Every Little Thing You Do Is Magic

Ok... I like drawing Thor, Daredevil, Moon Knight AND The Thing.

Here's ol' Blue eyes, himself.

What else is going on, you ask.... ? I'm inking the UFO pages and getting ready to fly to Charlotte for Heroes Con! The con is going to be a great time. I get to hang with Braids of the Gorgon writer/co-creator Ken Faggio for the whole show, which is really cool since we've been working together for 9 years and this is our first face to face meeting! I also get to see the Perhapanauts crew (Todd, Craig and Rico), which is great timing as I just got the full issue Perhapanauts script from Todd Dezago and Scott Weinstein. We're going to go over it and make sure the Molly story is handled just right. Once I get back from the con and finish off the inks for the UFO story, I'll be digging into the Perhapanauts script. It's going to be so kick ass!

Some Heads Are Gonna Roll

Here's the next page of the Braids of the Gorgon pitch. Nothing like a little decapitation to start the day!

Flight Of The Snow Goose

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I'm hard at work on Thor stuff but I thought I'd share a fully complete page of Braids of the Gorgon. We just got back the lettered pages from Kel Nuttall and they look AWESOME! This pitch is looking so good!

Oh, yeah. I just booked my flight and hotel for my trip to Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC. Looking forward to hanging with Braids writer Ken Faggio. I've know Ken for about 8 years but this will be the first time meeting him in person!

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!

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.

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.

What God Wants, Part 1

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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.

Any Colour You Like

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Still trying to get my head around the whole colouring comics thing. There are so many hues to choose from that it can be hard coming up with final colour choices.

One such example of my inability to come up with a definitive color scheme is that of the Gorgon, Euryale, one of the main characters of Braids. Right from day 1, way back in 2001 when Ken and I had our first start working on Braids, I've always visualized her as green. In my brain, Euryale was green. Well, she was until I started colouring the first panel she showed up on. Suddenly, green didn't seem to fit her, it was too obvious. She needed to stand out, be different from the majority of "monsters". But not too different. She also had to be visually interesting when interacting with the other main characters. Sigh.

The above image is part of my attempt to find the right colour for her. I've narrowed it down to more of the blue/purple range, as red, yellow and orange don't really work when she is with certain other characters. Ken and I think we know the one we want. We still have to hear from James to see if we are all in agreement.

In the meantime, I'd love to know which one of the 4 hues shown above would you good people choose for our Gorgon. No answer is wrong so please leave a comment below, if you are so inclined.

Ritual (Nous Sommes Du Soleil)

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Here is a fully coloured Braids of the Gorgon page! This is the first page of the pitch Ken, James and I are putting together.

Colouring my comic art is relatively new to me, the only other colouring I've done was on my 5 page Dear Santa story, "Whatever It Takes" and the 14 page Trickster tale I drew. So, yeah, colouring is still pretty much a "learn as I go" experience. I posted an earlier version of the colours for this page up at Digital Webbing and got a few great critiques, especially the amazing post from pro colorist Nick Filardi, which helped me improve the page. I think it's "done" now, but I never can really tell when something is done.

I'm now almost finished colouring the third page of the pitch. The colouring is getting a little faster, but not any easier.

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

Coloring on the Braids of the Gorgon pages has begun. Ken, James and I decided that I should give the coloring a try, so I've been doing that, mostly. I'll post a finished page once I get the thumbs up from the crew.

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In the meantime, I did manage to do a few more sketchbook sketches. I'm almost all caught up on them, now! Here's one I did for my friend, Dino. Thanks for your patience, it's in the mail!

Finest Worksong

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I've been drawing a lot lately. Work on the Braids of the Gorgon layouts has begun! Looks like Ken, James and I are going to do 6 pages for the pitch, most of which are action packed! This is a panel from one of the pages of rough layouts. I'm having a blast on these!

In addition to the Braids stuff, I've been working on the sketches for all the Convention Sketchbooks that I've sold (they're still available. see this post for details!). I've been pretty happy with them. Hope the recipients are too!