I wish I had a light box....

I make do with what I have. In this case a window and blue tape. Anyway, the eagle-eyed reader will notice that this is a new page of Bone Dog.


See?

In other news, I had a piece of artwork on the Challengers ASSEMBLE blog last Friday. For those not familiar with the Blog (which is associated with the best comic shop in Chicago), every Monday they post a drawing prompt and artists can submit drawings by Thursday. They post all entries on Friday.

Last week's subject was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so here's mine:


I have started drawings for Challengers ASSEMBLE probably about four times, but never finished by the Thursday Deadline. I knew I couldn't miss this one since I loved TMNT when I was younger. I just sat down one night and banged this out in about 15 minutes. I did it almost completely from memory, too.

Michelangelo was always my favorite, but I decide to do Donatello instead. Mostly because I thought a bo staff is easier to draw than nunchucks. Also, I used to own a copy of the TMNT Martial Arts Training Manual featuring Donatello, so I do have a fondness for him.

Like I said, I drew this from memory. However, I'm struck now at how similar my drawing is to the cover of that martial arts manual. Crazy.

The Road to CAKE (part 2) - Who doesn't like CAKE?

Apparently, most people don't "like" CAKE. I'm talking of course, about CAKE's Facebook page. At this point, it only has 271 likes and I find that kind of shocking.

For the love of alternative comics, please, "like" CAKE!

Anyway, I'm finally settling into my new apartment and I have passed a most momentous milestone. I set up a drawing desk! Here it is:


I also finished the second page on my top-secret PK story (in the picture you can see the first page on my drawing board).Next up is another page of Bone Dog, so keep an eye out for that.

Now that I have a dedicated space, I'm hoping my output will increase dramatically. It will have to if I'm going to have anything to show for myself come June.

I leave you with another cake. This time, it's a cat cake that my wife and I made our daughter for her second birthday.

The Road to CAKE (Part 1)

The exciting news here at King Crow Comics is that I will be exhibiting at the first ever Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE). I can't tell you how excited I am about this. I feel like I'm taking my first steps into a larger world.

I've felt I needed a deadline for as long as I've been doing this. Up until this point, I've been drawing and making comics with no real goal besides completing a story. Now, I have an actual date (which, by the way, is June 16). This is a much more concrete target.

Still, I'm sort of terrified. I have a lot to get done between now and then, and I really am new to the comic-creating lifestyle.

So I've done what I always do whenever I have a lot to get done: make lots of lists!

The first list is of projects listing their completed and thumbnail pages. It looked like this:


Ok, you probably can't read that because of my sloppy chicken-scratch.

Basically, I have 5 pages of Bone Dog complete and 2 more that I've thumbnailed. I have two other projects that I'm calling PK and NMV (Sorry, these are two projects that I want to keep under wraps for now). I have one page of PK completed and there is a second page on my drawing board at the moment. I haven't done anything for NMV besides thumbnail about 9 pages.

I also have a "Needed" column which is how many pages I need to have completed by June. I'm planning on collecting my Bone Dog and PK in a mini-comic (8 1/2 x 5 1/2), and NMV is a stand alone story that I will be doing in micro-mini size (5 1/2 x 4 1/4). I'm not sure how long the mini is going to be since I see it as an anthology of all my work. The micro is going to be two full sheets folded into quarters, so it will be 16 pages including the covers.

Whew, that's a lot to think about.

Anyway, expect more on this in the coming months and weeks. In the meantime,CAKE-lovers, here is a picture of a cake my wife made this weekend:
Note: we're not religious; we're just into self-denial.

Sketchbook: Two dudes, a girl and (part of) a mummy

I figured I'd post a couple pages from my sketchbook just to get me back in the swing of posting.

As usual, these are drawn from photos that I've found in magazines. The guy sitting is from a Psychology Today I found in the break room at work, the other dude and the woman are from an article in the Chicago Reader, and the mummy is from a National Geographic article about ancient cliff-dwelling cultures in Peru.

These were all done with a Micron pen except for the mummy was was done with a brush pen. Also, the mummy is barely half finished.

Anyway, I like to keep an eye out for pictures that show the entire figure. Most of the time, magazine and newspaper photos only show the head and shoulders. When I do find a complete human figure, I add it to my file.

I drew the mummy because drawing skulls is fun and also a good lesson in anatomy.

Getting the Rust Out

This is what I feel like right now, a rusty robot. The holidays, moving, a medical scare followed by a unrelated medical procedure, and a new teaching gig have not been good for my art-doing.

It's pretty remarkable how much doing art everyday really makes it easier to do. Before all the holiday/moving/teaching craziness set in, I was drawing everyday. I never stopped completely even when I was distracted, but I wasn't doing it as consistently as I was.

Now that my life is settling back into a rhythm, I'm realizing what a difference it makes to do something on a consistent basis. It so hard to get going on drawing when you haven't done it for a week or even a few days.

So, Rusty Robot, that's me.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of the blog Comic Tools. The Author just wrote a couple posts on this subject, though his breaks were longer and much more dramatic than mine. An inspirational read regardless.

Moving Into the New Year

I'm moving to a new apartment two days into the new year. I've already started to move stuff over to the new place (note my awesome bike trailer courtesy of Boulevard Bikes).

Anyway, no comics until I dig myself out of all these boxes.

Happy New Year everyone!!

Bone Dog Single-Panel

Here's the third single-panel from my Ivan Brunetti homework (see my last post). It features my character, Bone Dog (as usual, click to make bigger).

For those of you who don't know, Bone Dog is my comic about a skeleton dog who lives in a dump with his rat friend, Sergio. Garbage eating is involved (just look here).

This comic was drawn with a nib pen. The image needs to be cleaned up; I'm sorry. I didn't get a change to run it through Photoshop. I promised I'd post it today, so here it is, smudges and all.