Another Sketch

Today's daily sketch is brought to you by: forgot my drawing stuff at work.  I am working on more comics for Comfort Dental, plus a five page comic, and a one page comic.  I have a lot going on, and when I forgot my drawing materials at work last night....I was upset to say the least.  But! I got to do another daily sketch.  Honing the skills needed to increase my talent level.  This was done with a ballpoint pen before bed last night.

More Comics and Learning!

For those of you that know me...HI.  For those of you that don't, I have an MFA in sequential Art.  Grant Thomas, the administrator of Making Visual Narratives is putting up my grade level recommendations for comics up on his website on a monthly basis.  Kindergarten and First Grade are up currently, with second grade coming soon.  Please check out his site and his work.  He, like a lot of us, are very interested in changing the way school present information so there is more interaction, more entertainment and more effective and efficient learning in today's public schools.  Comics ARE a great way to do that, and that's being found all over the nation right now.
For a list of websites and more information on how to teach with comics you are more than welcome to contact me for a copy of my thesis, or to have me come to your school or library to talk about comics and learning.

Commissions for Christmas, anyone?!

This is an example of a commission I did for a friend for a friend's birthday/christmas present.  I am thinking I'd like to open a series of commissions for Christmas this year.  I know a lot of people are doing this, but it just makes sense!  Everyone would like a nice piece of artwork for their wall for the holiday.  Anyway, visit my commission page to see pricing and email me with questions.

Comics...AND learning!

So, you know those comics that teach stuff?  No?!  Well, did you know that comics can teach stuff?!  It's been proven.  One of the best ways to learn material is through the combination of text and image.  The text explains, and the image helps you connect the explanation with a visual representation of the given text, but I digress.
Anyway, I am doing one of these "comics that teach stuff."  It's for Comfort Dental (this is for you new folks, because I've talked about this before) and it's called The Adventures of Toothy and Friends.  It's a superhero adventure story that teaches good dental hygiene.  This is from the second installment with a new installment coming each month!  You can see the first installment on Comfort Dental's facebook page.

Look! I made a Laser!

This is a panel from the next Adventures of Toothy for Comfort Dental.  I made a Laser!  What do you think?

The Adventures of Toothy...part 2

So I've been contracted to do 12 monthly comic strips for Comfort Dental.  This is one of the panels from the latest of these strips.  We are introducing a series of bad guys with dental disease names, like Ginger Vitis (seen above hiding in the bushes) and others like Hal E. Tosis.  And other great villain names.  Look for the final version of this very soon at comfortdental.com or on their facebook page

The Running Man, inked

I did these inks last night and was fairly disappointed...then I looked again this morning, still a little disappointed, but I do see some good in there. I left the arms fairly high contrast, especially to let them stand out and away from his body.  That worked.  On the other hand, the hatching I did on his back and biody, didn't quite create the planes of the form correctly...need to work on that, otherwise, the energy is still there and the gesture of the running is still very much alive.  Not too bad...

Running man

This is daily sketch 4a.   The reason for the a, I didn't get to complete this sketch last night before I fell asleep with a pencil in my hand.  I am drawing a comic strip for Comfort Dental that has a chase panel and I could NOT figure out how to draw someone running, so I found a picture and started working on that...so here the under drawing, the finished piece will come tomorrow, possibly with the panel I was trying to draw with it.  Enjoy!

Can-Am Spyder

Today's sketch is of a Can-Am Spyder.  It's a three wheeled road bike by the same people that make Ski-Doo snowmobiles, and if you looked at the early models, it was like looking at a Ski-Doo Rev chassis on the pavement.  They have diverted a bit since then and made them more unique unto themselves, but I digress.  This sketch is in preparation for an upcoming post-apocalyptic story I am about to start on.  There are four rules to the story: 1) 5 pages long 2) dinosaurs 3)main character is me 4)motorcycle...and yes this counts.

Today: An Airplane, Tomorrow: The World(?)

So, With these daily sketches, I figured I'd put them up no matter what, success or failure, I am just trying to get better at the stuff I'd need to draw to be successful...today, fail.  Tomorrow, who knows!

daily Sketch #1

In an effort to really nail down my style, my anatomy, my skills and such, I have decided I am going to be doing a small 4x5 sketch every day, usually while waiting for my new baby to fall asleep. This came from the Five C's of Cinematography.  The section that talks about consistency scene during shot selection.  I am going to be doing sketches from life and from pictures and such...whether good, bad or indifferent, they will be here.  As I go along I'll also be posting other work so you can see how it's effecting my work and hopefully improving my aesthetic.  Enjoy!

World's First Comic Book on Playing Cards

So it's officially been announced on xtremehandz.com.  MMD will be released by the end of the year....what is MMD you ask?  It's a comic book on the back of a deck of poker cards.  WHAT?!  What's that you say?!  The back of a deck of cards?!  WOW!  This is the brain child of De'vo Vom Schattenreich, creator of the Xtreme Card Manipulation discipline.  You can see his work at handlordz.com as well as some of his other poker decks.  This has been 10 years in the making for him,  and it will FINALLY come to fruition this year.  If you remember I put some teasers of the process up, revisit them here:
MMD Teaser 1
MMD Teaser 2
MMD Teaser 3
MMD Teaser 4

I got to show this off at the New York Comic Con this weekend and got a LOT of great feedback about it.  I'll let you when and where it's available, but everyone I talked to thought it was a very cool idea.  Thank you for giving me the chance to work on this project, it's been a blast!  AND if you like it, BUY it!