Christmas Gifts

Christmas is silly.  It is a great time to make something new for someone.

I try to take advantage of the opportunity!

This thing was huge.  I had a little help with the curtains, and my wife painted the tan into brown.

This was for my niece Angil, as the A at the rooftop indicates.  The dog is her dog, the one on the backboard that is.  I discovered a few buttons which made sounds in this thing, so it got some fresh batteries, and the address above the door is one which she knows so that's a thing too.

I picked up a lot of little things to add, like the tv on the roof, the tea set, the trees, and the *ahem* machine gun emplacement.  (She has a rad brother too!)

The best dollhouse ever made.  It was fun.

- J.

30 Characters 2013

It's that time of the year again, the November 30 Characters Challenge is over for me.  The concept is simple, the execution can be tiresome though... in 30 days, create 30 characters (preferably one per day) and post it on the official online competition blog.



You can click on the flier to the right to go directly to the final characters from me for this year, as well as the two previous years as well.  That's nearly 100 sketches of character ideas, and...



...well, when you're looking at my figures, you really need to read between the lines (so to speak) because each individual figure tends to be a fairly oblique reference to something else, whether clever or foul.





Here are a few of my favorites from this year.  I may post more here in the coming days.

- J.

Working Pages Maize

Here is the first penciled pages from the second issue of Maize. 

The first issue is still going up online as I work on the second.  Since most of my printed comic work tends to be rushed to get ready for cons, I am determined to take more time on these pages... although I'm still coming in at a very reasonable period of time.  My hand is fast even when I'm not on deadline.

- J.

CO Springs Con Part Two

One of my table neighbors this time was Jay Sternitzky who runs Paper Dream Productions.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Paper-Dream-Productions/157842487574638

You should check out his work, he has written and his brother Drew Sternitzky has done the art for their story Short Stack.

I totally need two tables for every show.  This was awesome.  I got a lot more done with this set up.

Here is another commission, Deadpool.  Like the Joker, I wanted to see the bones beneath the skin before finishing the art, but that was a lot simpler with this joker than that joker.

I love that his belt buckle is a giant picture of his face.  I need a belt buckle which is a giant picture of MY face.

- J.

CO Springs Con Part One

This was a new show for me.  It was one of the better shows as far as the numbers go, so that was cool.  Here is a commission I made for a gentleman at the show who was really cool.  He had all his young kids with him but they seemed to all be enjoying themselves.

It was a pretty quick piece.  I told him to give me two hours since I only had 11x17 board with me that day, and I went over by probably a half hour more, but I don't think I really had more than an hour and a half total to work on it in between conversations, taking short walking breaks, and selling.

This is some guy named the Joker.  It may be the first time I've ever drawn him, but I really wanted him to look a little like the 70's version with the pin stripes and the purple vest.  That icky scarred look has been taken so far (especially recently with the whole "face off" look) to make some reactionary classic flavors a little more necessary.

- J.

Maize Online Announcement

Last month in Portland I presented the preview version of my new comic Maize and sold quite a few also.  It went over well and people generally seemed to enjoy it.

This morning I will be presenting the first full, finished print edition for it at the 2013 Colorado Springs Toy and Comic Con, and I'm excited for it.

Now, here's the deal.  It's also going online to read for free, just like all my other work in the past.

This time however, I am putting the horse in front of the cart and designing it first for the web, and then following it up with the print version later.  That'll be a first for me.

Here is the beginning... my intention is to place new panels of the story at least weekly.  That's a pretty quiet pace and I'm actually farther ahead than I would need to be.  This is my full art commitment until it is finished, so please take a look, drop me a line, and let me know what you think!

- J.

Read Maize online now!

 

Rose City Comic Con 2013 Part One

This year saw the second annual Rose City Comic Con.  The convention has moved into the convention center from it's original location at the Doubletree banquet room, and suffered much the same way from the new location's drawbacks as did Stumptown when it moved.

I debuted a preview print copy of Maize during the event, and took a very long, rough train to get there.  Never try inking with a quill pen on a train!

