Sunday, May 31, 2009

House M.D. - Commission

Hey peeps. A buddy of mine recently commissioned me for a House piece. He's a nut for the show, and specifically Dr. Gregory House. Dresses like him on Halloween, quotes the show, all that stuff. He wanted me to base it on an existing picture of House in a bathtub full of pain pill bottles. Of couse he had to pick a picture with a lot of detail...the jerk. Anyway, here's what I sketched out. Hopefully he digs it.

This is being done on 11x17 Card Stock, and because I plan to color this with markers, I laid it out with 6H lead, and finished it up with a standard HB. I like how it turned out...wasn't sure I could do it.

Later!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Captain America...the Director's Cut!

It's done! Haha, I finally finished it. Decided not to do the hard thing, and transfer the image to better paper, but rather tough it out on he copy paper and deal with what I had already. It's not 100% what I was hoping for, but it is what it is.

If ya'll like this process stuff, I'll do more. If you don't, I won't bother. If I hear nothing, I'll take it ya'll feel more akin to the latter statement, and I'll just keep groovin'. No pressure to comment...though they're always nice. hehe

Some other notes about the day: Picked up some new materials today...different leads for my pencils, including some non-repro blue lead for my trusty mechanical pencil. Also picked up a newer, bigger tool box for all my markers and shtuff, which has been a long time coming. I've been working out of my old little tool box, and a shoe box, and it's sucked. I'm rolling in style again, and it feels good!

After my trip to the art store, I swung by the theater place and peeped this movie called "Star Trek," maybe you've heard of it. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, and walked out glad I decided to spend full price to see it. Haven't done that since "Watchmen" back in March...which is a real dry spell for me. And it looks like there are a slate of really good movies coming out this summer for me to look forward to, and ponder on whether I'll be plunking down the duckets to seem them.

Of the trailers I saw, I was most excited by the trailers for the new Pixar flick, "Up" and Focus Films' "9." The new Transformer movie looks okay, and I was less than impressed with the trailer for G.I. Joe...I think I'll wait for DVD on those.

Started playing with acrylics today. Did up a Hellboy piece that I'm currently trying not to mangle. I might show it...although I probably won't. Ain't painted anything since high school, which means it's been over a decade since I picked up a brush. But, I've had this hankering to play with paints, pastels, colored pencils, and crayons lately, so I hope to have some new stuff with these new mediums up sooner than later. That's all I got for now.

Take nothing for granted.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Captain America Flat Colors!

Hey hey hey! So I'm burnin' the midnight oil here in Bruceville, supplyin' the flat marker colors to Cap here. I'm playin' with Crayola markers on this one, so I'm still a little fuzzy on how to make them work to my advantage. This is also on standard copy paper, and the Crayolas are wetter on regular paper than I had anticipated. I may have to transfer this onto some bristol board before I call it done. Either way, the process is a movin', and here be they latest step.

Take nothing for granted.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Captain America Lineart!

So here's the quick and dirty lineart. I don't worry so much about being precise with this step, but rather to just separate the parts for coloring. I like to ink with really thick lines, so any trembling in the lineart is covered up when I do the finished inks.

Hope to get the colored version up soon. Hope everyone had a great holiday, and remembered to pay their respect.

Take nothing for granted.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Captain America Finished Pencils

Here are the finished pencils to the Captain America sketch. Lately I haven't even been doing this step, as I can usually go in and create the inked lineart instead of this step, but I thought for doing a step-by-step, I'd go ahead and show this part since this was an integral part of my process for a very long time.

Take nothing for granted.

Happy Memorial Day!

Hey peeps! Well, got everything running smoothly now. Actually, that's not correct. There is one issue I still have after having hooked everything up--I can upload images from my computer to this blog or my deviantart page through IE, but I can't through Firefox. I'm sure it's just one click to fix, but I can't find it. So, if anyone out there knows what I'm talking bout, any help would be appreciated!

