Ashella no. 4 1/2

With finals approaching, the hunt for a job on, and other projects cropping up, I'm putting Ashella on hiatus.

Misc Mondays 4

I can't remember if I ever uploaded this to the blog, but it's the inks for a Star Wars mock cover I did to go along with some pencil samples I did that were my little reenactment of the end of Empire Strikes Back. I thought about taking the logo, banner, thing that goes in the corner (where they'd have a little Luke or C3P0 and R2D2 like comics used to) and just treat it as if Star Wars was a regular comic book series.

In the pencil samples (which, in retrospect, aren't that great, but I was proud of them at the time), I didn't go for a super-duper likeness of Mark Hammil, but tried to make him more of a Peter Parker type with a rather lanky body. More importantly, I wanted to adorn this cover with captions that say things like, "WHAT STARTLING REVELATION DOES THE DEMONIACAL DARTH VADER HAVE IN STORE FOR US!?!" and "WILL LUKE SKYWALKER BECOME AN AGENT OF THE DARK SIDE!?!"

Then would come the question of whether I wanted to treat it with affection or more of a satirical look when it comes to the coloring: should I go old school and do all of this by hand or do it in Photoshop? Should I have a desaturated cool scheme, or Make Mine Marvel with a red background and a blue Vader? I never found the answers, and really, that's that.

Ashella no. 4

I've decided to move Ashella to Saturdays for scheduling reasons. That said... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Damn. I'm sorry.

Misc. Mondays 3.

Here's a line-drawing I did for a contest for a Go-Go's Reunion Tour that didn't quite come into fruition. I've done some color roughs, but I don't recall settling on anything before it was canceled. Jane Wiedlin broke her leg or something. I spoke to her at San Diego Comic-Con '10 and she said they might start the tour and the contest up again, and maybe this would disqualify it; but if it comes to it, I'll just draw up a new one.

Incidentally, this was around the time I was taking a Children's Book Illustration course, so that might have something to do with my choice of portraying them as fairies, though I gave Jane the pointed-ears more as a reference to her brief cameo in Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home which works because you can't see the others' ears anyway.

Okay, so a few hours late, but here's the latest installment of my strip.

Misc. Mondays #2

Here's a pen & ink piece I did for the 25th Anniversary of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Not much to say on this except that I wish I'd sent this in to the Comic-Con souvenir book for the 75th of DC Comics.

Ah well.

All characters TM & © DC Comics

Ashella no. 2

The second installment of my weekly strip Ashella.

Miscellanious Mondays #1

Even though today's almost over, I feel it's as good a time as any to launch a new feature: Miscellaneous Mondays. Miscellaneous Mondays will focus on works of art from various aspects of my artistic something-or-other, be they sketches, digital paintings or just about anything else.

Without further ado, here is the very first Miscellaneous Monday image.

Ashella no. 1

Here's the first installment of my webcomic series Ashella. A weekly series about a young girl's struggle for acceptance as she copes with a new set of pyrokenetic powers. But hey! No need to give everything away just yet.

Something that hopefully both sides can enjoy.

This was going to be a page for a minicomic that I was doing; but eventually, I decided that the best thing to do would be to focus on school. Still, as a splash page, I think it's kinda cool, and just basically wanted to share it as a complete illustration on its own.

I was going to just basically hand it out to random people at APE, but I'm not even sure I'm going, and I don't have a booth or anything. I think it would be more valuable to just go to the various workshops they'll be offering. That and the indie mini-comic and a story of a superheroine fighting a giant mechanical ape just don't go together.

Let this serve as all that remains of a really wonky mini.

It's been a while since I uploaded anything. Heck, I didn't even brag about how I met Stan Lee at Comic-Con. Well, in any event, here are some character designs I came up with for a minicomic I'm planning to finish by the middle of October. Nothing major, it's really kind-of like a local band toting around their EP or something. By the way, why the Hell was that all underlined and now I'm suddenly in a different font?

Chip Kidd at Cartoon Art Museum

As many of you know (or as many of you would know if I had a large following), I am a volunteer at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. Last night, we were fortunate enough to host a presentation by Chip Kidd, author of Mythology: the DC Comics Art of Alex Ross, Batman Collected, and most importantly, Bat-Manga: the Secret History of Batman.

As someone who considers myself fairly knowledgeable about the Caped Crusaider--i.e. not, "he's cool cuz he's dark and doesn't have powers," and Robin-bashers--this was an eye-opener.

In 1966, as the Batman TV series with Adam West hit around the world, the comic book material was very much in-demand. In every other country, this meant repackaging original American DC Comics material. In Japan, however, Manga was already on its way to being considered a "true art form," and a Batman manga was produced in Japan by artist Jiro Kuwata, best known for a series called 8th Man (of whom Robocop is something of a ripoff, according to Kidd).

The series, according to Kidd, didn't seem to take place in either Japan or America, but some amalgam thereof (at-least when it came to the tropes). Batman and Robin were depicted as using guns, at-least in promotional material, and no origin was ever given; and while his designs for Batman and Robin stayed faithful, the villains they battled were largely original. They arguably bear more of a resemblance to villains who might be introduced today. One such villain was Lord Death Man, whose power was to die and resurrect himself at will.

The series died in about a year, and was largely forgotten. So obscure was it that while it was licensed by National Periodical Publications--which is now DC Comics--Kidd's discovery of the Manga was news to Paul Levitz--President of DC Comics as of 2002 and superhero enthusiast--who authorized the book chronicling the Bat-Manga, but wouldn't lend any company assistance with the research.

Kidd's book is available in stores (he did a signing after his speech) and while not complete, should give readers a sense of what the series was like.

Kidd topped his speech off with an announcement that should be of interest to fans of the Bat-Manga. Buuut, I think I'll keep my mouth shut.

Manga Final

Page 2 removed because I felt part of it, while small enough to be ignored, was--so-to-speak--on the wrong blog.

Here's the first page to my Children's Book Illustration final. I really enjoyed that class, and my heart has been warmed to the wonderful world of... gad, can I get any cornier?

Here are some pencil samples I did recently. They're from Brian Michael Bendis' script for House of M #2, which can be found at http://www.comicbookscriptarchive.com/archive/?page_id=3

All characters TM & © Marvel

Ashella

Here's my Comics 2 final in all its B-minus glory!!! I totally went overboard with the inking and I've changed my heroine's look slightly since I did this. It's essentially a "pilot" for something I plan to do later.
























Ashella © Frank Addiego III

Edit: Originally I had a bunch of stuff about Linkara looking for an artist for his comic, but apparently he found someone. Also, I wasn't crazy about the sketch of one of his characters I'd put here, so that's it.

More from the preparation on my Children's Book Illustration final.

More from the preparation on my Children's Book Illustration final. Also, a comic book page I did for the class.

Here are some character designs and thumbnails for my upcoming Children's Book Illustration final. The Troll is still a work-in-progress.