 

One commission I had was a Hawkeye, for a young lady who was working for a comic company there.  She had a thick sketchbook of only Hawkeye sketches, and I noticed that the page before mine was a sketch by my old friend Levi Skeen who I still see at shows a few times a year.  He was actually the first artist who ever inked my work, which was a good learning experience for me... oh man that would have been in 2000 or 2001 maybe.  I still have some of those pages around here...

Good show, exhausting though.  A lot of the very big pros gave me quite a bit of their time, so a big thank you to everyone who reviewed my work and suggested improvements!

- J.

Darth Maul and his Apprentice

What if the Jedi Temple had raised a Padawan of such fierceness that he would have been regarded upon favorably by the vicious Darth Maul himself?

He certainly would have been converted by the dark lord and taught a lot of severe lessons.

He would have gone on to be a fearsome threat for certain... if he lived.

This print is 11" x 17" on sturdy, high quality matte paper.

It is listed here at: https://www.etsy.com/listing/166688162/mauls-padawan-versus-darth-maul

I've considered giving the kid a helmet that looks like a creepy bug, since he doesn't look very fierce otherwise... maybe sometime.  I sort of like the break in logic presented by this face-off.

This started out as a commission I did a few years ago.

- J.

Marvel's Thunderbolts

This is a recent print I made for the 2013 Spokane Con.

It is a really weird team but I like the chemistry.  Madness.

Electra the silent assassin, the Punisher man of firepower, the war focused Red Hulk, the repentant drunk Venom, the deadly and dreadfully stinky Deadpool.

I spent a very long period of days positioning the characters so that I could contrast the red and black against the other.  Very pleased.  Madness.

It was one of the more popular prints at the con this weekend, the Colorado Springs Toy & Comic Con.

Deadpool was one of my commissions this weekend for a character sketch.

It is online at https://www.etsy.com/listing/166475163/marvel-s-deadpool-thunderbolts?ref=pr_shop 
so you can buy a print of it too.

- J.

Twilight Princess - Link & Ganon Battle

There was a game years back from the Zelda series on Nintendo where the hero fights the villain.

Tell me if you've heard this one before.

So it turns into a knock down, drag out fight where the villain keeps pulling one of those "THIS IS NOT MY ULTIMATE FORM YET!" tricks and just keeps coming back.

It was pretty epic, and so I drew it.  You can have a nice thick copy shipped sealed in a plastic sleeve if you go to:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/166281099/legend-of-zelda-link-and-ganondorf?

- J.

(May the Tri-Force be with you?)

Luke's Departure, Hoth Base

I would imagine that you remember a few scenes sort of similar to this...

This is meant to portray Luke's departure from Hoth Base prior to his... accident.

Now, I don't know my Star Wars history very well, but I've been told that Mark Hamill had a fierce car accident between movies, which resulted in facial reconstruction and plastic surgery for him.

Thus, the scene at the start of Empire when he gets smacked in the face by a monster, after having been all wrapped up in scarves because of the cold beforehand.

This piece is available for sale online:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/166269754/chewbacca-hoth-base?

- J.

Hawkeye Clint and Hawkeye Kate

These are some of the most fun characters in the Marvel stables right now. 

I recently built a larger wall to display my prints on at cons, and the added visibility has been positive.  This has become my most popular print, far and away, and bar none.

Oh!  Of course I also made it available online.

The font and logo setup took a little while to figure out.  It's a damn good match to the series logo from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" although I can't remember how that came to be a thing.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/166280317/hawkeye-clint-and-kate-archery?

Now I want to go back and add a couch in the background.

- J.

These are the Ninja Turtles.  I'm sure you've heard of them.

 This is actually a piece I have put online before, it was made for some nephews on the fly during Thanksgiving last year... now, I've put it online for sale as a print.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/166279423/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-boys-will?

