Silver Surfer Sadness

Its been interesting this last year or so. I worked on an indie game for a while doing character and backgrounds. I did some fill-in pages for a friend, as well as layouts for an ongoing series - which I'm really enjoying. Alterna's Crime Anthology hits shops on the 22nd - which I have a story in, and Chaser Platoon came out last month (which I colored). Decisions relaunched with the issue I wrote this year and Yurushi is going into Diamond in the near future. I finished a small personal project - kind of a tweenage kid's book I'm going to try and get out there with illustrations as well. I made a pitch packet with a writer that we're shopping around and am working on another. I also did a piece for the Tales From the Gutter Kickstarter that made it into the pinups section - which just came out a few days ago. And there's this: An interview I read with Ron Marz at least 7-8 years ago (and the issue was probably 5 yrs old at that point) and it made such an impact on me I held onto the issue of Write Now! telling myself I'd find this issue (which can be fairly expensive) and growing an ever larger collection of Claudio Castellini's other comics. I photoshoped the text from the page break and around a picture together to read his thoughts but when I read how long it had taken him to do it made an impact and I felt I owed it to an artist I loved to see something that had taken him that long to create. And, sadly its everything he described it as - beautiful and woefully underprinted/colored. The interesting thing is the lettering is printed sharp. It's just enough to let you know it could've been so much more. The back cover and the first splash pages show just how different even a rudimentary coloring job could've looked and pages have come out online of the original black and white art - which turns up mostly gray in the book itself (looking more like pencil lines than ink)

This guy makes Byrne Hogarth look like he didn't enjoy drawing knobby hands and anatomy. So much great stuff in the issue - you can tell he was trying to outdo himself, but I believe it was Alan More who said to Dave Gibbons after hearing how long it took him to draw the Killing Joke, and I'm paraphrasing - "It took you two years to make and I'm going to read it on the toilet in 10 mins." It really does need an artist's edition or a oversized, hardback reprint. On my end Chaser Platoon was kind of darkly colored (over inkwash) and printed even darker, but I feel I was able to add something to it. I did try to make it as colorful as I could, though it would've been easy to keep the whole thing army green and steel gray. The panel I feel I added the most to is below, where a character is reflecting deeply, with a split light source. Also got to paint this with my student's help and have been inspired to tackle large paintings like this after seeing Drew Struzan and Bob Peak use pencils over their airbush and paints. I probably used a bit too much, but it still came out pretty nice considering its only the 2nd canvas painting I've ever done.

Breaking story - swiper no swiping!

So someone finally broke the story to bleeding cool with many more pictures than I had access to when I went off on him. But now everyone knows about Seth Reedy and his "free hand drawing and inking skills" and man, he was doing it to everyone. Finally getting going again in the comics world, I'm about 1/4 of the way done with a 40pg issue I'm working on. Finally got a script approved I'd written the rough draft of over a year ago. I have a penciler finishing an issue I wrote and an inker working on finishing them out. I got to see the first version of my friend Hobbes' story that I got to ink about half in a very fun style. Got to see the first print version of issue 1 of No West to Cross #1, all while the rest of my life has gotten considerably more complicated. All in all I'm doing pretty well. Really been enjoying listening to Now Playing podcast at work and their film series retrospectives.

Lots of new comics coming soon!

Decisions ish 2, pg 4, 5 preview by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

No West to Cross Issue 1 out now by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Black Cobra redesign cover by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Souled 2 Preview Pages 2 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Souled 2 Preview Pages 3 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

From Blood 1 Preview Pages by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Decisions 2 Preview Pages 2 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART
These are preview pages for Souled #2, From Blood #1, and Decisions #2 from Cosmic Times Comics. Black Cobra #0 from Radioactive comics, and No West to Cross #1 that was put out by 215 ink, but will now be self published. I penciled all of the images and inked the pages from Decisions.

