Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel...

Sorry, no drawing to post this week. Two reasons:

1) I didn't draw much over the holiday weekend. Family, food and related goodness.

2) I just got an assignment from Time Magazine for a spot illustration, and I need to work on the sketches.

I will, however, definately have something up for next week.

Cheers -J

Bond in Progress

Not much this week, I've been busy with other things ... I'm working on a practice illustration based on Casino Royale. The image is a study of Daniel Craig from the movie. I think the likeness is there, but needs to be stronger. Hopefully I'll be able to put the actual illustration together a bit more quickly after Christmas.Happy Holidays! -J

The King

Jack “King” Kirby.

I finally broke down and bought Essential Fantastic Four vol. 1, collecting the first twenty or so issues from the early 60's.

It’s blasphemy, but until this week, I had never read a comic drawn by Kirby, and had only been exposed to his work in bits and pieces, or through verbal description of his greatness. And I honestly didn't get it.

Now I get it. This dude could draw. "No shit," all the comic folks would say. Well, better late than never. How this guy could design so many characters, monsters, and machines while pencilling multiple books at the same time is astounding. And the drawing is rock solid.

But hey, I'm the last guy on earth to figure this out, right?

Anyway, reading Kirby made me like the Fantastic Four, so I drew them this week. Just a sketch, so no rendered shadows or anything, I tried to focus on structure. You can't hide bad structure in a line drawing. I reinterpreted their costumes a bit, but for the most part they’re pretty true to the originals.I know Sue's hands are a little funny, but my thinking was that in the finished, inked drawing, they'd be starting to go invisible. Torch's legs are a little funny too. Overall, I think it's a pretty good sketch.

-J

Blog ret-con ... THIS is the first post ... no, really

I've decided I'm actually going to start using this blog. I don't know how many people will read it, but I feel like committing to it will help me organize myself in terms of my own work.

I'm going to try to post at least once a week, always with a drawing. Today, its some heads I drew.

I'm constantly working to improve my memory drawing, which is critical for comics, so I didn't use reference for these. I think they turned out pretty good, except the inked head is a bit fat, plus a couple other things I don't like (struggling with hair) but I'm going to try not to rip apart everything I put up here :)

I'll have some more stuff next week.

-J

Inaugural Entry

Hi everybody (uhhh.. somebody I hope)

My first blog entry. Huzzah!

-John