A little Vamping...

A couple of weeks ago I actually had some time to do some misc drawings and I did this and a couple of others (I'll try to get around to scanning them and posting 'em later).
You can tell I was really bored cuz I inked it...
I guess I was inspired because of the release of The Notorious Bettie Page film. I've always assumed that she was based on Bettie - maybe I'm wrong, but I defintiely decided to base mine on miss Page.

Anyhow this is something I played with for fun. I've never tried drawing her before so I got inspired...maybe this'll be in next year's Sketchbook?

Avengers Assembled

Over at Drawingboard.org they have monthly jams in the various sections and in this month's Superheroes section it's The Avengers. So, since I had a little more time on my hands than usual - as I wait for a greenlight on models for the next set of children's books I'm slated to do - I though I'd challenge myself to do something a little more ambitious than usual. It would've been very easy to just post some of my models from The Ultimate Avengers, but I thought I'd try to play it straight for a change and draw some Avengers in their official uniforms. Or, at least, as close as I could handle. As I'm sure many will note I still made some changes...

In Livng Color...

Well, Euan Mactavish (aka em...) did get a chance to put some color down and he did an outstanding job.



Now if only i could afford for these guys to work for me full time.

The Deal is INKED...

A friend of mine (and also the web-master of my web-site), Francesco Francavilla, saw the Supey drawing I drew and liked it so much he decided to ink it up. He also added a bit of his own whimsy to it and I think it turned out great. We ought to collaborate more often!


Another friend has hinted that he'd like to put some color on it - I'll post that when it happens...

A question...

Since I'm going to be sitting around at SDCC with my sketchbook for sale a couple of friends suggested I also print up some inexpensive posters to sell as well and sign.

Now my question for all of you is (and it's a three-parter):
1.) Does this sound like something that might sell - would you buy it?
2.) What price should this sell for?
3.) Is there a particular image from the web-site I should use or should I create a new one? Any suggestions?

In the meantime here's another quick sketch I made while sitting around...

A Little 'Batty'

I've been pretty busy lately with post production on The Condor (still and probably for at least another month) and working on the designs for the new books for HarperCollins so I haven't had too much time. Or anything really new to report. I saw the pdf file for the sketchbook and I'm sure anyone who buys it will be pretty happy.
I scribbled this while on a couple of phone calls and thought it turned out kinda nice.

Coming to a convention near you...

I thought I'd give everyone a little preview of the cover for my sketchbook. It should be ready just in time for SDCC. Francesco Francavilla is putting it together for me. He's the genius that put together my web-site and now he also has his own web-site where you can check out some of his great artwork. Its address is: http://www.francescofrancavilla.com/ and is well worth a look.
Hopefully you've noticed that I'm also being a whore and advertising for the Ultimate Avengers DTV and the two HarperCollins X-Men 3 books I worked on. These links will take you to Amazon and if you're going to buy them then use these links and yours truly gets some kick back...

No need for the ransom...

...I'm home!!

Actually I've been home since the 14th and this is just the real first day I've had long enough to breath and blog something. So there's no need to put together a ransom to pay the kidnappers. I know it's an old joke, but I've always kinda like it....

What I'm referring to up above is the trip to Japan and China I took to check out the studio that is working on the animation for "Stan Lee presents: The Condor". It was a long ten days, but I think ultimately helpful. It's always good to meet eye to eye and be able to point to things on a screen when discussing things - with other artists especially.
The trip was great, but ten days away from home and all alone in a foreign country - lost in translation - is tooooo long. I'll probably go into more detail later.


And ever since I've been back things have been running at full tilt. We're quickly approaching our final deadlines for The Condor. I also had a lot of interviews to do for on-line magazines concerning the release of The Ultimate Avengers Direct-to-DVD. You can use the link to pick-up your copy from Amazon or go to Costco or anywhere else. I haven't been able to find many of the interviews anywhere, but let me know if you have.
I'm also putting together some artwork for a Sketchbook to sell at this year's San Diego ComicCon - it'll also be available later from my web-site. I'm going to feature a lot of art that not too many have seen before. Hopefully I'll get that together in time....
...And on top of all this I had Jury Duty yesterday.

