Hardcoreasaurus 2 Update!

Well, sadly Hardcoreasaurus 2 is on the back burner for a couple of weeks. Here's why:

A.) I've decided to rush through my back log of unfinished projects for other people. This is: the Clark College shirt, the Put Your Foot Down image, secret birthday gift commission for a friend's husband, Valerie Frost's tattoo design, and some images for Krysalis Moon, Lego Character for Jennifer Pipes, and anything else I'm forgetting at the moment.

B.) I found an open anthology of ghost tales that will be ending on the 15th so I have to come up with and finish that 4-15 page story in two weeks. (More on that in a bit)

and

C.) I have a bunch of crappy crap to do to get on unemployment and food stamps.


So, about the ghost story. I think I'm pretty settled on what I'm doing now. My idea is to do a story about a couple who tables at the Olympia Comics Festival and while they are in town the purchase an art desk from an antique store. They take it home to Portland with them and soon discover it is haunted. They drive all the way back to Olympia to return it only to find that the antique shop has closed down and has apparently been closed for years. It at some point possesses whichever of them I decide is the artist and they start drawing symbols on them selves and drawing demons over and over again. I won't ruin the ending but I really like it. SO I'll keep you updated on that when I start working on it.

Also while thinking about the ghost story I had a cute idea for a flash animation. It's a spoof commercial for a game called "Wii-ji Board" that is basically a Ouiji Board for the Nintendo Wii. I'll have to check to see if it's been done yet but hopefully not.

Inking Woes... AGAIN?

Okay seriously?

So I'm trying to ink the first page of Hardcoreasaurus 2 and I keep running into issues. First, the brand new ink I bought bleeds on the brand new comic art boards I bought. I tried the ink on a piece of Strathmore bristol board and it works fine, so I'm like "Who the eff makes these comic art boards?" I look and it's effing Strathmore! And the comic art boards are BRISTOL! So why is there such a huge difference? I would just switch to the bristol but I already penciled on the comic art board... Okay, so I think, "maybe different ink will work." I try it and I find out that in fact, different ink works great... Oh except I can't draw more than a centimeter before it runs out. It's not the ink or the pen that's the issue. They both worked incredibly well on some crappy nondescript paper for the Circle of Awesome. It's these stupid art boards! I would use microns but I really am not fond of how UNdynamic they are with line widths and such. It's like when my driver that controls pressure sensitivity on my Tablet PC randomly quits working. They have they're purpose but right now, that purpose is not drawing super heroes and dinosaurs. It's actually drawing the panel borders. Given that borders are supposed to be consistent and all. I can't find any other nibs for my quill pen which I'm hoping makes a difference. Maybe the generic paper screwed up the nib that's on it or something. I really won't know until I find those nibs. So anyways, I'm shelving the inking for now and focusing on writing (like I should be).

Any artists reading this let me know what infuriating problems you encounter in your art processes.

I'M BACK!

Yep, I've finally returned to my blogger after three years of neglect.

I've been working on Hardcoreasaurus 2 finally. actually started inking pages even.

I'll be back later with a more legitimate blog, but mostly I wanted to say I'm back.

New drawings and such

The definitive Frogra picture. Seriously, I couldn't be happier with how this turned out. I decided the line work called for something better than my usual cell shading. This way took longer and really pushed my endurance, but I feel like I went up like 300+ EXP lol.



Heres a little thing I did in illustrator. I sketched it first in Photoshop but I didn't really like how it was looking so I decided to vectorize it. Check out my deviantart or flickr page if you want to even know what the heck a feti is.



Eh I'm not really happy with this one. I was just trying to apply some of the things I learned from Stephen Sanchess's's's Tutorials but I think the heads too big and the legs look off. The things I do like are the clouds and the textures but otherwise I could have done better. This is one of the drawings that really made me want to avoid cell shading on the Frogra picture.

Box Full of Jesus!

So with Olympia Comics Festival coming up in a month I decided I'd ask the Publisher of Jesus Hates Zombies if I could maybe get a few copies this time around to sell. Originally Stephen told me that they don't like doing that but when I got the e-mail from the Publisher he said it wasn't a problem. Well, today I got a box with 20 copies.








Something about getting a box full of comics that I worked on direct from the publisher who put them out makes me feel legitimate.

Especially when my story is the first one people read.

From My Dad's Camera

Also:



Goodbye shirts and pants! I'm getting rid of a bunch of clothes. Hopefully this helps me clean my room so I can get my computers in there.

Stumptown '08

So I'll start where I left off. After making all those CDs for the Manual for Robots, I began work on more copies of Self-Aware.



Then it was on to the T-shirts






I made a screen and tested it out, but I didn't like the font and when I tried to fix parts of the skull I ended up ruining the stencil. So I washed it out, started over and this time traced a print out of the text with one of my handwritten type faces.







