dogs

Putting out our last book of the year in a week or two -- this a page from my contribution to the weird zine/comic/calendar/book/thing. We have a pretty sweet roster to the thing too -- I'm pretty excited for it! If you threw down 25$ or more on the Kickstarter for Motherlover you will be getting this before anybody.

I'm also thinking of ending this blog and starting something new. I miss making marks so am going to try to do more of that in the new year.

MOTHERLOVER: an anthology that needs your support!

We have a new anthology rolling out just in time for MIX, but we need some support. For 10$ you can pre-order the book via Kickstarter if it looks to be your bag. It might be biased of me to say so, but I think it looks pretty damn cool. Thanks in advance for passing this on!

focus

I've been away for a spell. I am thinking of making an attempt to make more fiberous posts and to pop them out with more regularity. But, as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Ahh well. This piece was illustrated for the 99$ Sale at the Soap Factory. I started it in black and white and then coloured it via watered down acrylics. In all likely-hood, I should have just left it alone in black and white as I like that version better.

A couple of months back I was asked again to provide an illustration for Mark Granlund's web series, The Book of Bartholomew. I provided 10 different version of what is essentially the same illustration to Mark. Luckily, he complains very little and picked out one of them for a recent chapter in that series. I really like how he composed my images in the web-book.

Some years back in Duluth, my pal Terell and I created a little character and a basic world for her to inhabit in what we hoped someday we would turn into a comic. I started some basic sketching and doodling a short story in that world for a little anthology. As the story would have exceeded the page limit, I quickly dropped it and started something else, see post below. After talking with Terell a bit more, he and I will be picking it up once again with the usual caveat, when we have time... ha ha!

These sketch / studies are for a project I am doing with Kel. Again, I meant to have these done about a year ago, but, I got loaded up on other projects. After some of the craziness dies down I will be picking this up again. My original plan was to get this and my collaboration with Justin done this year, but it is looking less and less likely. At this point, I'll be happy just to make some more progress on them. Welp, so that is some fat to chew on eh?

Peter Disappeared

Getting caught up. This is for an anthology Nicholas Straight is editing-- he foolishly asked me to submit something-- and I am glad he did.  It feels great to be drawing again. I am super eager to get to NF and C, but I still have a lot of colouring to do + another illustration.

A day late and a dollar short as they say, this little 4 pager is about a week past due. The story is a little something my Maggie concocted. This is our first comic collaboration that got to the finish line. There have been quite a few unfinished works in the interim.

EOTP pages 1-6 redux

After talking with Nic the other day, I now have a clearer idea of what I am doing concerning the colours of his book. As the title suggests, this is the current state of the first 6 pages. There may be more changes before this book goes to print or web serialization later in the year. I don't think I will be posting any more in-progress work concerning this book here (waiting for the web-serialization as it were). Instead I'll be posting progress on other projects.

As my computer is rather full, and these files are rather large, I would read Death-Day which I just received in the mail while the files would load. Death-Day is pretty damn fantastic.  The only problem now is I want to read part 2.

Now I need to get some drawings done.

Fear Sweat

Updated: whine, whine, whine. Redacted.

2 portraits

These are two quick portraits I did for some friends.  One of them is VERY LATE (like 2 years or something... yikes!).  I felt compelled to do them as my wife had some left over paint from a recent commission.  It's really nice painting again.  

I've got to finish the end papers for Noah Van Sciver's book now.  Made some progress today, not enough though.  Now I've got to finish writing 3 interviews I promised myself (and the interviewee's) I'd have done last Sunday.  It never ends!

Death back cover take 2

I really have to pick up the pace.  How does this look?  Done?  More time in the oven? Compatible with the front cover?  Thoughts?

Try again

I've had some minor misgivings about the brightness of the colours on the Lovejoy book.  I have a tendency to go super garish/bright on the colouring front (a rather strange mix admittedly).  After having Justin take a looksy (as well as Meghan), these feelings made me take another stab at making the colours flow a bit better.  

I think this works, what say YOU?

Lovejoy cover in progress

I've been figuring out tax stuff and late late late payments (new at this publishing bizniz and so far, publishing has been limited to folks that I've known for years and years).  Anyways, as of tomorrow-- everyone is going to be paid up--yay!  Going forward, numbers will be entered right away and everyone will be paid quarterly, and on time.

The tax stuff, is, unfortunately, god-damned costly (close to a thou' before all is said and done AND that is not for the year but this past quarter!).  And the next few months are going to be painful (as I will be SUPER BROKE!).  Oh well.

The image above is the first book we will be publishing this year.  The colours are still unfinished, but I am making some headway as I actually worked on it for a spell today and yesterday.  I would have gotten much farther today but my face was glued to a book (The Alienist) all of yesterday and this morning.  So I did not get enough sleep, operated like a slug, and after putting the original painted art into photoshop, it shut down after hours of work and me not saving it once!

Start again tomorrow.  Hope it's a more productive day.

The Nanny is Too Literal

I just did a write-up on my convoluted process of providing illustrations for Mark Granlunds Book of Bartholomew over at Itchy Keen.   I do not think I will be taking on any more commissions for 2011-- I just can't hack it (plus I am already overbooked on my own projects and publishing plans).

Photograph colour test

Colour test for Photograph, one of 2 stories by Nic.  I'm super behind, but that is how it goes.  Before I return to doing colour tests on the other shorts for Mother Lover, I am going to take a brief brake to get some paper work in order for 2D Cloud (taxes and some late quarterly payments, etc).

When I come back I'll probably focus on Mother Lover and cover colours for The Death of Elijah Lovejoy for a spell.  If you have any thoughts concerning the colours, please share.  Thankvous.