Today was editor's day - yay! I got to talk to Joan Hilty from Vertigo and Nate Cosby from Marvel. Both went incredibly well and complimented me on my storytelling, camera angles and style. The only criticisms were: 1) that i need to pick a style and stick with it - as far as rendering and cartooniness. And 2) keep better consistency with anatomy and faces.
These are both things that I am struggling with and as they said and i knew, will come with time. I just need to draw more pages and I will settle in. My major influences range from guys like the cartoony and angular Bruce Timm and soft edged Chris Bachello - to in the middle of the road guys like JRJR and Tim Sale and Jim Cheung - to realistic/semi-realistic guys like Essad Ribbic, John Cassaday, Lee Weeks and Oliver Copiel. So they're all kind of fighting for and finding a place in my style which will make it quite a diverse style.
Also the angles I'm choosing are not the kind you can fake but they told me I was pulling them off rather confidently. But drawing the face at those extreme angles is really unforgiving especially on women's faces and it has and will continue to be a challenge.
My inks were not up to par before this class - so that may stay as a side job, there have been plenty of guys who pencil a book and ink someone else's book in the same month. But I plan to keep working diligently after school and not stop drawing! despite all the chaos that will ensue immediately after like moving, getting married and probably moving another 2 times in the next year or two. The good news is I'm working enough to pay rent and get my pages done so once school is out I will have loans to pay back but I hope to find a job fairly quickly.
A friend of mine passed my contact info along to a skateboard company in Florida that pays very well and we might be working on a series of boards for them. that would give me enough money to keep working the hours I am now and put the time i was in school into my pages, to secure a comics job.
I made sure to drop off a leave-behind in almost all the editors boxes and try to make them specific to the publishers. Dark Horse is coming next week, though Ill be out of town and Oni will be here the week after, so I'm excited about that as I hear the hire many young budding artists and accept a very wide range of styles.
Various projects like the Radio Drama, Terra Novus, Phil's prequel comic, Vicky's Unnaturals and various idea's I've had will be used to flesh out the next year's worth of material if I don't get picked up by anyone.
I think some of the issues in the pages were purely due to the amount of time I had to put into the page, so being out of school should give me the time to really nail every detail. The reviews relit the flame of inspiration for me that was quickly getting burned out by stress and semester after semester. I'm sure not having teachers to set my deadlines will come with its own problems but the advantages seem enough to get me headed in the right direction.
Showing posts with label marvel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marvel. Show all posts
Friday, May 8, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Oportunity knocking on my door - and I'm ready
ive been looking for some odd jobs etc to help out with money and found a few, some without even looking, and I thought I might tell you all the exciting news.
One guy is opening a straight-edge tattoo shop and wants me to do a mural on one of the walls- he will pay for supplies, food let me hang my art for sale and give me 50% tattoos (which i will take him up on for sure).
Also Tom Lyle, my super-hero mentor, at scad got asked to suggest an artist for Faber Castell (the main supplier of inking supplies like the "pit-pens" that I normally use and the tech-pens most sequential artists use) who was looking at someone to do an original comic page for them for a new "super-hero drawing kit" they are releasing later this year. Lyle suggested me, saying I was one of "the most dynamic main-stream super-hero artist that he's got" as far as camera angles etc. So I have the break (2 1/2 weeks to do a single page comic with an original super-hero that I have to pencil, ink and color it with their stuff and document it at every stage as an instructional guide. They may use the image in other things as well and I will be additionally compensated each time. Did I mention it paid and I also get a $100 faber castell gift certificate. Wow, I'm honored and blown away! My art is going to be seen by up and coming youngsters getting into comics and people in hobby/art stores around the country <--- awesome!
