Warming up

When working on my book I always like to start by warming up. I bet you didn't know that drawing was a contact sport! You definitely don't want to pull a muscle leaning over that drawing table.

Over the years I've learned that I draw consistently better when I'm warmed up. To do this I came up with a system that works pretty well for me.

A few months ago I sat down and came up with a list of monsters that I've never drawn before. I love drawing monsters because they are fun, and the anatomy doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, the more distorted the anatomy the better. I took one of my sketchbooks and wrote the names at the bottom of each page. Each night I would sit down with a timer set for thirty minutes and draw whatever was next on the list. If I didn't get done in the allotted time, I would finish the next night. The key is to remember these are sketches and not portfolio pieces.


Here's a warm up sketch from a few months ago.

It was supposed to be a plant creature who ended up being a mushroom guy, meh. I broke one of my own rules there, so I have to go back and draw the plant monster soon. Don't piss off the client!


This warm up process works great for a few reasons.

#1. You don't waste any time thinking about what you want to draw.

Thirty minutes goes by very quickly. And if you're like me, you don't have a lot of extra time to draw at night. I have a full time job during the day, so every minute in the evening counts.

#2. You force yourself to draw what's been assigned.

I'm my own project manager. (aha! future post idea, time management) Anyway, I treat myself like an employee. This means I don't get to draw what I want, I draw what the client wants, which is me. Confused yet? When I was young I would sit down at that blank page and just draw what came to mind, often switching in the middle of picture if it didn't come out right. The purpose is to MAKE it come out right.

#3. Thirty minutes warms you up, but doesn't burn you out.

Thirty minutes for me is the perfect amount of time. Any longer than that and I start eating into my comic page time. Once again, If I was a full time artist I would probably spend more time on sketches, but for now this works.

Let me know if you guys have any warm up strategies.

Pens Dammit!!

So I'll be the first to say I'm not the world's greatest inker. In fact, I kind of suck at it. This is probably why I'm not inking professionally for a big comic company. I do admit that I'm not a huge fan of inked work. Sure it looks pretty, and makes your work look much more professional, but I love seeing the pencil lines. I know I've said that before. That's one of the reasons Black Hole Cafe isn't inked. Maybe it was a mistake, but I'm happy with the results.

Still, I fully appreciate the inker. My brother does amazing inks, with a very unique style. I will most likely ask him to collaborate on some stuff in the near future. Even though I don't ink my work very often, I'm definitely no stranger to it. In fact, a few of the pictures in my previous posts were inked by yours truly.

Here's a couple of examples of my inked sketches.

These were all done on sketchbook paper, so they are a little messy. If done on illustration board, they would look a lot tighter. What you'll notice is there is a definite difference in line weight. Back in the day artists would achieve this with an actual ink brush. By working the angle and the stroke... (is this getting dirty?) Anyway, by the angle of the brush they could achieve very fine lines, or broad black strokes. 

Since I don't have that kind of skill or patience, I opt for different sized pens. You can find these at any art store. Currently my faves are Premier by Prismacolor. I have, in order of size from smallest to largest, a 005, 01, 03, 05, and 08. I also use a Sharpie Fine Point for the bigger areas. Sharpies are pretty much a staple of an artist's tool kit. Here's a sexy photo shoot of some of my pens. 

give me sassy... good, now pouty, show me pouty....

As always, it's all about what you are comfortable doing. I know some artists who work almost exclusively in ink. Whatever fits your personal style, and whatever you enjoy doing is what you should go with. Go out and grab a bunch of pens. See what works for you. 

Whoring... I mean selling myself

I've spent the better part of tonight contacting my favorite blogs and professionals about the book. I'm expecting tons of eye-rolling and emails sent straight to the trash. Still, I can't let that deter me. Colonel Sanders had over 1,000 rejections before he found someone who liked his chicken recipe. If a man in his sixties can pound the pavement that many times, then a nerd in his late 30's should be able to get rejected twice that many times over email!! (Colonel Sanders, you're my hero)

In the meantime, here's and old sketch to keep the blog full of pretty pictures. I was watching Spartacus: Blood and Sand a lot around this time. (note the date at the bottom) I guess that's why the guy looks like a Masters of the universe concept. I just wanted to do something with lots of muscles and anatomy. I really enjoyed doing the hand claws.

I normally don't ink my stuff. I guess I'm scared of making a mistake that I can't fix. I say that, but I used to sketch with a blue Bic pen all the time when I was bored. Now that I'm more comfortable with photoshop I'll probably start inking my pictures more often. It's just that I love seeing the sketchy lines of a pencil showing through. I like to see the process. I've never been a fan of super clean looking artwork. I think a few mistakes here and there keeps the picture organic and lively. 

