Posts Tagged ‘Desktop snapshot’

I’m still kind of in radio silence, but just wanted to drop in to kind-of share what I’m working on currently. I’ve been hired to produce a comic book-style set of illustrations for a psychological study being conducted by some very cool researchers at UNLV (very cool because they commissioned me, right?). Thing is, I’m not sure how much I can talk about it or share behind-the-scenes looks at it, so I still have to be kind of vague. So here’s digital inks for a panel I’m currently working on (backgrounds come next). I need to have nine pages drawn, toned and lettered by the end of the month, which doesn’t seem too bad, but there are a lot of forests and battlefields to draw, so it’s fairly challenging.

There are some other new projects that have come up in the last week, but again, I’m not sure I can talk about them yet, but I promise, you’ll see the fruits of at least some of these labors by March. If you do need a Pj fix, I have a new piece of art hanging inside Studio 8 Ten in downtown Las Vegas through the end of February. It’s part of a group art show called “Project MUSE,” in which the public votes on its favorite artwork, and the most popular selection will become the basis for future lines of merchandise from Studio 8 Ten. If you want to check out all the pieces (and maybe vote on mine?), visit the show’s Facebook event page, which includes a gallery of all artwork being featured (you can vote by “liking” a photo).

I’m trying to cram in getting as many of these comic book pages for the final chapter of my anthology serial “Omega” done as I can this weekend. If I avoid shenanigans like last night’s bar-hopping (though much-needed, and for good reasons), and not find myself dragging ass in the morning like I did today, maybe I can even get all five pages penciled and sent to my boy Vic to ink. But we’ll see.

It’s been a very interesting week, between posing for photos that may be featured in multiple publications, laying the groundwork for and promoting next week’s Utopian trade paperback release party, and working on a particularly physically challenging article that I’m sure you’ll hear more about later. That, and I had a meeting with a new friend that, depending on what side of the coin fate decides to land, could prove to be the start of something fruitful. Yes, I know I’m being very vague right now. I just seem to have a lot of things in the works that have to be kept under wraps right now, but I really hope to share the behind-the-scenes soon.

In other news, somewhat related to the earlier item about the physical article research, I realized this week just how out of shape I am compared to when I was running three-to-four days a week. I’ve already gained back a pound or two from the 10 or so pounds I dropped in the fall, and after one grueling experience this week, it struck me I need to get my act back together. Thanks to the amazing, Southern California-like weather we’re having in Las Vegas this weekend, I went for my first outdoor run in probably three months today, and while I’m definitely off my game, it feels as though it won’t take too much effort to get ready for my next benchmark, the Run Away with Cirque du Soleil 5k on March 19 at the Springs Preserve. I half-jogged, half-walked about 1.8 miles (if you believe Google Maps) in 20 minutes today, which wasn’t terrible, though I definitely felt it in my chest.

I’m gonna get back to the drawing board now. Hope you enjoy your Five-One Day.

Well, I believe it was actually still Jan. 7 when I grabbed this screen cap, but apparently we have moved to a new day. Hello Jan. 8!

I’m still hard at work finishing the pencils on these pages from “Omega” for Vic Moya to ink. Interestingly, I’ve spent more time painstakingly rendering these pencils than I ever did doing finished inks for any of the previous chapters. Go figure. Maybe it’s because I want to provide Vic the best pages possible for him to embellish. Maybe it’s because, unlike usual, I’m not doing layouts knowing I’ll be finishing them, so I’m actually putting more effort into the initial rendering. Either way, I still have five more pages to do, and Vic still has to make them pretty, so back to the drawing board/Wacom tablet I go …

I’m back at the art thing, feverishly (OK, fine, I’m not burning up or sweating or anything, but you get it) working to get done my portion of the next issue of Omega Comics Presents before I look like a jackass for holding up the issue’s release, while all my other creative teams actually made their deadlines. To speed things up — and make it look a lot better than I could do — I’m turning inking chores over to my man Victor Moya, who illustrated the post-apocalyptic story Jarret Keene wrote for Tales from the Boneyard (you have bought your copy, right?). Of course, that means I need to actually send him penciled pages (in my case, digitally), so no more slacking from me.

