New York Comic Book Marketplace-2-27-10

I'm exhausted, and it was a long day, but a fun one at the NYCBM. It's been many years since I've done any comic conventions, only tagging along as support for my old friend Mitch Waxman, back in the early 90's when we worked on Plasma Baby. This time, I was promoting myself, so there was a bit of anxiety going into the show. After a sleepless night, and days of preparing, and stressing, the show came and went. Unfortunately, there wasn't the greatest turnout, with the weather a factor, and the general lack of advertisement for the show itself. I was a bit disapointed that my book didn't sell better...well, aside from the three or four copies some friends graciously purchased from me, only one person I didn't know picked one up. Still, I did get some people flipping through it, and my book of originals and prints, and a decent number picked up my business card, which I put together last night, after my postcards didn't arrive due to the storm.

I did have someone buy a print of my Darth Vader piece from last Summer and he also asked about buying two pieces of original Vader art I had. I wasn't sure what to price them at, so decided to hold onto them..in hindsight, maybe I shoulda sold 'em. Later in the day, a woman came by and asked for a Batman head sketch in her sketchbook. I also did a sketchcard of Batman for my friend Bill's son, Will, as well as a drawing of a ragman?? cartoonish monster character Will described to me. During the show, I also inked some sketchcards and did a Marvel sketch cover for my buddy Brad of Ghost Rider. Two of the other pics here, the guy who looks like he's playing an imaginary guitar, and the Acroyearish dude, were pencilled back in 2007, but only inked this past week, and at the show ('The Plucker').

My co-horts at the show, Dan Springer, did a few live caricatures, a drawing of a cupid for our friend Louis' daughter, Mason, and sold a few giclee prints. Carlos Vega, with his humourous 'Become A Zombie!' sign, did pretty well, pretty much booked the whole day, drawing people as zombies. They'd come up to the table, he'd get a rough sketch of their likeness, then they leave, and while gone, he'd 'zombiefy' them, rotting their flesh, exposing their brains and generally making them look pretty putrid.

It was rewarding day, all in all, and we hope to do it again sometime soon.

Lastly, in this, likely my wordiest post to date, I'll have some info soon on how you can order a copy of my 'Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Monsters' sketchbook.

Sketchcards for the NYCBM

Here are some sketchcards I worked up over the last couple of days for sale at the New York Comic Book Marketplace - tomorrow! (Feb. 27th, 2010!) Today I'll be working on doing sketches on the inside front cover of copies of my sketchbook. The weather is definitely not helping out, but hopefully all will go smoothly tomorrow - the show is still scheduled to go on!

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MONSTERS - THE SKETCHBOOK!

I've finally gotten around to putting together a sketchbook of my monster drawings. I'll have a special edition of the book, limited to 23 signed and sketched-in copies (+ 7 Artist's Proofs) with me at next Saturday's (Feb 27th) "New York Comic Book Marketplace" at the Penn Plaza Pavillion in NYC. I'll be at a couple of tables with my buddies Dan Springer, Carlos Vega and Derek Santiago. We'll be sketching, chatting with whomever happens to stop by and we'll also have prints and sketchbooks for sale, so, come on down and say hello!

night

Robots!

Robots on boxes! From 2008.

Sketchbook movies

I've been having fun playing around with Imovie and making little videos. Here's a couple I put together of my sketchbooks, set to music, that I've put up on YouTube. Some of the drawings have been on this blog, but many of them haven't.


You can find the first two here. Make sure to watch them on YouTube, where you get the full wide-screen picture.

White Queen

It's been some time since I've posted anything that took into account the word 'music' on this blog, considering the word is under the title. Here's a video I put together in Imovie, using a recording I did in 2003 of the Queen song 'White Queen.' Written by guitartist Brian May, it's off their 1974 album Queen II. I've always felt the imagery of the album cover (the classic four heads pose made famous by the Bohemian Rhapsody video, which you can see here:

Queen II

and inside gatefold sleeve, shown here:

Queen II gatefold pic

as well as the song titles and lyrics, evoked a mythological and fantasy world. Brian May himself had a sort of wispy Pre-Raphaeliteness to him, as did the band, with their long hair and early Zandra Rhoades, flowing stage costumes.

The song 'White Queen,' in particular, has a Baroque, Medieval feel to it, with it's classical chord progressions and structure. The recording featured here is from 2003 and was made on my Roland KR-375 digital piano. I decided to use some classic Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau images as the visuals to go along with it. Included are artists such as Alphonse Mucha, J.W. Waterhouse, Gustav Klimt, Maxfield Parrish, Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham and others.

