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

Page 1

One-a-Day #36-39 "Dance of Bones, Beautiful Bones"

My next story: "Dance of Bones, Beautiful Bones".

ONE-a-DAY #33-35

This was a take on David Petersen's "Mouse Guard".

I don't usually go for the pin-up artists, but I just recently "discovered" Petty ( there is enough of Leyendecker influence in his work to catch my eye). These are sketches made from his drawings.

I had an idea for this that did not work out...but I like all the shapes. There are some dynamics that my figures lack a lot of the times :(

One-a-Day #27-32

"The Bronze Horsemen" is my most "ambitious" short story done in the sketchbook so far. It took about a week and was a lot of fun. I used blue pencil to lay-out each page, regular lead pencil to tighten the figures, pens and brushes to ink everything and I added tooth brush spray and markers to introduce tones.

"The body of graf Bronski, an infamous duelist and gambler, was found trampled to death on July 5, 1829"
A. Pushkin (August, 1833)

One-a-Day #26

One-a-Day #25

Blue pencil (and when I ran out of blue lead, I picked-up a green pencil to finish off the lines).
Art Nouveau Swamp Magic.

Robotika relaunch...books in stores!

The first 64 page issue of Robotika arrives in stores today!

One-a-Day #24

Warlord of Mars

One-a-Day #23

AnnaBellaLee

One-a-Day #22

One-a-Day #20 and #21

Ok, so this is another short comic book story: Fields of Gold. I feel that it could have went on for a couple of pages...maybe even having the last panel being just like the first panel showing how things always revolve in cycles :)

One-a-Day #19

Black on white on black

One-a-Day #18

I just recently read "Warlord of Mars" and I really loved the whole retro-sci-fi idea. I did some searching on the web and discovered that a noted illustrator, Frank Schoonover, was the original illustrator for "Warlord of Mars". Here is his cover and my sketch based on it. It was fun to do, I had lots of fun figuring out the gun belt and all the doodads.

One thing I was playing with the John Carter's hair style. He was a Civil War veteran, so I wanted to give him a bit more of the Buffalo Bill look.

One-a-Day #17

This is the one and ONLY collaboration between the Alex S, Nik S, and Charles Dana Gibson!

The girl face is me trying to do a Charles Dana Gibson style, the two guys are me copying random Gibson images (and inking them with a dip pen---I have never inked face shadows with lines like that before), and the two figures (with long hair) are by Nik :)

One-a-Day #16

Just keep on experimenting....

One-a-Day #15 (Conan)

I love Conan. I can't explain "why" or "why" I love Barry Smith's version and not John Buscema's. I would put my money down in a heartbeat if Sandy Plunkett drew a Conan graphic novel, but I still have not picked up a Paul Gulacy's "Skull of Set" Conan story. I like Cary Nord's approach and I loved Corben's pages in the Conan relaunch...but I don't pick it up on regular basis. It's all one big mystery...but here is "Barbarian, a Girl, and a Wizard".

One-a-Day #14 (Corbenesque)

I used a brush to do the fur on the right hand side and I used a dip pen to do teh fur on the left hand side a-la Richard Corben.

One-a-Day #13 (I try to letter and look at Steranko)

Steranko used to do this 3 panel thing showing figure movement in a fixed background, I decided to use that when I sat down to draw and had fun trying to figure out where to fit it in. Ended up in the top 3 panels.

One-a-Day #12 (Marvel trivia!)

One of the early Red Sonja/Conan versions I sent in to Marvel for review. After a while I actually got a letter back from the submissions editor. By the time I got a response I found all sorts of things wrong with the storytelling, so I was not surprised that Marvel did not offer me any work. The editor was actually very kind and encouraging. He commented on the story page by page, and there was even a mention of how he saw some promising things in the pages.

I usually throw letters away, but now I am kind of sorry I got rid of that letter because I would like to be able to reread it and see if I worked on the things that were suggested.

One-a-Day #11

Page two of the story. Done in one session and I am now starting to roll along.

The funny thing about this particular short story (that I call "A Fair Fight"), is that this is the 5th time that I am drawing it. The first 3 times that I drew it, it was Red Sonja and Conan, and the last time I drew it it was Niko and Cherokee (just like this time...only different).

One-a-Day #10

Because I was not happy with that last panel I redrew it and now with the magic of Photoshop I can present the whole page :)

One-a-Day #8 & #9

At first this sketchbook was going to be just me sketching character designs or doodling rough layouts for comic pages, but a few pages into it I started inking the sketches and doing some more or less finished pictures. I figure this is because right now this is my only source of output and I love to ink. Anyway, with this page the sketchbook morphed again. It became a place where I can try to do short stories with a goal of drawing a page every 1-2 hours.

I drew the first 2 panels in the first session and finished it off next time...although I was not thrilled with the composition of the last panel.

One-a-Day #7

I was tired and only had 20 minutes before "bed time", but I felt that it was important to me to try to get a sketch in. It's simple and has problems, but I kind of like it...probably because it is simple and has problems :)

One-a-Day #6

One of the failed experiments...I learned that if I am going to draw a silhouette, I need to think of basic shapes and not try to draw the figure and then just black it in (so it can look awkward and flat).

One-a-Day #5

Just drawing stuff and I tried to do something simple and at the same time interesting with the black shapes behind the figure. It was fun just to grab a brush and swirl it around. I am so used to having tight control over the brush it and doing this felt kind of odd :)

One-a-Day #4

I worked on a lay-out for an 8 page short Robotika story called "Spartan Methods" that David Moran wrote. The idea here was that Niko is undergoing virtual reality training and he is participating with 300 Spartans in the Thermopylae battle. The story will be done in blues or grays to highlight the fact that it is virtual reality (to separate it from fully colored panels that will take place in "real" world). Niko's figure would be outlined in red (or orange) to identify him...of course he would also be the only samurai at the battle. This is pages 1-4:

One-a-Day #3

Still trying to get used to using a blue pencil and just wanted to draw a goth-like girl

One-a-Day #2

Recently I finished reading "The Princess of Mars" and was really taken with the imagery (and all those Frazetta drawings now make a LOT of sense!). I tried to come up with a different idea for a creature with 2 sets of arms and I stumbled upon a concept of one set of powerful arms for fighting and heavy lifting and a second set of arms for delicate work like writing or eating. So here are some visual ideas:

The sketch posted earlier has the same idea, but being an early try at it, is not very clear (the folded arms look like some sort of weird abs)

One-a-Day...and Robotika

The second Robotika double-sized issue is now being solicited in previews (JUN090696) and can be either pre-ordered through a local comic shop or bought right here at Heavyink.com

I finished a few pin-ups recently. One is for an Italian comic book called "Justice and Bullet" and another for a collected edition of "Primordia" published by Archaia. Doing the pin-ups got me thinking that I have been drawing a lot of Robotika lately and not enough of other genres...so 2 weeks ago I started a sketchbook. The idea is to draw something (anything) everyday that is some sort of an experiment for me (either in theme or execution). Here is the first page (I am going to try posting every day a new sketch):