With that said, there are a few pens I like to use when I do ink. Maybe that will be tomorrow's post.
"I don't always ink, but when I do, I use....." Keep drawing my friends. ;)

Black Hole Cafe Concept

Back between 1999 and 2001 I waited tables at a local twenty four hour cafe called Kerbey Lane. I worked the graveyard shift exclusively. For a few years this place was like my own private club house. Most of my friends worked there, including my brother and best friend. It was a time when I could swing by at 1AM on any given night and drink coffee with my friends. I had worked night jobs before, but never at a place quite like this one. The restaurant has moved buildings in the past few years, so my club house lies vacant. I always dream of buying the building and running a coffee shop, just so I can find that vibe again.You would think two years wouldn't really affect someone that much, but it was a pivotal time in my life in a lot of ways. It's when the idea for Black Hole Cafe first started to emerge. 

The most glaring similarity is the cafe after dark. The world looks different at night. Even the people are different. I'm a night person, always have been. Even as a kid I knew that the day belonged to the worriers, the rat racers. If you can't tell, I'm not a fan of day people. I feel like they are too loud, too aggressive, too focused on the physical world. Even though over the years I've been forced to live among them, I'm not one of them. 

The night has always been magical to me. My favorite thing used to be walking at night. The loud people go to bed, and the world becomes quiet and peaceful. You have room to breathe and think. Every night I would walk through the neighborhood and stare at the trees. It seemed like magic was creeping around every corner. It's almost as if there is this silent presence watching you, nothing malicious, just curious and present. 

That's why I set my comic in a place like Black Hole Cafe. I worked nights, so it was during these years that I formed the idea for the story. I wanted to capture that feeling. It's based on People who live on the fringes of the normal world. And like me, they prefer the night too. I've also always been fascinated with the occult. I wanted to use these characters to explore those topics.

(See picture at top of Post)

Here's a few old sketches from 2000 I pasted together. The pic of Kole is actually from around 2004, the rest are the original ideas for the first comic. The pic of Simon on the far right is the first picture I ever did of him. His name just popped into my head as I was doodling his face. He's changed over the years, but he's still the same guy. The thumbnails are layouts of a scene from the original comic. The character that eventually became Dodd was more like Jimi Hendrix in the beginning. In this scene he is making a coat for Simon out of leaves. I'm still going to use this idea, just not until after the first story arc is over. 

This is a pic I did of Simon while working at a hotel in 2004. It wasn't a Holiday Inn, but you can see the stamp from the sticky I was doodling on. Originally he had this black and green scarf. I loved the way it looked, but since Simon was partly inspired by Doctor Who, I thought it was too close. 

Incidentally, Simon is inspired by a lot of characters, all people who straddle the world of the supernatural. Harry D'Amour, John Constantine, and Harry Dresden, just to name a few. Somewhere in my mind these characters all meet for a drink and talk about what bastards their creators are for making their lives hell. I'm definitely no exception. Simon is in for a life of pain. 

Sketch

One of the best things about my favorite blogs and websites, is that they have new content every day. I noticed over time that if a site doesn't post anything for a few days in a row, I stop going to the site. That's probably not very nice on my part (slaps hands vigorously). However, I believe that these sites are dedicated to the viewer, these folks are the customer. Internet customers want content, and lots of it. I know I do.

So, I'm going to try and post something new every day. Right now I have a backlog of old pictures and sketches that I want to post. Once I start working on Black Hole Cafe #3, I'll have plenty of warm up sketches to post. 

Also, if any of these pictures are for sale, I'll post that too. 

This is a sketch I submitted to Mark Millar's website. A few years back he was running a contest. He wanted to create a collection of short one page scifi / horror bits. I don't know if he ever followed up. I never heard anything back about it, so I assumed, as usual that it sucked. (Insert silent weeping) My brother did an amazing colored version of this for me. If I can find it on one of my backups I'll post it as well. 

Published! or I'm a real boy now!

Well it's official. I'm published. I was a little drunk last night when I realized my books had been posted online. I rolled over to my fiance' and said (in slurry drunkinese) "Look babe, I'm a REAL comic book artist now!" She just rolled over and said something supportive like, "That's nice dear, now you just have to market it, and add tags, and blah blah..."

