Quitely

I googled myself yesterday to find that the three first image results were all drawings that I had done for Project Rooftop. Not sure how Google's search filter thing works but I'm guessing that means that those are the drawings that got the most exposure to people online. What's funny about that is that for Project Rooftop, I intentionally try to draw like someone else, Frank Quitely.

So, I wish I could articulate to those of you that don't know who that is, why he is as awesome as he is, but I'm sure if you look around, you can find people to do that to a far greater effect. In fact, here's one.

Even though I have tried pretty consciously to mimic Quitely because he's become one of my favorite artists, I generally fail pretty hard at doing that because my basic drawings aren't very good. Here are the pencils for a Wolverine drawing which was the first time I got an honorable mention.



It's pretty old. Wolverine's face is hilarious and not Quitely at all but this is before I just tried to straight up ape him completely. Here is that drawing colored. In the one that comes up in google there are more drawings on the side of it but those sucked so I cropped them off this one.



This also shows up in that google search eventually, it was a comparison of how I drew in 2005 compared to 2010. As you can see, 2005 was an unfortunate time for me. And yet people never told me how bad I was. Enablers. Very nice guy saw this on twitter and put it on his Firestorm blog. So that's why it shows up.



Another Project Rooftop contest was Aquaman. I love Aquaman so I had to enter it. Here are the inks for that. Never scanned the pencils because they were too light and loose. The benefit to trying to draw like Quitely for me has been that I can draw way less initially because I do almost all the rendering in ink. Maybe that's a problem.



Here's that drawing colored. That splashing behind him was a lot funner to draw than to color. I'm sure that shows because I didn't bother coloring it. Also, that A on his chest in gray looks really weird. I thought it worked even though it feels completely out of place. I've never been a very good designer either.



When Dwayne McDuffie died recently, there was a call from Project Rooftop for Static drawings and so I did one. I can honestly say, I never watched the Static Shock cartoon nor did I read many of McDuffie's comics but his impact on the industry was undeniable and I wanted to draw something to honor that with the other people that contributed in that.



And so I did another shameless Quitely inspired drawing.



Lately, I've been drawing stuff that I really liked and drew growing up because I think a lot of the things people my age were into growing up is starting to become nostalgically cool. So I drew the Power Rangers. The idea was to make it like those awesome covers that Quitely does that are sparse but have a big impact. Yeah. About that. Didn't work out.



But you know, eh... whatever.



I think there's something really helpful about drawing like people like Quitely who has a very distinct style because it seeps into your drawing when you stop drawing and the more you do that with different artists, the more you get a style that is a Frankenstein's monster of cool people. Right now, I don't think I have a monster but we'll see how that goes.

Ditko

This is a drawing of the Creeper, Hawk and Dove, and Shade the Changing Man.



They are all DC characters created in part by Steve Ditko or completely by him.



They prove that you can make interesting superheroes that aren't interesting because they're violent or angsty. They don't shoot guns. They don't kill. They don't wear black. They're awesome.

JLA

This is my drawing of the JLA. Just the pencils.



The idea was that a year ago, I really wanted to draw the JLA at their best. Because I was, and am, convinced that every comic book character is the best when Grant Morrison writes them, I made sure to use the line up that he used when he wrote them in 1997ish. But it's not 1997ish, it's 2011ish so I updated the costumes appropriately. These are the inks that I did on my computer. Because in 2011ish, drawing on a computer is a cool thing to do and I desperately want to be cool. These are the inks. Notice, I completely changed Wonder Woman and Batman's costumes but none of the anatomy mistakes I made last year. That's a commitment to mediocrity.



When I colored it, I used a lot of color holds and only bright colors. This bold, over the top, pulpy interpretation of the Justice League is how I look back at Morrison's JLA run. When I read it, I didn't know who Grant Morrison was, I only knew that the stories were insane and the faces, drawn by Howard Porter mainly, were usually ugly to me. Also, that batman had shoulder points offended me on some guttural level that, to this day, makes it hard for me to go back and read what are surely some of the best comics ever written. At least that's what people tell me. And I want to believe them because I want to fit in.



But who doesn't?

Look at Batman.

FIGHT.

So back when I was getting ready for Free Comic Book Day and apparently thought I wasn't stretched thin enough, I offered to do some drawings for a few of the shops that could give away or raffle or sell or keep or essentially do WHATEVER with them if they wanted them. So basically, I thought a fun theme would be to take a prominent character from Marvel and DC and have them fighting because who doesn't love a good fight? Nobody. Everyone loves violence so I figured why NOT do it. I drew them pretty fast, about one night each and had a lot of fun inking them surprisingly.

