Wanted!

This post is long over due... so I'll get with it.

Coloring Book:  This month proved exciting and frustrating.  Frank and Charlie's journey has become exciting for me.  Truthfully the initial venture was just to see if I could make each month feel as though the same two characters were present and move the journey geographically.  I feel confident now in accomplishing this feat and have actually let myself relax.  I laid out their journey early on in the initial concept process.  No real preconceived imagery but notes on where they were each month and what other birds or animals they might run into.  They are about to hang a right and head west at Florida next month and things are going to get a little crazy.   I hope to loosen my grip on the same punch line each month.  Frank can only get mad at Charlie so many times before even a five year old gets bored.

The real frustration this month was Captain V Space Dog.  I've never really known what story I was going to tell.  Each month I just came up with something to keep things moving.  This month I kinda drop the ball.  While the Image of Officer Biernat is fine the second entry this month is a wanted poster for Drogo Blekk.  Not very creative.  But because of this lack of story I finally outlined the rest of the year and have a story to tell.  I know some authors actually work this way all the time but I cannot.  I will admit it created given circumstances I had to work within and therefore limited my possibilities for outcomes.

My Dino Story continues on not much to report their minus my editor.  The image below was the first created to help show my T-rex's ferocity.  My editor (Bridget) said it was too scary for a 5 and 3 year old...  she might have a point.  I still needed to show my T-rex victorious over the Deinonychus so I went with the image below that.  Not as dynamic but a lot less scary.  I'm learning.

Station 13 and the Dragons continue in their own way.

First female character:  Bridget - Queen of the Dragon Chickens!

Last but not least one of my favorite beasts from growing up, the Hammerhead Shark, was our courier.  See last months courier for dialogue references.

Bridget and I wrote a children's story last September.  We had it laid out and formatted and I was to finish it by Halloween and maybe have it self published for friends and family...  here it is almost June and its not done.  While the story has not changed the character and set designs have gotten better.  I am a lot better at illustrating the story now than 9 months ago (exponentially).   My initial run was more about producing a product and seeing the process through to the end.  Well technically we did, and looking back I'm glad I did not rush to completion.  The art would have been sacrificed just for speed.  While I do hope to have a black and white version self published for Halloween 2010, I am currently spending a lot of time with my characters and evolving them to a less static state.  Here is recent character reference sheet to help continue my evolution.

As this progresses I'll continue to update.  Here it is the last week of May and I'll be diving back into these worlds for another round of imagery.

A Few Additions

This last round has already been received and colored so I'm a little slow to post.  I'm currently in the early stages of organizing the next round.  I have loose outlines as to where the story pieces go (Except for Captain V Space Dog but I'll get to that in a moment).  The dragons and even Station 13 are more exploratory for me.  Since I have no real direction I can create what I'm interested in at that moment.

 
Frank and Charlie's journey has been outlined with major plot points or turns and even the dinosaur story has started to round itself out.  Of course I'm stretching Dino history to draw dinosaurs I want to draw.  Soon the Triceratops and the Stegosaurus families will meet and this would have never happened because they did not live at the same time.

As for Captain V, I've decided to add a nemesis and shift gears from an exploratory mission traveling to each planet to a "high-speed" space chase traveling to each planet.  This story has not been thought out except to where and how it might end.  The chase will definitely take Captain V and 7 to all the planets but how and why are a mystery even to me.

Here we have a few color editions I've been working on.  The first is an initial concept piece for the bad guy Drogo Blekk (I will not lie, I wanted a Cthulhu-esque character) and his ship the Cuttlefish.  The next is a Helicopter Rescue Team modeled after the Coast Guard.  The crew though is what was always important.  My brother Steve and of course our Dog "V" and rounding out the crew on either side is James and Joseph my nephews.  I had a blast drawing it and they just loved it.  I tend to steer away from people due to lack of confidence so this was a great project to begin my therapy.

Last but certainly not least is Venus.  After months (if not years) I've finally dusted off the camera and attempted some more photography.  Venus is easy subject matter and I don't think I could ever take enough photos...