If people like it, I will make a color version of it.  Oh, the story behind it is funny.  You should read it, it is right here.

http://friendlybelligerent.blogspot.com/2012/11/thanksgiving-mutant-ninja-turtles.html

- J.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Training

Here is the finished print of the April O'Neill training scene.

This was a great exercise in shading and digital painting.

There are prints available online if you want one.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/166278373/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-april?

- J.

Grapes

This was a fun little piece I did up quickly for some folks I know.  It was great working fast with additive light sources...

- J.

Sketchabout

Every so often I get one of those really good days where I can meet and socialize with other local artists.  Sometimes it is figure drawing, more recently it's location sketching.

This time was at the Richland Public Library a handful of weeks ago.  The point of these sketches is a fast, quick and dirty depiction of a locale.  It's more about speed than anything else, but great fun and relaxing.

This is the view from an upper window.  It was a 40 minute sketch.

These two are from odd angles.  The pencil sketch is the coffee bar, the quick ink sketch was about 7 minutes and is a woman I was "spying on" from above at the next floor.

Ed invited me down, and Jim drew this sketch.  I'd met Nancy before, and Greg suggested we go down to the same local taphouse which I have a very complicated history with.  It happens to be the same place I painted these HIS and HERS restroom doors but I didn't share that with anyone there.

I'm like that.  A lot of the time I let stuff just go which I could comment on, maybe it's bad for networking but it's just the way I roll.

Jim quietly sketched us all sitting around.  This is his art below.

That's me, third from the left.  You can see more of Jim Bumgarner's work on his site here
http://bmgarnersketches.blogspot.com/   including several which are going to be used in some upcoming trade magazines throughout Spokane which is pretty cool.

- J. 

Homeland House

This is the home of Tom Pine and his wife and two children.

- J.

PolitiK Paradigm

One of the most challenging undertakings I have done has been the production and distribution of small, self published "zines" covering a variety of topics.  The research time on the topics alone was in the hundreds of hours, and each zine became larger than the prior one, and with more detailed illustrations as well.

The fourth of five published issues is PolitiK : Paradigm and the subject matter is media manipulation and partisan battles.  It deals heavily in tolerance issues and exploring themes of interpersonal relations in the public domain.

While the earlier issues were largely about trying to find a strong methodology for production and creating a system of marketing while focusing on niche or taboo topical issues, this particular issue dealt more specifically with what is essentially my philosophical views on society in general.

If PolitiK the series does become Politik the big whole book one day, then Paradigm can be considered the thesis.  If PolitiK as a series becomes a pursuit that I choose to not continue in the future, then Paradigm will continue in another format.

The cover to PolitiK : Paradigm is pictured below.  As a (certainly fascinating) piece of trivia, the cover was originally hand painted on a 38 inch by 24 inch sheet of heavy fibrous watercolor paper, years before PolitiK as a series had even been conceived by me.  I think that would date the original version of this piece back nearly nine years... but as my thoughts on the greater world around me and politics and society tend to grow and evolve, I do find that my core beliefs remain consistent.  For that reason the original art watercolor of this piece is probably the one of the earlier pieces in a long, long progression of edgy political work.

Incidentally, you absolutely can purchase your very own copy of PolitiK : Paradigm here at my shop, or any other of the PolitiK series as well.

- J.

 

Sketching out Zelda

Now, I'm not an avid gamer, to say the least.  It's likely that I own at least 15 videogames which I've never even played before, I tend to keep busy and they are just too much commitment.

That said, man alive I love Legend of Zelda.  Don't know what it is about it, whether it's the charming music or the welcoming familiarity of the landscapes and creatures.  There's a lot of nostalgia there.

It took me over two years to finally work my way through Twilight Princess, but the final showdown between "GOOD!" and "EVIL!" was pretty great.  I was so buzzed up after the extensive, satisfying conclusion the other night as to race to my drafting table and replay the fight in my head and on paper.

This might end up being a surprise print which I wasn't planning on.  It's pretty organic, I did no thumbnails, just launched right into it.  Here are a few close ups of the sketch. 

