Friday, June 29, 2007

What. The. Fuck.

Warning: This whole thing is basically just me ranting and complaining about Transformers stuff. Read at your own peril.


Now, my outspoken dislike of the designs for the Transformers movie is old news. Despite my recent resigning myself to the fact that Optimus has flames and that the Transformers themselves look like Bionicle characters on steroids...I maintain that the movie, no matter how good it might turn out to be, means the END of The Transformers as we all know and love them. Let's face it: movies made off of long-standing and popular franchises inexorably destroy the franchise they were made to promote. That franchise then becomes little more than a puppet for the movie...as the big-budget-ness of the movie overwhelms the not-so-big budget of an animated series.



Well, this morning, I saw the first strike. Yes, my dear readers, shots were fired at the Transformers and they took pretty heavy losses. Thanks to the movie, there is a new "Transformers: Animated" (Which, seeing as how Transformers is a cartoon...) on Cartoon Network in 2008. NORMALLY, this would cause me much glee...as Transformers: Armada, Energon, and RID were...well...awful. There were some cool parts, but, yeah...bad on a whole. A new page in the Transformers book needs to be written. Behold, my dear friends, the future of my beloved Transformers:

I think the big, green one might be Prowl.

Now, I would like to point out that I am a big fan of this style of animation. There are a great many franchises that look really freaking cool like this (Star Wars being one of them). I even thought for a second..."Ok. Let's not hit the panic button just yet. Maybe the stories will be cool enough to outweight the fact that Optimus looks like Jay-Leno-tron." The stories are, however, going to revolve around "...everyday problems. Leading to much more interaction between the Autobots and humans rather than their battle with the Decepticons, making the shore more kid-friendly than the original..." Holy sweet fuckwads in a milkshake, Batman...I'm pretty sure that reading about this new series made me throw up in my mouth a little. I know, why not just make the whole damn show Transformer CHIBIS?! They can live in a nursery with a green-and-white-striped stocking-wearing-nanny! Megatron can transform into a BOTTLE and squirt milk at Optimus when in robot mode! Wheeljack can have an obsessive crush on Arcee and Optimus can lead them on wacky, imagination-induced adventures around the house?!?! *insert indiscernable rage-induced babble here*

The scary thing is, that it's not that far from happening. *sigh*

On top of that, the Transformers game for Xbox360 is basically just Grand Theft Auto with a robot thrown in here and there. I just might strangle the guy at Gamestop for telling me it's the best game ever.

I think I'm going to spend my day off curled up in bed watching G1 Transformers and sucking on a bottle of whisky at this point. Actually, that sounds like a damn good day to me. TO THE LIQUOR CABINET!

Damn you, Michael Bay. Damn you to hell.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Dinosaurs are still cool

Just the colored version of the pic I posted this morning.

Dinosaurs are cool.

So, at Wizard World LA, I met a lot of other small press publishers and creators. A bunch of them had projects they wanted to work together on. One of which was a writer named Jerry Ahern. I'm going to do the art for a superhero comic of his called "Nobleman", but first we're doing a 10-page comic called "Still The Greatest American Hero". He sent me the script yesterday, and I drew this out. Mainly because getting to draw a cyborg dinosaur trying to eat Ralph Hinkley appealed to me. I do so love dinosaurs. I may color it later on. Enjoy.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

WW Sketch/Con Report

Shaun and I were bored for a little bit at WW Philly, so I opened up the ol' laptop and fired up the ol' tablet and started to try to finalize our ol' 'Wrath' character design (for Flammarion, our entry into the CBC). This is what we came up with for his final facial look:Hook nose, gaunt face, long hair, single strand over face; you know, the basics.

On a side note, WW Philly was a friggin BLAST. I was only able to make it for one day (We went on Friday). Saturday I woke up with a fever and a terrible headache -- in no shape to drive, unfortunately. I would've loved to have tried to make it later in the day, but was unfortunately in a drug-induced health coma.

The one day that we did make it, though, was a whole lot of fun. I'd get up every once in a while to meet and greet the other DDer's. I met Suzi, of Greater than Colon O fame, and her band of merry characters. They were alot of fun to be around. I also met Dj Coffman (no need for a link, you all know who the man is), who was situated in the table next to mine. He was peddling his books (variant covers! =0) and making sketches for his numerous fans as I sat, neglected, and doodled. I also met Amelius and Evil Emperor Nick (Amy drew me a sketch of Charby! It was amazing!). Amy is surprisingly quiet and soft-spoken, but extremely friendly and talented. She gave me a little pipe-cleaner jackalope (which inspired some pretty crazy sketches) that I have sitting next to my computer right now. Nick and I had an interesting conversation about the stigma of being a sprite comicker, and then we conspired to launch a zombie uprising of epic proportions -- we'll see how that goes. I briefly spoke with Alexis (of Life on the Fringe fame) who was much more organized than the rest of us. She was actually selling things, like stickers and prints, as opposed to sitting awkwardly and drawing while waiting for someone to walk up and ask about something. Now while I was walking around and meeting people, Shaun refused to leave the table. I think that either he was afraid our laptops would get stolen, or that he's unbearably shy and has trouble meeting people. I prefer to think the former, but it's most likely the shy thing. He's never been a big social guy, so next time any of you see us at a convention, you might have to initiate the conversation in order to actually meet Shaun. Talk to him, cause there's no way he's leaving the table to talk to you. Heh.