Colored Coloring Book

For some reason this week I decided to color in some of the images for myself.  I suppose after creating line drawings for a while you get the itch to added some color.  Nothing special but it was fun!

Coloring Book

Its been a few weeks and I'd hoped to post weekly but I suppose things happen.  Last week I worked heavily on drawings for a Coloring Book for my Nephews.  I take this very seriously because I consider them harsh critics.  Plus so am I.  Its only the second round of images but I'm ecstatic about the product.  Its been a long time since I took drawing seriously and the past months have been great.

The concept breaks down loosely like this: I peicing together a coloring book over 2010.  Each month I create 10 drawings and send them to my Nephews.  At the end of the year I will collect them all together and add additional drawings and present them to the guys as a complete Coloring book.  I have five subjects I draw Birds, Dinosaurs, Emergency Vehicles, Dragons, and Captain V Space Dog (Although they have not met our latest addition to the family, "Venus" our Shepard, Lab, Chow mix, is a big hit with the guys, so she has her own chapter and plays a role in the Emergency Vehicle images).  I can't help but tell stories so of the five subjects two or three have managed to become full fledged "serials" with continuous stories through out the year.

Frank and Charlie: Westward Bound - Is the story of Frank, a temperamental Cardinal, and his happy-go-lucky pal, Charlie,  a Blue Jay and there journey from New York to New Mexico.  Along the way we will discover new birds depending on the regions and find out why Frank and Charlie are good friends.

Captain V Space Dog - This is the story of a canine astronaut as she re-renters our solar system and checks out each planet on her way back to earth.  It was previously titled Venus in Space and ment to be hammy like "Pigs in Space"

 

 

Dinosaurs - This particular subject is still up for serializing.  I have a story planned out but I'm not sure if I'll go through with it.  I love Dinosaurs and the though of just drawing a handful of dinosaurs over and over again as opposed to two new dinos a month... well like I said I'm still debating.

Station 13 - This is my Emergency, Rescue, Police, Exploration faction that allows me to explore all kinds of vehicles and characters.  Venus has had some good exposure within the group these past months but I'm not sure if she'll continue to have the impact as the year goes on.  While this subject has no real story, it has been great testing grounds for short story possibilities.

 

 

Dragons - The last of the subjects and a requested one that caught me off guard.  I have always loved dragons but lost my infatuation with them a long time ago.  That said, this past month I actually really got into my Dragons drawings and I'm looking forward to drawing more.

Last I put together a courier.  Each Month a courier from a different region in the world delivers the images for me to my Nephews.  January was a Praying Mantis from France named Vincent Mante, This month is a Japanese Crane and Tortoise... 

So I'll post more of the images as the year progresses.  March is looking to have an aquatic theme at this point...

The Beast - Early concepts for graphic novel

 

The Beast is a project that I've played around with for a couple of months.  The concept centers around a WWII M3 Half track that manages to survive a nuclear holocaust.  Shortly after the holocaust aliens arrive and deem the Earth theirs since humans aren't responsible enough to take care of their planet.  Aliens begin terraforming and what's left of the human population resists.  That is the backdrop, anyway.  The idea would be that the half track is the main character and is passed along to different owners (Via death, debt, gift, stolen, etc.,)  Right now I have a fairly strong origin story that plays right into a good set of given circumstances.  Still deciding whether I should use humans or animals for my cast.  Between this, the Bone King and our Squids stories I've got my hands full.

Skull Sucking Squid

I guess the last and first week of the year are always going to be hard for posting.  So here is a "commission" of sorts.  Most of my friends know that I can't stop drawing skulls (And have been since high school) so this post will come as no surprise to most.  One of my best friends asked for me to draw him a squid for a tatoo and went on to elaborate the idea of the squid sucking on a skull.  While I do not feel the picture depicts a lot of suction going on, I felt it was a good compromise.  Especially seeing how I have no idea what part of the body he plans to have this inked!  Hopefully he'll let me post a picture of the work once its completed.  Have fun Joe!