Some more 2012 Leftovers

5"x7" Marker

Newsie Hands 5"x7" Pen and Ink

"RagBoy and Hands vs the Chupacabra" 11"x14" Pen and Ink

Fun Commissions for a Kid

These are two commissions I did for a kid at the Albany Comic Con. He loves Captain America and the Hulk, so I had some fun with both.

Captain America Action 5"x7" Pen

Hulk Dance 9"x12" Pen and Marker

Two Animal Portraits

These are two 5"x7" animal portraits I did  for the Holidays.

Pen and Marker

Pen and Marker

Some Left Overs of 2012

RagBoy as a cute 'lil Voodoo Doll. 5"x7"Pen and Ink

A young Thief. 5"x7"Pen and Ink

A color test version of my Dwarf Warrior.

A Wizard. 5"x7"Pen and Ink

Kat Carson Pin-Up

I did a pin-up near the very end of last year that appears in Dan Nokes' webcomic "The Reptile and  Mister Amazing: The Return of Kat Carson". I was asked to draw Kat Carson, a WWII hero that who is a super soldier cat.

My rough pencil sketch.

Final image hand inked with border added in Photoshop.

Drak Pack Re-Imagined

For a side project, I re-imagined the Drak Pack, a Hanna-Barbera cartoon from 1980-1982 I'd watched when I was a very little kid. I used the core characters of Drak, Frankie, and Howler for the piece, thinking of them in terms of more modern, action based, and themed teenagers (Drak as a "prep", Frankie as a "jock", and Howler as a "skater kid").

The original promo image.

Pencil layout for the piece.

Inks added, Digital Cleanup, Logo, and text.

Some quick color, shadows, and effects.

 It was fun to do, and I think with the current popularity of supernatural characters this concept could work again.

The Snorks

A 9"x12" drawing of a few of the Snorks. I'll try and clean up some of the lines and color it in a few weeks.

My Cat Belle

This is a 5"x7" ink drawing I did of my cat Belle.

Commission and Rate Page Updated

I updated my Rates and Commissions page.

24 Hour Comic Day 2012

On October 20th, 2012, I attempted to do a 24 Hour Comic Day comic. I started at 1pm and I failed miserably in my attempt to make a 24 page comic book from scratch in 24 hours. I didn't even complete a single page of finished art, but I learned a lot on what to do and what not to do for next year and I had a fun time doing it.

24 Hour Comic Day 2012: The Rundown

Plot, Character Idea, Prop design, and Page templates.

I started out with no concept, as per the rules, so I grabbed a dictionary and flipped to random pages with my eyes closed and pointed to words. I did this 6 times. I jotted down the randomly chosen words and with them started to mentally build my plot. I think I got really lucky as I the words I picked worked well in a crazy way and I got a basic concept down fast. 

The words chosen were "Cleopatra", "Beatnik", "Invocation", "Fragment", "Seed", and "Fateful". 

While I thought up my plot ideas I made a six panel template on a 8.5"x11" sheet of card stock, cut out the panels, and layed out light pencil panels on 30 sheets of 8.5"x11" bristol for my pages. I decided to go with 8.5"x11" because I figured the smaller size would be easier and faster to work on.

I then spent the next hour or so writing up the plot, making it work for page count, and creating my characters. 

My page layouts for my 24 page story.

After a short break I went to work on my page layouts, to make sure my story fit the pages right, and with the idea that by laying it all out it would speed things up. 

This took me forever. I lost hours. I lost Sooooo many hours.

By the time I finished the page layouts it was after midnight. I had trouble in a few spots getting things to work the way I'd envisioned them, and I stubbornly had refused to push on past them until I'd gotten them right. By the time I'd finished them I was so mentally exhausted that I knew I was done before I'd even really started.

Page 1. The First and only page I began.

I decided to give it ago anyways to see how long a page would take. After some very loose pencil work I went straight to inks. I realized I wasn't going to be able to squeeze in my word balloons and narrative boxes so I mentally told myself I'd do them on the computer after. To save time. 

My inks went down fast. I was happy with the time I was making. Then on the fourth panel I realized that I had about 10 hours to do 23 more pages. I knew I wouldn't get done. I might hit page 10 by then, and that was all just build up to the actual story. At about 2:30am I threw in the towel and called it a loss. 

I learned quite a bit for next year. I gained an interesting new story with a brand new character,  "The Amazing" Gavin Solomon Quinn © 2012,  who I'd like to flesh out and work on more sometime. 

It was a fun experiment and I look forward to doing it again. 

Design Work August 2012

A banner logo for an upcoming blog.

Final Blog Header

Full Image with test title Font

The figures in the lineup were drawn and inked by hand. Coloring and all other effects were done in Photoshop.

Design Work September 2012

I did some logo designs for a new reptile business.

The store Full Type Banner

The store Logo

The Banner snake was drawn and inked by hand and scanned into Photoshop for coloring. The font used is a modified version of Bleeding Cowboy. The snake head in the logo was added digitally in Photoshop.

The Creature

The Creature

"The Creature" 
9" x 12" Pen and Ink on Bristol

For sale $20 plus $3 shipping (Free Local Delivery) in anyone is interested in giving the piece a new home.

Troll

This is a troll I drew. I like him so he will be appearing in Strange Encounters one of these days.

My Annoying Cat

A little poem I wrote a few weeks ago about my cat at 2AM...

You look at me
With your big green eyes
And quickly 
Turn your head
When I glance your way.

Stupid cat,
Stop staring at me.

Your food is 
In a bowl
On the floor.

Eat it.

~My Annoying Cat
By J. Splendor 06/13/12 2:20am