| A postcard |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|11:05 pm] |
A while ago I received a postcard from Indonesia. At first, I didn't realise who sent it because the handwriting was somewhat artistic and as far as I understood, it was written in Swedish. Finally, I remembered a Swedish photographer. I met him somewhere in the middle of Siberia in a train while I was travelling to China. He was going to Australia by train (and by boat I think). Obviously, his adventure still continues...
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| King Con |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|12:17 pm] |
I posted some photos from this weekend's King Con in Brooklyn.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveandraina/sets/72157622768312930/
This was NYC's newest indie comic show, and for a first-year con, it seemed like a success! It was held at the Brooklyn Lyceum, which is sort of like a rundown cathedral that sells muffins and puts on zine fests. The unisex bathrooms added to the punk rock vibe (but could become an issue if this show grows).
Raina and I were only there on Sunday, but everyone seemed in good spirits and excited about the future. People told me turnout had been a better on Saturday but that sales still seemed to be good overall.
It’s cool that friends like Allan Norico and Alisa Harris benefited from the smaller room and got to be among the stand-out cartoonist! We picked up both of their new books which are fantastic!
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| The Monastery of New Valamo |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|09:59 pm] |
I spent the weekend in the eastern Finland with my niece and her father. My niece started studying in the University of Joensuu this autumn. On Saturday, we decided to visit the Monastery of New Valamo. On Friday when we arrived to Joensuu, the ground was snowless but when we woke up (quite late) on Saturday, we had snow on the ground. Not much but anyway. The monastery's graveyard pictures posted on here.
( the snowy Monastery area... )
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| Who'who ? |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|04:00 pm] |
Fr > Voici une petite illustration refusée, originairement destinée à un calendrier (pour le mois d'halloween). Saurez-vous deviner en quels personnages nos jeunes héros sont déguisés ? (c'est un thème SF, pas dur.) Eng > Here's a refused illustration for a calendar (for halloween), can you guess what characters our youg friends are costumed in ? (It's a SciFi theme, easy.) 
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| King Con Sunday |
[Nov. 7th, 2009|11:09 pm] |
I'll be at the King Con in Brooklyn tomorrow speaking on a panel with Raina, Sara Varon and Matt Loux.
It starts at 11AM which is when I'm usually still asleep. So this should be interesting!
http://kingconbrooklyn.com/
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| Colour's hard, you guys. |
[Nov. 6th, 2009|02:43 pm] |
Trying to figure out a colour scheme that would work on a longer project and wouldn't be so time consuming as the current default. Here's a page from The Treasure of Constantinople, re-dunned. Too much work, but my other attempts sucked. I never drew it with any solid blacks or any colour plan, and it's obvious that the dudes who are good at this stuff think about that first.
 
Here's another one, where I did all the values first and then tried to do colour washes overtop, similar to the David Roberts stuff I've been looking at this week. Dunno what I'm doing wrong, though - it looks muddy.
I'd like to be able to do something simple that wouldn't be too time consuming, but I think since I didn't originally plan for solid blacks, my dumb ass will have to do it the hard way.
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| Follow Friday: Livejournal Stylez |
[Nov. 6th, 2009|02:26 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Iko Iko - The Belle Stars | ] |
You and me, we all like livejournal. Lately it feels like it's running a little dry, I'm guessing it's because of twitter (@wolfhard)? Here are some of my favorite livejournals that are still posting like crazy*. (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) beatonna also makes lists like these. She would be listed bellow because she is the best at comics but I think everyone reading this already knows and follows her. If you don't then you are nutz.)
nedroidcomics Everyone probably already knows how funny and smart these comics are, but if you don't they are the total funniest. Anthony produces a rich feed.
davario Dave has the best line work and the most appealing drawings! Also he's doing a Brovember, drawing fellas all month long. Get on board!
royalboiler Brandon Graham posts a PILE of amazing things all of the time. His own work is amazing, his girlfriend's work is amazing, his friends' work is amazing. He produces a rich trove of content all of the time. What a great journal.
r_dart Rebecca Dart is possibly the most talented person I've ever met, she is out of control. You may have seen this comic featured recently on Drawn.ca, holy cow so good). I had the good fortune to work with her on a kids' cartoon last year, she is the definition of tops.
bougieman Robin Bougie is married to Rebecca Dart and his livejournal is NOT WORK SAFE, (but is wonderful). This journal is a wild collection of the filthiest drawings and kitten youtubes. You should be following this guy.
bottomlesspop Brian does the rad fantasy comic JobGoblin (linked by me many times in the past), but lately he has been doing these cool sprawling doodle pages. Really neat stuff!
jasonturner Jason Turner is like a god-damned poet!
teamdynamite I don't know who this guy is but this stuff knocks my socks off.
bugs_is_icky I have a big big crush on Britt's paintings. She's an amazing artist who does amazing (often filthy) work. She also has an amazing dad. Follow her now so when she gets big you can act smug!
There are so many people missing on this list! I'll do another one of these in the future.
*I'm going to post a new comic next week unless things go haywire. |
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| More specific follow up question |
[Nov. 6th, 2009|03:52 pm] |
RE: My last post.
Anyone know how we can contact the band The Killers without going through their record label? |
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| The Mole Thing |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|03:33 pm] |
Is it a Chud? A mole? Who knows....he wants to scratch your back, though...
