I wanted to post a link to my old pal Travis Hanson's work. You might already be familiar with his art as he's been doing fantasy comics on the web since way back when. He used to do a strip called 'The Bean' which has now migrated to being a series of illustrated novels.
I was fortunate enough to have the adjacent table to him at the Alternative Press Expo in SF last year. We'd me once or twice before and have known each other online for years. He mentioned to me then that he was now having much more success from producing & selling large-format full color prints as opposed to individual comics, and he was certainly doing very well with it at the show.
He recently posted in his journal at DeviantArt.com (where he has had a lot of success selling prints and building community) that he's decided to shelve all his comics work in favor of just doing prints & illustration.
The fact is that you can sell one large print for more than a whole bunch of books would go for. I've asked him to stop by and be a bit of a 'visiting wizard' and hopefully tell us a bit more about it.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Travis Hanson
Friday, March 28, 2008
ELF `n TROLL pencils.
Here’s something I tend to not share too often; original pencils from Elf `n Troll. This is a scene from Issue 10 which I’m currently working on. No spoilers evident.
This issue will wrap up what I guess we could call "volume one" of the series. I'm actually a bit excited with the last few issues where I'm trying to tidy-up some of the back-story that's been floating around since the first issue.
It's taken a while for me to find my way with this series but I will, shamelessly, pat myself on the back for seeing it through this far...pat, pat, pat.
I can't wait to see what comes next.
Play Nice.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Pencils
Since we're talking about pencils as finished artwork, I thought I'd show an OLD piece I did for a longer book where I used pencils to differentiate between "real time" and "flashback".
Read the whole 5 page passage or so here:
http://www.comicspace.com/natepiekos/comics.php?action=read&file_id=86027
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Something New?
While I’m in the middle of doodling ELF `n TROLL issue 10, I’ve been playing with an idea that could possibly sprout some fruit somewhere down the line. I’ve been playing with the idea of producing pages directly from my pencils and skipping the inking stage. This is something I’ve been playing with for a while now and seems to be something of a recent trend in comics these days. It’s not a new phenomenon by any means. If you’ve been a fan of Euro-comics over the past 20 years you’ve seen this before. I’m not sure how it’ll work out but it’s fun trying. I just need to purchase a much better scanner.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
More Sketch Madness
These were all in an old pocket sized notebook I used to carry in my pocket at work. I was doodling out ideas that would become Pan-Gea and other stuff I'm working on. I have a bunch of these little notebooks with little ideas and sketches in them I've completely forgotten.
Looking back through old sketchbooks I usually find something I forgot about that revives some crazy old idea. It's refreshing when you're able to inspire yourself by surprise.
Easter Sketch
Old rough sketch on Paris paper found in a pile of doodles. Hyper-fast ink job with a Copic sketch marker and a Pigma Graphic 1mm, then a dash of Prismacolor.
All for the Easter Bunny.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Tune of the week
I've been a big fan of Morcheeba for a long time, but this video is one I just had to share here:
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
BRUUUUUUCE!
I’ve been swiping the poor guy’s fonts for years now. I guess it’s time to move on to his comics. This is one of my favorites from Atland… BRUCE, THE MINOTAUR. Cheers Nate, keep them fonts coming, man!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Eowyn Gets the Color Treatment
Sean Loftiss laid some hues upon my version of Tolkien's horse maiden Eowyn:
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Things to do with your fantasy art other than comics
This TV spot features (of all things) a bed designed by an excellent fantasy artist I know called Caleb Cleveland. I met him at San Diego Comic-Con a few years back. he's done loads of great stuff for Wizards of the Coast, Kenzer & Co., White Wolf and others. You can see his work at his portfolio site -- including his orginal designs for the bed!:
http://www.calebclevelanddesign.com/
More Dust Bunnies.
Here’s another penciled page from my (over 10 years old) sci-fi epic that I’ll probably never actually finish. I’m usually quite anal when it comes to organizing shit except when it comes to my art, which I treat like a red-headed step child. I may have even completed this epic and just don’t know it.
I keep half expecting that someday I'll have no projects or ideas and I'll be forced to complete this thing. Then again...maybe it's just all part of my master plan and when that bus with my number on it comes barreling down the street to finally finish the job...this will become my "Black Album". Hmmm.
If I have to explain that last part, you'll really see me cry.
Play nice.
Up All Night...Makin' Comics
Mid-day nap (on vacation) and some late night coffee has me up quite past my wee little bedtime. So I started messing around with an idea that's been hovering dangerously over my brain for a long time now.
Been wanting to do a catgirl comic. So I am. I'm going with the landscape format because it looks nice on the screen. I actually drew this on 9x12 Paris Paper for Pens with a live area of something like 10.4x6.7 (hell, I don't know...I grabbed a copy of Elf 'n' Troll and used it to rule off my borders...that way I'm golden if I ever want to print this in a standard sized comic). If you've never used Paris Paper for Pens you are missing out on a sexual drawing experience. Now, bristol is the king, for sure. Sturdy and receptive and all that. But the Paris paper is smooth as a baby's butt. To quote that guy from the second Matrix flick "It's like wiping your ass with silk". The pen nibs and brush pens just sort of glide over it willingly and the ink kind of clings to the surface lovingly. And the surface is ultra bright white, which makes anything on it pop out.
