Double Think on Amazon

Double Think, the awesome anthology work masterminded by Matt Aucoin, is now available on Amazon! 

Includes contributions by the very-talented Denis St. John, Kevin Kilgore and David Yoder, and of course, Matt himself.

Snap it up to read the first chapter of The Gabriellas, written by Matt, illustrated by yours truly (who also drew the cover , thankyouverymuch).

It features PUNCHY-ACTION!!

...as well as THOUGHTFUL CONVERSATION-ACTION and later on, MONSTER-WHOPPING ACTION!!

So check it out!

Pinup lady

Behind the cut: pinup-lady with colors inspired by Meghan Trainor's body-positive music video for "All About That Bass". I don't usually listen to much pop, but this song has clever lyrics with a great message, so I'm all for it!

Warning: semi-nudity of aforementioned pinup lady. Yes, there is nipp-lage. Young 'uns beware.




Click "read more" below for the rest...

The Gabriellas

Mega-excited about working on a comic with my super-pal, Matt Aucoin! He's writing the badass story of a trio of teen girls. In a punk band. Who go to Catholic school. Who hunt monsters. Also, it's the 1950s. There is no element to this comic that is not awesome.

I'm lucky enough to get to do the pencils! Having a great time working with Matt, so I thought I'd give y'all a little taste of it:

A couple panels from the pencils so far:

Some preliminary character sketches:

Some ideas for weaponized instruments:

If everything stays on schedule, the first four pages of the first story will debut in DoubleThink at MeCAF in May. More to come, hope you can check it out!

More sketches for your viewing pleasure...

Another dose of sketches, more recent than the last batch, mostly random alien dudes. Drawn in a crappy blank book, hence the annoying creases. Apologies.

Have a couple more, a mercenary-type and some dude in his underwear (I apologize for my representation of feet):

Finish it off with a random pinup-y sketch:

Turkeys and Tutus for TBI

Today we're featuring a very special episode of Holly's Blog.

A few months ago I was contacted by Elizabeth Reininger, who sells these awesome pre-made and custom-made tutus on Etsy. She is organizing a virtual run for Zach, a young man with a Traumatic Brain Injury. 100% of the proceeds will go towards a Duet Bike for Zach so he can ride with his mom. Elizabeth and Zach are both superhero fans.

(Check out Facebook and Etsy for more details and how to donate)

So what we have here is a combination of superheroes, tutus and a fundraiser.

What it means for yours truly is that I am extremely proud and honored to contribute artwork to be used as prizes for participants in the virtual run. And it just so happened that I drew a couple new tutu-heroes at Boston Comic Con, just before getting an email from Elizabeth:

Along with a selection of heroes in all their graceful and balletic glory, I included a print just for Zach of his favorite superhero:

The idea that my artwork might be of real benefit to someone is quite rewarding and fills me with warm fuzzies. 

Big thanks to Elizabeth for inviting me to be a part of this fundraiser and best of luck to Zach who is the real superhero here!

...And for anyone who has a comic convention to go to and hasn't a thing to wear, Elizabeth does plenty of superhero-inspired tutus along with the custom ones and SPARKLY LIGHTS!!!

Ghostbusters circa 1775 or so

Well, I probably won't have much in the way of new one-page comics until I'm done inking Unpleasant People #4 (whenever THAT is...) since any and all spare time I devote to comics is being devoted to getting that done. In the meantime, I present color-experimentation from my sketchbook.

The four main characters done with watercolor and pens on sketchbook paper

I've been tossing around the idea of doing a supernatural-adventure webcomic about ghost hunters in late 18th Century Vienna.

Why Vienna?

Why not?

Portraits of three of the four main characters done with marker, colored pencils and brush pen.

I've bounced ideas off of a couple friends (thanks, Andy!) and so far don't have a complete script for the first chapter. At this point, I'm not even sure if I'm going to follow through with it at all. However, my almost manic love of ghost stories will probably push me forward on this. It's simmering on the back burner for now.

 

Concept sketches for various monsters. These vamps don't sparkle.

