Windows Live Events create an event, and see all the themes.

"Out in the West"

These are four pages from a comic book short,"Out in the West" I did for Dark Horse Comics. The art is all black and white airbrush. I wanted it to have a Howard Hawks/John Houston feel to it. There are references to a lot of Western stories, some fiction and some fact in it, which prompted one critic to refer to it as a "Western fairy tale". However the title is a tip of the Stetson to "ElPaso" by Marty Robbins. The other four pages include a page that mirrors the one here of the Sherrif that features a outlaw who is more in the spaghetti western mode. If anyone would like to see the entire story, I'll scan the other four pages and post them. When he saw the rough sketches I was doing for this Chris Warner wanted to title it, "Slap leather!"

Flaming Summer Nights!

I did this illustration a while ago for Seattle Magazine. The story was about a writers memories of summer camp in the islands of Puget Sound. In the good ol' days you could do whatever you wanted in an editorial piece. In this one I have kid running with flaming sugar torches! More commomnly reffered to as roasted marshmallows. Is it just me or does anyone else kind of see the similarity between a marshmallow on fire and napalm? Both kinda sticky and hard to put out. Great thingfor kids to have while running around I thought. I hope this sort of captured that fun(?) Lord of the Flies vibe.
Live fast, draw hard.

Playing the hand delt.

Needed to post and needed to sketch, something! Came up with this idea while doing yoga. It's for the words "Suit" and "Pencil" as part of my first posts to Illustration Friday, and Sugar Frosted Goodness.

Gene Autry finish

Okay, I'm posting this even though I'm not completely happy with it. I think it turned out fine, just not what I had in mind. Sometimes, if I don't have a clear vision of what I want to see, the illustration gets away from me. In this case it looked best as a piece of line art, it's first incarnation. I was thinking of finishing it in airbrush then adding color digitally, but second guessed myself into trying to complete it all digitally. Top it off with some unseen drawing boo- boos and there you have it. A lot of hustle on the back end to make it work. It does get across the message/felling I wanted, that of a more wolfish Autry, but what I see is all the correcting I had to do and the illustration it could have been.
I think any creative goes through this. We see not what we have created, but what we didn't create. A wonderful illustrator by the name of Fred Pfiffer went through this at the end of his life. Not to worry, I plan to be around to make many more boo boos like this.
Live Fast, draw hard.

Flash up

This is my first Animation.

Das Boot Illustrations

These are the rest of the samples that I did for a boot company. Not a real gig, but I liked them enough to want to show them. Not quite portfolio ready, but in this informal blogosphere they fit.

I looked at a lot of different boot designs to get an idea of what was being done, and then let myself play. Most of these ideas started out as visual puns. Water, fire, running and flying… I tried to be playful and have fun. I know I had fun, so I wanted to share.

Mavis Staples: The Gospel Finish

Here it is, the finished Mavis Staples Illustration. I had some problems wit the values, I'm a bit rusty with the airbrush. So by way of practice, I will be doing the Gene Autry illo with airbrush. I think this is close to the feel I wanted, the power seeming to both come from and to the figure. The faint glow around the figure ads a touch of the Divine in an old poster sort of way. The glow, colors and texture, I hope, have somewhat of an old Southern feel. Not too old I think but, I hope it takes you back to the 60s, and the A men corner.

Mavis Staples: Cutting frisket

At this point, cutting frisket, I try to keep in mind not to clutter things up with cutting a lot of shapes that will need to be sprayed. Keeping it simple and value areas few so the piece holds together instead of looking like a jumble of cut outs. Also it really focuses the concept. I want the illustration to be strong, simple and poster-like. Also I think about texture while I'm cutting, should I use pressure or spray-thrus, and what that will add or distract.
Live fast, draw hard.

Draw Fast!

Ha! Here is a boot I designed for a well, boot company as a sample pitch. I was asked o submit samples for their kids boots and I did this. My thinking was, what kind of boot would I want to wear if I was a kid, in the rain, running and splashing, and jumping not quite over big deep puddles. Man, if they ever make this boot I will get a pair. Once the idea was there it took me about 30 minutes to do the vector art. With a neat work-around to get the thick key line, for the extra cool big water repellent look.
I'll post the rest of the samples later today.
Live fast, draw hard.

Gene Autry Editorial Illustration: Back in the saddle again.

A few years ago, as part of teaching by example, I kept every rough thumbnail and every sketch I did for every assignment for an entire year. It's bound into a nice 2 inch book that was a great teaching tool, and part of an exhibit of my work. Keeping my roughs made me more aware of what I was putting down and what I did at that early stage. Not to mention, force me into coming up with more than one good, usable idea. The notion that I would be keeping them lead me to take more time and care in drawing them, so they even look nicer.
I'm keeping this in mi ind with Gene Autry. I have heard two schools of thought on the number of concepts. A) After years of experience, you usually get it right the first time, so one is enough and you refine that along way.
B) The more the better. Anyone can come up with one good idea, a true pro can come up with more.
Well, sad me, I always get a bit rusty if I haven't done an editorial piece in a while and it's been a while. Seems like I have one idea. I like it, but it's only one. A tight close up of bad boy Autry in a dramatic composition that throws attention to his face. His face that has a cock-eyed grin. The article talks about the early, rougher, bluer side of Autry, different from the singing cowboy we all know and love. I had hoped to come up with more concepts. I have some flexible time coming up this weekend, so I may sit down again and give it a whirl.