So.
Here's a rambling piece I've worked up over the last few weeks, originally formatted for a Twitter rant (hence the capitalized EMPOWERED and so on), but here used as a Patreon post first:
As I’ve said before, EMPOWERED vol.11 quite possibly marks the end of pencil-based artwork for me, as I now seem to get sudden-onset drawing-arm pain any time I push an analog pencil for very long. Not all that upset about it, though.
EMP11 features a gre...
2019-09-24 13:01:02 +0000 UTC
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Yet again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains prodigious.) First above is a recent-ish set from April, while the second is an example from very early on in the effort (December 2016).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
2019-09-23 13:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Following up from last Friday, which showed a 4-page story from this failed pitch, here are the first 5 pages of a longer story introducing the characters seen in that preview (which took place later on in the series).
Below, I'll cut & paste info from last week about the project, with a few notes about the pages afterward:
These are1986-era pages that I drew but did not write from the superhe...
2019-09-20 13:01:02 +0000 UTC
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I already solicited this month's requests from the $5 and $10 Big Spender tiers, and posted sketch dumps based on those suggestions here and here.
Wellp, as we head into the final third of September, it's time to solicit art requests from the rest of you fine folks. As I'm working on a cover illo that'll roll through t...
2019-09-19 12:33:14 +0000 UTC
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For this week's DiD content, I thought I'd sketch up a few pages of roughs from a Hushed Half-Elf episode I was considering, in which our hapless heroine visits a potion shop, only to find herself seized by the gnomish proprietors when they fall prey to her magically attractive "body of a bondage-prone Goddess" curse.
I'd planned to do said roughs in analog pencil, to see if that would trigger my drawing-hand pains; not really, it turns out, but then agai...
2019-09-18 19:30:43 +0000 UTC
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As the long-awaited Empowered vol.11 finally hits North American comics stores today, thought I'd set up a post for Patron-only comments reacting to the grueling, violent, tear-jerking tome that took me (well) over two years to complete, and might represent the last pencil-based work in my comics career. (Within a week or two, I'll post a long, Twitter-formatted rant about the format, its increasing limitations, and what might be next for my oeuvre.)
2019-09-18 12:31:51 +0000 UTC
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Per suggestions made from the $5 tier for this month's art requests, here are a few Procreate sketch sets, which mostly turn into impromptu life-drawing sets after a while. Gotta admit, I'm really starting to struggle with these art requests, as I'm easily bored with drawing for drawing's sake; the life drawing, at least, I occasionally find more interesting. (Remember, Empowered came to exist because I got sick of drawing pin-up illos.)
Need to wor...
2019-09-17 13:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Yet again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains prodigious.) First above is a recent-ish set from April, while the second is an example from very early on in the effort (December 2016).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
2019-09-16 13:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Behold, the earliest artwork of mine that anyone online has ever seen! Gasp! Also, the only comic pages of mine that I drew but did not also write! Gasp, again!
This 4-page story was a preview for the superhero comedy Dangerous Affairs, created and scripted by my late friend James D. Hudnall, writer of comics such as ESPers, Strike Force Morituri, Psycho, Sinking, and Lex Luthor: The Unautho...
2019-09-13 13:37:10 +0000 UTC
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From September art requests submitted by folks in the highest Patreon tier (though not for long, as I'm about to set up a still-higher tier), here are a trio of sketch sets featuring suggested characters.
I'm definitely hitting the limits of what my favorite Procreate brush (the Medium Hard Airbrush) can do. Problem is, I intensely dislike all the inking brushes I've tried in Procreate. So, I might A) go online to look for new brushes; B) try a Paperlik...
2019-09-12 14:54:43 +0000 UTC
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For this week's running-late damsels-in-distress (DiD) content, first we see the final version of an Empowered vol.12 page I posted here in unfinished form a few weeks back. This may well be the final penciled Empowered page, as it looks like I just can't push an analog pencil any more without triggering immediate drawing-arm pain. (We'll see.)
Which means it's time to redouble my experiments with the easier-on-my-arm digital format, f...
2019-09-11 18:21:55 +0000 UTC
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Recently unearthed a pair of 1993-vintage Bubblegum Crisis sample pencil pages I drew for various inkers to try out on, along with inks based on 'em by the great Robert Dejesus. (At least three other artists did inking samples, but I can't find any of those results.) Gotta say that Bob's inks look better than my pencils! (Note that I did reuse the hardsuit pencils from the first page's big panel in a published comic.)
Alas, the scheduling didn't work out for Bo...
2019-09-10 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Yet again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains prodigious.) First above is a recent-ish set from April, while the second is an example from very early on in the effort (December 2016).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
2019-09-09 12:01:01 +0000 UTC
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This month, I'm getting an early-ish start on soliciting some art requests from the fine folks in the "Golden cookie jar" Patreon tier! All 54 of you $5 Patrons* have a rather outsized impact on my monthly total, so I figured I might as well give you a separate post to make your suggestions for topics. Fire away!
As before, down in the comments section below, feel free to suggest...
2019-09-07 19:09:12 +0000 UTC
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For this week's Failed-Project Friday, here's a three-page excerpt from an old 48-page Dirty Pair story that I'll begin serializing on this here Patreon at some point in the next few months. (Looking at these somewhat gray jpegs, I'll need to punch up the contrast levels in Photoshop a bit before I start the formal serialization.)
