Step 1: Gray Tones and Layering

Step 2: Color Overlay

Step 3: Painting and Tone Sculpting

…          …          …

The Crown of Flies

Either way, I hate you.

The big misconception very early on, and I’m guilty of this myself, is that the finished art is supposed to be painfully faithful to the reference material — which, of course, isn’t the case; otherwise you’d be better off simply photoshopping the images into the panels or going full-on fumetti.  No, the ideal way of using the reference material is to stare at it, absorb it, digest, and then put on paper what you, as an artist, believe to be the key components of what you saw.  Sure, that sounds easy enough, but what you learn very quickly is that what you leave out is just as important is what you put into the drawing.  There is such a thing as over-rendered.  Temper it.

To draw from Asterios Polyp, as something is recalled, the brain has a chance to refine it.  In that sense, every memory is a re-creation, not a playback.

Why all this talk about the use of reference and such?  On my desk is a stack of authentic crime scene photos from the Autumn of Terror.  Wolfgang and the 1888 team just recently ran a successful funding campaign over at Kickstarter and everyone’s stepping into place to get the cogs running on the book.  The bastards have done it!

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Went to the mall the other week to get sleeping masks for me and Jad coz we’re going to bed at sunrise more often these days.  It’s frustrating how them clerks don’t know if they sell them along with the bed linens or in the cosmetics section.  Turns out it was in neither and I found them in the toiletries.  Go figure.

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PLUCK chugs along once a week at Zuda.  Lately got to draw a splash page showcasing Trugg One-Eye, as well as a sequence featuring many a half-naked lady.  Gabe White is a good man.  Home stretch for JUDAH pitch as Ian Areola joins the team as colorist.  After he colored the JENNY STRANGE pitch, I simply had to work with him again.  That project, however, is on hold as we wait for Zuda to officially post their new submissions policy, given that they ended their competition format a month or so back.  Got other pitches waiting to be worked on, so the Fort Bastard docket for 2010 is pretty much closed as far as new projects go.  You know who you are, and you are Saints of Patience.

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Wedding preparations are officially underway.  It’s fun and exciting and scary and stressful, but if you can’t mentally see me dancing through this journal entry, you don’t have a soul.  Yeah.  Jocular Johnny finally got one to stick around.  Learned from what came before.  Absorbed it.  Digested.  Built something better. Built something stronger.

Like I said… Reference.  It’s good for you.

Back to work.

Also, I didn’t think it was appropriate to put a S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem on her arm, so I made up a Star-Avengers A hybrid.  Hope nobody minds.

Though I like this suit a lot more than the Granov/ Extremis armor, the chest detail is a real bitch to get the hang of.  I do dig that the overall design is a lot sleeker though.  Here’s hoping I didn’t fuck it up too badly.

Surprisingly fun to draw, this sketch of Clint Barton didn’t feel right until I got around to giving him a slight smirk.  His mask is probably also a lot shorter than usual, but hey… that’s how I draw him.  I never got to know Hawkeye pre-Disassembled, but I have a feeling he’s gonna be my favorite Avenger in the Heroic Age.

Almost screwed this up when I made his ears visible in the prelim sketch, but the way Coipel draws that new helmet is nothing less than tricky.

Two weeks to go before the pledge period ends, so if you’d like to see this scene played out, I highly recommend heading over to Kickstarter and backing the project.