Crossposted on the MONSTERMANUAL |
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| November - Pretty Colors are Hanging in There. |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|03:17 pm] |
Well, a sudden influx of work has turned the tables on my plans to do a daily journal comic for November. I'd rather get the next Rabid Rabbit story done well, as my extra-curricular activity, so that will be my focus at the end of the day when the 9-5 arting is done. Which usually ends up being more like 10-10. :)
Here's some color to add to the previous rough. |
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| Cat Update |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|02:18 pm] |
That cat has CRAZYFACE!
Here's the cat vs. Mario
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| King Con! |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|12:10 pm] |
This Sunday, November 8, I'll be appearing on a panel at King Con, at the Lyceum in Brooklyn! Here is the info:
KIDS' COMICS: SUNDAY 11AM-11:50AM
Remember that old cliche, "comics aren’t just for kids anymore?" In the era of grownup graphic novels and gritty anti-heroes, are comics for kids at all anymore? Join a new generation of cartoonists creating work with a youth-centric focus as they discuss the past, present, and future of comics for kids. Moderated by Brian Heater, the panel will feature Matt Loux, Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman, Sara Varon, and more!
I'm not sure exactly where in the building the panel will be located, but it should be clear when you arrive. I won't have a table, but I might have a few galleys of SMILE in my backpack. If you're a librarian, educator, or journalist, come see me after the panel and I'll hook you up! |
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| Oh, Hi LiveJournal! |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|10:28 am] |
Nice to see you all, it's been a while. What have I been up to?
I just found out I'm a finalist in a game design contest I entered back in June. The contest was to create a video game that would promote a healthy lifestyle. I apparently made it through two semi-finalist rounds but had totally forgotten about the contest until I went through old e-mails and found my entry. I'd never heard anything back, so I went to the website and there I am. Winners should be announced this month.
http://www.humanagames.com/#/insert_coin/
A new video demonstrating Puzzle Bots has been released. It's sort of an adventure game/casual game that I'm doing background art and other visual assets for. You can watch that here:
The main project I'd been working on for my day job for what feels like a very long time has finished. It was a zombie-themed narrative created for Sony's virtual world PlayStation Home. You can pretty much see everything we created here: http://undeadyourself.com/ I wrote most of the blog posts, came up with a bunch of the fake zombie ads, designed the "zombie hunt" game, and co-wrote and storyboarded the promo video below:
Speaking of video games and zombies, I released a new version of my zombie game, Nearly Departed. The game is still not finished, but mostly just because the engine used to create it has a few bugs that make the game go a little screwy here and there. An updated version of the engine that fixes these problems has just become available, but the drawback is it doesn't really have a import function, so I'll have to rebuild most of my game in it. That said, this release of the game is about 70% complete, so you can play a good 50% more of the entire game than just in the original demo. This version also can be played in a browser or via Flash Player, which can be acquired for free if you don't already have it installed. Here's a link to download the game:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/lzot1gnqm4z/ND_demo.zip
I've also been converting some Disney Channel cartoons into comic books for Disney, not sure when those will be published, and some graphic novels Marion and I helped First Second out with should hit bookshelves in the not too distant future.
And now back to work... |
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| David Roberts' "Picturesque Sketches in Spain" |
[Nov. 3rd, 2009|05:26 pm] |
Hey, I'm back. I went to the library yesterday and took a bunch of photos from David Roberts' Picturesque Sketches in Spain. Unlike Beauties of the Bosphorus, there's no substantial text to go with this one - it's just twenty-six drawings. Twenty-six enormous drawings. See this photo for a size comparison. It sure made them a lot easier to photograph, though these photos still barely do justice to the images, which for some reason I'm sure you could never photograph sufficiently - they lose so much fidelity. It's so easy to get a sense of the hand and the feel of the drawing with the actual prints, and those feelings don't come across in the photos. So if you have a library near you, check to see if they have a copy, and take a look in-person.
These prints were made using lithographic techniques. If it's anything like the lithography courses I took back in college, it involves drawing with a greasy pencil on a stone slab. The ink then sticks to the greasy bits. It looks like there's a "medium ground" beige layer that's put down, which is subtracted from to create the white "highlights" by revealing the paper beneath. The black drawing is then laid overtop. There are a few "texture" photos near the end of the album where I've done my best to reveal the texture of the paper and the printing.
I love, love, love Roberts' drawing style. Something about his draughtsmanship is really lovely - it's kind of impressionistic, maybe? but still really descriptive. If I understand the process correctly, the prints in the book were actually drawn on the litho stone by an artist other than Roberts. (These artists are listed in the contents page.) There is one image that is actually drawn to stone by Roberts himself (this one), and it's one of my two favorites (this is the other). There's a looseness in his rendering that is missing from the other drawings. In some, the figures seem "poured" into their shapes. Here, the figures seem much more confidently portrayed.
There's a heavy emphasis on churchy architecture through the book, which is not really my bag, but you can't argue the dedication he's taken to representing the details.
Another interesting point is his seemingly arbitrary use of value. In this image, we see the two crumbled remains of the bridge on the left in shadow, as well as the building in the background, on the right - it has a shadow slanting across it, too. The values are very helpful for making a more dynamic composition, though I'm not sure what could be casting the shadows. Very selective clouds, perhaps. It's interesting to see that, while the scenery's already pretty picturesque, the artist always carries the weight of the responsibility for these scenes being that way.
Enjoy! and if you have any questions, leave 'em in the comments.
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| quick question |
[Nov. 3rd, 2009|08:15 pm] |
Anyone know how to legally acquire the rights to a song to use in a youtube video?
I noticed thats some videos have little adds for itunes or Amazon. But I can't figure out how to set that up. |
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lots on the mind