Also, I did some pages for Tom's class that are my best yet and I believe professional quality, AT LAST! So I will be sending out submission packets to Marvel and DC over break so they have my name in mind, for when they come in may for Editor's Day. Here are my breakdowns etc. for those pages. another thing, I actually did the same pages tom did for his submission packet about a year ago (sensational spider-man 34), so with his permission I'll post/link his pages with mine so you all can compare. But overall I think I've finally done some pages that really show my best that I have to offer in every way and I was super ambitious with some of the camera choices and spent about (20-30hrs) = 3 times as much time on them as I have for the last 2 projects. But this quarter, in general, I've spent more time on my pages progressively so I think this has been a long time coming/in the making.
so this is the sketch i gave myself, full page, to layout the splash and then did the following page, the actual tight rough, on the back.
this is pages 3+4
pgs 1+2
this was a in-class assignment, we used lyle's cars to draw the hulk holding one, as dynamic as we could. I did a thumb and liked it so much i took it down to the projector and blew it up and got the one on the left. I liked it.
this was some other sketches i did for panels 1+2 on pg.1 and panel 5 on page 3 when i thought about shooting it over the railing of the second story. and a sketch of myself while working on the pages and taking a break, i know i look tired but i was just cold.
You can see the final pages at my DA page here.
Sen. Spider-man Sample Pages by ~xaqBazit on deviantART
One guy is opening a straight-edge tattoo shop and wants me to do a mural on one of the walls- he will pay for supplies, food let me hang my art for sale and give me 50% tattoos (which i will take him up on for sure).
Also Tom Lyle, my super-hero mentor, at scad got asked to suggest an artist for Faber Castell (the main supplier of inking supplies like the "pit-pens" that I normally use and the tech-pens most sequential artists use) who was looking at someone to do an original comic page for them for a new "super-hero drawing kit" they are releasing later this year. Lyle suggested me, saying I was one of "the most dynamic main-stream super-hero artist that he's got" as far as camera angles etc. So I have the break (2 1/2 weeks to do a single page comic with an original super-hero that I have to pencil, ink and color it with their stuff and document it at every stage as an instructional guide. They may use the image in other things as well and I will be additionally compensated each time. Did I mention it paid and I also get a $100 faber castell gift certificate. Wow, I'm honored and blown away! My art is going to be seen by up and coming youngsters getting into comics and people in hobby/art stores around the country <--- awesome!
Also, I did some pages for Tom's class that are my best yet and I believe professional quality, AT LAST! So I will be sending out submission packets to Marvel and DC over break so they have my name in mind, for when they come in may for Editor's Day. Here are my breakdowns etc. for those pages. another thing, I actually did the same pages tom did for his submission packet about a year ago (sensational spider-man 34), so with his permission I'll post/link his pages with mine so you all can compare. But overall I think I've finally done some pages that really show my best that I have to offer in every way and I was super ambitious with some of the camera choices and spent about (20-30hrs) = 3 times as much time on them as I have for the last 2 projects. But this quarter, in general, I've spent more time on my pages progressively so I think this has been a long time coming/in the making.
so this is the sketch i gave myself, full page, to layout the splash and then did the following page, the actual tight rough, on the back.
this is pages 3+4
pgs 1+2
this was a in-class assignment, we used lyle's cars to draw the hulk holding one, as dynamic as we could. I did a thumb and liked it so much i took it down to the projector and blew it up and got the one on the left. I liked it.
this was some other sketches i did for panels 1+2 on pg.1 and panel 5 on page 3 when i thought about shooting it over the railing of the second story. and a sketch of myself while working on the pages and taking a break, i know i look tired but i was just cold.
You can see the final pages at my DA page here.
Sen. Spider-man Sample Pages by ~xaqBazit on deviantART
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Prof's advice
Its critique time and I've been hearing a lot about my work recently and I figured I'd post some of it.
Writing for the screen and stage
I wrote a period piece for Robin and was one of three people to have it on time (two weeks ago) but he stopped the reading after the first few pages and told me he would read it himself, and that it “just wasn’t working” so I waited over the weekend to see what he thought, once he read it all. But I got it back, with no specific comments and it had, not a grade but an R –for “revise.” I asked him about it and for some direction after class but he said he didn’t know what I could do to fix it, I mentioned the possibility of writing an entirely new script, and I did, in two-days. And he liked it better, however it was a more stereo-typical work, for my writing, thematically, and the dialog and subject material for the previous work, the period piece, was a vast jump and very ballsey, I thought. But it didn’t seem to matter.