Lots o art

Souled 2 Preview Pages by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Decisions 2, preview pages by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Padme by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Ang by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Future Foundation Phoenix by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Pris by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Decisions Review

Indy Hunter recently reviewed Decisions issue 1 saying my art "...has a rough style that speaks to me as an artist. It’s a bit raw, unrefined but highly energetic. It does however seem a bit rushed and too loose in some areas. Also there were some structure issues in the second story that I wonder if drawn as an afterthought. With that being said, I think there is some promise with both Martin and Zach as a regular writer/art team. I do look forward to seeing how these guys mesh and progress into one working, effective voice." Se the rest of his review here.
I also just finished inking issue 6 and the first half of issue 7 of Kord & Harley for Mortal World Entertainment. And that is being published by Arcana Comics. Should be cool.

Free Comic Book Day Mini-Con?

Hey guys I'll be hanging out at Past Present Future Comics in West Palm Beach Fl. for free comic book day, where you can get a poster I inked and colored over Larry's pencils from What the Flux Comics and where you can get your own copy of Descisions Issue 1, from Cosmic Times - which just recently premiered at Megacon, just over one month ago. It will be like a mini-convention with many local creators and publishers - Check out this article on the store and event, here.
Other than that I've gotten started on some new secret projects and have also been comissioned to do two paintings, one as large as 6ftx2ft. I'll post pictures here in the next month as they get finished.

Post Megacon 2010

As a guest of What the Flux Comics, my Megacon table looked like this. With my prints on the lower left, portfolio to the right and shirts in the background. I was able to sell at least one of everything I had at the table. I also had the Concrete Dove posters, I inked and colored, as well as my shirts and Bellydancer posters, and actually had quite a diverse audience for them. I later started hanging the following sketches, that I did, live, at the con, on the front of the table to get people interested in Commissions, which you can see below, of Daredevil, Emma Frost, Batman and Batgirl.

Batgirl Con Sketch by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Batgirl con sketch - inked by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

I did end up getting four Commissions, including: Death, a character the man apparently got various con sketches of and seemed to list mine among his favourites, and mentioned it getting very positive comments from several other artist’s he approached to do one. A fellow artist’s personal character, for whom I regret to say I don’t remember the name (please email if you find this and let me know so I can link you). Batgirl sitting atop the Hulk’s shoulder. And a character from Patrick Sessom’s comic S.O.A.R.

Megacon Commissions 2010 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART
Jeramy Hobbs, a fellow WTFC artist seemed to like my work quite a bit and I was asked to ink one of his pieces. This one of the main characters from God of War and Assassin’s Creed fighting one another, I was told this piece sold, later that same day.

God of War vs Assassins Creed by ~xaqBazit on deviantART
I got to sit next to Larry Watts and his wife Sarah, who along with Patrick Sessoms and Randy Taylor, along with a few others were running the ICCW table right next to us. We were all kind of in the corner, and business was hard. There were many artists but very few companies – so networking was about the only option and for that reason ICCW flourished, with around 25 new members after the first day. The ICCW rampage Vol. 1, featured my story “Friend$hip” and Patrick’s story that I inked, “3:33am” will premiere in Vol. 2.
I got to meet new artists, such as Banky Farando, Patrick Larcada, Matt Buck, and Lamar Mathurin as well as catch up with some past acquaintances from the Mini-Megacon, and old friends like Ryan Miller. I also bought a book from Botobit, Epidemic vol. 1 – which, like the ICCW rampage vol. 1, was an anthology of different artists from around the globe, though more fine arts related and less sequential focused. I also stopped and grabbed a flyer for the Orange County Regional History Center, who have several comic themed exhibits, both currently and upcoming.

I got a few artists’ to critique my portfolio and recent work in Decision’s, such as Rick Tucker and various companies I talked to. And I was even asked to review up and coming artist’s portfolio’s, which was great, such as Jeanette Pabon, who is working on putting a website together. I got to meet and talk art with one of my recent influences, Erick Jones, one of my all time favourite artist’s Dave Dorman, and others as I examined their wealth of original artwork they all had on hand.

I was also able to spend some time at the Cosmic Times booth with Robin on Sunday, where we signed the first available copies of Decisions for customers, which premiered this weekend, and got to talk with two of the nicest people working in Indy Comics. Here’s a pic of the three of us, the creative team for the 1st issue, excluding only the cover artist Dan Mann, who was also available for autographs at the con though I didn’t get a chance to meet, and the editor Connie Voss. (From left to right: Martin –writer-, Robin –letterer- and me, Zach –interior artist).


