Sudden Chaos!

As I said in one of my previous comments, I plan on selling a special edition of my book "Belle du Jour" that is going to include a bookplate with original art on it. I haven't figured out how many I'm going to make yet, though I'd like at least 100.
So I decided to "assembly line" them, do 10 at a time and use the same paint for each of that 10. This way I can get them done more quickly.
So to test this idea out I'm using my friends as guinea pigs (no offense). Instead of drawing in their books I'm doing the book plate thing for 'em.
Here's a few from the first batch.

Beware the Belle du Jour!

I HAVE BOOKS!!
Okay, so I've been holding out on you guys. I was planning to build the suspense a little, but heck, the books arrived today a week ahead of schedule and I couldn't resist.


I think I've been working on this book for the better part of 2 years, so you can imagine the kind of thrill it is for me to see them fully realized. It's quite addictive in fact, makes me want to make all sorts of books.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, it's a book of cheesecake/pin-up art type drawings and paintings. A "best of" compilation spanning 10 years to be exact. I'll be at the San Diego Comicon this year doing my best to sell them.

In Deadly Peril. Part 2

Here's a sort of progression. The one on the left side is the underpainting, which essentially establishes the values in acrylic washes. Acrylic doesn't reactivate with water so it's safe to apply a transparent medium like concentrated watercolor (or colored ink) on top, these are used to apply the more superficial colors as you can see with the final on the right.

I paint the study simultaneously, using it as a testing ground for the colors.

Booby Trap!

Check out this awesome Greta pin-up over on Lauren Monardo's blog.

Heartwarming isn't it?

In Deadly Peril.

I did this piece for my friends' wedding gift. She's the Hindu Goddess of art, music and knowledge. Painted with acrylic and concentrated watercolor.

Orders For Eagles.

I was in LA this weekend for a friends wedding. While I was there I went to Disneyland mostly because I wanted to see this exhibition of Disney Golden Book art. Fantastic! Very inspiring! It's amazing to see such art up close, you can really see the technique. I highly recommend going, It's small but great. It's a little bit hidden in a small room off to the side of the gallery above the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

Fight Rex Fight! Part 4

Roughs!

Satan's Calling Card.

My good friend and associate Ronnie Del Carmen posted a cropped version of this page of Greta studies on his blog. Afterwhich I've been requested to show the whole shebang. It's actually a page from my old portfolio, although most of these drawings were printed in the Rex Steele compilation book.

Fight Rex Fight! Part 3

Once I showed those thumbs to my creative partner Matt, he had some constructive criticism. Too much glowering and posturing. It interrupted the flow and energy. He was totally right, you can't have a knock down drag out knuckle brawl with people lookin' at each other 'tween every punch. So I went back to the drawing board and busted these out:



Great, it's shorter and more to the point. I was in a much better head space now. Did these:



Almost there, did a refining pass and got the balance and composition more tied down.



And after that, onto the roughs!

Nazi's Attack!

I realized that all these thumbnail panels can be a little redundant. So I decided to post something a bit more crowd pleasing before I continue onto part three.



For those who don't know, this is Greta Shultz: Girl Nazi, Rex Steele's arch villainess. She is acting slightly out of character.

Fight Rex Fight! Part 2

So I had way too many panels for what I needed. The next step was to pare it down and tell the story more economically, and after a couple more passes these were the result:



Now that I've got a panel count I more or less liked, I decided to take it too the next phase. Page layouts. So here the goal is to take the panels I have, and arrange them into a balanced, pleasing comic book page. Sometimes changing the composition of a particular panel to something that works better for it's new panel shape.



The layouts on the right there were meant to be the finals, unfortunately it was not meant to be.

Fight Rex Fight! Part 1

I thought I'd go a little more in depth with my comic book process, as there are a few stages before I even get to the final thumbnails. I can't say I'd recommend doing it this way because it's really a lot of extra work, but it's what I'm comfortable with.
For the example I'm using a 5 page Rex Steele comic that was done for "Digital Webbing Presents" #29
The very first step in the process was discussing the story with my partner Matt Peters. Once we figured out what we wanted, I drew a series of thumbnail storyboards of the entire story (as you see below). I'm a storyboard artist by profession so this is really the most natural first step for me. This also allows me to get a panel count, and therefore a page count. Our goal in this case was to make a 5 page comic, and as you can see I had way too many panels to do that.
The next step is to edit, and try again.