New Webtoon!

New webtoon!

Whistling In The Graveyard

Almost done the second Marrowbones story, The road To Marrowbones (or The Way To Marrowbones) From there I'm doing character drawings and maps and it's ready to go! Here's a coloured panel. 

Kitchen Lich Finished

Here's an uncoloured preview of a Kitchen Lich panel. the story runs 19 pages and it's some silly. ghoulish fun. I'm well into the next story now which is a brief backstory to Marrowbones. Hopefully I'll have the whole book done soon!

New Webtoon!

New webtoon! Visit right here. 

Your Humble Narrator.....

A panel from Marrowbones, all finished! This is the narrator, who is the Marrowbones librarian. He doesn't have a name quite yet. The library itself is this creepy old building sinking into the swamp. I'll be saying this lots: thanks so much to Steve Ogden for all the colouring help! I really appreciate it. Your advice has helped make a much better comic. And it looks like my wife, Julie, will be lettering Marrowbones! I'm really excited about that, having family help with comic making. 

Mrs Strumm

One day Mrs Strumm wandered into the place called Marrowbones, she settled in the hotel and has lived there since. She doesn't really have a room of her own, if she does no one's found it. She just shows up when you least expect her, offering advice or expressing her concern over something or other. On quiet nights you can hear her muttering to herself.

Latte last night I took out my Sharpie and made big black Xes on the Command and S keys of keyboard so I wouldn't forget to save stuff. This is after I lost hours of inking to a crash. Ugh. 

Marrowbones News

Here's a panel from my new comic The Kitchen Lich, it's almost done! It's a twenty page story taking place in the world of Marrowbones. I'll explain more about Marrowbones soon, but it's basically a little patch of haunted land bordered by mystical fog. And it's filled with monsters. The stories are sort of humorous horror fantasy. I'll be selling the comic from here at first, it'll be a digital download. The whole comic will be about 30 pages, with 2 stories, maps and other stuff. Marrowbones is a great place for short stories and that's the idea. Exploring a strange, little world through shorter works.

And in Maddy Kettle news, the book will be done really soon and I'll be sending it in for final edits this summer. Stay tuned!

Rat

Little rat doodle. I'm a big doodler, and often doodle rats. I'm looking ahead to the day and not seing a lot of work being done. There is a mountain of wine boxes in the kitchen meant for my book collection so there will be much packing today, though we're not moving for over a month. I also have a small stack of art that needs packing and shipping. So between those two tasks there won't be a tonne of actual drawing happening. Although, I will be doing a Webtoon this afternoon. 

The Vampire Tree

Julie's home for March break so I have temporary relief as stay at home dad so I'm scrambling to get as much work done as possible. I'm almost done a Marrowbones story, the Kitchen Lich, which is 20 pages, and I'll add a couple more stories before selling it. I haven't been talking about it much because I'm trying the method Stephen King talks about in his book On Writing, of closing the door when doing the first pass at a story. This is my first visit to the Marrowbones Motel so I'm still getting used to it. But it's a place I sure like to be. Above is the Vampire Tree, a spot that features heavily in the stories. My idea with Marrowbones is to have it just short stories. Build up the world that way. A place I can go for stories between longer projects. 

Alice Cooper And The Muppets

A very quick, fun sketch I did of that classic Muppets episode with Alice Cooper. Done in Manga Studio and Photoshop. 

Robots For Japan

Please come check out my piece for the Japanese tsunami fundraiser right here. 

Drusilla's Valentine

A quick warm up sketch of Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Done in Manga Studio and Photoshop. I'm currently watching the whole series in order on Netflix.

Harry And Silvio by Gabe Gill

I wanted to share this wonderful drawing of Harry and Silvio ( and Inky!) by the super talented Gabe Gill. Thanks so much for this Gabe!

New Webtoon!

New Saturday Morning Webtoon!

Artists Help Japan Fundraiser

The incredibly talented and generous Dice Tsutsumi is having a one year anniversary art auction to help those effected by the terrible devastation of the earthquake in Japan. This is from the Artists Help Japan site:


"Death toll hiked up over 22,000 and more than 300,000 people were displaced from their home.   And as we all may be experiencing ourselves, the world's attention has shifted else where.    While some organizations aren't accepting any more funds for Japan, both our partners Give2Asia and Mercy Corps are continuing their ongoing work ahead.  Take a look at their respective reports on their efforts as well as their upcoming plans.
Mercy Corps
Give2Asia


In the next 4 weeks, Using the power of art, Artists Help Japan will be auctioning more art to raise money as well as providing current news and stories from Japan. 
This 1-Year-Anniversary auction is an exciting opportunity to buy rare memorabilia and original artwork from industry top talents like Pixar's Ronnie del Carmen, Tia Kratter, and Oscar nominated Enrico Casarosa"


You can see my robot among the wonderful art up for auction above, the robot in the lower right.

Visit here to learn more. 

Mimblebot In Layers

One of the interesting, novel things about working digitally is being able to work on layers and separate and inspect different aspects of a drawing or painting. If you're not familiar with layers, many graphic programs use them and they can be best compared to drawing on several sheets of acetate or clear paper. This lets you draw aspects of the image separately so you can decide if something's working without having to erase a lot of work. There are many other uses for layers as well. At top I've isolated just the outlines and blacks and at bottom it;s just the hatching. I find being able to see a drawing this way can really help steer it in the right direction. 

