Story Illustration: Pondering on the Meaning of Life

Have you ever found yourself alone amongst beautiful surroundings? Has the scene ever sent your mind down paths long ago tread? Have you ever wondered about why you are where you are and if that is where you are supposed to be? Do you ever ask your self "what if I had or hadn't" about choices made in the past followed by possible answers you will never know are right?

In the illustration above, the Wandering Koala is having just such an existential examination. I drew the image in my "combo brush" style with a Zebra disposable brush pen and Japanese brush pen, then colored it in Adobe Photoshop. This is a style and approach I'm considering for the next Wandering Koala story. Let me know what you think.

Tools of the Trade

I love walking into new Art Stores and Craft Stores and discovering tools and other items I have never seen before or didn't know existed. I love getting new pens, brushes, pencils, software, papers, and other items to see what I can do with them. Most of the time I don't find anything life changing, but occasionally I find some real gems.

I've been using a Zebra disposable brush pen and Japanese brush pen in what I call my Combo brush style. I've been throwing in crosshatching courtesy of Adobe Photoshop. I love the effect, but that doesn't mean I don't feel like experimenting.

I recently bought a dual-tip Zebra disposable brush pen with a thinnish tip and a thick tip. I was pretty excited to try it out. It gives me a thicker line than the fine-point Zebra pen, but a more controlled line than the Japanese brush pen. I thought it would give me the perfect line, but after completing several sketches, I don't know that I'm sold on it. I've posted my lasted below so you can compare it to my Combo brush style which is above.

What do you think?

Pulp Illustration: Wandering Koala tackles Shark Lizard

I am a huge fan of Pulps from the 30s and 40s. They show the raw energy of writers and artists who are full of ideas that haven't been worn down by years of experience. There is something fresh about them. In our day, eComics, eBooks, and blogs serve a similar roll with wannabe professions throwing their ideas out there for the world to see. Most are rough and could use a polish, but polish tends to tone down some of the freshness and fun and uniqueness. Pulps, both modern and old, serve as great inspiration for myself and many others.

The image above was drawn with my Combo brush style (a thin Zebra disposable brush pen and Japanese brush pen), then colored in Corel Painter. I love how it turned out! The colors are much more muted than I usually use, but they work in this situation.

Let me know what you think.

Wandering Koala trapped in an Underground Cavern

Playing around with techniques and style. I liked this when I first did it, but after a week I don't know if I'm as big a fan.

What do you think?

Art Philosophy: Metaphors in Art

 

I remember one day in a high school English class we read a poem about dandelions that compared them to an invading army and fighting them to war. I thought it strange, because I love dandelions. They're one of my favorite flowers. I've never understood why people try so hard to fight them. They're pretty, and they grow with no effort. How is that now a perfect plant? (You can even eat part of them.)

I was staring at this page from Wandering Koala Digest 2 and contrasting the friendly, happy snowman with the more menacing version and realized he was a metaphor for snow. Like dandelions, some people see snow as a wonder--pretty and fun. Others see it as a menace. I don't like slick roads, but that is really the only negative to snow I see. I suppose one could say that's why I made the menacing snowman mostly cute and cuddly.

Great art allows viewers to each take something different from a work. Not so great art forcing a particular view on the viewer (such as insisting dandelions are the evil invading army of the enemy). What do you see when you look at snow?

Merry Christmas in 2013!

 

My annual Christmas Card, 2013 Edition.

The Joy of Christmas

 

It's been said that Christmas isn't Christmas without little children, and there is a lot of truth to that. To a little child, everything is magical. As we grow older, the world seems less magical. I don't think the world loses its magic, but we lose our innocence and our ability to see the wonder all around us as a result. But when we are around little children, we can see some of that magic once again thru their eyes.

Every year I create a Christmas card, but this year I struggled with what to do. I finally reached back into the magic of childhood and pulled out this: toy trains, alphabet blocks, and cute animals. Cully and the tree were inked with a Japanese brush pen while the train and rails were inked with a Zebra disposable brush pen.

I'll be posting the finished card soon, so keep your eyes open!