Ganon is really John Romita Jr. -ish, and I don't think it's me, I just think it's somehow inherent in the character design.

This piece is 11x17" and I expect to spend some more time with it as my commission schedule allows.

- J.

April O Neill Training

Here is a finished version of the print which I keep "teasing."  This is the version as it appeared when I began showing it at ECCC a month ago.

There will be some adjustments in color layout and shading, but it's pretty much what I envisioned when I started the process.  The concept was to portray the April character as a student herself, while pushing the brothers back into an observer stance.

I really like the fact that the brothers essentially should all look alike to an outside observer, and that they are really only discernibly different when garbed in opposing color schemes.  That said, I know which one is which in this print.  Hopefully anyone who really wants to figure it out can based on body language and skin tone colors.

UPDATE:  I have reworked this piece!  Check out the NEW version here, I really spent some time going over this piece to get it closer to my original idea.

- J.

Figure Drawing on the Sly

A little something from the bar.

I almost never go out to drink anymore... in reality I almost never drink anymore at all.  

However, when I do, I spy on people.  Unapologetic, in your face, and with great joy.

Call it people watching.  Come on, you know you do it too if you draw at all.

Amusingly, one of the guys out this night a few weeks ago was a dude I used to work with.  He was always a pretty cool guy, glad I ran into him.  This is the first time I've done sketches on lined paper in a very long time.  That's what I get for not bringing my sketchbook, a mistake I'm not likely to make again any time soon at all.  These are all 5 minutes sketches or so.

 

ECCC 2012 No. 4 Final

There are dozens and dozens of pictures of cosplayers I took but these are the last of my favorites.

The gentleman with the wingspan I followed up the escalator on the final afternoon... I swear he's the same gentleman I photographed sans costume two years ago at this event.  The wingspan is enormous, and the wings physically flex and spread... he moves his arms just slightly and UP they go, and with the real feathers and enormity of it all... it's fascinating to see in person.

There were a lot of stilts.  Everybody was on stilts this year.

- J.

Emerald City No. 3 Boom!

While in Seattle I was able to spend a decent amount of time talking to most of the editors and artists of Boom!  Studios.  Filip Sablik was seriously inviting and approachable, and spent some time talking to me about what it is like working with deadlines and artists who are rising starts.

Mike Kunkel, creator of Herobear and the Kid, took a long time to tell me about general artistry.  I told him that Terry Moore had sent me over to talk to him, and had called him "one of the finest cartoonists working today," and he laughed and said that he couldn't hold a candle to Moore's work. 

Still, that's high praise.

This time showing my portfolio was different than it used to be, similar to the reception I received at Rose City.  It is equally encouraging and humbling to be giving the amount of serious time and focus which I am starting to get from creators, and a fulfilling payoff to the years of self publishing.

Onward and upward, right?

- J.

Emerald City No. 02 HAMA

Larry Hama was at the show so I made it a point of stopping by his booth and meeting him.  I stood back and watched for a little while and it was literally a string of guys running over to meet him which was pretty amusing to watch.  He was cranking out sketches as fast as he could.  While I don't know exactly how many he drew over the weekend, I do know I saw one of them numbered "53" so he must have been hitting them under 20 minutes or so, or he wouldn't have had time to shake as many hands or stand for so many pictures as he did.  That's really fast, and seemed all from memory.

While there I too submitted a commission from him, a Stalker to go along with my sketch which Robert Atkins did for me a year or so back.  He actually did a comp piece as a dual commission with Hama, which you can see on his site here.   That's a brilliant idea, whoever came up with it.

My buddy Justin Zimmerman has been supportive of my work a lot in the past, and pretty much made me go back and submit the commission.  He's running a kickstarter campaign for his thick, fascinating trade paperback Other Worlds which you should definitely check out. 

- J.

30 Characters 2012 Part Two Homelanders

Here are some 30 Characters which comprised the later figures.  These are all some of the fictional characters I have in the story I continue to develop.

This will take you to all 63 or so of these characters now.

- J.