Manhatten Subway Map

This is one of the largest single image commissions I have ever built.  It's a movie poster built at 27 inches by 42 inches, and while that is a scale I've been working at quite a lot, this one is a massive vector file.  It's quite the value for the client, and I am very proud of it.

- J.

The Trade

Here is the episode of THE TRADE podcast which I was a guest on recently.  It was a great deal of fun, and we got to talk all about webcomics, storytelling, and art process!

I would enjoy going back on at some point!

- J.

http://thetrade.libsyn.com/episode-39-interviews-interviews-and-new-comics

Character Design

Here is some client work from this week, a little character design.

This is about a quarter of the designs for this round of work on the character.  My favorites, but not all that the client was given to think through.

- J.

J. James Makes Comics

As I've worked on a few comics over the last month, I have kept a list of my hours.

To do this, I kept a separate blog:

http://friendlybelligerentmakescomics.blogspot.com/

Check it out, it's a reasonable breakdown and accurate too.

- J.

Nightwing

This was a fun commission.

The goal was to do both Nightwing and also Robin in the same composition.

My first thought was that it would be disingenuous to put them at the same eye level, so I started grinding away at how to fix it so they could be appropriate heights.

The Burt Ward fist pound is what figured it for me.

- J.

2 Hour She-Hulk

Just made a little 2-Hour She-Hulk with a mix of india ink brushed with my brand new (first time used) Windsor & Newton 7 #1 and a watercolor fibre pen.

She's ugly.  I like it.  Her underbite is cute.

Skin tone green is hard to get right with watercolor, she looks a little... ill.  That "four color funny book" green is a lot more primary than this is.  I'm going to tackle her again soon for sure.

It's on ebay.  The name is "She Hulk J James McFarland view online live ORIGINAL"

I cast it on periscope while I drew it... but I suspect that I didn't actually turn on the camera.  Yes, yes, that's true.  Sure is me, yep thanks.

- J.

Red-Headed Demon

This is my recently submitted design for the 2016 ComicFest banner competition.

There was a lot of thought that I put into this.  I'll just go ahead and talk about it.

So, it was a themed submission request.  The goal was a family friendly medieval fantasy piece, something which could look good on a very large banner, be eye catching, and all around good looking piece.

After spending some time thinking about it, my thought was that most of the submissions would be of the shirtless barbarian variety.  I'm no stranger to that, my 24-Hour Comic character is Aric Thee Redd, a more-confused-than-average-Joe just trying to make his way in this world.

It also seemed likely that there would be dragons.  I mean, of course, it's a medieval fantasy piece, that's only natural.  Expected, even.  Lastly, scantily clad damsels in distress.  All around, it seemed likely that the judges would be flooded with a strong showing of Frazetta influenced imagery... I love me some Frazetta, that's for sure.  (That one with the polar bears, oh!)

My thought process was to take what I expected and do a 180-degree spin on it.  So, a large non-dragon with a fearsome non-barbarian and a sexy un-scantily-clad woman.

You can see the curves of the woman under her leathers, and the dragon-ish features of her bird-lizard steed are pretty obvious.  Lots of Jim Henson influence in there (I'm kinda jiving on the Muppets).  Volcano, full leathers, all that agitation... gotta be sweaty.

See, she's hot.

So much fun, I loved making this piece.

- J.

OH!  I made it pink.  Really, really, really pink.  That's not an accident.

Dragon Face Lady

This is a commission for a client.

She wanted to be portrayed as a dragon,
and so she is!  She made me an awesome face to draw.

I was trying to channel Jeff Smith's Big Red Dragon a little bit
as I went through this sketch, and the wings are my favorite wings ever.

- J.

Anakin's Face

So there are quite a few Vader covers I have sitting around here!

This is only the third sketch cover I have ever made.  The first two have gone to auction, for the Aurora Rise charity auctions.  This one, I'm going to sell myself.

Here it is. 

Ebay is strange new territory to me. 

So, the moment captured in this drawing should be pretty easy to remember from the movies.  I took the liberty of a fairly large point of departure.

Two points of departure, if you want to count the gloved hand.  I worked hard to have that hand fade back into the background and putting a glove on it might fool around with the effect.

- J.

311 Book - flashback from 2012

So, here's a book I made from start to finish:

I built a 30 page "311" fan book.  I never advertised having made it, it never got documented in my portfolio.  In a tale of "scope gone MAD" I took on a $500 commission in 2012, and then it turned into what should have been a $3k project.

I basically got bullied into never stopping work on it.  So, four years later, here's the cover for the unfulfilled "311" fan book I built.

It was actually print-ready... I had started work on the second of FOUR of these, having never collected the initial confirmation fee, before I got the nerve to stand up for myself.

Don't ever work for free based on promises.  Work for pay based on being paid.

- J.

Westword Comic 2015

This was my submission for the Westword Newspaper of Denver from 2015.

It was a personal take on what Colorado means to me.  Very gratifying to have it go up and be seen.


- J.