Original Art Sundays #77 (late): It Does This, p. 1

Ready to post this week's art, but let's catch up first!
This is the first page of an uncompleted Surrealist Cowgirls story. Four pages are done to date.
Some of the elements from this story showed up in the 24-hour book I posted about a year and a half ago, so the story will have to be re-tuned for its completion. Ideas for that are flying around my consciousness like transient modes of thought, to quote Blazing Saddles.
I have a great fondness for these pages. Whatever direction this story takes, the first four pages will remain as they are.
Now, Page one of It Does This When I Hurt.

Posting almost immediately following: a new page of A Private Myth!

Original Art Sundays, No. 20: The World in Love, pp. 20 and 21

Ouch.
The perspective and figure drawing skills went right down the tubes at about 3 AM. Still a fan of open panels, but Mom's arm seems to have gone flat on one side. And the shape of the head- yeesh!
Still, I promised no fixing of these. If I ever go to press with this book, I'll rework these pages sometime when I'm awake- not the state in which they were drawn, I assure you!
Even with that, I like the storytelling aspect here. It's a bit Deus Ex Machina that Mom just sort of casually explains the key point, albeit in a cryptic way. Still, it's consistent with the idea behind one of my favorite superheroes, Dr. Strange, that real power comes from wisdom and does not need to be expressed in a loud or gaudy fashion. I feel much the same way about John Wayne's character Tom Donovan in the classic film The Man who Shot Liberty Valance. The character echoes the idea that the most important thing is to see things for what they are, whether it's the way you would have them be or not. The power of true conviction in this character, especially during the direct confrontations with the title character, is unstoppable.
Ahem.
Now this week's pages.

Original Art Sundays, No. 19: The World in Love, p. 17

The aftermath of a big moment. Sort of a reveal but not really. I had a devil of a time explaining the panel layout to Diana Nock, seated across from me, as I was roughing the pencils. "No, the figure will not be broken by the panels. It's just- you'll see."
I really like this. It's a much older device, I'm sure, but I first became overtly aware of using the empty panel as a pacing device through Terry Moore's work on Strangers in Paradise, linked to in earlier posts.

Again, sparse backgrounds, which can be forgiven if the blacks give enough weight and color to  hold the page. In fairness, this page could use more weight, visually. Resisting the temptation to tweak the work! Did a crop and ran levels in Photoshop. That's it.

Next week: two or three pages, including an homage of the most fun order.

Original Art Sundays, No. 17: The World in Love, pp. 10-15

Posting a bigger chunk again this week. Next week will be a single page.
The posting of different amounts weekly is fascinating to me. It reinforces Scott McCloud's argument in Reinventing Comics that creators using the Net have more control over pacing the narrative. Even in the context of daily or weekly strips, the pacing of the individual strip is set by the creator(s), but the frequency is set by the publisher. And if you're presenting a completed work, once it leaves your hands all you can do is hope the reader paces the work as intended. This gives a different measure of control.
Ahem.
The work at hand.

 

 

 

 

 

Things I particularly like on these pages: the open framing of p. 10 and the wolf defined by shadow, which reminds me of Argent in Matt Wagner's Grendel.  I flatter myself in this respect, as Wagner's design sense has been a standard to which I aspire since I first encountered it.

The knife scene on p. 13 brings to mind a scene from near the end of the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple. This is one of may favorite films, but I was not consciously aware of the influence during the execution of the page. I wanted a quick action depicted in large rapid fire panels, going for a low-motion or freeze frame effect. I may have also had the shot of the Cornithian stabbing Morpheus in the hand, from the Gaiman Sandman story A Doll's House, tickling the back of my mind, but again, not a conscious influence.

The radar silhouette effect on panel 2 of p. 15- I love this. It says so much about this character, whoever he is (did anyone notice that not one character in this story has a name? Now THAT was deliberate!) that he doesn't see who the girls are, only seeing them as things in his way. That, and there's a serene, contemplative quality to the act of hand redering repeated patterns with slight variations.

Next week: page 16.

Original Art Sundays, No. 17: The World in Love, pp. 6-9

No time for an elaborate post today, but I did want to get the next chapter up.

 

Original Art Sundays, No. 17: The World in Love, pp. 2-5

More pages from the 24 hour challenge!
It seems to me that the pace of the story would be hurt by slower posting, so I will be be posting multiple pages for the next several weeks. This will also give me incentive to do more work!

 

Again, no image editing, just the raw files from the scans.

Original Art Sundays, No. 16: The World in Love, p.1

As some of you know, I attended a funeral this week. I will say more about that tomorrow- I have a specific image I want to post in relation to the event, and I need to get at the scanner at work to do so.
Meanwhile, I am tickled to present the first page of this year's 24 hour comic.

This work has been in the back of my head for years, inspired by a dream  I had when I was a child, and shaped by things I picked up along the way.  No conscious plotting during the work, beyond some fly-by-night strategy on pacing. No worrying about what it meant. Just do it!

Process: I just had a loose idea of the story when I sat to work, as will become apparent in later pages.

