ECCC Portfolio: PLATYPUS

Here are is the "finished" line art for my 12-page "Bill the Platypus" short I'm including in my comic book portfolio for the Emerald City Comic Con. I plan on showing these (and some more traditional superhero stuff I hope to finish this weekend) to as many artists, writers and editors at the big comics publishers as I can. The ultimate goal is to eventually earn a living illustrating comics and while I've got a long way to go, I feel like I've worked with more focus in the last three months to improve my drawing than I have in the last three years. Please be brutally honest with your critique, I've still got some time to polish these before I print them off and head up to Seattle for ECCC.

A few things to keep in mind. People looking at these won't know these characters (and neither do you, really) so this is sort of an introduction to what a "Bill the Platypus" comic might look like, without being a proper origin story. Hopefully you can follow the action, even without the dialogue (which I may add later). Feel free to point out specifics that work or mistakes that need fixed (like in page 9, first panel, guy isn't wearing  a jacket).

1

2

 Text would be: 3 weeks later, somewhere in Mexico.
Dialogue is Mr. Goodfellow (glasses, works for Bill's boss) introducing Bill (platypus, bounty hunter) to Dr. Sanchez (hat, veterinarian/paranormal investigator). They are here to capture a creature that is slaughtering livestock. Locals are calling it the "chupacabra".

3

 Dialogue: Sanchez tells Bill he was attacked by the creature. Says it's twice the size of a grizzly bear. They are driving out to the site of the last attack.

4

5

 Bill: Think the doc might have been exaggerating about your size a bit.

6

7

8

 Originally the Doctor wasn't a character, there was just the farmer, so that's how I forgot to draw his jacket on this page. Will fix before comic con.

9

10

11

 I'm not sure what sound a tranquilizer gun makes.

12

So this is the condensed version of a full 24-page comic script I wrote. Eventually I'll add a flashback scene of Dr. Sanchez's first encounter with the creature (spooky, cliche horror movie night scene) and a few pages at the end of the Doc getting a blood transfusion, thanking Bill for the help and Goodfellow's men packing up the chupacabra's to be transferred to a research facility.

"The Date" p1-6 WIP

At the beginning of the year I set myself a goal of completing a page of comic book art each week. With only a quarter of a year left, I'm way behind. In order to catch up, I'm posting some very rough, unfinished pages I've been working on. This is meant to eventually be a portfolio piece for the big publishers Marvel and DC.

p1

 As you can see, there are several layers of lines. I draw in black and then use an adjustment layer to change the hue to blue to draw over the top, refining and refining until I'm happy with the lines (I never am). The orange is for background stuff, especially when I use a grid for perspective.

At first this might seem like a simple scene, but I probably drew about 20 rough thumbnail size sketches of the layout. At first I was going to start with a wide shot of the cafe, but since the setting isn't important to the plot (they could just as well be at a fast food joint or library), I decided to start with a two shot giving the two characters "Parker" and "Stacy" equal importance. Yes, they're intentionally hipster versions of Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy.

p2

Very rough digital lines, not happy about the layout on this one. That face in the first panel is horrendous. Basically, this is supposed to play as a reversal of the cliche "Clark Kent runs away in fear, but is really just changing into Superman", but it's not working yet. Because the twist is...

p3

 The superhero is the girl with the mohawk. Her powers are supposed to be based on the control of gravity. Need to add some bricks or something so you can tell she's running through a back alley.

p4

Most of the layouts started as small pencil sketches done at work. Here you can see how I blow 'em up & blue 'em before I start drawing digitally.

p5

I kind of like how the monster can't fit in the page, but I also think this should be a 2-page spread, so you can see more of the city, people fleeing in terror, the creatures legs smashing cars, etc... Sometimes I do sketches in grayscale just to get a better feel for the composition.

p6

Not sure if this page layout works? Sort of a weird sequence of shots, with the characters moving in a circular motion.

Lots of work still needs to be done before I'd feel confident showing this to an editor at a comic book convention. Sometimes I need to abandon things for a while and come back with fresh eyes. These six pages represent several months worth of sporadic noodling and including the Hellboy drawing and the Spider-Man commission, I'm now only three 3 months behind.

