Blue Moon Blog

I’ve loved the comics art of Sean Phillips for years, since first seeing his stuff on Hellblazer, a title on which I was astounded hear he didn’t pencil. Still can’t believe it. But after reading his insightful and self deprecating blog, there’s a hint to his creative process. It seems he draws in blue marker a guide from his small thumbnail roughs, from which he goes directly to ink. I love the the idea of streamlining and speeding up the process, but you have to be good enough, as Phillips is, to pull it off. Because of the approach, he’s able achieve a looser, more expressive and energetic dry brush look. Great stuff. And he can paint, too.

I just received in the mail this week his self published (through lulu.com) book, Blow Up, a 400-page collection of sketches, comics panels, paintings and layouts, all enlarged and blown up to see the detail and true nature of what makes his art tick. Probably more for the die-hard fan, it’s well worth picking up. And if you’re among the uninitiated, I’d start with the superb Criminal, hard-boiled modern noir comics written by Ed Brubaker.

After toying with the Bedbugs ABC book (which is pretty much completed, in color), and considering printing costs and the ideal way to roll out the characters, it looks like it’s full steam ahead on the original Night of the Bedbugs children’s book. That was my first plan, and probably still the best way to go. Once I get closer to completion, I’ll be able to announce release dates.

This shot above is one of the first pages I completed, a crucial moment in the story, obviously.

I’ve got Bedbugs on the Brain, as you can see, also obvious around the house, which is full of the Bedbugs music I’m writing. The Bedbugs Lullaby was finished a while back, and I’m currently pounding out on the piano the Bedbugs Boogie.

More news here as it’s fit to print!

An old friend moved his business a bit back, and had the idea of riffing off the Beverly Hillbillies to announce it to their clients. I suggested and wrote a parody of a snippet of the theme song lyrics, and we were off and running.

I keep most of my initial roughs loose and expressive, not worrying overmuch about likenesses at that early stage. My goal is to block out the composition and capture gestures for each figure.

Not much seems to have changed when going to final. I was able to retain a lively quality thanks to rapid and bold inking. The truck and main characters pop forward with a black holding line and fuller color, while I pushed back the background elements with colored holding lines and less saturated color. In hindsight I think I should’ve worked a bit more on the likenesses, especially as that was the main task in the transition from roughs to final art. The truck could’ve used a couple well-placed highlights, too. Live & learn, eh?

The last couple Fridays, I spent the afternoon with bunches of kids from K-8th grade for school Career Days, teaching cartooning. My daughter, Laura’s eXtreme Day at middle school was last week, and yesterday was Kid’s College at Emily’s elementary school.

It’s always a blast, as nearly all kids at this age love drawing, and have plenty of ideas and imagination, and most haven’t yet learned ways they shouldn’t draw. I start these sessions with a quick overview that like them, I was always drawing as a kid, and wanted to do it when I grew up. After briefly showing them some of the comics, book and projects I’ve worked on, I get them drawing, and together we come up with various ways to draw the main features of the face: eyes, nose and mouth. It’s a ton of fun to watch them piece these features together at different sizes on a variety of face shapes. Before our session’s done, they’re all character designers, with a start at creating stories for their new characters.

I’ve been doing these sessions since I began my career, at least a few times each year. It’s gratifying to pass on a little of what I’ve learned over the years, and to receive those packets afterwards with all their crazy drawings! See you in the funny pages, kids!

I’ve read advice recently that illustrators should stick to one art style, which jibes with suggestions I received when starting out that artists working in the commercial field should specialize. Fellow artists have also shared with me stories they’ve heard the same thing, sometimes expressed adamantly. Well, then I guess I must have been doing something wrong the last twenty-three years, because I’ve followed my instinct, instead working in a variety of styles, and it seems to have worked out well enough.

Now, I understand where the advice is coming from, and know that it can work. And I can see why art reps and agents look at it this way. But I’m proof positive it’s not the only way. Of course, there are benefits or drawbacks whichever way one goes:

Disadvantages to working in many styles:

• An artist can become a jack-of-all-trades; master of none
• Art Directors will remember you less easily
• Artists can lose focus creatively and in marketing their work

Advantages to working in many styles:

• It keeps artists fresh and creatively curious
• It offers up a change of pace and keeps artists from stagnating
• Artists may discover a style or path preferable to a previous style
• Artists may snag gigs they’d not land otherwise (this has happened to me)

But after considering all, one has to find what suits them best. This is similar to my take on an artist’s temperament and preferences. Each artist must determine themselves how to achieve the balance between pure personal creativity and making a living through and with their art.

If an artist follows their own course creatively with that being the priority, income from art may never follow. If it does, that artist calls the shots, having created a market for themselves, but this situation is certainly not one that can be counted on. If an artist stresses the commercial side, they may lean too far towards marketing and lose their way, tailoring their style to what they think and agent or clients may find to be “hot.” Even if an artist happens to be successful in choosing and developing a style that earns them a living, they can get stuck with a type of work they find they’ve grown tired of, or never liked much in the first place. In developing a style, artists should make sure it’s true to themselves, first and foremost.