Philosophy: Discrimination, Priorities, and the Power of Deadlines

 

I remember in Art School several professors told us NOT to say we didn't finish a drawing, painting, or other assignment because we were working on an English paper, and yet students inevitably did. Which was funny, because they were Art Majors too. Their Art projects should have had top priority since that's what they were pursuing as a vocation. I'm guessing it was years of brainwashing from the public school system instilling a sense of "important" and "unimportant" and Art was pushed to the backseat.

There will always be more things vying for our attention than we have time to give. Some are important. Some are less important. Some are urgent, and some can wait. If we make a grid with these attributes, we see four categories emerge. The items in the urgent column seem to get done, because there is a pressing deadline. That's good until we realize we tend to sacrifice things that are important but not urgent for things that are unimportant but urgent. The important things that aren't urgent are the ones that get swept under the rug. These include things like improving our skills, spending time with loved ones, and other self-improvement and family improvement activities. Hence the importance of priorities.

In order to make room for all of the important things, we need to be more discriminatory. Discrimination has a negative connotation today because of decades of misuse, but if you look at the actual definition of the word, it's a very beneficial and essential activity. The definition defines discrimination as "the ability to discern what is of high quality; good judgement or taste". We must discriminate, ie. use good judgement, to determine what activities and other things are worth our time and which aren't and choose those that are of worth and discard or ignore those that aren't. Often we equate importance with urgency, but they aren't the same thing. Just because something is due tomorrow doesn't mean it's worth our time to do it.

Other times we may let others determine importance thru deadlines. Deadlines are a powerful motivator. If you never set a deadline for a task, you'll probably never complete the task, because you can always do it "tomorrow" and instead focus on things that can't be put off. Deadlines are an important and powerful tool, but like any tool, they can be used for destruction as much as construction. To avoid this, one needs to discriminate between the important and the unimportant and be willing to ignore the unimportant even if negative consequences follow. One should also realize many deadlines were contrived and can be pushed back without serious difficulty.

One must look at the important but nonurgent tasks and set aside a time to do those. Set a deadline and make them urgent, even if it's artificial and contrived. It will cause conflict with other taks and induce stress, but in the long run you will be grateful you did it. The alternative is looking back with regret, and who wants to do that?

The comic above is a page from Wandering Koala Digest 2 and a perfect illustration of a typical student/worker/person who did not exercise proper discrimination. He traded the urgent but less important for the less urgent but more important. I drew it with a Zebra disposable brush pen and colored it in Adobe Photoshop. Let me know what you think!

High Society hits a Low

 

I love silent films. (Have I mentioned that before?) One of their many charms are the exotic costumes and set dressings.

This is the third page of the story Honorable Mention from Wandering Koala Digest 2 now on sale. The concept for this party was fancy costumes and elaborate hairdos. It was a blast to draw!

I drew the tale with a Zebra disposable brush pen and colored it in Adobe Photoshop. I really like how the icy blue worked with the black and white. It looks like it's been fully colored and not minimally colored.

Feel free to share your comments.

Archetypes in Art

 

Archetypes are recurrent motifs or images in art or literature. They include the Hero, the Wise Old Man, the Damsel in Distress, the irredeemable Villain, the Magic Animal, etc. Evidences of them can be found in all cultures and all times. Some speculate that they are part of our makeup and that's why we respond to them so readily and why they are not limited to any culture or time period. One of the most famous scholars to study archetypes is Joseph Campbell. His book was a major influence on George Lucas when he wrote Star Wars.

Above is my version of the archetype of the Thief. In this version, he is a masked highwayman on a motorcycle robbing from the good and the innocent. I drew it with a zebra brush pen and colored it in Corel Painter. I really like the greyscale with one color approach, and in this image it almost looks like full color. And it's very appropriate for Halloween.

Let me know what you think!

Stuffing a Square Peg into a Round Hole

 

If you've been in a bookstore lately (and if you're like most people you haven't), you would see the titles organized by genre. The purpose of this is to help a potential customer find something to buy. The idea behind it is good, but the execution doesn't always follow.

Some books could easily fit in more than one genre. I've always found the literature section an odd one, because all good books are literature. And a lot of horror books are also science fiction or fantasy. And fantasy just means something fantastic or imagined, but it's turned into castles, magic, and dragons. Which means other fantasy books that don't include magic, dragons, and castles have to go elsewhere. And what about supernatural books? Yes, they could be horror, but they could also be fantasy or suspense.

I get annoyed for two reasons. First as a consumer I've had trouble finding a specific book I went into the store to buy, because I wasn't sure of the genre. Second, as an author I'm not always sure how to classify my books. My most recent title, Wandering Koala Digest 1, contains a supernatural thriller, but also a science fiction novella. So do I put it in horror, because it's not really horror, but there is no supernatural category? To me that's like putting a square peg in a round hole--it just doesn't fit so well.

That's one of the joys and wonders of the digital bookshelf--a title can be listed in multiple places without having to place a physical copy in each one. You can also search for a specific title and get right to it. It's no wonder I've gravitated more and more to buying books online and as digital editions even though I love the feel and smell of a physical book, and I love browsing bookstores.

So what does any of this have to do with the above illustration? It could easily fit in several categories: science fiction for the weird monster, pulp fiction for the protagonist, horror or supernatural for the weird monster, graphic novels for the visual nature, young adult because that's usually the reading level I write, or even holiday/special occasion for Halloween because of the weird monster. Maybe we just need a Weird Monster genre?

Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

To Color, or Not to Color -- THAT is the Real Question

In the late 19th Century thru the early 20th Century, printing technology was developing rapidly. In England, printing advanced more quickly than in the US which led to the rise of the Illustrated Children's Book with charming stories and magnificent illustrations. Color soon followed making the children's books even more wondrous. Maybe you've heard of Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Rabbit, the Wind in the Willows, or the Wizard of Oz? All of these "classics" were made possible by printing technology and brilliant craftsman on the illustrator's part of make the most of the day's technology. The usual method was to draw the illustration with a black line, then carve that into a plate and add color shapes on a separate pass. Eventually the technology reached the point where the illustrator could create the entire image in color and then reproduce it.

Of course, this wasn't the beginning of creating an image with a black line and then coloring it in. Early Christian and Muslim illuminated texts from the first few centuries AD used this method. And before that, artists used this method to record their hunts on cave walls. Today the method is popular with cartoons, comics, graphic novels, and digital illustration. The term 'cartoon' actually referred to the outline created by Renaissance artists creating frescos who first sketched the image with a pencil before applying watercolors over it covering up the sketch. But they didn't invent the method, just coined a cool word from it.

I've always enjoyed black line work colored in. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because that's what I've grown up with. Maybe it's because a black line clearly defines an object. Maybe I just like abstraction. Who knows? But it's something I've never been able to get away from, even during my watering color days when I tried for a more photorealistic approach. There were times I'd take a 'finished' watercolor (as if any work of art is ever finished), and add black lines around the figures with a paintbrush.

The above illustration is a black and white line drawing that I've colored in Corel Painter. The line work is below. I really like the black & white version, but I'm also digging the colored version. You'll notice I added a lot more texture and lighting effects than usual to give it a more painterly feel and modern finish.

Which do you like better? Leave a comment and let me know.

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Art Philosophy: The Use of Color

Color is an interesting animal. It is one of the Elements of Art (which include Line, Shape, Form, Value, Space, Texture, Color, and Motion), and probably the most powerful element. Differences in color will override any other design elements or ideas and immediately draw the eye to it.

Because it's so powerful, it needs to be used judiciously to gain maximum impact. In the early days of printing, this was forced onto artists, because of the difficulty and limitations they had. Artists were forced to design with color and really consider and plan for its use.

In the current digital era, color is so easy to add and print, it too often is overdone with form and shading meticulously rendered on every last hair. Just pick up a comic book from 2005 and compare it to a comic from 1995 and one from 1985. You'll see the approach and use of colors is completely different. In 1985, colors were created from hand cut film with each plate (Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, and Black) being a value of the whole divisible by four (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%). This limited the number of colors, made multiple colors more difficult and expensive, and so forced good colorists to make the most of a few hues. The results were really amazing. The 1995 comic shows the beginning of computer coloring with every color under the sun thrown in as a gradation with chaotic patterns of lights and darks and photoshop filters thrown in just because you could. Comics from 2005 seem to forget there were multiple colors and use mostly browns and greys with every value of each to create a very bland and muddy look.

This is just one of thousands of examples how the ease of adding color has been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because an artist can now use any color he so chooses. But that creates the temptation to use every color just because you can. There is no longer the technical restraints to force an artist to plan his color design--he has to rely on self discipline, something creative people tend to lack.