After that I got kicked out of the front room so me and my dad set up a space in the garage where he got my computer working again so I worked on my website and bussiness cards.








So I spent all my time getting ready for the con all the way up to the last few hours before set up. So I get there and what do I see?



Haha the whole place was empty save for like 10 tables. Apparently there was some mix up with the table guy but they soon got the tables in and I even helped put them up.





I did eventually get my table all set up and ready to go and someone even took a picture of me.






So yeah, I didn't sell very much. Infact I didn't sell any of those comics I was making the CDs for. Apparently the vague cover and steep prices weren't enough to attract any attention. But I garnered a lot of interest for Jesus Hates Zombies (so much so I had to make new bussiness cards Saturday night with JHZ info on them) and I sold a couple copies of Hardcoreasaurus and Self-Aware. We had free cookies and pretty much ran out by the end of the convention. And that's actually after getting two more things Sunday morning. I made a lot of connections, though. I met Stan Yan, one of the artists who contributed to the JHZ pin up gallery. And I made friends with the couple who shared a table with us. Sunday Jenni spent most of the con playing WoW but I don't really blame her. It was pretty slow at our table and we both got tired on Saturday.



All in all I had a pretty good time. It's really got the fire under my butt to do more comics and illustration so hopefully I'll be working on stuff a lot more.

I actually have a table at the Olympia Comics Festival in June. Hopefully I can manage it with my surgery recovery and all. It shouldn't be too bad. And I have some ideas to help me meet people and get people to at least come take a look at my artwork.

Just in time!

I finished www.jordanmdalton.com (click the pic above) save for the links section which I plan to update after making contections at Stumptown which is tomorrow >_< I can't believe it's really tomorrow. What the crap?

Getting Ready for Stumptown

For descriptions, click the pictures and check them out on flickr.

Working Stiff

Heres a new drawing from my upcoming comic called Working Stiff.

Woah... what happened... let's see... I didn't die... I didn't fall off the face of the earth... so why did I suddenly stop updating? Because there has been nothing to post about. Yeah the past several months have yeilding quite a bit of drama and excitement but alas not much on the comics front. I finished up last quarter of school by getting my classes dropped for not making my final payment. My girlfriend dumped me and started going out with someone else. I had a suedo relationship with the roommate of the girlfriend of the drummer of a band I was doing art for and potentially a comic for but that relationship thing ended sorta bad and now I'm not doing art or comics or merch for free for the band. And now I'm taking the quarter off from school and working two jobs. Subway and GameStop. Oh man am I burnt out though.

Stumptown is coming up again since they switched it to spring this year and I'm a little stressed. I'm gonna get a table and all but I have to fill it out a little bit more. So I'll try to keep this updated as much as I can remember but don't hold your breath...

Le-Crunch duex!

So work is underway on Hardcoreasaurus 2. Just figuring out the plot for now and doing a few character sketches here and there. I figure now is the best time to do it while I don't have any professional work going on. Also because it's full of inside jokes and I want to get it done before all the people involved with the first one move away or grow up too much. Not only that, but it's been 5 months since I finished the first. If this one also takes me a few months, then I'd say that's pretty good timing for a comic book sequal.

I also have some exciting news (for me at least) but I'm gonna stay hushed up about it for at least this weekend if not all this upcoming week.

Ben Grim

New drawings.

I might color them soon.

Stumptown Report

First of all I just want to say that no matter what, I need a booth next year. But more on my next year plans after the report.

The first day was pretty horrible. Not the con (fest?) itself, just my experience of it. I didn't sell any Hardcoreasaurus books (I did trade a few, though) and I was really nervous the whole time. It was hard talking to people to make any contacts. I brought $40 in singles to use as change for people buying the book. I ended up spending it all on comics and taco bell. I'm glad I did spend so much in the long run because I got some awesome stuff, but since my brother gave it to me and I was supposed to pay him back... yeah. I did meet a couple of cool people, but mostly I just felt like an ass most of the time and I felt annoying when I tried hanging out at the RCC table. I mean I know I was kicked out and all but I'm still friends with the guys... I thought.

[drama]

Okay I think this needs addressing since it was a pretty big issue for the con. Now... I want to be proffessional and mature about this, so I don't want to say anything out of anger. BUT I am pretty ticked about the whole situation. As much as I understand that it's my own fault I got kicked out since I didn't finish the creature feature, I do have a couple of things to say in my defense.

I was trying to finish the creature feature the day before it was due while I was at my brothers chemo therapy. I realized that while I'm at my brothers chemo therapy, comics should NOT be my biggest concern. I realized that the two page comic was causing much more stress than I needed at that point so I simply decided not to finish it. I HAD been working on it for what it's worth.