The art is influenced by a purchase I made that day. Wet Paint had a sale booth at the 24 hour event (but only for the first couple hours). They had these wonderful ink-based grayscale markers. I wanted to see what I could get out of using values for line. Even working in this rushed atmosphere, the work feels very fresh to me. Much of my apprehension and frustration about the work not being perfect has dissipated.

No Photoshop on this one. Unless there are glaring errors to correct, I will present these pages raw.

Original Art Sundays, No. 15: Day for Night

I had hoped to post the first page of my 24 hour comic from this year today. Well, tomorrow, but I'm posting a few hours before Sunday, as Fallcon is still running tomorrow.
However, a delay in scanning made posting p. 1 of 24 hour book 2009 impossible, at least short term. Problem to be fixed forthwith.
Meanwhile, loath though I am to do so, I am posting an inventory piece, just to maintain my self-imposed schedule.

this was a proposed cover for the Spock's Beard album Day for Night. When I met lead singer Neal Morse about a year after I sent them this, he told me that they liked it but it lost out to another concept on a close vote.
I don't often work in gouache. Perhaps I should. I rather like this! It has a simplistic yet eerie feel about it. The nebula inside the cloak is an obvious collage, but I think it works well.

Original Art Sundays, No. 14: a dusty old bar....

I don't publish my photography much. This is partially because the market is saturated with really good photographers. It's also because I'm rarely satisfied with my framing.
But this shot, done on a shoot with a Digital Photography class on Mineeapolis' North Side, came out as I hoped.  There's a mood to the tiredness and dust in good sepiatone that I find quite compelling.
I haven't decided if I'm posting this year's 24 Hour Challenge book here. I completed it, oh, 9 hours ago- got done early, and it only shows on a couple pages! We'll see how it goes once I do my print run for the upcoming anthology/box.

Original Art Sundays, No. 13: so benull...

Well, it was a slow week, art-wise. But I did manage to get some sketching done while my student (!) was taking his exam.
The sad part for me is that while I can do such interesting work with just scrap Bristol from the cutting table and a rather fluid Jetsream brand black pen, so much of the line quality is lost in the scan unless you want a mountain of artifacts. I used to hate that sketchy stuff. Now it fascinates me.
Couple of my favorite experimental things here- the form defined by shadow (beginning of the first tier) and the mood piece drawing on the old saw of doing a continuous line (end of the second tier).
Also, a potential new character sprung out of nowhere- the French skeleton in Tier 1. You can tell he's French by the mustache. I'm sure I've seen something similar somewhere along the way, so I suspect he'll be a spear carrier in a future story.
The alien lovers reaching across space are part of my Poe pastiche. Another one that's been in the works for years.
Finally, a couple pop ins from the happy fish, Maggie's mule, and a VERY loose sketch of The Surrealist Cowgirls holding hands and ready for action!
Eager for 24 hour challenge this coming weekend. This week promises to be quite hectic!

The masochist says "hurt me". The sadist says "no".

So here I am all crispy from 2 days of very little sleep.
What do I do?
Sign up for the 2009 24 Hour Comics Challenge!
I hope to do 24 pages AND A COVER in the 24 hours. Going to try working a little smaller this time. I think I was the only one working at 11" x 17" at MCAD last year!
And my dilemma over going to MCAD or Open Book was solved, as MCAD students are joining the fun at Open Book this year!
Here's another shot Barb Shultz took of me at the '08 event....

It begins anew....

My Digital Photo student didn't make it in today, ostensibly due to a job interview, so I am well caught up on grading and such. Having a minute, I contemplated the future of my darlings, The Surrealist Cowgirls.

In my musings, I checked and discovered that the next 24 hour comic challenge is a mere 3 weeks hence!

As I will have just finished posting the current story at the point, perchance I'll participate again. Let's not kid ourselves, of course I'll jump in.

Since I'm not teaching there this semester, I don't know if it would be appropriate for me to attend the MCAD shindig. But I'll go again, and I'll get another odd little story out of it. The Cowgirls, maybe a Speedy Ricuverri story, maybe the Flameheads (no Flameheads stories have been told since 8th grade- yikes!).... There are so many other stories to tell!


Here's a shot the impressively smart and talented Barb Schultz took of me at last year's MCAD event!

Original Art Sundays #2: Surrealist Cowgirls, p. 1

This is page 1 of an 11-page story I did as part of the 24-hour comic challenge this year. I made it for 14 hours.
These are some of my favorite characters. I haven't done any work on them for years. It's long overdue!
Next year, if I do the Challenge again, as I hope to, I won't work full size! Most everyone else in our cadre was working on rather small sheets. Sean Lynch was doing his usual lovely dry brush work.
This work is fast and sloppy, but with the time constraints, all I really cared about was the energy and the wild ride, as subsequent pages will show. I always want to do the best work I can, but my primary focus with this was having a wild, joyful mind come through on the page.
That, and I wanted to get as much done as I could as fast as I could!
next week: page 2!