All I'm Gonna Say

When your special lady asks you to draw a tauntaun, you do two things:

1. Thank your lucky stars that you've found a lady that likes tauntauns and Star Wars.
2. Draw the hell out of that tauntaun.

Justice, Like Lightning

When I was young, I created my own superheroes. Now that I'm older, well, I still do. But way back when, Young Thom came up with the name for a crime fighting duo named Black Thunder and Black Lightning. Then, just a couple months later, DC must have sent someone into my bedroom, because they stole my idea and created their own Black Lightning.

Years and years later, I'm good friends with the creator of Black Lightning, Tony Isabella. I've gotten over our parallel ideas (or was he the one DC sent into my room?) and we've had all sorts of adventures together. At Wizard World Mid-Ohio we sat next to each other and Tony asked if I could do a commission featuring his character and mine, Darkblade.

I was glad to. It was fun to draw Black Lightning in his classic costume, and there were some cool lighting effects to play with. I pushed myself with Darkblade, too, interacting with his cape a little more than I usually have opportunity to draw.

Tony got the piece and pronounced it good. I wanted him to post it on his site first, which he did, and now I'm sharing it with you.

And incidentally, my commission list for 2012 is very much open. If you've been thinking of getting a piece done, now's a great time!

I Built This City Listening to Rock and Roll

Hey! Two posts in two days! It's a New Year's miracle! I've been working on a secret Love and Capes project, which I've variously called "Project Ghost Protocol", "The Project That Dare Not Speak It's Name" and "Project I Can't Tell You." The project is still very much hush-hush, but I thought I'd show some production art from it. I took the opportunity here to draw some new backgrounds for some of the scenes.

My LNC process involves having a library of backgrounds that I can reuse in a variety of locations. These also show a shift in style, as they are not precisely inked with a technical pen, as so much background work is, but instead are inked with brush so that it's a little more lively. At least I think so.

There's a city that, in this case, will be Darkblade's home city of Chronopolis, and a couple shots of buildings for the Downtown Willoughby/Wrigleyville inspired neighborood that Abby's bookstore resides in.

As always, click and embiggen!

Monsters and Dames You Won't See

Not everything makes the cut. Last year I did my first Emerald City Comicon and loved, repeat LOVED it. They also do a wonderful art book called Monsters and Dames. It's a great collection of artwork that I was honored to be part of. This year, it was so popular that they juried the artwork, and sadly, I didn't get into the 2012 book.

More artists than pages, decisions to be made. These things happen.

Anyway, I'm pretty proud of the piece I did. I pushed my style, eschewing the brush-heavy linework I normally do and working in a much more "dead" line. I also pushed my colors on this piece, too, mixing cut color and airbrush and colored lines to get something new. So, I definitely wanted to share with you.

I'm trying to figure out where else I can use this piece, but in the meantime, there's no reason you can't see the art right now. So click and see my Angel and Demon piece.

Oh, and I'll be back at Emerald City Comicon this year, sharing space with Ben "Badass of the Week" Thompson. I'll let you know the booth number as soon as I know, and I'll see you there! I'll probably be in line for George Takei, asking him about Celebrity Apprentice, and trying to get Wil Wheaton to read Love and Capes.

Have a Yourself a Merry Little Christmas now

Merry Christmas! It's the time of family and friends, faith and love, presents and food, and watching London get invaded by giant spaceships. Hope you and yours are having a good one.

Convention Schedule 2012

My adventures in conventioneering continue in 2012. This is my tentative schedule, with probably more dates to be added. And, if you'd like to bring me out for your show, give me a shout ad we'll see if we can work it out.

Here's my 2012 Convention Schedule (so far)…

MegaCon in Orlando, FL
February 13-21

WonderCon in Anaheim, CA
March 16-18

Emerald City Comicon in Seattle, WA
March 30-April 1

C2E2 in Chicago, IL
April 13-15

Free Comic Book Day at Captain BlueHen in Delaware
May 5, 2012

Comicpalooza in Houston, TX
May 25-27

HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC
June 18-19

Comic-Con International in San Diego, CA
July 22-24

Dragon*Con in Atlanta, GA (tentative)
August 31-September 3

Baltimore Comicon in Baltimore, MD
September 8-9

WizardWorld Mid-Ohio in Columbus, OH
September 29-30

New York Comic-Con in New York City, NY
October 11-14

Akron Comic Con in Akron, OH
November 10

Cover Recreation Double Punch (pt. 2)

Here's the second of my classic comic cover double-punch!

This is a recreation of the classic Man of Steel #3. Crusader and Darkblade are replacing Superman and Batman, but the wildcard here is the DC villian Magpie who's been replaced by the villianous Fearleader. She's often mentioned (and is Chris Sims' favorite never-seen character) and one of these days may actually appear in a comic. We'll see.

I tried ti keep with the older, flatter coloring style where possible while still keeping some of the Love and Capes coloring style as well. I think it turned out pretty well. Click here to see it biggimized.

Too lazy to scroll to yesterday's link for how to order commissions? Here it is again.

Cover Recreation Double Punch (pt. 1)

I've had two recent commissions that have involved recreating classic comic covers with Love and Capes covers. There must be something in the air.

First up is this recreation of Birds of Prey #8 with Darkblade and Amazonia substituiting for Nightwing and Batgirl.

This was done for two of my biggest fans in Baltimore, who have even bought copies of my book to give to other pros. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.

I'm not sure, but you might see this cover again, too.

Click to embiggen the cover, of course.

Wait, you want a commission? Why contact me here and we can make that happen.

The Girl Who Waited

It's an irritating truth that it's easier to place your friends and family behind other concerns. I've been working on client stuff and traveling and all that, so when my friend Jesse asked me to start off his new Doctor Who-themed sketchbook, it took way too long for me to get to it. But, three-and-a-half months later, I did.

There's part of the chain of events that works out, though. I felt I'd taken so long that I really had to up my game on the sketch.

The subject, which should come to no surprise to anyone who knows me, was Amy Pond.

I got to break in my new Copic markers on this one. I haven't done much with them in previous sketches, and I find I really like them. It gives them a lot of pop. I'd always had the idea of making Amy's hair the only color on the piece, but since the Doctor did such a great job describing how vivid a blue the TARDIS is, I scanned a rough and did a rare color test, to see if I should make the time traveling box blue. The tests are below. I leave it to you to decide if I made the right choice.

Click on anything for embiggimzation!

YMCA Illustration

While I was on my sojourn in Los Angeles last month, my rule of "The best way to get work is to leave town" came into play. I had the opportunity to create a cartoon for the Lake County YMCA for one of their fundraisers, illustrating people in one of those mobile closet-like things where wind blows and money (or, in this case, coupons) fly about for you to grab. Most of this was done remotely, with only the final touches being done once I was back in Ohio.

You probably can't tell, but there's a touch of Tim Burton in this. I'd just seen the Tim Burton exhibit at the LACMA and it influenced the way I constructed the characters.

It pays to be mobile!