2004's Dirty Pair: Quick & Dirty is a bit of an odd duck, as it's 48-pager effectively drawn in a prot...
2019-09-06 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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In a follow-up to a pair of earlier posts featuring illos that Ryan Kinnaird and I did for an ICON motorcycle helmet (here's post #1, then post #2) , behold another bunch of recently unearthed roughs I sketched for the same campaign, featuring a proto-Ninjette character (with a notably larger chest) and a Chun Li-ish character wielding C...
2019-09-05 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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These sketch sets are pretty recent, dating back to 2018 or so, produced during a lull in the seemingly endless grind of struggling to complete Empowered vol. 11. I had a long-standing (very long-standing, as in years) open commission from a friend for some "unmasked Emp" artwork; as I was about to draw a maskless, disheveled Emp for the wrenching final act of vol. 11, this seemed like as good a time as any to get in some practice.
In theory, there was...
2019-09-04 13:20:17 +0000 UTC
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Yet again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains prodigious.) First above is a recent-ish set from April, while the second is an example from very early on in the effort (December 2016).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
2019-09-03 13:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Based on a last-minute solicitation of art requests last week, here's the final set of Procreate sketches based (mostly) on those suggestions. You can see other August requests here and here.
Down 5 Patrons as of September. Ouch!
In the next few weeks, I'll probably do s'more polls and queries to what you might li...
2019-09-02 18:30:55 +0000 UTC
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Last Friday I recounted the tragic tale of the time I unsuccessfully tried to get Rick Mays (Gen13, Livewires, Kabuki: Scarab) approved to draw a Dirty Pair miniseries I woud've written for him. If you recall, Rick's art samples posted there featured luxurious colors by my buddy Ryan Kinnaird; wellp, this time around I'll show the samples that Ryan worked up...
2019-08-30 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Behold, another few sketch sets drawn in the iOS app Procreate and based on August art requests from the Big Spenders of the higher Patreon tiers! (A sketch dump from earlier in the month, heavy on Emp-as-Lum cosplay, can be seen here.)
In set #2, that main figure is indeed supposed to be Ninjette dolled up as Battle Angel Al...
2019-08-29 13:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Running short on time today, as I'm in the midst of what I hope is the final day of work on The Toughest Comic Script I've Ever Written. So, here's another hastily posted set of random Empowered DiD sketches.
Quick word of explanation: One of my regular DiD commissioners (during my darker days of little to no comics income) was cool with me doing somewhat random sets of sketch sets like the ones above, which were incredibly fast and easy for me to crank o...
2019-08-28 13:21:02 +0000 UTC
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Yet again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains prodigious.) First above is a recent set from April, while the second is an example from very early on in the effort (December 2016).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments. (Whoops, accidentally posted one of 'em at even higher resolution than normal...
2019-08-27 13:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Wellp, as we're now under a month out from the Sept. 18 release* of the long-awaited Empowered vol. 11, figured I'd do a li'l previewing of the book on the ol' Patreon, and give the ol' image gallery feature a workout.
The first image is the title page for the volume's single (and ominously titled) story, "You're Just Gonna Have to Kill me." The rest o...
2019-08-26 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Behold, some 2001 Dirty Pair character-design samples by the great Rick Mays, featuring coloring by my buddy Ryan Kinnaird! Back in '01, Rick had just finished drawing issues of Gen13 (for Wildstorm/ DC) that I had written, so I subsequently tried to get him approved by the Japanese license-holders to draw a Dirty Pair miniseries for me. Alas, I was never able to get any other artist than me cleare...
2019-08-23 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Running waaaaay behind this morning, so here's a quick post featuring a trio of con sketches based on characters from Bubblegum Crisis, the late-80s anime for which I wrote and drew the 1994 Dark Horse miniseries Grand Mal. (Never to be reprinted, alas , due to nightmarish rights issues.)
*Some wonky facial stuff going on the first sketch, but then again, 2002 was arguably the peak of my "hyperstylized facial structure" ...
2019-08-22 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Akk! Thunderstorm approaching, so I gotta post this sucker in a hurry before I have to unplug the ol' PC! (Too bad I only have a few old pages scanned and ready to upload...)
Quick word of explanation: One of my regular DiD commissioners (during my darker days of little to no comics income) was cool with me doing somewhat random sets of sketch sets like the ones above, which were incredibly fast and easy for me to crank out during breaks in my "day job" work, as opposed to (...
2019-08-21 14:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. Above is a recent set from April, while below is one from very early on in the effort (December 2016). Note that the following set is one of the earliest examples in which I began writing notes to accompany the sketches:
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attach...
2019-08-20 13:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Above are my thumbnails for issue #4 of 2018's Empowered and Sistah Spooky's High School Hell, a six-part miniseries written by me, drawn by Carla Speed McNeil, and colored by Jenn Manley Lee. The first 12 pages of this issue are here; and more info on the overall project 2019-08-19 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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I'm reeeeaaally short on time today (as I'm presently struggling with the Most Difficult Script of My Entire G-d Comics Career), so I'm going with the most easily addressed project possible: the long-defunct Superman/ Dirty Pair crossover.
Back around the time I was working on the Gen13 Bootleg "Grunge: The Movie" arc for Wildstorm, I was flailing desperately about to line up a crossover, any crossover, between the...
2019-08-16 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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