Sunday, February 28, 2010

Pre-Order Con Sketches!

It's less than two weeks until my first official convention of the season! On March 13th and 14th I'll be in Seattle attending the Emerald City ComiCon! In preparation for the show I am taking pre-orders on con sketches. If you were planning on getting a sketch from me in Seattle it wouldn't hurt to get on the list early to be guaranteed a sketch. Individual character commissions (such as the ones you see above and below) are $50. If interested, contact me at: brihurtt@hotmail.com

Also, take note, in the column to the right you'll see an entire list of the shows I will be attending this year. If any of you are planning on attending these shows please make a point to seek me out and say hi!

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

THE SIXTH GUN: Spoiler-Free Panel #2

Another SIXTH GUN panel tease!
More to come...

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

THE SIXTH GUN: Spoiler-Free Panel #1

Really wanted to share something from THE SIXTH GUN with you but I'm a little limited in my options right now. My main worry is sharing anything that has any kind of spoilers in it. I've found a handful of images from the first issue that are spoiler-free and I'll be sharing those here on the blog over the next couple weeks.
I'm really excited with how the book is coming along and I can't wait for everyone to see the first issue come Free Comic Book Day (May 1st)!

Friday, February 05, 2010

Saturday Matinee Dream Team

Thought I'd share with you something of a process post. This was an exceptionally large commission for me and an oddity in that I actually pitched it. I had done an small, black and white commission of Rocketeer and Indy for this same person. Doing the drawing had really whet my appetite for the subject matter and had said that I would love to tackle this with a bigger canvas, as it were. To my surprise, he agreed.
I draw small. I always have and I'm very comfortable working small. Basically, I suck when I have to try drawing big right out the gate. For that reason, every time I do commission (or a cover or splash page for that matter) I draw the original at a much smaller size (no bigger than 6" x 4" and sometimes as small as 2"x 3"). I'll then I blow it up (usually final image size is 9"x 12") and I'll put it on a light box and trace it. In this case the final piece was much larger--this one was done on 18"x 24" Bristol board) so the initial sketch (above) was done on a sheet of bond paper.


I then blew it up onto four sheets of paper and taped them together and threw them on the light box to trace and clean up (above). As you can see in the sketch, the image is still pretty rough so I'm really doing more than just tracing the image. I'm tightening it up and tweaking it on the page. The original sketch just gets the composition, the proportions, the overall basics, down. Most of the detail work is done on the light box but a lot of the fine details (ones that require reference) are done after I light box it. That's why you see the laptop in the upper corner of the above image. Google image search is a life saver. In this case, I also pulled out some books and DVDs for further reference. I remember getting reference on guns, tanks, cars, the Sphinx and Pyramids, our heroes costumes, horses, saddles, etc.


Below is the piece after doing the light box work.


My first step was to go in with a light wash and start dropping is some values.


I then went in and dropped in all the solid black that I would use in this image. As you can see there really isn't much here. I knew from the get-go that I good deal of this commission would be done in various tones of ink wash...


...and that ended up being a bit of a nightmare. I came in too light in my values and found myself giving the drawing pass after pass of tones trying to build up the drawing. I blame my nervousness--I was apprehensive because of the size and scope of this drawing. I was worried I'd screw it up and have to start all over.



In the end, it worked out fine and I was better off for having taken my time. I'm really happy with the final piece and I'm less nervous about tackling larger pieces in the future!
Here's the final image:

PLEASE, click on the image to super-size

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Mad Cow Deceased

click the image to see it in a large

This recent commission is of Grant Morrison's version of Frankenstein (as seen in the mini-series Seven Soldiers of Victory). I was familiar with the series and had flipped through it on the stands but had yet to read it. Getting this commission gave me that extra push and so I borrowed all the GNs from a friend and read through them in a couple days. I don't think it's Morrison's strongest work--I thought it was one of his more uneven pieces (that can be saying a lot with Morrison). If you absolutely love Morrison there is enough little bits of candy in there to keep you going but overall I would not recommend the entire series. Though I did like the Guardian stories (solid art by Cameron Stewart), the Klarion issues (gorgeous art by Frazer Irving) and the Frankenstein books (with pitch-perfect art by Doug Mahnke). Also, the art by J.H. Williams in the bookend pieces was fantastic.