The two works I've posted are different color treatments of the same image. The first followed my current move in color to use black & white plus one color. The second is a more traditionally colored version with flat shadows added. I like both, but the first on just seems to look more like art while the second looks more like commercial pandering. Not that there's anything wrong with commercial pandering, but it is nice to have a break from it. After all, we're faced with it everyday nearly everywhere we look.

These were drawn with a Zebra disposable brush pen and colored in Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter. I'm still not sure which I like better, because each has things going for it, and each have places they could be improved.

What do you think?

It's Done!

And it is done! The first draft of the latest Wandering Koala tale (currently titled Modest Proposal) is finished!

It's an apocalypse virus story that I've been kicking around for a while (I even started writing a version a few years thinking it would be my third novel, but the story didn't go anywhere). I was inspired to write this when I started reading Contagion (a story arc in Batman comics) when I was a teenager. There was a TV movie with a similar theme soon after that solidified it.

The title Modest Proposal is an interesting one, because while I've read the famous Jonathan Swift essay, it didn't even cross my mind until I was almost finished with the first draft and looking for a title. The working title was Disease, but that just didn't sound compelling enough. I also thought about calling it The Third Horseman (or Fourth or Fifth) but that sounded too unoriginal. Then I thought of Final Solution since that sort of fits the plot, but World War II and Nazis have been so overdone that I try to avoid them. That's when A Modest Proposal popped into my head. The prologue definitely has some similarities and parallels, so I decided to go with it for now. (And anyone searching for the essay may 'accidentally' stumble onto my book, a bonus.)

Of course, now I have to revise, revise, revise, so the title could change. I doubt the story will, because it's already been thru so many drafts and versions that I'm pretty sure this is the one. It reads and feels like a Wandering Koala story. The last one, The Green Bull, didn't. That's why it didn't make it into paperback and why the site wasn't redesigned using artwork from that story.

And the image above has nothing to do with it other than they both feature everyone's favorite Silent Wanderer. The inking was a Zebra disposable brush pen and the background is a Google Sketch Up model that has been heavily painted over in Corel Painter.

Inspiration

The Universe wasn't created from nothing. God didn't point his figure at a void and boom! everything came into being. There was existing matter that God organized to create "worlds without number".

Art is no different; it doesn't come from a vacuum. Every work is inspired and informed by something else. When I was in Art School, one of my instructors after an Art Seminar pointed to a speaker and mentioned how it was patterned after the golden section the visiting artist had talked about, and how the golden ratio was based on proportions Jesus had used to create the Earth. Ultimately everything an artist "creates" is a reinterpretation of part or parts of the world around us.

And that doesn't apply to just visual art. How many times have you read a book, seen a TV show, or watched a movie that reminded you of another story? Probably quite often. There are only so many plots and characters out there.

The wall hanging to the left was inspired by Japanese and Chinese prints. I know what you're saying--it doesn't look very Japanese. And I agree. But the approach was very much inspired by oriental art, but with my western and personal interpretation. It's that unique interpretation which makes a work "creative" or "original" when everything in it came from an already existing world around us.

And in case you were curious, I drew the figures with a Zebra disposable brush pen and then colored them and designed the backgrounds in Corel Painter.

Let me know what you think!

Character Sketch: Monkey Elder

It's been awhile since I've drawn just to draw. Work has been crazy busy. So today I sat down and sketched this guy in about ten minutes and colored him in about another ten. I used a Papermate Sharpwriter pencil, inked it with a Zebra disposable brush pen, and colored it in Corel Painter 12.

Exploring the mysterious caverns and caves below the ground

I've always been intrigued by images and stories about caverns and caves below the earth. Maybe that's why Mole Man is one of my favorite villains--it certainly isn't because of his powers or stories that have been told about him.

While exploring a new digital painting style, I thought the style would lend itself nicely to rock formations. And it did. Then I had to decide what to fill the caverns with. After all, it isn't the rocks alone that make these stories so interesting, but the exotic creatures and plants one finds down there. So I created a collection or unseen beasts based on the works of George Méliès and a gargoyle. The colors are the palette I've been using from old Steve Canyon covers. The characters were inked with a Zebra disposable brush pen and colored in Adobe Photoshop.