Some Pleasant, and Unpleasant, People

First off, I know this is kinda old news, but after a wait that seemed like eternity, "Avatar: Legend of Korra" (sequel to the masterful animated series "Avatar: The Last Airbender") is finally here! It seems that perhaps the animation isn't quite as smooth as "The Last Airbender", but maybe it's because I was so dazzled and hadn't seen anything like it before. I sort of miss the whole journey aspect of the first series, too, but I love this one to pieces anyway, and I'm so impressed with the world-building. Again, these people did all their homework and created a three-dimensional, complete world and populated it with engaging, well-rounded characters. Anyhoo, this was my reaction:

In the me-centric news department: I finally finished the pencils for "Unpleasant People #4".
I've started inking it (starting with the lettering and panel borders) and hopefully it won't take too long. A big shout-out to my pals Mo Oh, Matt Aucoin, Jose Luis Olivares and Denis St. John who gave me their feedback and helped me present a more polished comic. So here's a couple portraits of the character Magda. A lot of issue 4 is about her back story. I was going to save the pencil sketch to put in the comic at the end, but Magda's head is so frikkin' big, I'm just going to draw something else.

 

 

As for stuff I'm watching that inspires me: I've been having "RuPaul's Drag Race" marathons. In the first season I was completely taken with Pandora Boxx. She was funny, intelligent and beautiful both in and out of drag. She was absolutely enchanting for the whole competition. 

Her nose is a little too big in the left-hand picture. In the right, she's a space princess gone rogue. And that's that.

First Post from Beantown!

Well, I've packed my bags, crated my kitty, hitched up my wagon and headed southwards for new, exciting and exotic locales! But I got impatient and stopped in Boston. I've been in a comics slump recently and didn't produce anything new for a long time. I blame the stress of trying to find an apartment and moving and such. However, I'm settled now and back in the creative head-space. Having the ever-inspirational and talented Jose-Luis Olivares and Cathy Leamy in the area doesn't hurt, either!

Anyway, on to the scribblings:

Kick-ass animator Bill Plympton was at MoCCA last year and I rather geeked-out on him. Poor fella.


I had a sudden inspiration to draw a video-gamey-type character. I'm thinking post-apocalyptic cowgirl wielding legendary MUTANT BUTTER KNIVES!

Image Dump

So, I've run out of finished, scanned comics to post and since my lab fee at CCS expired, I won't have more comics to post until I either cough up another lab fee, or cough up some moola for my own equipment to scan and edit my comics (which is actually my long-term plan). So for the time being, here's some stuff that I already scanned in my school's wonderful computer lab.

First up: some random sketches of random characters that are random.

Next up: my buddy Matt Aucoin and I had an idea to make a twisted pinup calendar featuring scantily-clad psychopaths in what are hopefully somewhat humorous, if grim, situations. I did pencils, which he made look good with his mad inking skills (check out his webcomic Percy and Grimm). The project has been back-burner-ed for the moment, but I look forward to picking it up again because it was a lot of fun! It also afforded me the opportunity to practice coloring in the computer. It's not perfect, but here's the most finished image of the bunch:

Barefoot

It's summer, which means one very important thing: finding out what you can and can't do in flip-flops:

Below is a colored sketch of Esperanza and Lord Zoloft from "Unpleasant People." I'm toying with the idea of giving "Unpleasant People" its own website. Then I'll have some place to dump all my sketches of the characters! In the meantime:

More things at work...

Something else at work that makes me want to punch babies...

... over-sharing.

Also, here's a picture of some assassin-dude with a sniper rifle. It looked better before I inked and colored it, but I'm still practising.

Colored with markers and colored pencils.

Dracula has had enough.

Remember the good old days when vampires slept in coffins and sucked blood and were considered monsters? Me too.


I was going to sell prints of this at Boston Comic Con, but realized it looked a little sloppy in areas and didn't want to charge money for it without some digital touch-ups. So here's the un-pretty-fied version.

Prehistoric Bitch

Watched Ghostbusters 1 and 2 for the gazillionth time last week. Never gets dull. This is what happened next.



Gozer was rockin' the bubble-suit before it was cool!

Colored with marker and white-out.

The above is the cover to a 24-page comic I did as my final project for the spring '09 semester at CCS. I wasn't crazy about the finished product, but I really like how my cover came out. I enjoyed drawing the characters, though (the comic was a fantasy taking place in the old west, hence the name of the town). I may revisit them. 

How's about a post in this here bloggy contraption? Tarnation! This is just a pic from my sketchbook. Started coloring it. Colorist's block.

First post brought to you by random bouts of country0-farmer-speak.

Hootenany.