Work in Progress: The Carnival #2 page 12

Working hard on finishing the second issue of The Carnival, titled Den of Thieves. It will be come apparent when you read the damn thing. Finally, finally when you can read the damn thing. Its been a long time coming, this I know.

Just to share a little bit of work in progress, here is the top half of page 12, while it was still in pencil form, about to be lettered.

Yes, I'm hand lettering these on the pages. After looking at original comic artwork for so many years, I've begun to realize how much the panels need the word balloons on the page. What moves the piece of artwork from being simply illustration and into comics, is the fusion of words and text together to form a cohesive artistic whole. Besides, their position also effects the negative/positive of the artwork, adding white into black and visa versa. so expect fully hand lettered balloons and captions on this one.

Work In Progress: The Human Hourglass Page 18 part two

This panel is coming along nicely. page 18 is almost done and, as always, art surprises you. panels that i thought were somewhat boring are turning into far more interesting bits and pieces.

A few more pages to go...

Work In Progress: The Human Hourglass Page 18

Working away, and was rather pleased with this top tied of page 18 about to be inked.

I'm not fast, but i think that i'm getting better.

For those in the SF Bay Area, i'm trying to get into APE in October. Haven't heard whether or not I've got the table, but I'll let you all know the minute that I know!

Work In Progess: Page 14 of The Human Hourglass

Just about done here, except for the background work. Can't wait to tone this one so that i can really direct the lighting the way that i see it in my head.

Mostly brush, #1 sable Rafael 8404, #4 sable for big areas, Koh-i-noor .35 technical pens.

Work In Progress: The Human Hourglass page 12

...not finished, but getting there. Added the trash can in the lower left foreground to create an additional layer of depth that i saw in my head, but realized that i was missing in the pencils. I tend to want to creat a three level depth system every couple of panels or so as a visual orientation system. Gives you a sense of spatial identity, especially when you're asking the environment to be one of your characters.

Also started to change the shadows on the gunman. Certain things that worked in pencil aren't working in ink, so, well, you start to make the changes as you go. Original pencils are a few posts back if you want to compare.

Was doing an interview on inking and, more specifically, the work that I did in the 1990's on the Black and White series The Grackle: Doublecross with Paul Gulacy. Answering the questions certainly made me think of the aesthetic choices that I made over 10 years ago and also got me looking at my current work through those eyes again. Looking over some of that artwork made me see some fairly ballsy choices that Paul made with spotting blacks. But then, thats why he's a master at this stuff.