One-a-Day #56

Wise Oleg:

From Russia With Love

I was looking through my books for something light to read and I re-discovered a retelling of Robert Luis Stevenson's "Treasure Island". It's a simple adaptation that can be read in an evening (and it made me remember just how good the "real" book is...so I pulled that off the bookshelf as well). This retelling is profusely illustrated by Alexander Mikhnushev, who according to the bio at the back of the book, is the winner of "prestigious awards". There are lots of little 1/8 page spot illustrations and also a lot of double page illustrations (that regretfully suffer by having a book crease right in the middle) and even though the style took a little time to grow on me, I think they all capture the spirit of adventure that saturates the whole book.

Fair Fight take two...or Conan again

I mentioned earlier that I had this one idea for a "silent" 4 page story...and I have already done 5 versions of it. The latest version was done in my "one-a-day" sketchbook (here), the version before that ended up in the first issue of Robotika, the other three versions...are scattered all around. Last night, by accident, I found photocopies of my third attempt at it. This was done right before I started working on the first Robotika mini-series. Here are the pencils:




I was clearly having some problems drawing different body types and my hands were even more awkward then they are now. But once I got through with the pencils I jumped right into inking:




I felt a lot more confident in my inking abilities, so I had a pretty fun time inking the pages. Just about everything but the panel borders, the arrow and the chain mail were done with a brush of some sort...and looking at that now I think it's pretty boring. Currently I am using everything that makes a mark to ink my drawings and I love the variations in my lines. This really could have benefited from some textures and some more dynamic ink work.

One-a-Day #55 (Guest Artist)

Today's sketch is by Timothy Green II...I figure it still counts because it is in the sketchbook :)

Timothy is the artists on Dark Horse's "Aeon Flux", DC's "Rush City", and Marvel's revamp of "StarLord". Currently he is working on a number of Iron Fist stories, but he took some time out to hang out and have a sketch session during which we swapped sketches in our sketchbooks (I got the better part of the deal!)

One-a-Day #53-54 Jim Starlin and Warlock

At the local comic store there are boxes with discounted comics. When I got extra cash I go through them and see if I can find something interesting. Last week I found issues 1 and 2 of a reprint series showcasing Jim Starlin's Warlock comics. The first two issues reprinted his "Strange Tales" stories and his first regular Warlock issue.

I have read these books 10-15 years ago...in fact these were some of the first comics I was introduced to. The guy who got me into comics was a huge Starlin fan and just about had all of his artwork. I loved them and I am happy to say that they withstand the test of time. There are just as fun to read now as they were back than. Warlock discovering that through his soul gem can consume memories and feelings of his victims was a great twist. And of course the whole idea that he needs to battle his future self in order to save the universe from his own religious dictatorship is totally fun...in fact so fun that I started drawing Warlock stuff :)


The Trial of Adam Warlock


The Soul Tree

One-a-Day #51-52

I was trying to figure out how to ink a black cloak and also looking at different sorts of compositions

One-a-Day #47-50...CONAN!!

I mentioned earlier just how much I admire Conan comics by Barry Smith. One of my favorite stories is "Twilight of the Grim Grey God", it has everything in it: mythology, savagery, romance, politics, intrigue...and a barbarian. Below are the first two pages as drawn by Barry Smith in the early 70's when he was in his early 20's.




At first glance, the figures look silly and very comic-book, but when I tried to re-draw them I found that his figures (even at that time) had lots of energy. Twisting and turning, every body wound up like a spring. I tried a couple of times to capture the half turned half crouching pose...and failed. It sure was a great sketching session :)




One thing I realized when I got down to trying to re-draw/re-imagine/re-create/re-copy the pages is that for dense stories, drawing on 8.5x11 is very tough. I had a heck of a time drawing little figures on the second page:

One-a-Day #41-46

First of is a 2 page experiment "ArtWork"...a bit more cartoony than my usual stuff:



A few takes on Guy Davis "Marquis", that almost looks more like "Phantom of the Opera":



And a couple more days of sketching:

ONE-a-DAY #40

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