Aside from one other project that may or may not happen in the next year, I’m swearing off illustrating my own stories in 2011. I’m focusing heavily on writing this year, and I predict much better visual results if I hire out an artist as opposed to try to do the one-man show. Either the art or the writing suffers when I do it all, and I’d prefer not to choose.

I went back to the drawing board tonight, quite literally, because, well, I didn’t know what else to do.

Here’s the deal: I cleared out my calendar for most of November, assignment-wise, for two reasons: First, because as those of you following along witnessed, the first two weeks of November (well, starting the last weekend of October) were insane. Two comic conventions (Long Beach and Vegas), an art exhibit opening, a release party, playing the release party, a comic book store signing, and of course, all the prep leading up to both the events and the release of the comics behind them. The second reason? After all that, and honestly, the last few months of running nonstop, I was going to force myself to take a break. No freelance assignments. No music gigs (actually, not given a choice in this). No new comic work. Nothing that I HAD to do until December. For fun, I decided to give National Novel Writing Month a whirl, but that’s the only relatively time-sensitive project — and one to only myself I’m beholden — I left for myself this month.

But, of course, literally the day after the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival, I came down with my annual head cold. That’s expected, and it was nothing major — stuffiness, a bit of coughing. My only concern was being better by the time of the Utopian #4 release/signing at MaximuM Comics, and I was, and it went very well (thanks to Jay and his staff at MaximuM, to everyone who came out, and to the groovy media folk who covered the event, especially NerdLocker, who conducted this awesome interview). But not two days later, my stomach started giving me inexplicable trouble. I felt abnormally hungry despite eating all day, but my digestive system felt unsettled. I thought maybe I just was short on protein or something. So I went to dinner with Sara to celebrate her new job, but afterward I just felt worse. It felt mostly like indigestion, but it wouldn’t go away. I went to bed early, hoping to sleep it off. Instead, I woke up at 3 or 4 a.m. and … well, got rid of whatever what bothering me.

That left me kinda weak and malnourished the next day, which I spent drinking only water and watching DVDs. I tried working on the novel, but that didn’t get very far. I did manage to eat some soup and crackers by nightfall, but that’s it. I went to sleep early, again (even after sleeping in and napping for a good three hours), and even though my stomach was still a bit wonky today, it seems like I’m mostly back to normal, though I didn’t eat too much, had soup again for dinner, and don’t really have an appetite.

Problem is, between the physical health issues and the lack of hard deadlines, my ability to focus on anything has been severely compromised. When given a specific project, I can go to town on it and power through it — as I did when I spent all day Sunday recording music with and for my band. But otherwise, I’ve been in this weird limbo, working on things piecemeal, which isn’t much different than usual, except I feel like nothing’s getting done. But the point was to not worry about that, right?

This weekend, Sara and I are planning to drive down to Southern California for some pure R&R — hang out with friends, go to Disneyland, eat at our favorite places, just have a good time before spending Thanksgiving with our collective families. We’ve been planning it for a while now, and hopefully, two things will happen by the weekend: One, I feel a lot friggin’ better than I have the last week or so, and two, I can stop worrying about my nonexistent projects, and just relax. I’m hoping one enables the other.

Anyway, because I can’t wrap my head around this stupid sci-fi novel I decided to start writing in lieu of something more grounded I could have easily written, and because I haven’t actually sat down to draw except for doing sketches at signings and conventions, I went back to work on this story I’m developing as a pitch for someone besides myself to publish. I already did loose layouts for about five of the pages months ago, but I’m tightening up all of the (digital) pencil work, because I’m actually handing this off to an inker to finish. And it feels good to just lay down scribbly lines to form pictures. As much as I love writing, I’ve noticed my affinity for the written word has waned in recent years, for a variety of reasons I’ve theorized. Meanwhile, my ability and interest in visual art has been getting stronger, likely because it’s my most natural strength and I spent so many years away from it.

