Mary Marvel?

Yep -- first Mary Marvel drawing...ever. Kinda fun -- also had a few other commissions this week (actually a couple weeks ago but I'm way behind). X-Men #1 re-imagining and my favorite one this week was just a "detective guy in an office". Sometimes the more vague the better. I spent a lot of time thinking about that one and came up with this. Kind of my homage to Edward Hopper really. While I was working on this one it gave me a really neat idea for this art show that's coming up here in St. Louis next month. Stay tuned to see what it is (and if I can get it to work right) -- it involves light boxes and multi-layred drawings!

Girl with Guns

One of the most challenging but fun things that I started doing this year was convention sketches. Commissions via e-mail are pretty easy. I'm at home and I can take my time and work the sketch out and relax. At a convention you're usually on the spot, someone is either waiting for you to finish it or actually standing over you and watching you draw. I don't mind it though -- I like to imagine I'm performing or something like a musician making the stuff up on the spot and improvising. Sometimes it works out great, other times you wish you could get the drawing back. Well, when that happens usually I scrap it and start over and nobody sees it (unlike a live musician). Anyway, I did this convention sketch in Chicago over the summer and forgot to snap a photo -- but luckily the person I did it for, posted it on-line and I found it. The request was for a "girl with guns".

Mystery Commission

Another commission this week for an anniversary of a mystery couple who I'll keep anonymous. While I was working on this my daughter (4 years old) was (unbeknownst to me) copying my drawing as I painted it. When she was done she showed it to me. I asked her where the guy was and she said she left him out because she doesn't like boys. But if you look close you can see that she has the woman, the window in the background and some of the letters from the neon sign. In a few more years maybe she'll be able to ink my backgrounds....

SPX Fun Time

Late on my post this week. I had a 13 hour drive home on Monday complicated by a flat tire so it took me a little longer to get back. But it was worth it over all. Sold out of all the copies of Super Spy at the show and sold some original art and other little things. It was the first time I have been to SPX and it really was one of the better conventions of the year. Nice "intimate" (small) space with tons of hand-made and silkscreened comics. Really fun to see it all. I also took the train up to D.C. and visited the Spy Museum. All photography was prohibited which seemed like more of a challenge then a rule, it being the Spy Museum and all, so I snuck a few super-secret photos -- one of James Bond's Aston Martin (that actually worked -- the guns popped out and shot, etc.) and a real Enigma Machine (also pictured). Also finished another commission this week -- a re-working of Amazing Fantasy #15 with the first appearance of Spider-Man.

Fantasic Four!

It's been a little crazy around here since I started doing commissions. It's good though, to keep my brush warmed up while I'm writing on my new projects. This came in last week -- a request to re-draw Fantastic Four #1. It was fun to do -- especially the Human Torch who I've never drawn before. Heck, I don't think I've drawn any of the FF before this week. But I liked the idea of the Human Torch maybe leaving a smoke trail instead of just flames...that's my deep thought for the week.

Heroes Part 2 (Bonus Post)

One more Heroes commission finished this week. This is the last of them (I think)! I used some new materials this time -- some super-bright Dr. Martins India Ink that was really fun. The india inks are waterproof too, so I'll be experimenting more with that and mixing it with watercolor, etc. It was really interesting to layer the colors because they are mostly transparent so when I laid the yellow down and the magenta on top it all turned orange. Fun, but there's definitely a different (longer) thought process when inking to anticipate the effect of the next layer of color.

Heroes

I got a commission last week from Jesse Alexander -- one of the writers and producers of Heroes and Lost and Alias. Great guy and I had a fun time coming up with his paintings. He wanted Hiro, the Cheerleader and Peter from the Heroes TV show. The 3rd cover -- Hiro -- was my idea for a fun flashback issue to the 1940s where I imagine a Hiro from another timeline became a WWII sword-weilding hero that would help his future self out somehow in some sort of time-traveling brain bender story.

Sketches

I'm getting ready to do a big batch of commissions but I truthfully haven't inked anything other than convention sketches and book signings since summer began. I was burned out after finishing Super Spy and I needed to take some time off. SO, instead of just starting to ink on these commissioned pieces I decided to loosen myself up a little and ended up just going out and drawing strangers in my sketchbook. All ink and brush and water color with no pencils first. I started doing that after about 40 pages of Super Spy -- going to figure drawing classes and just working with ink and brush straight on the page and it really helped me out. Anyway, here's one of the drawings I did...

Ghost Stories

Well, I'm officially blogging with my second entry of the month. I'm going to attempt to post at least once a week (on Mondays) starting this week. So, here's what I'm working on -- a historical ghost story set in the 1950s. My take on the "supernatural" will be a little different and there will definitely be more stress on the historical. That's it! I'm fleshing out the story and script this week and I'll post more when I've got it.
Here are a couple images of some of the characters -- there identities I'll leave to your imagination so as not to blow the story. What I will say though is that since ghosts don't technically age and it's set in the 50s, the characters can (and will be from many different time periods).

That's it! I'm fleshing out the story and script this week and I'll post more when I've got it.

First Super Spy Blog Entry

I'm setting up my new site with a new shop and all the Super Spy gadgets and hand-made items I've been selling at the cons all summer. I'll be posting sketchbook pages and photos as I go along. Here's a photo of some Super Spy Mint-Flavored Cyanide Capsules that I recently made for conventions.