Original Art Sundays No. 186: Dead Dog Comics Tryout page

Posting on time this week (actually starting a few minutes before midnight, so technically early!). Worked a 51 hour week, so no time to complete either of the current Surrealist Cowgirls projects, but progress has been made on both.
Meanwhile, one more from the vaults.
This was also a colorist tryout page, like last week's, but this time I got the job! It didn't pay, but I got the job.
While completing my BFA, I found an internship with a new publisher out of Hopkins, MN. They were called Dead Dog Comics, and run by the very optimistic and friendly Chazz deMoss. As part of the tryout package, I was asked to color a page from a forthcoming monster book (all of the line was horror books at first). This was the result.

Ooh, scary! Sort of.

This was done in late 1999 or early 2000, so I'm guessing Photoshop 6 or 7. In retrospect, it would have worked just as well as a hand painted piece, but they wanted digital.
I tried to keep it vibrant but not overbearing (though the image doesn't demand subtlety, anyone who know the work of Bernie Wrightson knows it's possible to do sublime horror illustration). The piece doesn't show it, but it is more than 50% gray values.  The light sources are a bit inconsistent (the only visible light sources in the scene are the candle and the window, but much is brightly front lit). In my defense, my first priority was to be consistent with the cast shadows placed by the inker. Not sure if this ever saw print. I also did some spot inking and digital lettering for them.  

The best of the job: genuinely nice people, very enthusiastic about their work.

The worst: the day I showed up early and the place smelled odd. I opened the microwave and was swarmed by fruit flies. Someone had left a dirty plate, food still on it, in the microwave over a long weekend. Once I was able to hold down my cookies, I cleaned it up and got out of there- no more work for me that day! Yikes!

The only real problem I had with the horror books was that one of them was blatantly misogynistic- a slutty woman being chained in a dungeon by the monster, who "eyed with bad intent" as the song goes. This was in one of the stories I lettered for them, and I did very little work for them after that.

Dead Dog continued for a few years. Last time I saw their stuff at MNCBA's Spring Con, they were branching into cop books, and the line looked more polished. I've not heard anything about them for several years, but I do wish them well.

next: Cowgirls!

Original Art Sundays (Monday) No. 185: Supergirl coloring tryouts!

Another week of too much work, but still plugging away at the Cowgirls fairy tale and the other long-promised Cowgirls project. I really am plugging away at these things, as my energy allows.
Soon, my pretties, soon....
Meanwhile.
As I was filing papers, I found some pieces I thought long lost.  The first of these was a tryout page from the early 2000s. I thought I'd posted this ages ago, but a search of the blog says otherwise. Friend and sister Venus de Mars approached me and a few other folks to join a team of Photoshop colorists. The project was recoloring pages for DC's Archives series. I was given pages of Supergirl to recolor, along with scans of the original page for reference and a shared swatch palette. I completed three pages, but only this one survived in print, and that computer is long gone!
The process is pretty straightforward.

First, isolate the black in a separate channel.
Also isolate in a separate layer.
Use as baseline for making coloring selections.

Then go layer by layer, adding basic color. Go from large areas to specific.
Keep effects to a minimum. You're duplicating an existing color scheme,
not making a new one! Flatten colors to one layer when complete, but save other layers
until the page is approved, to make changes easier. The process for flattening:
make a new layer and press Command-Option-Shift-E to merge visible.
Be sure the black layer is not visible when you do this step!

Turn the black layer (line art) back on, do another Merge Visible and a Save As... Final.
Send to the boss and receive your accolades!

While the whole team worked very hard on these tryout pages and did some great work, ultimately DC gave the job to a different team. Still, a great experience, and it honed my Photoshop coloring skills (not to mention my attention to detail) a great deal.

Next: who knows? I'd love to get back to the Cowgirls, if I can get enough time off work! If not, I have more of these newly discovered backup pieces for your reading pleasure...

Original Art Sundays (Monday) No. 184: MIllie the Model Meets Mad Men!

After a month of overtime, I finally found a couple minutes to go back to the drawing board.
Funny story on this one. I put a new page on the board, and grabbed 14 x 17" Bristol instead of the 11 x 14" I had been using for the Surrealist Cowgirls. I decided to leave it there and do something different.
One of my regrets about current comics is that there are very few licensed books, especially relative to the 1950s and 60s, when Dell/Gold Key had contracts to adapt movies and TV series as issues of Four-Color Comics. Though we've had decent comics of The Muppets, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who and Fringe, it's a pretty safe bet to do Sf and kid-oriented material. I've always contended that we'd benefit from comic book versions of House, Harry Potter, Brisco Country Jr., even Law and Order: Criminal Intent comics!
In that spirit, here's a pastiche cover involving a favorite series that's now winding down: Mad Men.

This was a fair amount of work, but it was fun! The final render of Mr. Hanover is a bit crude, and Millie's figure here owes something to Mad Men's Joan Harris, as portrayed by Christina Ross. In the comics, Millie was not QUITE so zaftig!
Also, I appear to have the color of Don's eyes wrong. I rather like the rendering of Don other than that.
Lettered digitally rather than by hand. The trade dress is also digital.
While centered in the 1960s, this is all over the place. Marvel Pop Art Productions was a logo that was used for a couple years in the mid-sixties, and Millie the Model was a soap-opera title from the late 60s into the early 70s. However, Millie had gone back to being a humor book by the time Marvel Team-Up had begun, which was long after the Pop Art logo!
I'm looking forward to seeing the resolution of Mad Men. I'm cheering for Peggy Olson to make it, more than anyone else on the series!
That's all for now. I will work on being a better correspondent!