Senior Project
Though he says differently, the outlook of Maelstrom actually being a completed book or even issue is about as solid as my partner's word. I've done two issue's worth of pencils (25pgs total), 3 issues of breakdowns, 8 (soon to be 16) pages of inks and two issue's worth of scripts, not to mention outlining issue-by-issue the plot of the whole mini-series. And on his part, he doesn't like the pages he did and plans to redo them, period. So I'm looking at them as a learning experience, artistically and professionally. This whole roommate situation, which he was a part of, and this whole last few months has really shown me how flaky people can be. Even Bryan has mentioned that "maybe once this thing is all over, you may say hay I don’t need that James guy” and I have kept my story fairly self contained, except for the ending. So you could read it as a hospital-drama but the whole intrigue for me was adding story to balance James’ craziness so that readers could have both and then constantly being able to cross-cut between the two, so you could build tension/anticipation quickly just as any good story does (prominent examples where they’ve come out and said they use this are the original Star-Wars trilogy and the TV-Show Lost). I did enjoy writing my story however and could actually see myself writing soaps or something but I love writing episodically because that’s enough of a structure and it’s fun to play to its strengths.
Artistically, though, Bryan has mentioned that my style, that realism that I have is “very unforgiving” and where some artists, because of their style, could draw a blob with some hot dogs hanging off in any direction and we would be non the wiser, when you try to draw a realistic hand (and it seems to be hands specifically that he has a problem with), people know what their hands do and do not look like so they spot it in a second, just like backgrounds. So I need to find out how to address this, if its going more stylized or just working on drawing more and drawing from life more considering except for backgrounds (and even then rarely) I don’t really use reference, especially for poses. Though I will use more for these next spider-man pages in…(seg-way)
Superhero
I've been trying to figure out how to and actually drawing "hot comic book girls" all quarter, as they had been "man-ish" before, and these last pages for spider-man will be drawing the black cat, and the same pages Tom did for submissions with Hanna to Marvel (by the way I found an ergonomic chair, just like Hanna, or other professional comic book artists who sit at the drawing board for as long as he does a day, to help my back) so we'll see how they compare. "Shame-less" is the word Lyle used to describe them, but conceited to making similar decisions when doing his pages. I'm really excited about them and really only have the splash page totally the way I want it, so I'm taking tomorrow to map-out and start on the pencils, that I'll finish Tuesday before class (when they are due).
He also mentioned sending packets out and emphasizes that I needed to meet with Axel and Bob, from Marvel and DC, respectively, at Editor's day. He said there is "something old and something new" about my style, but regardless there is an "undeniable energy" about my work, so he thinks someone will snatch me up fairly soon. So I'm really going to try and polish these Spider-man pages so I can send them out and be proud of them.
He mentioned previous students who had opportunities with these guys and blew it by not keeping true to their word and being relentless with their pursuit of the goals; Going to New York if they ask to see you and sending packets every month. He also mentioned something about there being hostels for people in my situation that aren't too expensive and that was news to me since the absolute cheapest place we found last time was $80 a night, which wouldn't be too bad for a night or two but who knows how long I may have to be there before getting something. So he's going to push me to get there, because he thinks I can do it and soon. I've given myself 5 years to break in and make a decent living at comics, to the point I don't have to have a side-job. That is an extremely tight deadline considering most artists don't get their big break for 10-15 years. I'll be there to see that as long as I can make due in the meantime, meaning, taking on whatever work comes along and looking for it, endlessly.
Writing for the screen and stage
I wrote a period piece for Robin and was one of three people to have it on time (two weeks ago) but he stopped the reading after the first few pages and told me he would read it himself, and that it “just wasn’t working” so I waited over the weekend to see what he thought, once he read it all. But I got it back, with no specific comments and it had, not a grade but an R –for “revise.” I asked him about it and for some direction after class but he said he didn’t know what I could do to fix it, I mentioned the possibility of writing an entirely new script, and I did, in two-days. And he liked it better, however it was a more stereo-typical work, for my writing, thematically, and the dialog and subject material for the previous work, the period piece, was a vast jump and very ballsey, I thought. But it didn’t seem to matter.