One thing I will note is I drew them on a non waxy side of cheap poster-boards that I bought from the dollar store because I saw that they sold poster-boards two for a dollar. Me being cheap, thought it would be an excellent opportunity to not buy pricey bristol board. The problem was that the non-waxy side of the paper was super spongy which meant all my inklines bled a bit. That is not to say my inking was great to begin with, but... well... that certainly didn't help.

So here's the first one. This is Batman fighting Wolverine. I used the new Batman costume worn by Dick Grayson because its fun and different and if I was going to do this, I might as well have made it fun for myself. This went to The Launch Pad in Lodi but as I don't visit that shop too often, I have no idea what happened to it. Hopefully something happened to it but as I didn't put too much commitment into it, I'm not too concerned one way or the other.



This is Superman and Thor. Superman is just plain old iconic Superman but for Thor i went with the Chris Samnee design for his new series which looks incredible. I messed up the design a bit but the majority of it is what he had.



And here's by FAR my favorite of the bunch. Green Lantern who I love and Iron Man who I don't hate. The Iron Man was a pain to do because I used his new costume and for those of you that can't tell the difference, that new costume is a pain. Still though, I liked how it turned out mainly because it has lots of shiny stuff to distract from my lame drawing. Thank god for shiny stuff.

Curiouser and curiouser...

Here's a commission I did for a friend. Painted it all and put it over some yellowed paper. I thought it turned out pretty nice all things considered. It was a lot creepier but I scaled it back

#2

Wierd.

Just last year, it felt surreal hearing that Slipknot's debut album, which I had in the sixth grade, was ten years old and now the bassist of that band, Paul Gray, is dead. In all honesty, it's been a long time since I've listened to Slipknot. It's been even longer since I felt the same ambiguous rage and desperation that they were able to channel in their music that is perfect for middle and high school kids. That said, every once in awhile, when I'm in the right mood, nothing is better than that first album.

I remember a cousin Matthew taking me to church with him in his blue Camero and asking if I'd ever heard of Slipknot because I had just hit the age where my friends fell in love with Korn and Limp Bizkit and Slipknot was in the same vein. He played it too loud for comfort. I stepped out of his car and walked into church with my ears still ringing and how amazing that felt.

I remember too when I was in the eight grade, an aunt of mine got me a Linkin Park shirt for Christmas. I was never really a fan of Linkin Park so I asked my mom if it would be okay to take it back and get something else and when she said okay I used that money and I got the Slipknot shirt I posted a picture of up there. Back then, the black was a little less gray and the image was a little less cracked but it was the first of many slipknot shirts I would waste money on through out high school. At one point, I could wear a different shirt every day of the week and they would still say Slipknot on them.

I remember going down to San Jose with my stepdad to go to my very first concert in 2001, my freshman year of high school, and feeling a nervous excitement as we waited through the line and Christian protesters shouted that all who entered would be struck down by god for worshiping satan.

I remember being fairly timid as a kid and yet, the more I embraced that music, that culture, the more I was able to open up and be more confident in myself even when that confidence was pretty unwarranted. Had you asked me then who my favorite band was, I would have answered Slipknot without hesitation. It wasn't even a question, really.



The reason I'm writing this is because Paul Gray, the bassist of slipknot died today, or at least he was discovered dead today and it feels a little weird. I didn't know him and he alone didn't have any significant impact on my life but he was definitely a part of something that did and it's an uneasy feeling to deal with that. In high school I played bass because I wanted to be cool like Paul Gray. I got a mohawk because I wanted to be cool like Paul Gray. I even started wearing ties because I wanted to be cool like Paul Gray. And then I didn't. I hope his family is okay.



An old painting I did

Frank And Elenore In... Raining Blood on Prom Night

Hey everybody, here is the comic that Adam and I made for Free Comic Book Day. I thought I'd share it with you because odds are if you are seeing this online, you won't be able to buy it unless you live anywhere near us and if you do, we're selling it for one dollar. It was very fun to make even though it was a lot of work but you know... worth it.

Also, I should note that it was drawn on 8x11 sized paper folded in half so each page you see here is half of that so the writing is a bit large because you'd have to read it on a pretty small piece of paper.

Odds are if there are any typos its been fixed by Adam's awesome wife Alicia who handles all the technical stuff I'm usually way too tired to deal with. But these are the rough files she got so that's what I'll upload.