Sketch Fridays #49 –– Hellrider Jackie #02

Aug17
by on 17 August 2018

Sketch Fridays #49 – Hellrider Jackie with a Pentel brush pen.

On Tuesday, I wrote about the idea of staying on-model as an artist with your characters and how, especially in comics, this is a much looser requirement than it is for animation. For Long John, no character is more off-model––even from panel to panel––than Hellrider Jackie. Part of that has to do with how infrequently she appears in the comics; part of it has to do with the translation from artist to artist (though I drew her first appearance, Josh Tobey drew her first story and I fed him some inconsistent information in my notes and layouts).

It shouldn’t be that hard. She wears an all-black dress with a big bonnet with a skull over her face. And yet, things can vary.

The first “real” Hellrider Jackie.

That being said, I did do a “final” design for her like I did for Long John back during the development phase of the comic. And though it turned out to be less of a model sheet, like the Long John drawing, it was the first drawing I did where I felt like it was “right.” For me, at least, that’s how it comes together when developing ideas; you play with them, mold them, throw them against he wall until you look at it and think, “There it is!”

So, these “model sheets” acted as baselines, a solid floor to work up from rather than a soft, muddy earth.

Earlier this week, I was up working one night and, before going to bed, I decided to sit down and try a “real” drawing since I haven’t really drawn much since completing Chapter 3. I was inspired by a new artbook collection of the video game series, Metal Gear Solid (collecting the “studio” and “gallery” work for the first four games), whose art has long served as an inspiration (if indirectly) for me.

When I first saw (way back in 1998) the art of Yoji Shinkawa, the lead artist of the series, his loose brushwork always belied his solid designs. Looking at the large-format books collecting his work, I could see more of the assorted techniques he used to create his ephemeral drawings of super spies (which is what the Metal Gear Solid series is about).

An example of Yoji Shinkawa’s loose by solid brush drawings from the Metal Gear Solid series. Source: Konami

I sat down and decided to do a brush drawing over loose pencils of the Metal Gear Solid protagonist, Solid Snake, but it was a disaster. Then I tried to abandon penciling completely and make a quick brush drawing of Long John. I mean, I’ve drawn him enough times to get it right on the first try.

That also tanked.

In a fit of desperation, I turned the paper over and just started throwing down ink of Hellrider Jackie and, though it was way off-model, it looked pretty good. No pencils, no guides, just a brush and a white-out marker for some special effects. Being pleased with it, I decided to use it to resurrect (for a week at least) Sketch Fridays.

Also…

A taste of things to come.

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The Week – 20 July 2018

Jul20
by on 20 July 2018

TALKING:

This week I was interviewed by the lovely local comic book podcast, The Capeless Crusaders, specifically hosts David Barrie and Amy Nunag, in an episode focusing on independent comic creators. I had the pleasure of being one of two guests on the episode, the second being Scott “Fuzzy” Joseph who was promoting his book, The Warren Hope.

It was a lot of fun to be on the show, and one thing that came up at the end was my history playing Dungeons & Dragons, which is a very short and loose history indeed. I mentioned my basic arc as a player through any role-playing session starts earnestly enough with the desire to get caught up in the communal imagined narrative before giving way to me hanging back and watching everyone else play while I draw what happens. After bringing that up, I figured I could dig through my hard drive and see what old D&D drawings I could dig up.

My smoky-gray dice that I’ve had since high school but have sparingly used.

Early on, I mostly just drew characters as heroically as possible or moments that stood out in particular. It was mostly about the drawing rather than trying to capture any of the story that may have been going on at the table.

“Viln”, a dwarf from a campaign played in 1997 or ’98.

An unfortunate turn of events from 1997 or 1998.

A half-elf character from a game around 2000.

The only time I really played an extended game of Dungeons & Dragons was in 2009, which was the game and character I mention in the interview. In this game, I drew fewer portraits. I also didn’t really draw important moments. Instead––referencing another element brought up in the interview, I found the humorous or quiet moments more enticing to draw.

A character (not mine) named Frarank bringing the business.

A dwarf character (not mine) named Thorgrimm breaks his hammer.

A child skeleton attacks a member of our party.

Thorgrimm is a little nervous about some of the merchandise in a store.

My character (name forgotten) accidentally steps in way over his head into a particularly deadly situation.

A particularly gregarious mayor welcomes the party to town.

One of our party meets a vicious, but heroic, end.

The party happens upon a suspect scarecrow.

Portrait of Frarank.

Portrait of Thorgrimm

All of this to say: I don’t want to play D&D despite the fun bits of creativity it yields. Though this seems like a lot, these are bits that pop up through dozens of hours of gameplay, and that’s what I remember more than the actual “fun” part of playing tabletop role-playing games. They are a genre of gaming that I should love, but I don’t have the staying power for it. So, I admire it from afar now, and that’s probably the best place to observe it from, for me.