For my part, I enjoy working in different styles, in different industries, all while trying more to carve out my own creative paths and projects on the side, working to make those a bigger part of what I do for a living. I’ve more to say on that particular subject, but that’s a post for another day.

I’m coloring my storyboards digitally now, with my trusty Cintiq. Still penciling at the drawing board, I scan the pencils, darken them in Photoshop, and color away. I’m finding with the Airbrush Pen Opacity Flow brush at certain settings, I’m able to achieve a similar look to those frames colored with markers. To rough things up a bit, and to lessen any computer sterility, I use a large chalk brush to finish things off. The more I do, the quicker it gets!

About half (and in the past, sometimes more) of what I do is storyboard work for television commercials. Storyboard frames are quickly executed drawings to communicate a concept, and help test and plan television, movie or animated projects.

I’ve been doing storyboards for over a decade, and find it helps me as a cartoonist, requiring me to think and work fast, and keep loose. For years, I’d color them with marker over inked drawings I’d copied on marker paper, achieving a more cartoony and clean look, but which also created an extra step and took time.

The last five years, I’ve skipped the inking step altogether. With these two examples above, I colored with marker over printed pencils on marker paper. I beef up some lines and spot black areas with a thick marker, and rough up and add texture with a black colored pencil. Some storyboard artists do more polished and finished frames that look nearly like finished illustration. I prefer a looser, rougher look and feel, and so work with Art Directors with a similar sensibility.

The last few months, I’ve been coloring my penciled storyboard drawings on the computer with the Cintiq, and will share a frame or two of those tomorrow.

Taking a break from production on my children’s book in progress, Night of the Bedbugs, I’m still doing my Bedbugs characters, but instead for an idea for a project that’s now crystalized as a Bedbugs ABC book. For the Minnesota Spring comic show this Sunday, I’m hoping to have a mini-comic or two available. These little chapbooks serve as prototypes or first editions of the work-to-be, perhaps eventually a Bedbugs board book. Anyway, we’ll see how the week goes….

I colored these few to preview here. Of the three above, which mood is closest to yours today?

“With his perfect, lean-hipped, powerful body, Heston is a god-like hero; built for strength, he is an archetype of what makes Americans win. He represents American power — and he has the profile of an eagle.” - Movie critic Pauline Kael, 1968

That’s part of what made him such an icon. His look and aura made him appear larger than life. How many others could fill those shoes, all those great icons he portrayed? But he was a very good and solid actor, too. Had to be, to pull off those big roles. And he did well more subtle roles, just watch his performance in the western, Will Penny, if you don’t believe me.

I saw on a blog last week after Heston died:

When I read “remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo,” I wondered, by whom? I’m pretty old but I’ve never seen those movies. I was alive when they came out, but too young to go to movies like that, and they weren’t the kind of movies I was ever interested in over the decades I’ve spent catching up on old movies…I think most people younger than 60 remember him chiefly for “Planet of the Apes.”

Ask the man on the street to imitate Charlton Heston and I bet he’d say “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!

Well, certainly he is also remembered for Apes, but he was already quite well known by then, having won an Oscar for Ben Hur a decade earlier. I’m fifteen years younger than this blogger and grew up watching those movies when they ran on TV at least annually. My parents saw all those movies on the big screen when they were first released, and passed on to the next generation an appreciation for Heston and his peers, and for those movies from an earlier period. By the time Apes showed up, I was already a fan. It was one of the first movies I saw on the big screen (I was six), which only paved the way for me to love Chuck (please don’t call him Charlie).

A word on the art above: I initially struggled with a few pencils, overworking them and not quite grasping his likeness. Frustrated, I jumped in to ink. The brush saved me. I inked boldly and quickly and achieved the look I was after, finding more of the likeness along the way. The scanned inks were than colored in Photoshop, and I played with “chalk” brushes for the background, but am not sure if I overdid it. What do you think?

This has turned out to be a long post, so you’re probably wondering when I will make an end?

When I am finished.

I’ve done plenty of comics the last decade, just not any that have appeared in a comic book. After having drawn hundreds and hundreds of pages within the comics industry, all the comics I’ve drawn since have shown up beyond its borders. That’s about to change, as I’ve signed up to do a short story that will appear in the pages of Proof. I’ve not yet received the script from my pal, Alex Grecian, but the story sounds like it will be a blast to draw.

Alex has divulged to me I’ll get to draw even more crazy creatures from the book, and one that will be making his debut in the story I’ll be drawing. In preparation, I doodled a couple pages of character studies of Elvis Chesnut and the Dover Demon, two of Proof’s best buddies, and a couple of my favorites from the series.

Here’s a sneak peek, although Elvis will look different; he’s had a haircut since I did these studies, some in pencil, some in ink.