I stopped listening as the terror set in. I have no idea how to sell myself. I guess I'm going to have to learn fast. The best part about the internet is that you don't need a publisher. The worst part about not having a publisher is you have to promote yourself. Any artist out there will tell you that we aren't interested in pimping ourselves to anyone, we just want to draw. Let someone else keep their pimp hand strong. However, that's part of the package of being independent. Maybe I can trick my fiance' into doing it for me. We'll see (rubs hands together and twirls mustache)

I'm going to set aside some time to learn how to promote myself. I'll start with contacting websites like Comics Alliance and go from there. I'll post about my inevitable failures in the future, and let you know what I learned and how I overcame adversity... or something motivational like that. 

Anyway, issues 1 and 2 are up on Amazon, Graphicly, iBooks, and probably a few other places. I still need to work out some issues with pricing though. I wanted the first issue to be free, but it's showing as $1.99 on iBooks. I'll just give Graphicly a ringy ding ding and see if they can fix that for me.

(Shameless plug for Graphicly) I have to say, Graphicly has been EXCELLENT. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford the $150 it costs to put a book up. However, it is completely worth it. They take care of formatting your book, publishing it to all of the online distribution channels, and even have this neat widget that allows you to direct the reading experience before posting. 

Also, Graphicly's customer service is excellent. I had an issue uploading one of my files. I emailed on a Sunday, and they responded almost immediately. Yeah, you heard me! SUNDAY. I had the issue resolved by the end of the day and they were so nice. 

I'm definitely feeling the love. It's February, my books are online, and every thing seems to be coming up roses (or whatever flower you like). So, just to be on the safe side I submit to you a sketch I did a few years ago. I was having a difficult time before I met my soon to be wife. I couldn't understand why relationships are so hard. It couldn't be me that's for sure. (insert sarcasm sign here). So I came up with someone to blame. LOVE GREMLINS. Yes, that's it! It's all their fault. They messed up planes and trucks in WWII, why not relationships too.

So now if you ever have a problem with your significant other, don't blame yourself like a sane rational person, just blame the gremlins! Happy belated Valentine's day.

Paper Ya'll

Growing up I drew on anything that was laying around. I started with construction paper and then typing paper. My favorite were the handouts in school. Instead of listening to the teacher or actually doing my work, I would spend all of my time drawing in the margins. And when that was full, I would flip it over onto the back and fill that up too. 

It wasn't until high school art class that I was introduced to the idea of a sketchbook. Everything I scribbled in them was terrible, but it was where I really started to learn the idea of progression. Looking back as a senior on my Freshman books, I realized that you can actually get better with practice. What a novel concept!

With college came fancier pens, pencils, and of course paper. I still had my sketchbooks, but was required to try different weights and thicknesses of paper. Some were smooth like baby butts, some were super toothy (rough), and pretty much everything in-between. 

Eventually I found out what works for me and what doesn't. I love the way sketchbook paper feels when I'm sketching. I love a little bit of tooth. I also love the way it enhances my lines and accepts my organic strokes... um, maybe my sketchbook and I should get a room. 

To clarify, there are so many different types of paper available to an artist, it's almost impossible to cover it here. Even sketchbooks are like Baskins Robbins, there's a flavor for everyone. 

Anyway, when I started working on my comic I realized something. My sketchbook had TOO much tooth. When I scanned in the first seven or eight pages, you can see what I came away with. See the neat little red arrow pointing at the grain from my sketchbook paper? The paper is lighter than this normally. I just bumped up the contrast so you can actually see the grain.

At first I liked it. Black Hole Cafe is supposed to be gritty, sort of a fantasy noir. I almost did the entire book in my sketchbook just because I like drawing there so much. However, after applying the "color" (BHC is a greyscale comic) It made it look dirty, and not in the sexy hollywood kind of way, just regular person dirty. Luckily for me you can use the Curves tool in Photoshop to reduce the dirt.

Note to self: "Post about photoshop techniques in the future"

Self: "Will do boss"

You can see the difference if you go back to the previous post of Simon and Ethan sitting at the table. But here's a scan of the boards I'm currently using from Blue line Pro. (Shameless plug for BLP)

You can immediately see how much smoother the grain is on the paper. I bumped up the contrast on this pic as well so you can see the blue lines. The blue is non-photo repo, which means they don't show up during the printing process. These are printed on Strathmore bristol boards which has a much smoother texture. They are basically thick art boards which hold up really well to most anything you want to do.

Bristol board does take getting used to, but it will make your work look cleaner. The best part about illustration boards is how clean the pencils come out during the scanning process. And trust me, the less time you spend trying to fix dirty drawings after the fact the better. As a musician I always hear the phrase "Let's clean it in post!". This is seldom true in music and almost never true in comics. 

