Misc Mondays: FRANKIE SCREWED UP!!!

Well, almost. By my watch, it's about 11:19, so here's the pencil drawing of something I'm working on (and planning to finish digitally). Basically, it's a sci-fi piece I'm doing on spec and I hope to complete it by the end of July.

Written Wednesdays

I'm starting to think having a "written" segment was kind-of a bad idea.

Earlier, I said this was a bi-weekly segment, but I've decided it should be an ongoing one. In any case, I'm pleased to announce that I've finished a couple of rather important goals. On the other hand, I'm sad to announce that I'm still hanging on hooks to know how they went over.

I also remembered that the final page of the script I worked from last time ended with the charming illustration you see within this blog. For some reason, I could only upload five and since this was just a splash page, it wasn't worth fretting over; but it's found a home in today's entry.

The troll was my design.

Now. Onto Superman. First and foremost, there are some people in the world who just bash on the character any chance they get. For years, it pissed me off. Should I piss and moan, "oh, if only they did this and that, everyone would like him," then I just realized: hey! If they can't see how important the character is and feel this incessant need to bash him with these dumb clichés we've heard a billion times (he's too powerful, he's a boy scout, whatever...) then I've just decided that it's best to quote one of my dear friends from a certain message board who said this unto someone who criticized the acting of Brandon Routh.

I hope a monkey rapes you and you get AIDS.

Yup.

Written Wednesdays

I just realized I never posted anything on this last Monday. I really just forgot, but part of that may be because I'm working on a number of projects, and yet, none of them are ready to see the light of day. That being the case, I'm starting a new "tradition" or whatever: Written Wednesdays. This'll focus more on my thoughts or perhaps even writings.

The first thing I just have to bring up is the fate of Ashella. Well, to be honest, I realized that I simply wasn't ready for my own weekly webcomic. I mean, the art just wasn't happening and part of that's because I'd find myself rushing because it was in the midst of working on other projects. The first one came out all right, but the rest of them kinda sucked.

The good news is that I do plan to resurrect the character in minicomic form. Yeah, I'll be "retreading" her origin (and retooling it somewhat) but really, that's what Siegel & Shuster did in the early days of Superman when the character was originally intended for newspaper strips, then that story was reworked to fit a comic book, THEN reworked again when they DID put the character into the strips one year after AC#1 came out.

That said, I can't promise when the book will commence production because...

I am working on some other projects, but I can't say too much about them. All I can say is that while I'm illustrating a project for a fledgling publisher, I'm also juggling some things for cold submissions. This is, yes, another reason Ash isn't flying anymore. Admittedly it's frustrating because I've been looking forward to certain projects and yet want to complete others first, but that's comic biz, I guess.

Finally, as mentioned I do volunteer work at the Cartoon Art Museum. I don't know how much I can say about it but I learned of an exhibit that is tentatively scheduled for--I think--sometime this summer. I can't say word one about it so far, but as it comes more into fruition, I'll hope to blog about it some more.

Okay, let's hope I can still get this in before I have to change it to Thinking Thursdays.

Misc Mondays: Post-Graduation

Now, I know it's been a long time since I posted here, but I've been kind-of busy with finals, and since then, I've been debating with myself as to what direction I should go in. At the least, however, I thought I'd bring back Misc. Mondays.

Nothing too earth-shattering here. Got this watercolor painting I did of the gorgeous Rachel Nichols from the film G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Say what you will, I consider that film my own little guilty pleasure. Along with Transformers. And Batman Forever. And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. And Moonwalker. And The Living Daylights. And Superman III. And Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And Bride of the Monster.

Update: ZOMG!!! The other day, she responded to one of my tweets!

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.