I did want to mention, to those of you who bought the book, and there is a note towards the end of the book that Cosmic Times is depending on readers like you writing in and letting them know what you think about the series, to decide weather of not to continue Decisions into a series. So send in those reviews! Speaking of which, we should hear back soon after from a few different blogs and websites who will be giving their opinion. Arthur: The Legend Continues, the Legend Continues (their flagship book) was received very well and even featured on the popular podcast Comic Book Geek Speak (CBGS) so I can’t wait to hear back about this one.

I was able to pick up some trades I was looking for at ½ cover price such as The Return of Superman, New X-men: Vol. 2, Fables Vol. 1 and Vertigo’s: First Cut. And while not everyone who stopped and looked bought something, most did take the time to grab a business card and that exposure alone is enough to help. All in all it was a great first Convention to officially be on the other side of the table at.

I was also informed I am slated to ink their next coming first issue – Outlaws, as the banner displayed on their website shows.

Megacon Preview

I'll more than likely be at the What the Flux booth durring most of Megacon which is located in the Orange Section of Artist's Alley, booths 21-23.

I'll also have a 11x17 pinup poster I inked and colored at the What the Flux booth for Concrete Dove for sale.

Possibly a few t-shirts featuring some the Elephant and the Angel Warrior from my DA pages.

ill have prints of the belly dancer available for sale.

Belly Dancer Commission by ~xaqBazit on deviantART
as well as the iccw anthology in which these two stories are published.

Friend$hip - pg 1 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Friend$hip - pg 2 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

"3:33am" I inked and "Friend$hip" i did all on my own. You can read the first few pages of each on my DA page by clicking either one of the pictures.


3:33am Pg 1 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

3:33am Pg 3 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

And don't forget a whole issue of interior b+w artwork in "Decisions" for Cosmic Times Publishing at their booth. With beautiful cover art by Dan Mann and letters by Robin. Check out the page for more a plot synopsis and credits on their website.


Decisions, issue 1- preview by ~xaqBazit on deviantART
And of course I'll have plenty of original art on hand for all to see in my portfolio.

One heck of a Month

This month alone:
-I have drawn and inked the 9pg story for Cosmic Times, “Saving Father” in “Decisions, Issue 1.”
-I have written/penciled/inked/lettered a 5pg story entitled “Friend$hip” and inked (with my wife’s help filling some spot blacks) a 5pg story entitled “3:33am,” written by Patrick Sessoms for the ICCWW Anthology Showcase.
-I have done 2 pgs of inking samples and a pg of pencil samples for ECV press.
-And lastly I have penciled the first 5pgs for James’ Graphic Novel “27.”

Megacon
The two stories I worked on for the ICCWW Anthology “Showcase,” will be sold at Megacon, as well as my first published whole issue of art, “Decisions Issue 1 (which will be available at the Cosmic Times Booth). I believe Issue 2 of “Concrete Dove” will also be available but it may be saved as a web comic, for What the Flux Media that I did the cover for.
I’ve also started a Con Calendar on my profile if anyone is interested. Right now Megacon is the only one up, but I’ll be adding more soon. I will be jumping between the “What the Flux Media” booth and the “Cosmic Times” booth and will have issues of the ICCWW Anthology for sale as well (which can also be bought through the ICCWW booth).
I will have my portfolio as well as plenty of original art on hand either to see or buy, and will be doing Con Sketches for $15-20, depending on if you want it inked etc.

Experimenting/Influences
All this work forced me to ink everything but “Friend$hip” and the ECV inking samples here in the last week. I wish I could taken more time on but I am extremely proud of the work none the less. I do believe the work I’ve been doing is my best, which is always the goal and have even snuck in a good amount of experimenting.

-For example, Friend$hip is done in a cartoonier style as an homage to Humberto Ramos, an artist who my wife loves and I’ve been watching for some time. We just finished collecting the complete “Crimson” series he did a while back. The story is dedicated to her, and is autobiographical.