On to more important news, in honor of Memorial Day, I thought I'd do a quick sketch of Captain America! This one took about 10 minutes, and I'm thinking I'll go ahead and finish it, and scan the steps as I go. Never done one of those, and I think that would be a fun thing to do.

Please have a fun and safe Memorial Day. And don't forget to take the time to pay your respects to the fallen heroes who've died serving our country, as well as giving thanks to the our nation's veterans and those still serving! Witout them, our beer drinking and burger eating would be a lot less enjoyable, cause we'd be sharing time with fearing for our lives.

Take nothing for granted.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

I AM IRON MAN!

Finally got the new pooter hooked up. Still trying to find all the necessary discs to finish installing my hardware and programs, but so far everything is running smoothly. To get back on the art horse here at the blog, I figured I'd post a fully colored marker piece I did for my dad as a birthay present. He was an Iron Man fan as a kid, and he's a big fan of the movie. I had a lot of fun doing this one up, considering it was the first time I seriously tried drawing Iron Man.

Parent's Rights...are they extinct?

Hey peeps. No new art just yet. I'm changing computers today. Should have the new pooter hooked up sometime this morning, and with it, I'll post a couple new things I'm working on, plus some unlettered pages from the soon-to-be-released graphic novel I worked on, "Stranger Danger Vol. 1."

And now for something completely different...

I dread the day I become a parent. Since hitting the quarter-century mark, I've found myself nurturing the desire to become a father. The idea appeals to me in many ways, and just when I think I'm ready to pull the trigger, something like this happens...



I'm not religious fundamentalist, so the idea of defending the Hauser's--or specifically the mother--from the POV of religious freedom is meaningless to me. What concerns me here is the blatant disregard by the State of Minnesota for the rights of the parents on this issue. Regardless of if you believe their choice to not seek chemotherapy to treat the kid's cancer, we as a society seem to have forgotten that it is not our business to enforce our will or ethics on someone else. If you believe in individaul freedom, parents rights, or even that religious freedom thing, then logic dictates that you must...YOU MUST...side with the parents on this issue, and not the State.

We used to live in a time when parents were given the power to raise their children as they saw fit. Sure, there were some bad apples in the bunch, going overboard with physical punishment to the point of abuse...but because of that, now parents cannot even spank their children anymore without fear of going to prison.

My parents are smokers. They always have been. They smoked with myself and my two younger sisters in the house or car all the time. My mother even smoked while pregnant with us. None of us are deformed, none of us mental handicapped (well, at least I don't think so...I'm sure some people would disagree), we turned out all right. We were also spanked when we got in trouble...not all the time, but when it was considered a punishment befitting the crime by our parents. While we may have suffered the occasional ass-cheek bruise at the hands of a open palm/hair brush/belt, we turned out all right. We don't cower like a dog when someone offers a high-five, and we don't walk around getting into fist fights because we feel violence is the only way to solve our problems.

My parents were good parents. They did the best they could, as I believe is the case with 99% of all parents out there. But if my folks were attempting to raise myself and my sisters today, as they did then, they would be demonized and possibly arrested, leaving us kids without parents...which would have been much more destructive to our development as human beings.

We may not agree with the choices made by other folks, but it ain't our place to impose our will or our ideas on them. And while I think it would be better for Daniel Hauser if he cowboy'd up and endured the chemo, it's not my place, or anyone elses--especially the government's--to decide otherwise. It's not even his. It's his parents place. Their choice, and their's alone.

Take nothing for granted.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Changing things up a bit.

Hey peeps. So it's been a while since I posted an update here on the blog. Figured it was time to get a little something different going here. The plan is to spruce the place up a bit, and turn it into the central nervous center of JB on the Web. That means I'll be posting lots more art, not just sketches but damn near everything I do; works in progress; editorial rants and reviews; and random blather that I need to dump.

That's it for now. Blog @ ya'll again soon!