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Advertising work generally isn’t too exciting to post, since it tends to be a person using a new phone, or a closeup of a shoe, and usually there’s about six minutes total to draw it all, but a while back I did a few pictures for a sports promo that had a different setting — not sure if it even got shot, but drawing the rain was fun (for six minutes).
(These could, as always, also be filed in the “why don’t you just draw comics this way (and at this speed)” folder.)
Maybe I can’t do comics just yet, but I can do pictures that take as long to read as one — this cover was for an old friend Goran Sudžuka’s (and Stephanie Phillips’) new book, so I wanted to go all out on it if I could.
And the last one, sooner than I expected–
A hiatus with work and blog (and literally everything else, but that part’s not new), because of the body very much not cooperating again, but there’s still covers I didn’t get to here. More unexpected subject matter too. In anticipation of the last cover, here’s the first four —
(you should be able to click on them and just use the arrow keys)
(A brief break from drawing scowling grumps)
A few uphill weeks in a row again, but some recent covers are coming out, so here’s one:
I don’t draw animals that often but I had a stretch this year where for a few weeks everyone asked me to. This story at least suggested a very graphic treatment. (The cat one was my favorite as a picture, though this one is better as a cover.)
This inverted version, when I was mailing the file, was also fun, but the cover was already finished, so it goes in the “accidental good ideas” folder for some future use.
One from last year that was just too slow to make it to press in time– I remember it being a particularly impossible period so I’m amazed I managed to draw even the patterns — though without the color I probably consider it only 40% done, if that much.
This issue is out at the end of February, I think, so here’s one of my favorite pictures from last year.
Done during one of my more uphill times, but I was happy to be able to do a cover for Ben Stenbeck’s creator-owned book. And since it’s for another artist, I allowed myself to do it almost how I’d do it for myself.
read the whole post —
When I did the other Christopher Chaos cover, this was the only alternative idea I had, and the editors approved both (hooray!) so this one was done for a later issue, out in December.
Sometimes a cover is best as a simple picture of the person standing there, or a dynamic action shot. Other times, a completely different approach works out better and leads to more interesting places. Here’s a case of the latter working out better. How did I end up with these circles?
read the whole post —
I had a few directions for this one, from the maximalist “just put everything in there” to a 3D one (using the model I made sometime in the middle of issue four of Skulldigger and Skeleton Boy and then promptly forgot to actually use for reference for the rest of the book.)
Sometimes the cover needs a twist, other times the best course is to draw the thing. This was one of the straightforward ones.
read the whole post —
Who knew that drawing an invisible monster would take longer than drawing a visible one?
read the whole post —
The second hardcover omnibus volume is out now, collecting the last (and best) volume I did with John Arcudi, Pirate’s Ghost and Metal Monsters of Midtown, as well as the first book, The Iron Prometheus by Jason Armstrong and Mignola, and short stories that were originally collected in the fifth paperback, A Chain Forged in Life. Roughly 470 pages of Lobster.
read the whole post —And to wrap up the archival Lobster week, one bit from the last story I did, The Empty Chair.
Continuing Lobster week and stepping a year earlier with this one. All the covers back then started as watercolor thumbnails. That was a pretty satisfying way to figure things out, as well as a good method of keeping it simple in terms of color.
This is for a graphic novel that has so much going on that I thought the best course for the cover would be to include everything (or at least as much as fits on one page).
I don’t know why the release image is missing the Dark Horse logo in the top left corner, though, but the roughs below have it.
Edit: It bothered me so much that I went in and added the Dark Horse logo myself. (Why even bring that up? Because balance takes at least fifty times as long as the drawing part, usually– it’s a chronic cartooning condition that eats up the brain. See black areas below.)
