cool tripod

I don't do much photography but I have a strange affinity for tripods for some reason. I have picked up several sturdy old ones and converted them into art easels for indoor and outdoor drawing/painting. An artist I like recently picked up one of these for filming herself working on location. I love the look of it since I haven't seen a monopod before with feet! They are not cheap so I don't really NEED to own one but they are cool looking, like the landing pods of a space ship ;)

Zenescope 10th anniversary cover

Here's a cover I drew for Zenescope's 10th anniversary, colored by the ubber talented Ula Mos Art. Limited to 350 and available at Wizard World Portland this weekend! She handled the chaulk board exactly as I had imagined. I drew the sword and book with a black litho pencil on some rough paper to get the texture like chaulk on a blackboard....then made that a selection to fill with white and viola! it looks like it was drawn with white chaulk, yea!

Cool Dinosaur Graphic Novel on Kickstarter!

My studio pal Jim Lawson has a new Dinosaur graphic novel called A WALK THROUGH DINOSAURLAND up at bat on Kickstarter right now, check it out! (And by check it out, of course I mean back it !)  ;)
When it comes to drawing dinos the list of comic artists that really know how it's done is VERY short and yeah, Jim is definitely up there on it.
As we all know, the success of most Kickstarter gigs depends on a lot of word of mouth so please spread the word.

Just a few words about using markers...for what it's worth

I get a lot of questions about doing marker drawings and one thing I have found is that many aspiring marker users think that Copic markers must be some kind of magic wand   They cost about twice as much as most others so they must somehow jump your skills to the next level right? Well, I am here to say that I have tried pretty much everybody's brand of markers and none of them make me draw any better  I like the Copics because I can refill them, but heck, I refill the other brands I've tried as well. Copic Markers 12-Piece Cool Gray Set
I have an older set of Touch Markers ShinHan TOUCH TWIN Art Markers Flexible Brush / Medium Chisel Tips Set of 6 - Grey Tones that I like a lot. Prismacolor markers Prismacolor Premier Double Ended Chisel Tip and Fine Tip Art Markers, 12 Cool Grey Colored Markers (3622) have nice smooth flow and blend well. Dick Blick's own brand of alcohol markers work fine too.
 When I first dipped my toe in the marker pool, I saved some $ by buying a limited range of Copic cool gray markers, not an entire set of twelve.  I bought every other value; 0,2,4,6,8 and this served me well for a loooooong time. If you are new to drawing with markers I think that starting off with grays is a good way to go rather than getting bogged down with color before you have figgered out how to handle them.
I hate to see artists holding off "till they can afford Copics", but I have heard that time and again. I would suggest you just grab a name brand alcohol based marker and get started.
I was just shopping for some art supplies online and saw that Prismacolor marker setsPrismacolor Premier Double Ended Chisel Tip and Fine Tip Art Markers, 12 Cool Grey Colored Markers (3622)   Sanford(R) Prismacolor(R) Professional Art Markers, Primary/ Secondary Colors, Set Of 12 are on sale for about half price right now, that is pretty good incentive to get into markers this year if you were thinking about it anyhoo, have fun

Some Zenescope comic covers

I have done a bunch of covers for Zenescope comics, I just never seem to remember to post them once they come out....here's some! I have always thought that the Emmy award was the coolest trophy so I made up a statue with that kind of vibe for one of these.

charcoal girls

Whenever I feel artsy, I like to draw in charcoal on newsprint paper. When I can't draw from life I put a reference pic on my computer screen and just draw from that. For faces, classic Hollywood shots are great for really good lighting. I used a small blurry jpg of Jane Seymour I found online for reference on this one though.
The thing about charcoal is that if forces you NOT to get all noodley and tight with the drawing because it's just a fat burnt stick, not a nice sharp pencil!

It's Jane-uary!

Thought that I would start off my new year with a quick sketch of Jane Seymour. In my book, nobody every looked better in those 19th century clothes and hairstyles!