Note to self: "Contradict yourself later with a post about using photoshop for corrections"

Self: "Will do boss! We sure like to contradict ourselves don't we?"

There are plenty of articles about paper on the interweb, but as always, get your hands dirty. Go try as many different weights and textures of papers as you can find. Figure out what works for you and your project. 

Check out these guys to get you started. 

http://www.bluelinepro.com

http://www.cansonstudio.com/en/

- TF

Pencil Power

Time to talk about tools. For years I wondered what other artists used to draw comics. Now that I'm figuring it out, I want to share! I'll cover pencils today and move on to other materials in later posts.

I, like many comic artists, was raised on the trusty #2 pencil. Why not? They were standard issue in school. I remember sharpening my pencil down to a nub, then tossing it for a fresh one. Eventually, I got bored with that generic yellow glare coming off my #2 and started using color coated pencils. They were still regular #2 graphite, but damn did they look neat. I had Halloween pencils, seasonal, glossy, polka dot, etc. My pencil box looked like a rainbow dragon puked in it. The only bad part was the inconsistency. 

Then came the internet! Yes, I remember the days of Encyclopedia Britannica. I was able to find interviews with giants like Joe Madureira and Chris Bachalo. They all mentioned the infamous LEAD HOLDER. So if they used one, then of course I had to run out and buy 20. Well, maybe only 1, but still. So now like my heroes, I too use a lead holder and love it. Here's a shot of my lead holders, the sharpener, and my peel-off eraser. 

Lead holders are basically a fancy mechanical pencil. My main holder is a Staedtler Mars Technico 780. You can usually find one at any decent art store. The other is a Prismacolor holder my brother gave me. I recommend using a separate sharpener and not the one built into the back of the pencil. The dust gets all over my picture while I'm trying to draw, and smearing makes me grumpy.

There are plenty of benefits to using a lead holder. First off, it never gets shorter. You sharpen the lead and not the pencil. I found that over time I would start holding my pencil differently as it got shorter. The shortening of your pencil takes time and is gradual. However, switching back to a brand new pencil is immediate. Going instantly from two inches to six inches can be traumatizing to your hand... (insert lewd jokes here). 

Also, I find the lead holds a point longer than a regular pencil. Maybe it's because I use an F, which is a littler harder than a #2. You can find boxes of pencils with varying hardnesses at any art store. I'm not knocking art pencils, They're just not my thing. I don't need a bunch of leftover B's rolling around in my desk drawer. Plus B's smear. And we all know that smearing makes me grumpy.

I think the biggest benefit is consistency. I've been using one for a few years now and know exactly what kind of lines I'm going to get. I guess that's why the big guys us them. Consistency is key when you are drawing every day. It's like bowling... get your own ball, don't just use what's laying around! 

Here's a sample of my pencils from Black Hole Cafe #2.

I've given you my opinion about pencils. But above all else, find what works for you. Don't just take my word for it. Go out and try everything until you settle on something that matches your style.

Next post: Let's talk about paper. Until then, Keep Drawing!

Comic Covers

Hello all!

I just digitally published the first two issues of Black Hole Cafe with Graphicly. I expect them to available to all digital comic outlets, except Comixology, within the next two weeks. Comixology will be accepting independent submissions soon.

It's hard to believe that it's been almost two years since I started this comic. I plan to order printed copies of the book as soon as possible. However, I don't have a plan to distribute in paper just yet. More to come on that.

Initially, my idea was to create a graphic novel broken into four parts. However, I as go along I realize that more stories keep coming up in my head. So far, I have enough story to finish the first four parter, and then another four after that. We'll see how it goes from there.

I won't post a lot of the finished artwork here, at least not at first. The idea of this blog is to document the process of creating the comic. I've always loved hearing an artist or musician's thoughts about their personal process. So, you'll see a lot of sketches and unfinished pages here.

And since I like to constantly contradict myself, here are the finished covers for issue #1 and #2. :)

As you can see from the pics I've stuck with a theme. I liked how the picture of Kole (the rabbit) on book 1 was centered, so I went with it for issue 2. I plan to do this with the first four books and then move to a different design for the next story arc.

As a small child hunched over the comic rack at the local gas station, I always hated how the cover sometimes did not have much to do with the story. I realize now that I'm older, the cover is more for marketing than conveying a story. It's used to grab attention. I get that now, even though I still feel like it's one of those trailers that shows a scene you never get to see in the movie. Still, I wanted to have a strong graphic element to my covers. It's  a theme that gets used throughout my books that I hope to expand upon.

Let me know what you think

- TF