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The Week – 06 July 2018

Jul06
by on 6 July 2018

READING:

source: Gallery 13

  • Roughneck by Jeff Lemire

A mere month ago I lauded a Jeff Lemire project on “The Week”, so I feel like I’m cheating a bit by mentioning him again. Truth be told, I’ve had Roughneck in my hands for awhile (since it was published in April), but I never felt I had an adequate excuse to sit down and read a big book like this––I had too much to do. With Independence Day falling in the middle of this week, I found myself with an entire day to just chill out and read. It’s nearly 300 pages, but it goes by fast––I read it in a sitting––due to Lemire’s cinematic storytelling and composition.

This cuts to the essential difference between graphic novels and prose novels. Reading Roughneck will take you a few hours and will feel like it, if faithfully translated, would take the length of a short film. A prose novel of a similar length could easily be a season of a tv show, in comparison. When relying on the blend of imagery and text, the amount of story you can tell gets squished down tremendously in a graphic novel. What could easily take a page––hell, a paragraph––in a prose novel could take up four or five pages in a comic. So, due to my literary background, I don’t deny that there is an inherent disappointment that comes with reading graphic novels––meaning long form comics released as a single volume (not just a collection of individual issues)––because their plot content is so much less than a traditional novel; however, what we gain from having visuals and the rhetorical tools graphic novelists have at their disposal yields a much different result than what a prose novel brings. A graphic novel begs you to really look at the images, study the faces, the changes from panel to panel––those were choices made by the author, notice them, come up with an understanding as to why those choices were made and how it aides the story being told. But, like any book, that’s only if you want to. There’s nothing wrong with just reading from cover to cover and saying, “That was fun!”

A comic about “gritty” subjects but told with gentle sincerity sums up Roughneck––and Lemire––in a nutshell. Source: Gallery 13. Click to enlarge.

Roughneck sits close to the other Lemire work I’ve mentioned, Royal City. Like the latter, it’s a family drama but much more focused and condensed. It’s a study of a character named Derek Ouellette, a retired professional hockey player who was pushed out for throwing a few too many punches on the ice. So, now, he just drinks, lives in a storage closet of an ice rink, and tries to be left alone. This all changes when his sister shows up one night, a sister he hasn’t seen in years, and she’s got her own problems to deal with.

This book kind of blends a few things I’ve talked about on The Week: obviously, it takes one part Royal City and blends it with a healthy dose of, believe it or not, The Last Alaskans (the show about people living in the Alaskan Wildlife Reserve. What’s nice to see is that Lemire’s also using a limited color palette in this book, relying on color for deliberate purposes and moments, something I related to quite a bit.

By the end, I found Roughneck to be very sincere and earnest, reminding me not only why I enjoy Lemire’s work, but also reminding me of the qualities I want my work to have as well.

HELPING:

It’s pronounced “Saw.” Source: Taurus Comics. Art by David Jaxon.

Local Sacramento creator, Kyrun Silva, is holding another Kickstarter to bring the second issue of his newest superhero series, Xob The The Lightning Wielder to life. The first issue was fully funded and turned out to be a really strong opening. It’s a superhero comic rooted in Hmong culture and mythology (Xob is the Hmong god of lightning). With his previous series, Shaman’s Destiny, Kyrun conducted the duties of both writer and artist; with Xob, he designed the characters, wrote the scripts, and got the phenomenal artist David Jaxon to draw it. It’s a sharp book and I’m a little jealous. Here is the pitch for the comic:

Xob the Lightning Wielder is an ongoing superhero series about Tracy Lor. Tracy has been infused with the power of the Hmong lightning deity, Xob. Given super human strength, flight and the ability to wield lightning into various forms.

Her world becomes more complicated when Danny, a shaman, tries to steal her powers. He attends to use her powers to stop Lord Eklips from escaping the Dark Realm and conquering our world. Now the two must work together to take down Eklips and his horde of dark demons.

I’ve known Kyrun for a few years now, even featuring a character of his on a Sketch Friday (in response to which he drew Long John), and he’s a genuinely inspiring creator. His enthusiasm for the medium is infectious and watching him get better and better from year to year is harrowing for me, a guy who admittedly doesn’t really push himself artistically too much.

Sketch of Kyrun Silva’s character, Xob, drawn at the TGPC Expo.

For $5, you get a physical copy of Xob #2 or digital copies of both #1 and #2 (there are two options at this level). This is, I believe, the third Kickstarter campaign after two successful runs, so you know Kyrun can deliver the goods in the end. At the very least, it’s a novel concept presented beautifully––and it’s really fun! I highly recommend giving this a chance: XobComic.com

LONG JOHN UPDATE:

Chapter 3 is updating smoothly and next week brings this first scene to a close. So, next week would be a wonderful time to start spreading the word since there will be about ten pages up for people to read instead of having to slog through a mere two pages a week.

I’m not working on Chapter 4 quite yet; there are some other small projects I’m going to dabble in just to get them out of my system and spread my wings a little. One of them, however, is Long John-related:

What could this be?!?

I’m not going to say what it is.

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