Also, I met the requirements of an original member. I had something published by stumptown.

I really feel like BT is hurting the group by kicking me out. I was really dedicated to the group while I was in it. I always participated as much as I could. Just look through the recent Jam comics and you'll see my name pop up pretty often. I feel like my presence at the meetings was never really appreciated actually.

All in all I'm glad I was kicked out. I know in the long run it's going to be a better situation and if BT offered to let me back in the group I would-- without hesitation-- refuse. The only thing that really bothers me now is that he kicked me out a week and a half before stumptown leaving me without a booth to sell a comic I had ordered to be printed a month ago and had been planning long in advance to sell at the RCC booth. If I would have known he was going to do THAT I would have figured something out, gotten the money together and paid for my own table. Other than that I really do understand the need to kick some people out. I mean, I saw how full the table was and that was even with a free extra table so it was pretty damn full.

[/drama]

Oh and the Dr. Sketchy's anti-art school figure drawing was pretty cool and I'm gonna start going on wednesdays to the one at Dante's.

The after party was pretty fun. I had a beer since I could tell the place was gonna fill up and it helped with the whole fear of crowds thing. Unfortunately the only person I even hung around or talked to was BT. And once he left (after the awards I think) I just sorta stood around by myself. I really just didn't know what to say to anyone. The comic battle was pretty fun to watch, though. Next year I'll volunteer.

The second day was better. Mainly because this time I didn't expect to sell anything. My dad gave me 20 singles and a 20 dollar bill to bribe either BT or Noir from Sacramento to let me have a foot of table space to sell my stuff and set up my button making machine. After I saw how full the already-set-up tables were, though... Yeah I knew it wasn't gonna happen and didn't even bother to ask. Although I will say I could tell Noir was considering it when I brought it up in conversation and that's pretty cool of him.

So this time my plan was just to find out about some cool lookin comics and grab bussiness cards and post cards. I did buy a few really cool things that I seriously couldn't pass up, but mostly I just had some cool conversations with local artists. I made some more trades and I went to some more workshops and panels. I even talked to someone from the sequential art gallery who really liked my comics and even bought the first and only PURCHASED copy of hardcoreasaurus. I gave her Self-Aware since I just printed that on the laserjet and I think eventually it might pay off. That'd be pretty cool since I really like that gallery. That's where I first saw Painkillers. The guy who makes that one is actually pretty cool by the way and a genious at getting people to go to his booth (live digital art on a huge LCD screen). I walked by just to see what he was drawing.

Eventually I got bored so bad that I went home an hour early.

Okay well this entry is pretty long so I'll save my next year plans for later on.

But yeah, basically this years stumptown started out pretty crummy for me but at least ended pretty good. I felt a lot better yesterday than I did on Saturday. Hopefully next year is better.

Stumptown Stuff Update

I finished the messenger bag! And I finally got Hardcoreasaurus!

Stumptown is tomorrow and as such there are some things I need to do TODAY. Here they are:

Bussiness cards
Website
Money Envelope
Bind Self-Aware pages
Buy binder clear sheets from walgreens or clark bookstore
Envelopes for Robot Manual
CDs for Robot Manual

more or less in order of importance.

I have to get ready for school but I'll probably post a bit more later on.

Projects Update

Mystic Slide for Positive Brand:

Um... I declined due to too much to do what with school and surgery and family stuff and all.

PopGun letters:

The dude is a good artist but his cominication skills, man... jus' kidding. It fell through because of lost e-mails and busy schedules on both ends.

Lincoln Hates Werewolves:

Not exactly sure? But probably not doing it. I'm too unreliable. :/

Robopocalypse Creature Feature:

Didn't finish. Got kicked out of the club. Kinda pissed.

The Hardcoreasaurus:

SHIPPED! Yay! Finally some good news. Should be here in a couple of days. So now I have three things pending publishing. Self-Aware in the PNCA anthology, My 6 pages of JHZ and Hardcoreasaurus. That fortune cookie the other night was right. My hard work really IS paying off.

Lincoln Lincoln I been thinkin'

So this week is going to be a busy week. On monday I need to turn in concept sketches for a book I may or may not end up doing for positive brand. I'm still undecided about it. My main concern is how much time I'll have for it with school and surgery and eventually a job coming up pretty soon. Not to mention everything I still have to do for Stumptown.

Also Stephen is having me work on a new project. It's Lincoln as a werewolf hunter. He hasn't written it yet so that could be a month or two off right now but I'll still be doing some concept stuff for that (which I'm going to post some of at the bottom of this entry).

And I have my creature feature to do. That's going slow.

And I have 20 pages to letter for a popgun comic.

And I once again have access to my website... so I have to completely redo that. yay.

Busy.

Anyways, here is the Abe stuff I have so far.




I'm pretty excited about it.