Next page of Sharp Invitations is about 3/4 done. Rather than skip a week of posting art, here's some more work from this year's Inktober.
I may make a booklet of these.
Day eight: Zorro.
DSo many great inkers have worked on Zorro. I've always been partial to Jesse Marsh, Tom Yeates (there's a definitive collection of the Yeates/McGregor Zorro strip soon- hooray!) and of course, Alex Toth. A perennial favorite, Russ Manning, even did a couple tryout strips!
Such a great character, romantic and driven by justice.
This is loosely inspired by the recent McGregor Kickstarter comic. Almost no under-drawing here, just some brush work. I do love working with dry brush techniques. One of my goals for this year was to improve my versatility and craft.
Day nine:
Another work in walnut ink. I got this really cool catalog of fashion for the more zaftig woman, and she was the cover and one of the interior pages.
A little more time on the under-drawing this time. Mostly brush work, but a bit of crow quill. I think the outline on the figure could be a bit more consistent. This is always the question: when does one ink right up to the figure, and when does one leave a silhouette? For me, it's about the quality of the figure's holding line. If I'm pleased with that line, I want to preserve it, and the best way to do that is to leave the ghost space.
Day Ten:
This is my character Blue Wild Abandon, who has never appeared outside my sketchbooks before. She's an intergalactic bounty hunter and seeker of justice. Her symbol is the Jungian icon for hero. I will render it more tightly in her first adventure, tentatively titled "No Beast so Fierce". It will be a while before we see it, since I have two stories ahead of it in the queue!
She looks slightly different from one drawing to another. She's been showing up in my sketches for years, but I only recently realized who she is. Then I tied her to an SF story outline I wrote decades ago, and it clicked.
Day Eleven:
Inspired by Trina Robbins' recent wonder, Flapper Queens: Women Cartoonists of the Jazz Age, I decided to try my hand at fashion illustration.
The proportions are weird. The face is sparse.
But boy, was this fun!
Quick pencil sketch, many corrections on the ink. This was was a little Micron, a lot of crow quill, and a BIG brush for the few heavy inks.
Day Twelve:
Athena from my old Tranny Towers strip.
I haven't drawn her for years.
I would love to do a collection of that strip, and include the related work that appeared at the time- my Gay Comics pages using the characters, the self- published work with her from around that time, my editorial cartoons for 90s trans political magazines. Also some paper dolls I was working on and some background sketches and sundries. Make a nice little book.
But in today's political climate, trans people can't even call themselves tranny without someone taking offense. It makes me sad, but I think I've talked myself out of the collection for now.
Athena's bra and panty set is inspired by Francine in Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise #1.
Day Thirteen:
Ray Shulman of Gentle Giant. Taken from a photo in the Italian Super Star compilation album booklet!
Much as I love the band, I seldom draw or write about them. Back when I first started posting my work, about a million years ago, I posted some pages from a comic adaptation of the GG song Little Brown Bag. Gentle Giant comics came up in a discussion of a proposed documentary online recently, so that project, an anthology titled Gentle Giant Comics and Stories, could see life again.
I do already have a lot of projects, but my enthusiasm does not abate.
Day Fourteen:
Usagi Yojimbo
This was just fun to draw. Stan Sakai has a style that is deceptively simple. But when you take a closer look at his technique, it's clear he's a master. Subtle variations in line weight, and facial expressions that tell the whole story.
I tell my writing students that knowing what to leave out is as important as knowing what to put in. Sakai is the master there.
That's all for now. I'll save the last 17 Inktober sketches in case I need them to meet a Deadline Doom here, as the Marvel editors used to call it.
Next: back to Sharp Invitations.
