Post-Holiday Catch-Up Blog

Man! I've gotten SO bad about updating this blog. It's been a busy but relatively unproductive couple of weeks. The little bit of time I've spent working on actually drawing has been used to ink more of Brian Hurtt's JUMPER pages.



I've been doing LOADS of research for the Foreign Legion book (at the expense of working on the Pirate one) lately. I've found lots of good image reference, have been building a little fort to use for staging the scenes, (the same way I built a ship for the same reasons), etc. The bad side of the staging in the pirate book is that it's impossible for me to maintain any sort of consistency WITHOUT referencing the model. I tried to pencil a couple of pages in Portland, only to realize upon my return that I had the crew massed at the wrong side of the ship. So while traveling I've been ignoring the book. I have about another fifteen-twenty pages of heavy ship work, a battle twixt three of them, and other such issues to wade through... when that's done, though, the majority of the remainder of the story takes place on land, which will make the staging go SO much faster. I just have to get to it. Luckily I don't have another nautical tale pressing for another couple of years.

Just before Christmas I did a commission for a friend to give her husband. This husband is a big Iron Man fan, so I made this, printed it in benday dots, stapled it on old paper, etc - she floated it in a frame. The final product turned out pretty good, I thought. Always a fan of incorporating portraits into preexisting properties.



The recipient's name is REAGAN Haneline. See what I did there? Heh.

Oh, and Liz and I got a new car! New to us, anyway. We've been driving her 93 Chevy Lumina since forever (she's had it since she got her license) but it was limping along to the point that it was no longer reliable/dangerous. So we found this 97 Ford Taurus sedan in great shape. We're REALLY happy with it. It's roomy!



Oh! Big news from the work side - while in Portland, I mentioned an old idea that I'd had to James and Randy at Oni Press, and it turned into a longer discussion of the project. It's something that I wouldn't have the time to do alone, but I thought of someone tht I'd love to work on with it - funnily enough, they suggested the same person. Good ol' Chad Thomas - Chad Thomas. Chad is a GREAT cartoonist whom I respect a lot, and I told him about the project and he got excited, too. Anyway, we met up over the holidays and spent long and fruitful (though intellectually frustrating) hours working out story points, etc. Chad's got a really good sense of theme and narrative impact, and led us in all kinds of great directions in regards to where the books could and should go. He also had to sit through my grumpy side -- Although I like to consider myself an affable person, generally, I tend to get grumbly and unpleasant when I'm trying to work out story points and they don't simply fall into place. So I'm grateful for his patience.

He also knocked out some truly amazing character sketches. I expect that if you don't see some stuff on his blog soon, you may see it on mine. I'm excited about it - it's a globe-trotting kid's adventure project.