Stay At Home Cartoonist

I thought I'd post a bit about where I currently find myself and why I love it despite the overwhelming frustration that comes with it. My schedule is probably the oddest it's been. In order to save money and justify cartooning we chose to take our three year old out of daycare so I could care for him during the day. I was careful not to announce this at the time so that people wouldn't tell me it was impossible to look after a child and do full time work as well. Lately I'm finding it important to avoid being told something can't be done.

So, I often get up by 6 or so and try to start working immediately. I find it helps to have a project that you can just pick up and start running with at any time. Then my three year old wakes up and the great balancing act begins.

One of the best parts of this life is I'm always dying to get back to drawing but without the mental exhaustion that comes with working a menial job. When I work in retail or wherever I'm just tired and worn out all the time. Looking after my son for about 8 hours every day doesn't leave me worn down, not usually. There are bad days. Awful days. But even awful days with my son beats awful days in retail by a very long shot.

I still work while I'm looking after Henry. But not as much, his needs come first. Since I'm doing Marrowbones all digitally and my Cintiq is all tucked away in a far corner of the house I can't do much with it during the day. Instead I either work on Maddy Kettle on the dining room table or sketch on my iPad.

Three days a week I take Henry to a a drop in center where there are lots of kids. It's mostly moms and grandmothers, occasionally another dad will show up but not often. I grew up with mostly women so this kind of situation doesn't bother me. And artists fit in everywhere. I think so, anyway.

And then comes the weekend! The best time! My wife teaches so she is home all weekend and I work like mad. And love every second if it.

So, my current output looks like this: a page of Maddy penciled every day and a whole page of Marrowbones finished every day. Roughly. Maddy during the day and Marrowbones at night. And i do one Saturday Morning Webtoon a week. And honestly, I don't feel stressed or that I don't have enough time, for the most part.

The big things for me are; having a family makes things better. Working creatively and having responsibilities to other people just seems ideal to me. It makes my art better, I learn things from my family, I'm encouraged by them and nurtured by them. If I didn't have a family I know I'd do less work. I found the most passion and drive after meeting my wife and it's no coincidence.

And secondly, I'm doing work I want to do. I'm telling stories by drawing pictures and I'm able to choose the exact stories I want to tell. This is incredibly important to me.

Some things I should add. I don't go out much. Hardly ever. I've never had a drivers license. Other than very occasionally seeing friends there's nothing I want to do. My recreation time is devoted almost entirely to reading, books and comics. I read a lot and think it's a really important aspect of a creative life. To give you a sense if how rarely I go out, since moving to Toronto three years ago I've gone to the ballet once, went to one Wilco concert seen 2 movies at the theater and the handful of times I've net friends for coffee I've always combined it with work related errands. That might strike you as weird but I've found it necessary to do what I do.

I rarely play video games. I think video games are really cool and almost research for visual artists. But I just don't play them a lot. I'd rather read or draw or hang out with Henry or Julie. This is more of a personal thing.

I don't drink much. I've never been a big drinker. It might be because of all the warnings I've gotten about alcoholics in my family, but I don't really enjoy drinking that much. When I was finishing art school I worked at a wine store. I think working with wine and being able to drink very expensive bottles gave me an appreciation of drinking that has nothing to do with being drunk.

I try and stay healthy. I really need to work at this but I do what I can do. I make sure I eat enough, drink enough water and I try and sleep 7 hours every night. I have issues with anxiety so it's essential I don't wear myself down. I'm useless if I'm mentally unwell. I really don't want to have to take time off because I'm frazzled. I want to take time off because I deserve it.

Zatanna

A sketch I did of Zatanna in Manga Studio and Photoshop. One of my favorite DC characters.

Webtoon!

New Webtoon is up! Come see it here. I think it's my favorite one yet.

Also, a correction for yesterdays post. I wrote that the Procreate app has no way to save images to photos on your iPad, but the people at Procreate contacted me to let me know you actually can. When your in drawing mode the drop-down gear menu will let you do that easily. Sorry for my mistake. 

Procreate For iPad

I just wanted to let everyone know about this great sketching app that Ray Frenden introduced me to, it's called Procreate and it's become my favorite sketching app for the iPad. Unlike other drawing apps Procreate has a lively and organic looking line that is highly customizable, and you can draw in what feels like a much more natural way than other apps that offer a more uniform line. It's a really fun drawing tool. Because the line is more organic you can work out ideas quickly and intuitively. Other drawing apps have a very flat line which can slow you down, I find. The one drawback to Procreate is the inability to save files right to your photos on your iPad, however that's not a huge issue as its so easy to do a screen capture. Right now the app is on sale for .99 cents but I think it's usually about 5 dollars.

Edit:  I wrote that the Procreate app has no way to save images to photos on your iPad, but the people at Procreate contacted me to let me know you actually can. When your in drawing mode the drop-down gear menu will let you do that easily. Sorry for my mistake.