There are drawbacks. It's 108 lb but can wrinkle up like a prune if you erase too hard. The fact that it has very little tooth means the ink doesn't seep in very much so when you erase you tend to lose some black. But the same is true of bristol if you're using PITTs or some other disposable.
Anyway, I think the strip is going to be called "Catgirl Mojo" because that sounds hip and cool and I already have the domain name. Most of it is still up in the air (I say that, but you should see all the notes and sketches I have piled up for this...characters, stories, world notes, the full monty). I finally decided that nudity would be kept to a minimum instead of having all the characters butt naked all the time. Still, how much is left to the imagination by a couple of nipple decorations? Funny. But cool.
Here are the pencils, followed by the inks. The colors will come later. Right now I'm in the middle of inking page two. And I'm going to bed, dammit.
Oh, here's a bit from the second page to titillate your interest:
"Echoes" page eight
I don't know if you can tell, but on "Echoes" I deviated from my normal coloring techniques. Instead of using 100% traditional media (mostly markers, some colored pencils, spit, swabs, etc) I used digital tools as well. Mostly I swiped color areas from my other drawings and used them as a pallet, basically painting them in to fill areas and create textures. Some of this is actually colored by hand on the original art, some of it is simply painted in from other drawings (there are some swipes from "Seven Arrows" in there somewhere). I think it turned out ok. Learned a lot from the process.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
ELF `n TROLL Changes
I’m a little late with this announcement mainly due to battling the flu all week. Beginning this Monday, March 17th, ELF `n TROLL will be going from its five days per week updating schedule to twice per week updating. New episodes will be posted every Monday and Thursday. The other big change is that the episodes will now be presented in glorious black and white. My reason for all of this is to free up some “real-life” time and to keep the comic going with some consistency. This won’t be just ELF `n TROLL sans color…no sir. I’ve put a little extra “umph” into these pages for your viewing pleasure.
Now, I must go continue my vigil at the porcelain god. Damn flu!
Play Nice.
"Echoes" page six
In this tale, we meet another Gean from the old days. For those not familiar with the story, Gea was the Isle of the Goddess (who some call Nest, the Moon). Gea was destroyed by the God (Seer, the Sun) out of rage and indignation, along with Nest herself. The Geans were daughters of the Goddess, powerful and beautiful and pure. Most of them perished that day but some survived. One thousand years later they are beginning to find each other.
This is one of their stories.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Dust Bunnies
My scanner is close to calling it a day. It’s terrible at scanning pencils and I have to do a lot of manipulating to make it look semi-decent. My apologies if this doodle looks like crap.
The pic on the right is from a story I've had dancing through my brain for some time now. I have a lot of these stories that I start and then have to toss to the side for other, sometimes paying, gigs. The funny thing is that most of these little side projects that I start and work on sporadically tend to turn out being some of my best work. I need to figure out a way to reverse this trend.
I could probably start by getting a dust-buster because some of this shit has been sitting around for a long time.
Play Nice.
The Librarian: Page 1
This is page one of a 12 page strip I drew from a script by the mighty Shaenon Garrity, she of Narbonic fame. I have it up on my portfolio site & at deviantArt, but it hasn't seen the light of day all that much so I figured I'd post it here too.
I had mentioned to Shaenon at a party at the Cartoon Art Museum during Wondercon 2007 that I was thinking of experimenting with something other than Pewfell & possibly working with other writers. The very next week she sent me the script for this. I loved the story, the fact that it was a bit more female-focused than much of what I have done before and that it was nearly wordless. I spend a long time on the character & setting design and really planned the whole thing out a lot more than I usually do. I also really wanted to push the coloring and layout further than I have before, and the script offered some great opportunities for this.
Monday, March 10, 2008
And the Winner is....
...not ATLAND!
::crowd noise::
I'd like to thank the academy, and Jesus...and my mom... what? what do you mean I have to leave the stage? F YOU! That little gold-foil-covered chocolate man is MINE!
Heh. ATLAND didn't win in any of the the 3 categories it was up for in the Web Cartoonists Choice Awards at MegaCon this weekend.