Spidey More WIP

final(ish) line art

flat colors

The thing I'm most proud of is the "spider face" hand. Believe it or not this is the first time I've actually finished a drawing of Spider Man swinging through the city. One more step to go.

Spidey WIP

My loose sketches always seem to have more personality than the final lines. Always struggling to find the balance between realism and cartooning - the longer I work on a piece, the less I like the artistic choices I've made. I need to try spending an entire Saturday drawing something in one sitting instead of fiddling around for an hour each day. Actually I'm having fun with this piece, despite having to draw buildings.

The Date p.1

Trying to get caught up on my goal to finish a comic page each week. This is part one of a short (4-6 page) portfolio piece called "The Date". I'm not terribly happy with this one, I've redrawn this page many times, playing with different layouts and drawing techniques. I've been sitting on this for a while and I just need to move on to page two at this point.

digital sketch

pencil line art over digital blue line

pencils with quick color flats and dialogue

rough city backdrop

early page layout

A Job in Comics

cover design

I've sort of secretly been working on a graphic novel adaptation of the book of Job. The narrative portion of Job quickly gives way to the "exalted prose" or poetic speeches that take up the majority of the text - my comic would condense a great deal of that and expand a bit on the life of Job before and during the crises using elements from the pseudepigraphal "Testament of Job".

I'd like to eventually do a series of graphic novels covering the entire Bible in great detail, but I thought I'd start with the story of Job because it stands on its own. No characters age or reoccur in other parts of the Bible (except Satan), plus the time period and geographic location are vague, so I can get away with fudging the historic details, instead of getting bogged down in researching every clay pot and sandal.

Job before and after

sick Job

Job's "friends"

Stick p7-8

p7

p8

Stick and Stone

Here are the original pencil sketches of the pages I posted.

p5 sketch

p6 sketch

The design for Stick's new friend/pet/transportation come about fairly easily. These are the first few sketches I did of him and as you can see I got the basic design down fairly quickly. Part turtle, part armadillo, with a bit of eel in the face. I kind of like him standing more upright.

designs for "Stone"

Stick p5-6

Next two pages of "STICK". Embarrassingly sloppy, but I'm way behind on my goal of drawing a comic page each week this year and trying to catch up. I'm about two months (6 pages) behind!

p5

p6

Crucifixture (line art)

Finally got around to watching the Bible miniseries on DVD this week. Enjoyed it and felt inspired to do an illustration appropriate for the current holiday. I think it's the first Jesus film I've seen that makes an effort to depict the Jewish leaders as being caught between a rock and a hard place - "we have to kill Jesus or else things will get out of control and the Romans will crush our nation." At least that's how I read it - probably an attempt to avoid the usual "anti-Semitic" controversy. So instead they got "Obama is the devil" accusations.

Work in progress... Sometimes I am blessed and my drawings turn out good. Listened to Olivier Messiaen's "L'Ascension" and Johann Sebastian Bach's "St. Matthew's Passion" while working on this.

Not to make light of the serious subject matter, but for giggles here's my photo reference.

Sketch Requests #14-16

Everest Daydream for Daniel

Tiger Princess for Tamara

Vintage Mustang Cafe for Dad

Sketch Requests #12, 13

Funny that these ones were requested back to back. Super heroes and super pets!

For Greta Kastner

Greta - For some reason I had a really hard time with this one - I redrew it several times and I'm still not completely happy with it, but I want to catch up so hopefully it turned out all right!

For Stephanie Robino

Bill vs Chupacabra pages 1-5

  

p1

p2

p3

p4

Mama Cabra!

Every page I've done has been an experiment in defining a "style"/work flow/methodology. I plan to come back to these later to tighten them up and color them. Please give me your honest critique - point out everything I've done wrong before I take these to the "inking" stage. Pacing, anatomy, rendering, inconsistency - if you spot something that bothers you, let me know! Also, if there's anything you think turned out good, I wouldn't mind hearing that either.

Below is a small example of the many design sketches I did to design the "Mama" Chupacabra. The two in the top left are fairly recent, the one in the bottom right was done a few years ago. I think the expression of the guy in the middle is the best.