Saturday, February 26, 2011

My own Batgirl

Slowly he works...step be step...Niagra Falls?!!!
Okay, that was total free association. Sorry.

I got the first page of my pencils done for a 60's Batgirl spoof I'm going to have up on my own future site. More will come as I squeeze these out. Gotta work on Commissioner Gordon more, I see...

Lab Ideas

These Guys are AWESOME!
This studio from Brazil asked to swap links with me...and I bowed down in humble gratitude.  They work with SuperHeroineComixxx to produce the fine, fine work you'll see there.
There is lots of colored work on their blog, but I love pencils best, so I posted these! Do enjoy!
http://lab-ideas.blogspot.com


Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Heart of Darkness 3 inks

Work in progress. This story isn't finished yet. Just thought I'd share this one...taking off from a Vincent Price movie.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

What I've done just for myself

Some have asked to see work I've done for myself. Here are a couple of pages from a comic I did some years back...One that begs to be redone sometime...the story is titled Cumm All Ye Faithful. Here you can see what I was daydreaming about in church and why church just wasn't working out for me. Hence the name:  Backslid.


Friday, February 11, 2011

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Miss Nimbus

One of my own. In my own site I plan to have a bunch of superheroines . Styled after 60s comics.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Alex Toth

As a follow up to the post below this one, this is a good online collection of Toth's work:
http://www.comicartville.com/tothgallery.htm

And this is an article that will offer some insight to a very difficult artist.
http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/2010/11/cursing-the-darkness-the-last-horrors-of-alex-toth/
Why spend all this time on Toth? Thats a good question to start with. Look at one of his pages. Try to look at it next to a page from any other comic artist. Reduce both their size, more and more. Toth's will be legible even at small magnification. The other artist may not.

 Look at the variety of camera angles in Toth's work. They are more varied and more unusual than any other artist. They are original to him.
More on this fascinating, infuriating man later on.



Alex Toth vs Steve Rude: The RUDE critique


Here is a very interesting bit that I recently became aware of. It's a critique of Steve Rude's Jonny Quest comic book that I believe was done in the eighties, though I may be wrong.

I have deep respect for both these artists. I think Steve Rude is one of the pre eminent artists of his generation. I think Alex Toth is a freaking genius. Many of you may be familiar with him: Hanna Barbara cartoons such as Scooby Doo, Space Ghost, Jonny Quest, on and on were sparked by Toth's incredible character design sensibilities. I'm convinced that Scooby Doo has endured only because they were sublime character designs originated by Mr. Toth.

Nothing in the critique should be rejected by anyone reading it. It's a wellspring of how to think through a comic.I believe that most things Mr. Toth says here are true.  But not all of it. Toth constantly accuses Rude of fakery but never explains how he comes to that conclusion so often, especially when Rude contradicts him.

If you look at a page of Toth's comic book work, and then look at Rude's work here you will see that there is much much more clarity in any Toth page. Do study this, this is one of the points Toth is working at getting across. It is a failing of these pages of Rude's that they are indeed too cluttered. A relative failing. It isn't fatal.  There is much to be learned here. But this is no way the proper tone to strike for a critique.

 But to cut him slack, Toth's  wife died a couple of years before this and he was suffering from depression at the time. So take all this in stride.

Anyway, enough of my ranting. Check it out. Take away the valuable lessons contained therein. Sift the wheat from the chaff.

Also check out the Marshall Studios website that this is on!

http://www.illdave.com/comicbooks/history/toth-critiques-rude.htm#page_02



James Ryman

I exchanged emails with James a few years back. A helluva nice guy. His work may be familiar to those of you into RPG. He has two books out from SQP titled Beautiful Creatures one and two. I love his pencil work the most, but his painting is gorgeous. His work has a subtle personality that I think of as his "voice", that has a quality of innocence and fun that elevates his work above the run of the mill stuff. He doesn't rely overly much on reference either which is always to my preference. (Poet and didn't know it.) 

Here is his Deviant art page, which is the best collection of his work online: http://namesjames.deviantart.com/

And this is his blog: http://jamesryman.blogspot.com/