Senior Project
Though he says differently, the outlook of Maelstrom actually being a completed book or even issue is about as solid as my partner's word. I've done two issue's worth of pencils (25pgs total), 3 issues of breakdowns, 8 (soon to be 16) pages of inks and two issue's worth of scripts, not to mention outlining issue-by-issue the plot of the whole mini-series. And on his part, he doesn't like the pages he did and plans to redo them, period. So I'm looking at them as a learning experience, artistically and professionally. This whole roommate situation, which he was a part of, and this whole last few months has really shown me how flaky people can be. Even Bryan has mentioned that "maybe once this thing is all over, you may say hay I don’t need that James guy” and I have kept my story fairly self contained, except for the ending. So you could read it as a hospital-drama but the whole intrigue for me was adding story to balance James’ craziness so that readers could have both and then constantly being able to cross-cut between the two, so you could build tension/anticipation quickly just as any good story does (prominent examples where they’ve come out and said they use this are the original Star-Wars trilogy and the TV-Show Lost). I did enjoy writing my story however and could actually see myself writing soaps or something but I love writing episodically because that’s enough of a structure and it’s fun to play to its strengths.
Artistically, though, Bryan has mentioned that my style, that realism that I have is “very unforgiving” and where some artists, because of their style, could draw a blob with some hot dogs hanging off in any direction and we would be non the wiser, when you try to draw a realistic hand (and it seems to be hands specifically that he has a problem with), people know what their hands do and do not look like so they spot it in a second, just like backgrounds. So I need to find out how to address this, if its going more stylized or just working on drawing more and drawing from life more considering except for backgrounds (and even then rarely) I don’t really use reference, especially for poses. Though I will use more for these next spider-man pages in…(seg-way)
Superhero
I've been trying to figure out how to and actually drawing "hot comic book girls" all quarter, as they had been "man-ish" before, and these last pages for spider-man will be drawing the black cat, and the same pages Tom did for submissions with Hanna to Marvel (by the way I found an ergonomic chair, just like Hanna, or other professional comic book artists who sit at the drawing board for as long as he does a day, to help my back) so we'll see how they compare. "Shame-less" is the word Lyle used to describe them, but conceited to making similar decisions when doing his pages. I'm really excited about them and really only have the splash page totally the way I want it, so I'm taking tomorrow to map-out and start on the pencils, that I'll finish Tuesday before class (when they are due).
He also mentioned sending packets out and emphasizes that I needed to meet with Axel and Bob, from Marvel and DC, respectively, at Editor's day. He said there is "something old and something new" about my style, but regardless there is an "undeniable energy" about my work, so he thinks someone will snatch me up fairly soon. So I'm really going to try and polish these Spider-man pages so I can send them out and be proud of them.
He mentioned previous students who had opportunities with these guys and blew it by not keeping true to their word and being relentless with their pursuit of the goals; Going to New York if they ask to see you and sending packets every month. He also mentioned something about there being hostels for people in my situation that aren't too expensive and that was news to me since the absolute cheapest place we found last time was $80 a night, which wouldn't be too bad for a night or two but who knows how long I may have to be there before getting something. So he's going to push me to get there, because he thinks I can do it and soon. I've given myself 5 years to break in and make a decent living at comics, to the point I don't have to have a side-job. That is an extremely tight deadline considering most artists don't get their big break for 10-15 years. I'll be there to see that as long as I can make due in the meantime, meaning, taking on whatever work comes along and looking for it, endlessly.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
x-men tight roughs and random inks
hers some inks over lee weeks and angel medina. also the tight roughs for the x0-men pages im doing, missing a giant splash of the sentinel crashing but im working on it.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
x-men deadly genesis thumbs
ill be penciling 7-10 but lyle called these "dynamite," fun and clear to read. great action, clear layouts and awesome energy. he says with a little more work on my anatomy, rendering, figures and that ill get mainstream work no problem. i would really love to do either breakdowns or finishes with someone else, finished pencils is so tedious and inking is so much fun id love to make a team with someone else.
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