~N
Gnash Gnaw Slaver Jibber Drool
While I've been gnawing at my proverbial legbone you guys have been kicking my ass at this posting thing! Well this weekend I've been pretty busy with the old fam-damily stuff. What with sorting out camps for the little nipper at Mayor Gavin Newsom's SF Families Summer Resource Faire, getting my brother-in-law to install a new dining room light fixture/flying saucer thing that Tina (yes, that is my wife's name) bought for a bargain $250 (!), attending a pancake breakfast at the school this morning and then entertaining his little majesty all day while Tina went off to a jewelery fair (ka-ching $$$) I 'ain't gotten a whole lot done... Well, OK, I did do this:
A new panel in part of my on-going upgrades to Pewfell Vol 4. Doing the strip as a 3/4 panel daily I just didn't have the time or the room for things like vast armies of chaos swarming through the city's streets. I'm not sure if it adds anything to the joke, but it certainly adds to the spectacle. Like all of Vol 4 it will eventually be colored, but it'll be another couple of months before this one actually airs.
Certainly it's one of the most ambitious panels I've attempted to date.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Art Garage Sale
I’ve updated Blood Red Comics so that you can use PayPal to purchase random original art. It’s like a grab bag. Send cash, get artwork. Each piece of art I’ve sold has moved me that much closer to being a millionaire. I figure if I sell about 500,000 more drawings I could possibly get a spot on MTV Cribs.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
It's All About The Strokes, Folks
I love this drawing and I’ll tell you why.
I know it isn’t perfect. There are anatomical issues. The calves aren’t quite right, she only has three fingers, etc. I don’t give a fuck. She’s beautiful and I love her.
See, I drew this quickly one night like I’ve done with so many others. It was an act of passion. A pouring out of emotions and ideas and lines and colors while music played and thoughts danced in my head.
She’s naked. She stands on the earth. I draw curves and lines and shapes that move and jiggle. I make grass and an old, old sword. She leans on it, caressing it. It is a power of the earth and she is growing out of the earth too. I give her color. The marker is dry. Fuck it. I rub it in harder, smearing it, making something come from it’s worn out tip. I grab another. A different color, but similar. Like all things in life she is not black and white. There are tones and shades and gradations and imperfections. Blotches and moles and wrinkles and fat and muscle and hair.
The marker dries up again. I grab a different one. I smear it in. I make her thighs and shoulders sun kissed. I dab in green of the earth, blasts of color popping out of it like little explosions of sound and fury and love.
It’s all about the process. The love making movement of a brush or pen or pencil across the yielding surface of white paper.
And it’s all good.
Will Terrell Is Like Sweet Wine
A long, long time ago I started to correspond with an artist named Will Terrell. I’m talking mid-90s. He was a budding artist and gave me a lot of good feedback on the stuff I was doing back then. Well, Will’s still plugging away at this crazy art life and doing things I think are just damn good.
Check him out. You’ll be glad you did.
ELFQUEST...Online!
I’ve been a fan of Elfquest for a very long time. It was back in the day when you’d only hear rumors of comics that existed outside of the spandex clad “Big Two”. I remember wandering into a head-shop back in 1979, drawn in by the electric neon glow of a Led Zep black light poster. As I wandered through I noticed a comic section. Ladies and gentlemen, if I tell you that my world changed that day, I’d probably be understating the fact. It’s here where I discovered the Underground. I found Robert Crumb and his brother’s in arms. I found that Richard Corben had his own piece of the comic book pie instead of short, 4 page epics in the pages of Heavy Metal and Creepy magazine. It was here that I also discovered Elfquest and the magic of Wendy and Richard Pini.
My reason for this little diatribe is to tell you all that you can now read the Elfquest epic online. I’ll leave the details for you to discover on your own but, this is a great thing. Personally, I love holding the yellowed-pages in my hands and have recently purchased DC’s hardcover collections, (4 volumes) of the “Original Quest”, which I highly recommend. For those unaware or reluctant to dive into this world; this is a great opportunity to give it a try.
Play Nice, Wolfriders.
"Echoes" page two
In this tale, we meet another Gean from the old days. For those not familiar with the story, Gea was the Isle of the Goddess (who some call Nest, the Moon). Gea was destroyed by the God (Seer, the Sun) out of rage and indignation, along with Nest herself. The Geans were daughters of the Goddess, powerful and beautiful and pure. Most of them perished that day but some survived. One thousand years later they are beginning to find each other.
This is one of their stories.
In Company of Wolves
You know, with guys like these surrounding me I could get a case of the ole stage fright pretty quickly. Honestly, have you looked at the work these guys do? It’s incredible. The art of cartooning is alive and evil in the hands of Piekos, Furtado, and Whelon. I shit you not.
Clean lines, clean colors, dirty jokes…it’s all there. I was looking at Tony’s Transient again today and remember how blown away I was the first time I saw it. It was like looking at movie stills from Heavy Metal. I remember back when I was a total web nookie-sucking newbie and there was this awesome Pewfell comic that was so emblematic of what I love about fantasy. And then I stumble upon the bodacious bobbing beauty of Atland and I’m looking at the images and just shaking my head in amazement and appreciation.
And here we are in the same little mix, posting art, talking about comics, and being one with the universe...like a pack of wild beasts tearing at the meat of the eternal kill. And it’s all good.
Thanks guys.
(How many people got a mental picture of Chuck Whelon chewing on a raw leg bone?)