The Inhumans In Love

So I had a few down days earlier this week while I was waiting for a end of term review and decided to do something for fun. I've had this idea lately of not especially heroic super hero moments. So in this case kind of a timid love things going on with Black Bolt and Medusa. For those who are not especially familiar with the characters the important bit to know is that Black Bolt doesn't speak because his voice makes everything explode and tends to level cities and such. I think I kind of love second tier superheroes like a whole bunch, maybe I can do some Alpha Flight stuff at some point what with my childhood love of that premier Canadian super group.

Anyways I leave for my visit back to the states of Thursday so posting may be sporadic for a bit again.

Graphic Novel First Look

Okay so I've been promising a peek at the graphic novel I'm working on for a while so now that it's more or less in it's final stages (hopefully) I've decided to throw a few spreads up here. Trying to pick out stuff that doesn't ruin the story but is still interesting. Also leaving out all the text blocks and text for now even though it's basically taken care of, basically if there's a large white space imagine that there's text there. Expect a few more of these type's of post in the near-ish future as I continue to feel like sharing. Note these won't necessarily be posted in any particular order until I do a big here a final pdf type post sometime in the future.

Valkyrie

Hey there, well I finished the painting for my book last night and all that's left is to figure out a cover, scan everything and the graphic design and type forever. I'm hoping to get all the pages scanned at some point this week so I may throw a few preview pages up here at some point.

In the meantime here's something that I did last week that I just got around to editing for the web. I needed a break from the book so I took a day off to just work on something else and had this sketched out from a little bit ago. Something funny happened to the background color when it was scanned that I can't seem to fix so just imagine it more magenta-y. So now that my life isn't as consumed with my absurd book-page-finishing schedule hopefully the updates can be a bit more frequent, as I'm sure I'll need a fair amount of breaks from the editing and layout processes.

Oh and also t minus 26 days until my US visit/vacation/temporary reprieve.

Houndstooth is really hard.

Here is as promised one of those sporadic postings that I had promised a bit ago so that you know that I haven't fallen down a well or something. This was done for an exhibition which ultimately fell through, but at least I managed to get a piece I liked out of it.

There hasn't been much time for anything else new as of late as I am in the midst of my book and it's absurd self imposed deadline. Basically right now it amounts to 2 finished fully painted pages a day for the next what feel like forever so that I can have most of the artwork done before my visit back to the US. Maybe I'm post a few teasers here and there as I start to scan some of it. I feel like I should have some sort of sign off phrase for these post.

What I've Been Doing For the Past Week Or So

Switching it up a bit for now until who know how long this thing will take, I've started working on a book as part of my thesis (and quickly becoming the majority of my thesis). For the past week-ish I've been doing these basic thumbnail/layouts as an entry into actually doing the book (posted small here as to not ruin the story). It's turning out to be a significantly bigger undertaking than I had initially anticipated, as the page count right now clocks in right at 60. Maybe not my best first significant foray into sequential art but should be a good experience. Expect sporadic at best posting as I work on this, partially because I'm not sure what kind of schedule this will take and partially because posting in progress might ruin the story.

I don't even like Captain America...

So I managed to finish that paper surprisingly early and have a couple of down days since it doesn't make sense to work on my thesis work until I have the meeting with my adviser on Thursday, anyways long story short here's something new that was just for fun and has no real relation to anything else I'm doing.

I've never really been one to draw superheroes (with the exception of those occasional project rooftop submissions last summer) but I seem to have be reading a bunch of superhero books lately and was introduced to a couple of really great new animated show that are gorgeous (spectacular spider from the equally spectacular Sean Galloway and batman the brave and the bold, go watch them now they're really pretty and fun). I'm not sure why I choose Captain America, especially since he's always been one of my least favorites, usually him and superman pretty much top my list. I have to admit that I didn't really know any Captain America villains so I just used the wonderful all purpose henchmen of HYDRA. Oh and since there were way to many dudes I also put in Madame Hyrda, who I only know about because she's in a episode of X-men Evolution which I really like, shut up it's awesome. As always feedback is awesome.

In which Tyler makes excuses and pretends to be a comic artist.

Howdy everyone, so I'm gearing up for end of term slash mid point of my course over here and as such have spent the past few weeks doing completely unfun things printing out everything bit of research and sketch that I've done in the last six months, cobbling together a reasonable in progress portfolio and now writing an obnoxiously long paper, which I am mid way through now and not sure when it'll be done (well before Wednesday I suppose since that's when I have to turn it in).

Anyways those are my super lame excuses for nothing new recently, however I do have this comic I did a little bit ago. I was asked by a friend of mine at SVA to submit a one pager for a comic collection he's working on. No info on the title or when it'll actually see the light of day right now but I'll keep you updated. This was a bit of an odd experience for me since I don't really have any experience in doing comics (I tend to be more on the reading way too many of them side) but it was fun nonetheless. So here it is, hopefully legit new stuff soon.

Littliest Bird finish

Here's the finish to this one in all it's washed out blogger glory, but that seems to be a problem for everyone so I'm not going to worry about it. If anyone has any thoughts they are as always appreciated. I think I may take a bit of a break from these for right now and focus on creating an overarching narrative of some sort rather than these one shots, so expect sporadic posting for a bit again.

The Littlest Birds (Sing the Prettiest Songs)

Okay so after a few weeks of distraction with class and some other opportunities I'm finally back on track with my actual project. Here's what I'm working on right now based on the Be Good Tanya's song The Littlest Birds (Sing the Prettiest Songs). Hoping to get it banged out in the next few days.

Texas Observer: Evolution vs. Creationism

Here's something I did last week for the Texas Observer. It was for piece on Don Mcleroy who's the chairman of the Texas Board of Education and his connection to the creationism versus evolution "debate". It should be out now so if you happen to be in Texas pick one up. It was a little weird going back to doing the cut paper thing, since I've been pretty much exclusively painting as of late, so we'll see where that goes.

Maple Leaves finish... finally

Okay so here's the finish that I promised over a week ago, apparently I did manage to get distracted. And by distracted I mean started the painting over because I didn't like the colors followed by a quick-ish freelance piece for the Texas Observer (I'll post it sometime after the issue comes out). Maybe I need to jinx myself more often, I could get used to a little more of this sort of distraction, the paying freelance kind not so much the having to restart midway through bit. Anyways what you think people of the internet? Thanks and hopefully more soon.

She said it was all make-belief, but I thought you said maple leaves...

Here's the latest, it's based on the Jen Lekman song "Maple Leaves", hoping to have the final done in the next few days unless I get distracted.

They are zombies!... Finish

Here's the latest. There are bits of this I'm really excited about, I like the really minimal line work and am trying to figure out the balance between this and the really pattern-y stuff like the last painting. I've also recently discovered mixing a bit of concentrated watercolor in with the gouache which really makes the colors pop, though you can't really tell in the scan on this one the pink is a bit brighter than it appears on screen (and even worse once publish to the web, anybody have any suggestion on how keep images from being washed out when put up here?). General thoughts/feedback/etc? Thanks everyone and expect more soon.

EDIT: Thanks to Mark and Justin for their help with the color problems, still needs a little tweaking but a vast improvement.

They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!

Here's the latest sketch this one's for "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!" by Sufjan Stevens, this may have just been an excuse to draw zombies. You know the drill final to come if it doesn't suck.

You and I finish

Here's the final for that sketch I put up a few days ago, still trying to get a hang of this painting business but I think there's some improvement here. Mostly just trying to get this whole using a brush for line work thing. I'm still at the point where I like the sketches more than the finals but I'm going to get the hang of this if it kills me. As always feedback is really appreciated and more to come soon.