Over the years I've done a bunch of drawings of Queen and Freddie Mercury. The painting/drawing above (it's in oils and pen and ink) was done for Peter Pop, now the VP of Creative Services at Vanguard Graphic Staffing, but at that time, one of the placement guys in the jobs office at S.V.A. He was hoisting an art show at a local bar and the theme was rock musicians, so he asked some of the students that used the placement office to participate. The pen and ink (rapidograph) drawing of Brian May, above that, is from the late 80's.

Kooky Mini-Comics #4

This one was a couple of months in the making. Most of it was done a few weeks back, but I had trouble finishing the last few panels. I did multiple versions of the last three panels, as well as a few versions of the last panel on the third tier. Here's the final inks, along with the first version of the pencils.

Girl Sketches

Blue Girl

Digital Girl

Did this today at the freelance gig I've been at for the last month and half. It's a combination of digital and some hand sketching with a ball-point pen on a color print-out. The design was done for girls 12-16, and they felt this girl looked too old, so I did another version with a younger looking face.

William : Keeper Of The Cosmic All

Announcing yet another new blog!! If there weren't already enough blogs to bog down your day, well, here's one more for ya! This one is dedicated to the comic I drew for my College newspaper, 'William : Keeper of the Cosmic All.' None of this art has yet made it onto any of my other blogs. Hopefully you'll find some amusement in the old drawings. You should certainly see a progression in my drawing ability, as the first episode, in particular, is pretty crudely drawn. Doing the strip each week for the paper definitely improved my drawing ability much more than any of the actual drawing classes I took while at school (with the exception of my anatomy class!).

you can find the blog here:

The Cosmic All

Facebook Fridayz - 6

The rough pencils for this were done at lunch one day, a couple of months back and then I finished it over the last couple of nights.

Facebook Fridayz - 5 - aka Kooky-Mini-Comics #3

I had started penciling this a few weeks ago, but only got as far as the third panel. The theme for this weeks Facebook Fridayz was anything whimsical, so I had the impetus to complete it. I figured this would qualify....sorta.

You can see the previous episodes here:


Kooky-Mini-Comics #1

Kooky-Mini-Comics #2

Facebook Fridayz - 4

Technically this is Facebook Fridayz 5, but I never posted last weeks drawing of Jason from Friday the 13th. Maybe one day I'll get around to putting it up. I wasn't entirely happy with it (not that I'm entirely happy with anything I do!), so unless you're a Facebook friend of mine, that's the only place you're gonna see it for now! Here's this weeks quick pencil sketch. Soon as I get a little time, I'm going to ink this one up. I realized after I'd drawn it, though, I'd left off his chains!

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inks and a little photoshop.

Facebook Fridayz - 3

Didn't get to finish this one, but here it is, for what it's worth. He kinda came out looking sort of Fear Agentish, but that wasn't my plan going in. Not that I had a plan!

Facebook Fridayz - 2

THE CLASSIC MOVIE MONSTER SERIES-ELSA LANCHESTER as THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Facebook Fridayz - 1

A friend from my last long-time freelance gig began a group on Facebook, the aim being a new drawing every Friday. Here's my entry for this week.

THE CLASSIC MOVIE MONSTER SERIES-LON CHANEY as THE PHANTOM

THE CLASSIC MOVIE MONSTER SERIES-BELA LUGOSI as DRACULA

Floating

A Monsterous Mind

Some recent and not so recent things from my sketchbook. A few were done some months back, but just inked the other night.

Ornamental Creature Head Designs

These drawings developed from an unusual and cool job request. I was asked to help sketch out some ideas for gargoyle/creature heads that would be used on a frame housing a portrait of The Addams Family, for a poster advertising the Addams Family Chicago and Broadway Musical, which opens next year.

The sketches were to resemble a creature, but be done in such a way that you'd have to look twice to fully see the face, in an ornamental style. From my pencil sketches, my collaborator and client on the project developed rendered ornamental motifs for the four 'clock positions' on the frame. My drawings tended to steer more to the tribal sort of angluar style, rather than a floral, flowery kind of approach, but they still worked out all right. When the final project is done, I'll post a link. The ad is scheduled to run in the New York Times in November, and then be a billboard in Times Square.

The 12:00 and 6:00 positions on the frame were to have frontal views and at 9:00 and 3:00, profiles. For the frontal ones, I drew a line on my paper and drew only on the left side. I scanned that in and in Photoshop, copied that and flipped it, creating the mirror image. I did a little over forty designs in total.

Some Sketches

It's been over a month since my last post - too long. Not too much new to provide, so here's a few thigs that have slipped by the wayside in recent months.