Here's a great piece of art from my friend Mark Melton! He does a great comic called Angeldreams you should check out.

I've been finishing up a project for Social Sump the past few weeks. The plan is to get back into some Children of Light stuff pretty quick. I'll show you another preview soon, promise!

Ready...set...

Hey blogsters! Long time! My bad. Been letting a lot of stuff get in the way of my getting work done. Sorry, it was a bad year. One thing I have been doing is lettering for issue #4 of Mark Melton's Angledreams. Good stuff. I never read it until I started work on it. Sorry Mark!

So about a year after I finished Children of Light #2, I finally get #3 rolling. Really. Check this out:


Monster attack. Rarrr!

This page is almost in the can. It will be page 1 & 2, and 3 is in inks too. What I thought I'd do is post finished pages here, so you can read them as I finish. Hopefully 1 every week or 2. I can't promise speed, sorry. It's the way things is. Not yet sure if I'll be opening up to other artists to help out. Possibly. There is 1 page already done by someone else, so I might as well. I liked the way they turned out. You'd probably like it too, so we can move along quicker!

Ugh!

I was looking over Children of Light #1 today, wondering if I should reprint. Wow. This is pretty bad. Granted, it was my 1st effort at comics, but it does seem to get a little better as I go along. If I just reprint, there's information that's horribly out of date. One day, i'd love to do a totally re-mastered version. Maybe after #3, which wraps up the "origin" storyline. For now, I think I'll just do a 2nd print with some updated credits and "extras" pages. Get the original print while you still can over at Comixpress!

A little better scan, but not the whole thing (I miss my 11x17 scanner). About 2 hours in. Pencils done. I'm pencilling much looser, and tightening up in inks. My style I've been doing lends to a more sketchy/loose style in ink. I've never been good at doing really tight, slick art. So I try to go with a style that suits my strengths.

Progress

Sorry for the sucky quality, takes too long to set up a scan, so I just take a pic with the Macbook! Worked for about an hour on this today. It will be pages 1 & 2 of Children of Light #3. I'm drawing it at pretty much print size because I didn't want to mess with 2 art pages.

Getting closer

Drawn by Papa Nate, ink by me. I still need to fix the guy's pants, I know!

This is the last page of Children of Light #2, but not the last page I have to work on. I think I'm working at a better pace lately, at least a few times a week.

Oh, yeah, we were robbed on New Years Day, and among the stolen items was my laptop with some finished pages on it. Not too much was lost, I only have to re-work parts of a few pages. So left to do is inks/tones on 3 pages, then lotsa letters.

Been listening to Around Comics podcasts. They do a great weekly comics show!

It is begun!

What you see here is the beginning of the final full page of work for Children of Light #2. I think I said I would start this week, so I'm doing good! I challenged myself to have this done by Christmas, fully inked. May seem like a long time for 1 page, but I think my old record is a month. Hey, I have kids and a real job, what do you want from me?

I need to do a lot of car reference for this one. I'll probably use my Olds.

Heard some great new songs from The Asteriods Galaxy Tour. Might sound familiar, their song has been on the itouch commercial.

Even more art? What's going on?!

Page 24 inked. All by me. I'm liking the inkwash I've used on the past few pages, but don't think it came out as well on this page. You can compare to the pencils I posted a few weeks ago. 1 more to go!

Tampon shopping:
Face it guys, one of these days you'll have to do it, if you haven't already. Your wife or significant other has been shopping all week, and forgot that one thing, on purpose, one might think.

My wife was sick in bed today, and guess what she needed? Guess where we were just the day before? You got it. As I received the news, I had to begin planning. A guy can't just go and buy feminine products only, I started making a list of things I could buy to hide the "stuff" in. I don't care what it was, I had to get something else. A lobster, shoe polish, a gouda cheese wheel, anything to take attention away from "it".

I managed to come up with a modest list of things we for real needed. It can't be too big of a list, because you have to go through the self-checkout. There's nothing worse than locking eyes with the cashier while "it" goes *beep*. No way. You might say, "Oh, Tommy! Girls understand and might think you are so brave for buying "it". Aha! but what do you do when you choose the grandmotherly cashier (safest bet), and suddenly switches with a guy cashier. You leave, quickly and quietly. Yes, even if your stuff is already on the belt.

So I got some other stuff first, so I could hide "it" underneath. Then had to scope the aisle out before making my approach. Hmmm...toothpaste...mouthwash...casually looking...target sighted! Made a quick but non-attention-getting grab, and coolly stroll away.

turns out I had too much for the self-checkout. there's no limit, really, but they only give you like 1 foot of space to set your scanned items in. So I found my grandmotherly cashier, prepared to drop all and go at the sight of a dude. Played it cool, because if she saw me sweating, it was all over. Made it through without incident, until I thought I'd say hello to a high-school classmate I recognized. Then I saw what was sticking out of the top of the bag. Changed my mind, went home.



Listened to the new Jack Johnson today, liked it, need to have a few more listens before I could comment. Jack, you too may be called upon to buy "it". Be ready.

Home alone 2

First, new art by me for Children of Light:

I used inkwash to do the tones, still experimenting with it. I think it came out OK, and set the mood I wanted. Below is the reference I used.


This is my last day home alone. I enjoyed the peace, and got some things done I wanted to do. I got to be selfish, I guess. Is that OK? I don't get to do that much. Friday I cleaned some for our open house Sunday, and watched Heroes that I missed last Monday. Saturday I cleaned some more, had to go to work for a couple hours, went to a comic shop in Cleveland, Carol & Johns, great shop! Brian Bendis used to go there! Also bought a few used CDs: Elastica, U2 (Atomic Bomb & Rattle & Hum)and Eurithmics greatest hits. Sunday I finished cleaning (yes our house was a mess), took Sushi for a 5-mile walk in the park trail, went to the thrift store and bought a few nice shirts, and finally sat down to do some art.

I made the awesomest dinner on Sunday! We had a pack of cheddar biscuits I made with a whole roll of sausage, and a few eggs. It was messy like something you'd get from a cheap diner (not because I'm a bad cook), and was excellent! I had it again today.