-For this second story “Saving Father” in Decisions Issue 1, I was told to try a darker style and so every time the characters get angry the style changes to a grittier rougher inking style. This was highly influenced by the work of the late, great Jorge Zaffino and this page specifically - available on his website. It was also the first time I have used Google “Sketch Up” for my art, a fact which many artist would hide but I wanted to state, because it was my first time and I have been on the fence about using 3D for comics after being shunned away by professors in college. But the truth is I ran into so many professionals at Mini-Mega Con who used it and made it work, and know of so many more, that I figured I better see what everyone was talking about. I found it decently easy to work with (after being a 3D major for a year in college) but still clumsy. I also noticed several details I would have needed to add to the model had I shot it from the other side, and the use of photo reference for textures and details like that must (I believe) go hand-in-hand. I also believe what someone said at the con, that “they might be laying it out digitally, but are Inking it by hand” And I think that goes a long way to making it mesh with your artwork.

-I tried Strathamore’s line of “smooth” comic Bristol board, because of its economy (around .50 cents a sheet) and Higgins Black Magic ink, for its availability (the only brand of waterproof ink that Michael’s carries). I don’t know if it is the combination of both together but I could Not use a quill without it bleeding horribly. In which case Faber Castell’s “M”and “B” size tech and brush pens came in extremely handy. I was able to pull it in a way that feathered the line and imitated the Quill, even with the “M” pen. Using the ink in a brush to fill spot blacks I also found the ink to be incredibly watery and gray.

-Dave Gibbons and seeing the Watchmen Motion Comic has had huge effect on how I draw, the close up zooms of his art really let me study and see what he was doing and so the way I shade walls and even draw some faces closely resembled his style while illustrating Watchmen. The way I illustrated the father character in “Saving Father” closely resembles the way he drew the character Moloch, mixed with a pseudo self-portrait of me while working on the pages. I also got to do some cool things with a toothbrush, reminiscent of John Cassaday’s run on Captain America, after 9/11.

-I tried some reflection techniques similar to the Jurgens/Breeding style run around the time of the Death of Superman. As well as picked up on a few things other superman artists did to quickly depict buildings during those issues. I posted a small picture a few posts back relating to what I’m talking about.

-I experimented with mark-making using the brush to imitate leaves though I still need to work on that more.

-And lastly I’ve found that printing Blue Lined Art at Fed-Ex/Kinkos stinks and is expensive. It printed way too dark and lead me to have to use the “Replace color” tool in photoshop to replace left over Blue (even after tweaking the “levels”) with White - which thinned much of my inking out in the story “3:33am.” Which will also be my first published story just as an inker over another artist.


A short word about the 90's
-It’s been a weird experience growing up and loving what is now considered a dark and nearly was “the final period” in Comic’s history - the collecting bubble of the early 90's. On the popular podcast Comic Book Geek Speak (CBGS), which I have been listing to almost non-stop for the last week, the first question they ask their guests burring interviews is “what was your first comic” or even what was your “gateway” comic, that lead you into wanting to do this as a profession. And the comics I grew up on are now something to shy away from, stylistically and otherwise. So re-learning what “good comics” are, has largely been a very troubled road for my generation I think. And for more reasons than this, but - it may be why it is so hard to break in right now, is because the people that are young grew up learning with the wrong idea of what comics are and should be (in the eyes of the people who would hire you now). We are the ultimate fanboy generation, who bought multiple issues, foil, variant and fold-out poster covers and anything that had an “X” in the title or that resembled either mutants or Jim Lee’s art. Don’t get me wrong, I still like Jim Lee but it was that whole generation of artists and writers who either by choice or were told to imitate him that lead to such a derivative and similar in the name of money - and maybe that generation was even more so a “fanboy generation of creators” than the one’s who grew up reading their work, but never the less - now here we are, the kids who grew up with that being our definition for comics and now we are in a world where that type of thing gives some people shivers. So it is up to us to redefine it for ourselves, but it is also a burden, I guess of every generation of artists to not look outdated and move past your influences, to look more modern and to get work that way - who knows, perhaps that’s all they were doing as well.

Comics and Pop Culture
-I good point was brought up the other day on CBGS, that “comic characters are more popular in movies/games than they are in the comic books, anymore.” And even comic-related shows like “Heroes” are capitalizing on what comics brought to the world and while the companies are seeing the money at some point it is passing through more hands, forcing specialty shops to widen their product base to everything related to comics just to keep people comic in. My point is, it is sad that comic characters are so popular right now and yet they are making the least amount of money through their original medium. How would they have ever gotten where they are with out it? Or are they like movies in the theater or Disney world, they make very little off of your ticket but everything off of the snacks and t-shirts. Has it always been that way? Or does a spike in the actual market cause the 90's collector bubble I previously commented on? I, myself saw/read “one of the most celebrated comics of all time,” Watchmen, for the first time as a “motion-comic.” But at least they were nice enough to add at the end of the credits something like “be sure to enjoy Watchmen in it’s original form” - but did I? No. What does that say about the industry?

