Max Recovery

Before it Leaves Your Hands: Lettering Part 2

As I said last time, lettering should be just as big a part of the creative process as any other in comic book production. Sometimes, I reach beyond my job description and fix things regarding the actual artwork.

EXAMPLE 1) In this example, I didn't "fix" so much as add to the existing work. I got some very light scans of the original art (a) and crisped up the linework and also colored it in with some gradient duotone shading (b).

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• b)
  
  

I don't know what possessed me, but I just felt it broke up the art a bit more from foreground and background elements. Since I knew it was going to be in black and white, I did this all in a separate layer, knowing it might not be what the client wanted.

Easter Fun!

So, it's Easter and my kids wanted more than just the usual candy. We got some store-bought goodies, but since I've been doing sketch cards lately, I figured I would do cards for each of my older boys (the little one is teething and would EAT his). I based them off of their favorite cartoon shows; Avatar: The Last Airbender, and The Regular Show.

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Happy Easter!

Before It Leaves Your Hands: Lettering Part 1

Lettering should be just as big a part of the creative process as any other in comic book production. I say "should be" because some of what passes for lettering these days is just an afterthought, at best it's a guy typing with horribly awkward fonts inside of a circle.

Currently, I'm lettering a more "mature" comic entitled Las Locas for an up and coming comic company Badcog Studio, which is a publishing partner of Angel Comics. The book is great fun with bounty hunter femme fatales beating the crud out of bad guys who MORE than deserve it. With 10 page stories featuring a variety of artists, it really gives you a good amount of creative bang for your buck.

Now, the fact that I do MORE than just letter can be a double-edged sword. George Perez told me years ago that you do what you can to a page before it leaves your hands, so that you don't assume the next guy will fix it. But, I think I might have the same penchant artist Kevin Nowlan has. For those who don't know, Kevin often "inks" others work by redrawing the art completely. It looks amazing and beautiful, but I bet he ticks certain artists off, and I'm afraid I may do the same. I sure hope not.

Luxura Sketchcard Process

Okay, so last time I promised an update on my sketch card stuff. The problem is that I'm knee deep into actually WORKING on them right now, so I'll just give you a peek at the process(for now).

I am working on Kirk Lindo's Vampiress Luxura Sword of the Apocalypse set for The Sketch Card Studio. I am doing 30 cards which will be a black and white and BLOOD RED subset. The majority, if not all the other, sketch cards will be full color, so mine will be easy to spot if you get one in your pack. Once I scan them, I will post them in my gallery and in my deviantart gallery.

First thing I do is sketch out a pose I like and set the basics for the card. I use a Pentel "Champ" .5mm mechanical pencil with grip.

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Logos, Sketchcards, and Lettering...Oh, My!

Okay, everybody. I don't know what happened, but I like it. Seems like everybody and their cousin wants me for something artwise lately. I am in my element when I'm stretched to the max. Anyone who knows me knows I am a workaholic and it's great to be working on things I love (like comic books) to pay the bills.


So, besides what I'm doing now, it seems like things I've done in the past are still creeping out slowly into the world. One such nugget is a logo I designed when I was working with Bluewater Comics back in their formative years.

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New Year, Fresh Blog

So, I cleaned a little house today. I used to just talk about what various art or music projects I had going on, which I will definitely do here. But, I didn't have a really good gallery so it was mostly a way to just say, "Here, look what I did!"

Well, not anymore... I am going to blab on and on about EVERYTHING here. My life, my art, my music, but mostly the PROCESS of those things. The end results will make their way into my deviantart gallery or my own gallery of images. Whatever got me there or doesn't really fit in will be HERE. So, no repeats. I will try and have different things in the blog than I have elsewhere.

Yep, that's about it. No more old crap clogging up the interweb...

Just new crap.