Swamp Song

With my part of the Braids pitch finished, I now have the time to get to the sketchbook drawings I owed to a few patient people. Here is one of them, hot off the drawing table.
Swamp Thing. My first time drawing this character. He was fun to draw, actually.

I still have a few sketchbooks left, BTW. For $5 you get the book plus a sketch of your favorite character on the inside. Interested? You can read more about them here.

Have a great weekend!

Diary Of A Madman

I thought I'd do a post about my process for coming up with the new cover for our Braids Of The Gorgon pitch. A visual diary, of sorts. I know I dig these kinds of things when I see them on other artists' blogs. Are you seated comfortably? Then we shall begin... Step 1.
This is the first ink sketch I did as I started to get a sense of what I wanted on the cover. I did a loose drawing in pencil and then just let the pen and brush do the rest of the drawing. I was pretty happy with this, hand/temple roof tangents aside. I did up some simple colours for it and shipped it off to James and Ken for their reactions.Step 2.
One of the things that James suggested I change was the placement of our resident Gorgon and place her behind the temple. I did a few quick sketches to see how that would look and thought it was an interesting idea. Step 3.
I felt the emphasis was too much on the architecture (something I love to draw) and made it smaller and had the Gorgon more prominent and more "gorgon-like". I decided that a logo placed on the bottom of the cover was probably not the best place to have it. Instead, I pushed the whole image down and left more room at the top for the logo. I was also flirting with the idea of adding some figures, like Damara and Perseus, in the foreground but decided that it was looking forced and taking away from the narrative of the image.Step 4.
I then picked up my brush, grabbed my cup of ink and did this. No pencil drawing, just ink and all the happy mistakes that can happen. I dug this drawing and sent it off to the Braids crew (Ken and James). I waited breathlessly to hear their reaction. Well, maybe not breathlessly...Step 5.
It was suggested that I try and open the Gorgon up for a tad more detail and to maybe put a hand coming forward to give it more tension. All great suggestions, so off I went to my drawing table and redrew the image. Again, no pencil drawing first. All ink, baby! I was jazzed with this and decided to throw some colour over it.Step 6.
With colour applied and the Braids logo (designed by Avi Goldberg) in place, I sent this off to Ken and James. And, what do you know? They liked it as it was! Cover complete!

Hope you dug that! See you on Friday!

Push Th' Little Daisies

Work on a new Braids of the Gorgon cover has begun. I don't have anything "finished" so I'll just give you some warm up/development sketches. These drawings are just me putting down some lines to react to. I do a lot of my thinking right on the page. Most of the time all I get are a bunch of lines doing nothing but covering paper. There are a few times, however, when things come together and push me in a particular direction. Sometimes that direction isn't the right direction, but at least I'm moving somewhere!

Hopefully, I'll have something closer to a finished stage for my Wednesday update.

Tales of Brave Ulysses

Every Greek epic should have a narrator character. Someone who brings you up to speed on the story and interjects relevant information, from time to time. This is our Narrator. Who is this mysterious orator and what is his/her connection to the tale he/she tells? I can't say! The identity will be kept secret until the last page of the mini series!

This is the last Braids character sketch. At least for now. We've got more than enough material for the pitch, so I'm changing my focus to working on a new cover. I find covers hard to do but it's a good challenge. I'll start posting some of my work of that next week.

My (new) computer is acting up so I'm hoping this will actually post...

Divine Intervention

This is the Pallus Athena, patron goddess of Athens. She is another one of our major characters, as her presence is woven throughout Braids.

One of the things I love about Braids of the Gorgon is that it deals with the mythology of the ancient Greeks. As much as I love Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze (and I really do love that book), I can't help wishing it had some Greek Gods in it, meddling in human affairs. That's just where my heart felt interests lay. Heck, they don't even have to be almighty Gods erupting with cosmic power. They just have to walk among the masses and exude their divine influence.

All the Braids character sketches have now been coloured and are ready for inclusion in the pitch packages that Ken, James and I will be sending out soon! Actually, the pitch should be ready to go for the Emerald City Comic Con, which is at the beginning of April in Seattle. There will be a few excellent publishers at the show that would make a great home for Braids. Once we know that the pitch is ready, we'll try to set up some meetings with them. Ken showed some of the Braids material around at the New York City Con and got some genuine interest in the book, so hopefully showing the whole pitch will get us picked up for publication.

Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'

Another shot of Damara, the tough as nails, no messin' around, straight to the point captain of the King's Guard.

The Braids pages have been sent to Jason Hanley, letterer extraordinaire! He's a busy guy but he's going to squeeze us in as soon as he can.

Any Major Dude Will Tell You

Another major character in the first arc of Braids is this dude. Friend or foe? I'm not telling! You'll just have to wait to find out...

You're So Close

These are a few shots of another major player in our tale that is Braids of the Gorgon. This is Perseus, slayer of Gorgons. I wonder what part he'll play in all this... (add maniacal laughter here)

The pitch pages are sooooo close to being ready. The lettering and the actual design of the pitch are the next steps. I'll even try my hand at another cover for the book. I have one from years ago, which I really like, but I'm interested in seeing if I can come up with something better.

Kinda Kute

The previous post was of Euryale in her Gorgon form. This is Euryale in her human form. Kinda cute for a Gorgon...

More Braids character sketches on Wednesday!

Turn To Stone

click the scaly skinned woman to see her bigger

This is Euryale, one of the main characters of Braids. Eury is the half human half Gorgon daughter of Medusa and the last of her kind. She has the snakes, the leathery wings and the ability to turn you to stone with a glance. Sounds like my kind of woman!

I'll have some more character sketch stuff to show on Monday!

What God Wants, Part 1

smash image with club to see it bigger

Here's another Braids character sketch. This one is Hercules, my favorite Greek God (or demi-god, in Herc's case). The colours aren't "final", as I haven't run it past Ken and James, but I think it's pretty much what Herc will look like for the book.

On Friday I'll post another colour Braids character sketch.

One More Time

click image. make bigger.

Here's another character sketch of Damara. I'll have a Hercules character sketch for you all on Wednesday. Maybe more...