Overall the experience was definitely positive. Shaun and I learned the importance of planning (Printing stickers -- those things went like hotcakes! (On another side note, who coined that term? And furthermore, what are hotcakes?) We went in with 50 or so, and walked out of there with all of 6 stickers left. I did not expect to give away more than 10, let alone 44! And on Friday no less!) and the importance of patience. We sat around alot and waited for people to talk to us. We had quite a few people walk over and glance at our table, some even read the examples of strips we had put out. I got alot of positive feedback from some comic-enthusiasts (sure, it was most likely just them being polite, but it's always nice to get compliments). We even managed to get on internet-video-tv-whatever as part of some interview by these guys at GameInvasion.net along with everyone else at the DD Alley. So that's cool. It was a fun time for everyone. I'm really glad I went.

Now leaving was another adventure altogether. The way that the Pennsylvania Convention Center is situated is interesting. It's right on the edge of Chinatown in Phili, so most of the signs are in chinese and, thus, illegible. The parking garage is a twisty-turny alley of death that is impossible to get out of. We spent 15 minutes trying to find the exit, and when we finally did, it was on a different side of the building from the entrance, so we were immensely confused as to how to get back to I-95. We shouldve turned left out of the garage. I turned right. What happened next is a sad tale of bad decisions and wasted gas. We drove around for 30 minutes in Center City Philadelphia, just trying to find a sign to I-95. Mind you, we weren't asking directions under any circumstances. We went through Penn University twice, and went through Drexel's campus once before finally finding a road that pointed to 95. Unfortnuately, we passed it before realizing what it was. It was a left turn, but the next road was a one-way street in the opposite direciton. So we decided 'hey, let's just take 3 rights and we'll be all set!'. We did just that, took a right, took the next right, and the next one. We ended up on the road NEXT to the one we wanted to be on. We could see it, but we couldn't get to it. We eventually ended up on 72, which eventually connects to 95 through the airport, but I didn't want to GO to the airport, so we exited 72, went back into the city, and did the whole fiasco again until we finally ended up on 95 and headed home. It was exhausting, but hilarious and fun. If I had the choice, I'd do the same exact thing.

I'm lying. I wouldnt. I would take the damn left out of the parking garage and gotten home an hour earlier.

Damn parking garage.


I can't wait till Texas.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

WHY AM I AWAKE? WHYYYY?

To celebrate the fact that I FINALLY updated Atlantis Paradise, here's the chapter 2 character, Sol, looking SERIOUS. :D

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

New Born

This is kinda Acadia's digital style, but I like it nonetheless.



Here's a guy. He's very guy-ly.

Monday, June 11, 2007

I'm feeling GAUDY.

50th post on here! Way to go guys!

In other news, there's tons of stuff wrong with this guy, and if this was a final draft of anything I'd be sure to fix it all... but alas, it is not. Note that I spent about 3 hours trying to find an appropriate shading style for this, but none looked good, so I went with classic cell-shading.


EDIT: Here's a little color tuning with a spray of texture. I think it's better?

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Animated color

The nice thing about renewing my stint on the graveyard shift is that now I have an hour or two to draw each night whilst I neglect paperwork. Tonight's shift was spent doing a Path page (which just posted, so go read it), and coloring the "animated" pic I put up the other day.


Two full-time jobs, and one part-time job is too much. I'm going to quit one before my body gives out. Or before I kill someone...ok...AFTER I kill someone...


Friday, June 8, 2007

Girly-Man

I felt like digitally drawing something, so this is what I came up with. I like it, and I want to color it. I think the whole reason I drew it was because I wanted to test out some textures.

...there's something wrong with his face, though. I'm just not sure what.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

4 ain't no crowd.

Just me practicing the new art style sommore. Note: none of these characters/pictures might actually be in whatever project I use these for, so if you get excited on seeing one or two characters from these sketches, don't get your hopes up.




Not exactly sure why I colored a few pieces of this one, but I really like the shading on that guys abs.













Two more guys. One guy being all "book-like," the other guy's holding a chisel and hammer.















Here's a zombie or something really skinny and lacking genitalia, coupled with a bigger guy, willing to kick some ass.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Good Day

So, I got to have lunch with the Platinum crew today and run around the offices like I was a big-time, real-live comic book creator. Good times. Everyone was crazy nice (as usual), and it helped that the people I had lunch with were mostly the lunatics we hung out with at Wizard World LA. Those of you going to WW Philly have some cool stuff headed your way. I can't wait until TX!



When I got home, I doodled this. I might do something with it, I dunno. Maybe use it as a cover for something at some point. Who knows? I just know I likes it. I may even color it.




Monday, June 4, 2007

Color Me


Just playing with some color schemes. I don't think I'll use this one, but it was definitely fun trying it out.

I think what I really want is something dark, and gradient-y. Yeah. That'd look cool.

That one guy is saying: "Where's the butter?"

I'm working with a newer art style for a project I might have coming up during the Summer. Here's a few examples (these will be colored when I get the time):


Wow. Now that I scanned these in I've got some major adjustments to make... especially on that last one.

I'll fix 'em later.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

We're the ROARASAURS!

This would probably look better if I drew it on pencil first, but I just breaking in my tablet.

...so, sorry it's not up to par. I'll try and ink some real stuff later!