I almost didn’t make rehab today. But here’s what I churned out about an hour-and-a-half ago:

I didn’t get to draw this morning because I had to report to jury duty. Luckily, I don’t have to report back, which means my morning schedule can stay intact for now.

Most of the sketches above were done using some reference material I have stashed away in a pull file. I was looking for faces I could use as inspiration for the characters in my project. Everything was done with a penbrush (though today doesn’t qualify as an Inkspill because I didn’t get them posted within the hour). Other sketches were done off the top of my head to see if I could create something using what I learned from sketching from the references.

Out of the four pages of sketches, I didn’t scan one of them because, well, it’s just not as good as the other three. Excuse my vanity.

I think I decided on the look for the wife, and I know what hairstyle I want to use for the main character. His face still escapes me. I hope I can find it by Saturday.

A new sketch! It’s been awhile since I posted a drawing.

This is a sketch of the main character for the graphic novel I’m going to get my ass in gear for. I also started working on his wife. They’re not finalized by any means; I want to pull some references before I decide on the final look. But, once I get the look of each character down – and there are really only three main characters – I should be good to go and can start working on pages. Because the story is so straight forward and raw, I’m looking forward to just finding ways to grind through each panel, each page, until it’s done. Though I’m more of a fantasy story guy, this story is actually exciting me when I think about it.

As the week nears a close, I started thinking about how I want to proceed with the schedule… especially the posting part. I’m pretty sure I don’t get a whole lot of visitors at this point, but I know they’ll come and I want them to come back. Exposure, right? More importantly, I think the daily posts have actually been kind of like imposing a deadline upon myself, one that I have to meet everyday. I don’t think I’ll have anything worthy to post every single day once I stop the rehab and go straight into the project, but I think a weekly, Friday deadline might be a good thing.

Today I actually got up at 6:50 AM and got to the drawing board just before 7:00. Woo hoo!

I finished inking page 1 and it looks a little better than yesterday. I a little over-worked, but better. I had to stop myself from over-working the page too much because I could feel myself trying to find ways to make the page look better, but any more noodling and hatching would’ve made the page look even crappier than it does.

So here’s the problem: I want to keep the look of each page consistent. Does this mean I have to work each page to match page 1? Or do I just approach the next page with the same aesthetic goal but try to cut back on the over-working, risking the next page(s) not matching page 1 entirely? And, what if, in the meantime, I found a better way to approach and, hopefully, accomplish my aesthetic goal, something different than what I did with page 1? The goal is the same but the approach is slightly different? Just go for it and see what happens? Wait until next time?

I also noticed that my hand didn’t really hurt today. Maybe because I didn’t do that much outline work. But also, today as I used my dip pen, I kept thinking to myself, “Treat it like a pencil. Treat it like a pencil.” Which I hate, because a dip pen is not a pencil. I don’t like treating things as if they were something else. Sure, I’ll note that some things are similar, but I don’t want to go too far and treat different things as if they were the same. I remember Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller talking about how directing and making a comic were basically the same process, and I remember thinking how ridiculous that was. They may be similar, but they’re not the same. The end goal and the end results are different. The interaction with your materials, actors, story, etc. are different. Perhaps that’s why Sin City was a decent movie but not a great movie; a lot of visual power was lost in the translation because they tried to take the transition from comic to movie too literally.

But, I digress.

I will start inking page 2 tomorrow and see how I approach it. In the meantime, I did this spontaneous little sketch with my dip pen after I finished page 1. I think it took about 3 minutes or so.

Done with a dip pen and Koh-I-Noor black ink on Strathmore Series 500 bristol board

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This is an Inkspill. Inkspills can only be done in ink and must be drawn, scanned, cleaned, and posted in one hour, no more.

I never posted this because originally, this was supposed to be an album cover for a “band” called Huge Black Man, headed by my friend (and now business partner) Noah Clark, drummer for Brilliant Red Lights. Unfortunately, that album doesn’t look like it’s going to come out, so I figured I’d post it now.

I got to hear the music a while back, and it’s some really good, instrumental-neo-rock-improv. I liked it. I can’t remember if Noah wanted a specific theme for the cover, so I figured I’d draw a ton of imaginary and creative-type figures with a “corporate guy” dead at the bottom. Creativity kills pop/corporate. Snobby, eh?

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In other news, I did not finish the novel by Christmas. The holidays were just too busy. However, I have been slowly working on it; the lack of a deadline is a true motivation killer. I am still excited about it and want to reach the end and get the thing published somehow, but I will need to make time to sit down to write.

Comics are still on my mind, everyday. I need to pick a project. I have several I’d like to do, but I need to pick one that will fit into my current schedule and will help me warm up for bigger projects. I’m also going to set a scheduled routine for myself to help me get more things done, creatively. That’s the biggest problem, really. There’s so much to do and no time at all.

I don’t usually draw mainstream superheroes-in-tights very much nowdays, so I don’t get to draw like this very often. However, my friends Kevin and Christina are getting married in October, and Kevin wanted them both to be superheroes for a “portrait”-in-frame piece they’re using as their guestbook. This is what I came up with:

click on image for larger view

Kev and Christina needed to look “superhero-ish,” so I went for a very clean, tight inking style. However, the original piece is also meant to be displayed, so the piece needed to be free of inking mistakes – no smudges, white-ink corrections, etc. It took awhile due to a few throwaways (because, dammit, I’m hard to please!), but this was the result. I like the way it turned out.