Overall, I like how it turned out, but it isn't exactly the style I'm going for. Back to the drawing board.

Wandering Koala meets The Heckler

The Heckler was a great comic from the 90s created by Keith Giffen that ended way too soon along with Justice Society of America and Green Lantern: Mosaic. It was clever, witty, and made fun of so many conventions. I wonder, why didn't DC bring it back with its New 52? I really enjoyed The Heckler and wanted to see more of his adventures.


So I drew one.


I used a painting texture style that I developed while illustrating a children's storybook a couple of years ago. I really liked the effect and thought it would suit this work. The line work was created with some funky Zebra disposable pen brushes I purchased at JetPens. I included the black & white version below. It works really well in black & white, something I always try to do. Not only do I end up with two illustrations, but if an illustration works in black & white, then it seems to work better in color.

As always, let me know what you think.

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Character Design: Vintage Cops

When I was younger, I used to love Legos and had quite a few. One of the sets was a Police Station, part of the Town system. I also got the boat and a couple other police items. I really liked them for some reason. I've never really wanted to become a cop myself, but it was fun to pretend with my Legos.

The drawing at the left is from my upcoming comic book, Wandering Koala uncovers the Sixth Figure. I've always loved the early 20th century look of policemen and wanted to use it for my fictional work.

I drew the image with a Papermate Sharpwriter Pencil, inked it with a Zebra Disposible Brush Pen and Pigma Brush felt-tipped pen, scanned it in with a CanoScan LIDE, and colored it in Adobe Photoshop CS. I was really pleased with how it turned out.

Let me know what you think.

Creating a Comic Book

I'm the kind of person who likes to look behind the curtain and see how things are made. I've been known to buy a DVD just for the bonus features. So I thought I'd share a little of the process for my latest creation, Wandering Koala uncovers the Sixth Figure, a comic scheduled for release in March.

The idea for this story came to me when I was reading a biography of H.J. Ward, one of my favorite artists. He painted covers for pulp magazines during the 30s and 40s before he died from smoking (stupid people depriving us of so much art). I purchased the biography quite a while ago but never got around to reading it until just recently. It mentioned how putting women in terror on the cover sold more copies regardless of what was actually in the magazine. So I thought I'd create an image of Wandering Koala in peril.

I drew a thumbnail and started to lay it out, but never finished. But what I did do was create a story around the cover. I was so intrigued by the imagery I couldn't help myself.

I write all stories by first jotting down ideas in pen in a tablet. Once I have enough ideas I start to shape a story, then jot down more ideas, sometimes sketching images. When I finally see a story start to emerge, I create a tight plot with dialogue. The process diverges from there.

For this comic, I analyzed a lot of past work, what worked, what didn't work, what I liked, what I wish had turned out better, and what I enjoy doing. I then created a few concept illustrations (which I posted previously) until I found a style I liked.

I also asked myself what kind of writing I like. I like a narrator who is involved with the story. So I wrote this story from the point of view of Brent who usually accompanies the Wandering Koala. It also meant I didn't need much dialogue, which was good because I hate word balloons. I have no intention of using them in this comic. I do like boxes with narration--they make nice design elements. I also chose a font that looked sort of handwritten but was really easy to read.

I typed the story up in a Pages document to see how long the story was and to revise it easily until I was satisfied with it. Also, I can just cut and paste the text, so the lettering is half finished. Nice bonus.

The backgrounds were created in Google SketchUp like The Phantom Coach had been, but this time I went for a more detailed deco look with thinner lines and some texture. I, of course, do some noodling in Corel Painter X to make them look more hand drawn and wood carved.

The figures were originally going to be black, white, red-orange, but I happened to try a full color figure in one of the concept illustrations and really liked it. So for the first page I tried two versions, and ended up liking the full version better. But to keep a limited palette, I'm only using Red thru Yellow; no Green, Blue, or Purple (except for one place where I cheat). I'm also using a lot of silhouettes and panels with no frame, because I really like the look, and it provides a nice change as does the occasional backgroundless panel.

I'm really liking the look. And the look was very important to me, because comics have to compete with video games, which means they need to be visually stunning.

So far I am seven pages into the tale. It's scheduled to be released in March, so I've still got a long way to go. The final comic will be around 40 pages long.

I hope you like the final result!