Counting down to Wizardworld Chicago...But AK vacation first!

As I type this Bequi is upstairs lettering the all new GREAT BIG PISSED OFF BEAR #3. She has been up all night and is still singing energetically away to the K-pop music she spent half the night downloading....the other half (since 2am) has been dedicated to lettering. So if all goes well this book should be done today. Then we can go up to Alaska and actually enjoy our vacation rather than worry about getting our book ready for Wizardworld Chicago 2010 August 19-22. At any rate....If you're in the Chicago area for the convention, look for Planet Doom Studios in Artist's and come pick up GREAT BIG PISSED OFF BEAR #3...and #'s 1 and 2 if you don't have 'em...and any of our other awesome books you may not have yet.

In the Con spirit, I'm posting some various sketches done at the Wizardworld Chicago Comicon show in years past as well as one or two from the local Fallcon. I apologize...some of these are kinda blurry. I was using the old digital camera and it was hard to adjust to the weird show lighting as well as get an accurate focus reading on the crappy little screen. But maybe that's a good thing....it can hide all kinds of mistakes.

At shows Becky and I often get asked to collaborate on sketches and 2008 was a big year of that. So the above is an X-files rendition of our Peep and Peep Lite characters. "The Peep is out there Skully."

Zangetsu. This one, I'm kind of proud of in the sheer fact that the only reference material I had was a teeny-tiny image of the character in the background of a panel in one of Becky's mangas. A bit of advice to folks looking to have commissioned sketches done at conventions. If you have a specific character in mind, PLEASE bring reference material. We artists don't have internet plugged directly into our heads nor to we have an infinite library of reference material on things and characters you're passionate about. If WE have to go search out our own reference material for YOUR sketch....We may decide to charge more.

Okay.....*sigh* now after all that I come to The Baroness. Now this one, the customer didn't bring reference for BUT...I am a huge GI JOE fan so I kinda knew what this character looked like anyway. Rare exception...Still bring reference!

Lastly , heres a sketch of 2 of my Baby Ninjas in a fighting stance. I really dig how this one turned out. It's probably the combo of the Sword guy and Bow and Arrow guy that make it for me. I still have a hard time believing I've been drawing the BABY NINJAS for 21 years! I WAS 13 when I first drew these little guys!!

Again...If you find yourself at the Wizardworld Chicago Comicon on August 19-22, look us up at Planet Doom Studios in artist's alley. Buy some books....buy some sketches....just stop by and say "HI"..Whatever....Just come by and see us.

Wait...What? and Some Random Art.

Wait....Did I read that right?

Romans 9:13 (King James Version)

As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

So does that mean Esau was a Trekkie or something? *scratches head*

Actually...It's part of an upcoming protest for the San Diego Comicon.

"members of the Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church, which is led by Fred Phelps, plan to picket Comic-Con in San Diego."

At any rate....the use of that verse is still somewhat baffling.

To all my friends and colleagues in the comic-world that are headed out to Comicon this weekend....I'm Jealous....OH....and have a great time, stay safe, and God bless! Wish Becky and I could be there with you all.

Okay, here's some random art I had floating around that I felt like sharing.

This was a sketch I did for my friend Dave Gruba of Grubbmaster Pieces. It was for his All Star-Wars Sketchbook.

This one was for another friend Joey Hetzel , the artist behind the webcomics Tonja Steele and Coleman Elementary. It's of her characters Darren and Liza as GI JOE characters. She had asked me to make them look like Joes as a tie-in for a story line she was working on....and since I'm a GI JOE fanatic, she came to the right place!

And finally we have a photo of Becky, Grimlock and myself as we we playing around, and posing with Nerf guns and taking photos back in March. If Yuffie was in the picture it would have been a family photo. We did have alot of fun and took some great, silly photos that day.

I'm currently plugging away hard at finishing Great Big Pissed Off Bear #3 so I can have it ready in time for Chicago Comicon. I plan to update again soon with some teasers and junk so stay tuned.

SLACKER!!!

I Know....I know....I've been slacking on my updates lately. I've been super busy trying to finish the strips for my upcoming issue of Great Big Pissed Off Bear #3. I'm hoping to finish toning, and letter ballooning it in the next 2 weeks so I can send it off to be printed. Oh yeah...and I need to color the cover too. Now that Becky is done with her freelance work, maybe she can lend a hand. At any rate, I wanna get this book done and printed for Wizardworld Chicago, August 19-22. So I better get crackin!

All I really have as far as sketches that DON'T pertain to GBPOB #3 is a couple from the creative exercises from the 2 classes of our current summer session so deal with it!

First up is from the first class of the session. it's always a free draw (no instructions written on the board) so ended up drawing massive pig. With extra time I decided to make it a COBRA weapon of mass destruction called the WARPIG. I even drew in the decals that all the GI JOE/Cobra vehicles came with.

For the second class we had the kids draw a random shape and then turn it into something "cool". I ended up with a strange oblong shape to the right side of the page and that eventually became the head of TUMOR DOG. I'm particularly fond of the kid's shirt and the fart cloud.

Well, thats it for now. I'm hoping to get back into the regular swing of sketching for fun (aka: not just for class and projects) sometime in the near future. Of course....I wanna play some video games too....Hmmmmm.