Jesus Hates Zombies

So after some internal debate about what to do for my next project I ended up stumbling across it on comicspace. It's a comic called Jesus Hates Zombies and it's written by Stephen Lindsay and Michael Bartolotta. It's about Jesus... fighting zombies. That's right. So basically they broke the story down into like 17 smaller stories and for each one, there's a different artist. I'm actually working on the first 5 pages of the book. I'm really stoked. I'm really flexing my comics muscles on this one too. I actually have to DRAW THE BACKGROUNDS!!! DUNDUNDUN! Luckily if I have a ruler handy and some good reference I'm not half bad at it. And quite frankly I'd rather do it this way then the pixelated route. Those backgrounds kicked my ass both technically and compositionally.
So far all I have is a couple of roughs. I mean I have the dummy dummy pages finished so I know where everything is gonna go but since I'm not flying this one solo I'm polishing the dummy pages a lot more. I'm practically doing full pencils on them but it helps give the writer a really good idea of the direction I'm going. And that way if something isn't quite working, I can fix it.
Anyways, I'll keep updates here. I know I'm basically talking to myself but one of these days there will people who read this. I'm finally making some good progress on this comics goal of mine.

IT'S DONE!

The Comic will be unvieled on Tuesday.
I'm posting it on myspace, live journal, blogger, deviantart, and comicspace. check it out at any of those.

Anyways, this is pretty big for me. I printed out the cover last night on some slightly glossy cardstock and it was such a surreal experience finally seeing it as something tangible. It's going to be really awesome when I get it printed as a book.

Anyways come back tomorrow and you can see it here!

So tonight I watched that movie Eraser with Arnold Schwarzenegger and there's this scene where he's blowing the fuck out of this port with these big ass rails guns and then James Kaan gets on this shipping crate and is all "drop the guns" or whatever and I kept wishing Arnold would look up at him with a big grin and say "Holy shit, dude, you gotta try these fuckin things"

And this has to do with comics because... uh.. maybe I'll write something like that into a comic. I dunnoh.

Oh but okay well how 'bout this: I have pages 1 through 7 of the Hardcoreasaurus comic colored. I have page 1 lettered too soo hot damn I'm gettin this shit done.

And also, I went to the comic store today and finally got the conclusion of the five part DMZ arc that's been going on and I got POCI 5. So that was cool.

INK PARTY!

You know what this is?

It's all freakin 11 pages, 2 covers and one ilmeasured pages of Hardcoreasaurus in INK! I'm done! Well, with this part. Here's what the next part looks like:


I have to sit down with that glowing rectangle and color each page. THEN I have to make the backgrounds in a pixel art program, put those in and finally after I'm satisfied with all of that I get to do my favorite thing to do in comics: Lettering.

I don't know why I like it so much... Maybe because most newbies don't know how to letter with adobe illustrator and I happen to avoid a lot of the mistakes most newcomers make so my letters tend to look better than expected. Also I guess I just like it because when the letters go on the whole thing really comes together. I remember how amazed I was at how the first page of Self-Awareness really didn't look professional until I had the letters finished. I finally felt like I was making a real comic.

I'm a little frustrated. I get absolutely no comments on this blog...

Oh well... I'll just have to start cross posting.

Okay so in my first bit of news I just want to say that I've been coming up with a lot of short comic ideas. I have two that I really want to get going on, one that I started with my brother who's writing it aswell as adding some art here and there, and one that I've done a ton of work on that is based on a story my friend Layne wrote. More on that last one in a minute. Basically, though my comics spirit has new vigor. And it's exciting!

Okay secondly check this out:









That's a sweet Chinese brush and ink set that my girlfriend got me from Cost Plus World Market. Now I know this blog is supposed to be about comics but I figure since comics are inked, this falls in an acceptable range of comics related subject matter. Of course, I'm never going to use this ink set because I want it to stay really nice but it's still really awesome and needs to be shared.

So this:



is the real reason I'm making this post. I've got my desk all organized(ish) and in working order. See that? I actually have comics there. Comics that I'm making. So what is all this stuff you ask? Well the comics pages on the wall are the digital pencils from the Hardcoreasaurus comic starring Jessie and based off of a story by Layne. I printed them all out and posted them up there because I have to start over with for reals pencils. So far I have pages cover and 1 penciled. That's what's chillin on the desk there in front of the rubber duckies, the turtle tots and Godzilla. And theres some tools sittin around being useful. I finally learned how to use a T-Square the right way and these panel things that used to be difficult are a breeze! It's awesome.

That Cork-EZ thing is some work I did for a package design for a product that will probably never see the light of day. Under that is an assignment from illustration class. I like that drawling. It's all in sharpie. I have that up to remind me that PNCA wasn't a complete waste of time like I always seem to make it out to be. That basket ball hoop at the top is where I throw a little foam basketball when I get bored. It helps when I get burnt out from drawing or just get creative block. The walls in here are really yellow. It's kind of gross. Because they used to be white.

Anyways it feels good to actually be making comics at my desk. It's about damn time frankly. And I really have to give it up to Layne and Ms. Dole for inspiring the comic plastered up on the wall. And a big extra special thanks to Jenni for getting me that super awesome ink set.

Transform and Roll Out!

Not to brag or anything... but I seem to rock the sharpies like a bad motha fucka.



Seriously, though. Everytime I make a rediculously large drawing (this one took up a whole sketchbook page) that pretty much requires I use a sharpie to ink it, it always turns out way better than if I use a tiny micron and get all the little itty bitty details. I have this Godzilla drawing I did for a T-shirt over the summer and since it was so big I used a sharpie. Well it turned out pretty awesome even though I still haven't made the T-shirt (I need to get some glow-in-the-dark screen ink) I still think it rocks better than any small drawing I could have done.

I'm gonna do a lot more with the whole sharpie thing but the down side is that I can't really make comics in sharpie. I mean they just don't make scanners big enough for that kind of thing and I'll be damned if I'm gonna stich pages that big all the time. I have learned an iportant lessong, though. Less small details and thicker lines make for a better picture, especially when reduced.

Oops

So I guess I already posted that one. At least I posted a link of it. Oh well. No one is really reading this yet so I won't sweat it too much.

Oh, yeah. There's this...

Yeah so this crappy little thing is a comic I wrote and drawed for the PNCA comics anthology. PNCA is the school i up and left. Keep in mind I penciled, inked, toned and lettered this bad boy in one sleepless fuckin' night. Otherwise I swears it would look much better. And hey it was good enough to actually make it in. I think it was my sweet lettering job that helped me make the cut, though. The lettering I did with ILLUSTRATOR and not COMICLIFE. Because ComicLife sucks to no end. No fucking end. the end.

But yeah, I figured I should post this to prove I actually do make comics. Like for reals comics. But it aint something I'd want to show Rick Spears, who I've decided I'm gonna art for someday. His storries are the badd-ass-est I've ever read.

Well it sure has been a while since my last post. I'm actually lucky I figured out how to post again. Blogger wouldn't recognize my name and password but I fortunately can get in through Google for some reason. That's what I get, though for playing Zelda for nearly four days straight. But at least I beat it.

Anyways, COMICS. So since I've had so many video games I've kind of slacked on comics. Oops. But I decided I'm gonna start working on some old story I started when I was like younger than 10. It's just these marshmellows that can talk and walk. I figured out a way to make them look less like Kirby than I had originally drawn them and not disturbing like all my other attemps at reinvisioning them. I just making them for my brother's kids for now but I'll post the pages up on here as I get them done.

In the meantime I'll leave you with something me and my brother made with ComicLife at OMSI. Don't mind the typos: