What Says "Christmas" More Than Decapitated Elves?
I've been working with The Institute for Justice, a civil rights organization, for over five years now. The saw an illustration I did for Scene Magazine and they wanted to buy the art for republiciation. Because of that, I wound up doing other illustrations for them including two different Christmas cards. Three, now.
This was a cool job for more than just the normal reasons. This time I got to try out a new process. At the recommendation of some fellow artists, I purchased a Brother MFC-6490CW scanner/printer/fax combo. The new machine solved the problems I had with my Apple USB modem receiving faxes. Apple makes a great product, but the modem/fax combo is one of the places they've completely dropped the ball. I loved going to digital faxes, so I could only print out the ones I wanted, but the fax kept glitching.
But the scanner aspect was the big draw. The Holy Grail of scanners for comic book artists is an 11x17 scanner. On that, you can scan a complete comics page without stitching it at all. Every page of my three Raider graphic novels were scanned in two pieces and digitally combined to form the 11x17 final image. Most 11x17 scanners are scary 
expensive, but this one was under $300! Under $200 after the rebate that was being offered at the time. (Amazon now has it at $279.99.)
It can even print on 11x17 bristol board. You're probably wondering why that's so cool. That'll take even more explaining.
Most issues of Love and Capes are drawn on tracing paper, then lightboxed onto Layout Paper (also called Vellum). That's a very translucent paper that takes ink much better than tracing paper. Then, I'd cut it up into pieces and scan it, and put together evey page in Photoshop, one panel at a time.
But now, I could print onto bristol, which is a paper with a very ink-friendly surface and one on which I can get more effects than I can on vellum. So, I can print my pencils in non-reproducable light blue onto a piece of bristol, and then ink right on the bristol without having to erase, since the light blue lines disappear when scanned, or with exceedingly little tweaking.
That was a godsend on the IJ job. They needed 60 elves or so holding a giant piece of parchment, upon which they'd put their Christmas poem. I could work at a manageable size, scan in the pencils, and then print out a final piece on bristol where I could ink with no issues, and then rescan it at full size and not have to try to line up two sides, which is usually problematic at best.
Then I colored my headless elves in Photoshop. 
Headless because the Institute was going to put photos of their employees on those elves. And then I sent the final file to IJ, where they composited the heads and had it printed.
The cards just came out this week, and they look great! It was a fun and challenging job, especially trying to make 60 distinct elves, all doing something individual. It kind of reminded me of my famous Where's Slider job. And it came out just as well.
Where's My Pasta?
Sunday I was at Bravo with my Goddaughter, my NotGodson, and their parents. Bravo is one of those cool restaurants that covers their tables in white paper and gives you crayons. Sure, they say they're for the kids, but I never pay attention to that.
Eating with young kids is always an adventure. It's sitting still longer than they'd prefer, to be sure. They're five and two, and well-behaved as opposed to a lot of kids I see, but still, it helps to be able to occupy them.
So I draw for them. Fortunately, drawing is so automatic that I can do that while talking intellegently with their parents. NotGodson started suggesting, though some would say demanding, characters after I knocked out a quick (and not very good) Lightning McQueen. Before I knew it, he was rattling off the lineup of the Animated Justice League. The fact that a two year old is asking me for "Jonn" (the Martian Manhunter) and "Hawkgirl" makes me feel like my Godparentage has been a success.
It reminds me of that late lamented Baja Brewery restaurant that used to be across from the San Diego Convention Center that would do the same. By the end of the show, the walls would be covered by artwork from the table papers, and I personally had gotten more than a few free beers. That's just the advantage of being able to do caricatures of the wait staff.
Anyway, for your edification are my crayon scribblings from Sunday's dinner, taken on my iPhone of Awesomeness.
A One and a Two
I'm a little burned out on the lyrics contest, so I'm going to take a few pages off and just post some panels. Here's page one (which you can embiggen) and a panel from page two (which you can't). Abby goes to see Doctor Carmody,
This issue should be a fun one. I'm looking forward to working on it.
Thumpety-thump-thump
In case you missed it in the papers and on TV, it's Christmas Season again. It means that it's also time for me to do my annual Christmas card. Waaaaaay back in 1993, I decided to design my own Christmas cards with a little cartoon on them. They were just simple photocopied and cut cards that went out to fifty people or so. Since that time, they've changed to become full-color cards and go out to much more than just those original fifty people. They're an advertising piece as well as a Holiday wish.
The hardest part as usual is coming up with the joke. My first
This year's? Well, they haven't gone out yet, so you don't get to see them until they do. Here's a preview of the art for the card, though, featuring a certain snowman who's been the subject of a song and a couple Rankin-Bass specials.
The stars are shining for you, and just like me I'm sure that they adore you
With five pages left, plus doing the cover of #10, the new ad page with new photos, and the new recap page, the book is speeding headlong to its conclusion. I think it'll come together pretty nicely.
Sure, Awards Look Nice on a Shelf
Yesterday, I attended the Apex Awards luncheon at Pine Ridge. The Awards are put on by the Lake Communicators, an organization I've been proud to be part of for over five years now. Every year, they recognize the best advertising and communication work in Ohio.
I also met Brad Colbow, talented designer and illustrator. What was odd about our meeting is that we both follow each other on Twitter, and that's how we knew each other. I know Twitter is part of online social networking, it was just cool to see it transferred to in-person social networking.
All the leaves are brown
This page came out much better than I thought it would. It was a little rockier in my head and when I drew it than when I scripted it. There were a couple of jokes that didn't make the cut, like when Mark made a goofy suggestion about the wedding. It would have gone like this:
Abby: Not my wedding.
Mark: I thought it was our wedding.
Abby: Not when you're talking crazy.
It's a cute scene, but it just didn't work for what I needed to accomplish.
With this page, I am officially on the Back Eight. Two-thirds of the way through. Time to get crazy and knock some more pages out.
I've been sent to spread the message
By my original plan, I should be on page 16 at this point. I'm not.
I can't show much about this sequence, but I'm sure we all guessed that a scene like this was coming.
In other news, it took a lot of calls, including three hours on the phone with AT&T, but I managed to restore the internet service that was destroyed by my foolish attempt to upgrade to the AT&T uVerse package. Oh, sweet Lord did that go badly. I'll share that later, after I get through some of the work that piled up as I was handling that crisis.
Commishalicious
I did a boatload of commissions at Mid-Ohio-Con this weekend. According to my list, I did a couple of Power Girls, a couple of
I took some photos of a couple on my wicked cool iPhone, and some are being sent to me so that I can color them and finish them up. I'll post them over the next couple weeks
The other commission here is Power Girl, and she's always fun.
More Than One Way to Skin a Catwoman
You can view it, and a bunch of other excellent drawings at the statueforum.com board.