Alas, no one — outside of the sweet people who have humored me at art shows and conventions — pays me to draw stuff, so surely I’ll be back on the writing horse in no time, whether or not that bronco bucks me to the ground.

The top panel on this page I’m working on has taken me about three days to just get that far in rendering. Obviously, not three days straight, but three days of about two hours at a stretch. It’s the last bit of inking I need to finish for my contribution to Tales from the Boneyard, the one-shot (well, possibly annually recurring) anthology comic book I volunteered to publish and edit for the 2010 Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival.

You can learn a heck more about the comic at the official website, which also features the first chapter of the anthology, an amazing story by newcomer Barret Thomson. He’s set the bar high, but that’s good, because it goes to prove the awesome collection of homespun talent we have here in Las Vegas (though, sadly, Barret is moving to South Korea to teach for an undetermined amount of time). This project has sucked up a good amount of my time lately, between wrangling freelancers, building the website, doing public relations and marketing, editing and, as evidenced above (and in previous posts), completing my own eight-page tale, which will make its web debut on Aug. 15.

At the same time, the band has started recording tracks for our forthcoming debut EP, the Utopian is careening headlong into its final chapter, and as soon as I finish the Tales from the Boneyard story, I have to dive back into finishing the third chapter of “Omega” for Omega Comics Presents #3, which is supposed to be released this fall, assuming my head doesn’t implode by then. Oh, on top of that, TV and comic book writer Mark Guggenheim went off and announced a new comic book he’s created for release this November, coincidentally titled Utopian. So as you might imagine, I’ve spent some time talking to lawyers the last week as well.

It’s all a bit overwhelming, but at the very least, most of these projects have termination dates in the foreseeable future. The Utopian (erm, mine, not the Johnny-come-lately) will finish its year-and-a-half web run in September or October, just in time for a fourth and final print issue to make its appearance, and then — assuming I still have the rights to that name by then — fully collected as one complete work in a trade paperback collection in the winter, hopefully in time for Christmakwanukah. At which time all of you who have been holding out on reading The Utopian (yes, I’m looking at you, Sara) will have no excuse not to enjoy 100-plus pages of all the teen dramatic fantasy you can handle, in full blazing color.

Whew. I’m kind of tired just typing all this. Or maybe I’m tired from working on that stupid, overly detailed panel above for the last few hours. More soon.

I’m back at the drawing board, trying to get all of the pencil artwork for my eight-page contribution to the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival anthology finished before I leave town for 10 days. And get the website for said anthology launched, at which point I’ll post all about it here and beg you for money. What else is new? At least the money is for the Library District and not for my hedonistic exploits.

I wrapped up a feature for Vegas Seven I’ve been working on for a while on breaking into comic book writing, something about which I know a little. Actually, I turned in the story yesterday, got asked to do some rewrites today, and finished those rewrites tonight, so hopefully that will be the end of that. I’m still busting my butt as much as possible to get The Utopian wrapped up ahead of schedule and then turn my attention back to other things, like finalizing and releasing the fall publishing schedule for Pop! Goes the Icon and turning my band’s rehearsal space into a recording studio for the next few months.

Speaking of As Yet Unbroken, it seems like momentum is picking up again quite quickly. We had those bookend gigs last week, and hadn’t planned another show until the first week of September. But the band that opened for us at N.O.I.S.E. on Friday, Thrown Clear, has asked us to join them (or at least one of them) at another venue in a few weeks. So we’ll probably do that, and I’ll have more info on that soon. And for you lovely Southern Californians, we’re working on a gig in the Orange County area circa Oct. 1. Nothing is confirmed yet, so if you know any bookers in the L.A.-O.C.-S.D. area, feel free to highly recommend us for a slot at one of their venues on that date. Otherwise, keep posted here, or even better, join the AYU mailing list.