One last note:
- I recently acquired a reprint edition of the Star Wars Dark Empire II trade (I’m still trying to get I) which includes Empire’s End and it’s the only time I’ve been compelled to buy a different edition of a book because of the print quality. All the colors are light and washed out, the blacks are every shade of gray and rarely dark enough to keep a consistent tone and all the colors look fuzzy and grainy, similar to what saving a picture as a low quality .jpg will do. I love Cam Kenedy’s work and I love being able to get it in reprints but the quality of this most recent reprint just ruined the experience for me - of what I remember the original Trade having - vibrant saturated colors and stark blacks - amazing clarity and the classic iconic Dave Dorman covers - which they also changed and moved his art to the back cover.

storyboards

finished with my first 13pg story, now im boarding for the second 8 pg story.
the added my boards for the first 6 pages to the sketchbook part on the cosmic times website.
http://www.cosmictimes.net/Decisions/DecisionsBoards.htm
http://www.cosmictimes.net/Decisions/DecisionsBoards01.htm
http://www.cosmictimes.net/Decisions/DecisionsBoards02.htm
http://www.cosmictimes.net/Decisions/DecisionsBoards03.htm

been doing inking samples for "ecv press" and have sent stuff out to "papercutz" and a few others.
doing storyboards for "27" with james, which i co-rewrote and will be a 50 pg graphic novel, shou;d be bloody but meaningful. im sending him the first 5 pgs to ink soon.
also doing an 5 pg story for the indy comic creators worldwide anthology.
all these projects should be done by mid january.
also got my bio up on wtfc? site though i havent been able to do much for them as of yet. http://www.whatthefluxcomics.com/staff.html

Decisions comic - first look

So the website has posted some stuff about me and the book I'm working on for them, including character designs and a brief synopsis. Here's some links.

Synopsis
Skecthbook

News about me (copied and pasted since the page will change and soon be outdated. But right now it can be found here, or you can search the archives.)

Preliminary artwork by Zach Bassett for our forthcoming anthology series "Decisions". has recently been added to the Special Features section of the site and can be found - HERE. - 11.3.9

Zach Bassett is currently working on thumbnails for the first story in "Decisions". We were so impressed with his storytelling ability that we have offered him the second story as well. - 10.30.9

Artist Zach Bassett will be penciling and inking the first story in the "Decisions" anthology coming in 2010 from Cosmic Times. Look preview art coming soon. - 10.10.9

Also “somebody” I know will be lettering my pages for Decisions, and will have a short bio and pic up on the “team page” of the Cosmic Times website soon. As will I.
A similar bio will soon be found on the What The Flux “Staff page.” They also uploaded a small gallery of some of my black and white work (Capricious Alchemy cd cover, 2 Star Trek Defiant covers and the promo image for my Terra Novus serial radio drama.)
I’ve also been credited on all the promo material for “Outlaws” on the WTFM page as the inker.


The good news first and now for the “horrible, terrible, no good, [almost completely] very bad day” I got so busy inking that I neglected to clean my cats’ litter box, resulting in them using my comic box as a new litter box. When I discovered this I stopped immediatly to clean them, leaving my inking supplies out. The night got away from me and the next morning I woke up to a zebra striped room as my dog had managed to bite apart one of my brush pens and drag it across the apartment, leaving india ink everywhere. I found scraps of a plastic bag for my bottle of india ink, which I eventually found bitten up but not open under the bed, where he wasn’t able to complete his plan of total apartments destruction So the long and short of it is, its hard enough to keep my pets out of my professional things - let alone when I have kids. Like a page Ryan Ottely from Invincible posted on his DA page that took him 2 hrs. to ink and 6 in photoshop removing all the crayon from it, that his son thought he was just coloring it like a coloring book, when Ryan forgot to lock his office.