One more thing before I forget...a new X-Men: Evoltuion web-site just started that any of the fans should check out. It's put together bt the great guys over at Toonzone and it's pretty damn good. if you want to see it go to X-Men:Evolution at Marvel Age

Which Cap is best?

There's kind of a fun little debate going on over at The Marvel Forum discussing which of my two Captain America designs is better. The more traditional one I created for X-Men: Evolution or the one based on Brian Hitch's design for The Ultimate Avengers direct-to-video DVD. Buy it here.
What is also kind of interesting (at least to me) is that the design I did for X-M:E, while being discussed as the traditional Captain America was originally planned to be closer in thought to Hitch's in the Ultimate's comic. Keep in mind that the Ultimates hadn't hit the comic stores at this point. My original plan was to design Cap in a somewhat more realistic fashion and less like a comic super-hero. In my original roughs I had removed the wings from his head and even the "A" from his forehead and added a Sam-Brown type of gunbelt and removed the rollover from his boots. My producer, Boyd Kirkland, thought this was too big of a departure for the audience (and for him too) and I ended up keeping the wings, the "A" and the typical Cap boots. The only real modifications that I made was to give him the belt (minus the gun, of course) and change his sleeves to be more reminiscent of Wolverine's. I did this last change to give a visual continuity to the Weapon X program. In no way am I suggesting I went as realistic as Hitch ultimately did, but I definitely was thinking in that direction. I guess that's one of the reasons the Ultimates comic really caught my attention when it came out. You can buy the comic here.

Not that anyone asked, but if they did, my personal favorite is this one - also based on Hitch's design - of a realistic Cap during WWII.

The secret is out...

For awhile now I've been purposely vague about a freelance job I've been working on, but out of the blue I received an e-mail from Rob Allstetter who runs the Comics Continuum web-site.. He was asking specific questions concerning this freelance project and I suddenly had to review all my past posts, etc to see if I had mentioned the specifics without realizing it. As it turns out I hadn't. I had kept my mouth shut (an unusual feat if you ask anyone who knows me). Apparently he had done some sleuthing on his own and discovered the childrens books I had been working on listed on Amazon. This shocked me as I hadn't even thought about them being listed - especially since they hadn't been completed at that point.
Well now that the cat is out of the bag I might as well admit it - since I can't be the first to announce it. I designed and did the art for three X-Men 3 children's books for HarperCollins (two full color storybooks and one coloring book)and my friend Boyd Kirkland worked on two others. Here is Robb's article about it on his Comics Continuum web-site.

If you're interested in buying them you can go to Amazon.
Beast Chooses SidesMeet the X-MenColoring and Activity Book
I had a friend Topper Helmers do the Background designs for me and my son Eric did all the color. I saw the books in PDF format and they definitely turned out pretty damn nice. And it was a lot of fun - not something I can say about every freelance job I work on.



These are the two covers I designed. One was for one of my books and the other was for one of Boyd's books. There are two different types of books (besides the color and activity book) and they wanted the covers to the similiar formats to be the same.


Robb's pretty good, but the one thing he doesn't know is what the new freelance job I'm working on is. That one shouldn't be listed on Amazon for a little while longer.

Postponed...

I bet everyone's assuming I'm either in Japan right now or I've just returned. Nope...I still haven't left for Japan yet. I was originally scheduled to leave early last Saturday morning until someone asked the all-important question: "Don't you need a Visa to go to Japan and China?" Well, it turns out you don't need a Visa for Japan, but you do need one for China. Apparently to get this important document you have to also have an invitation from someone (in this case it'll come from the animation studio I'll be visiting), an itinerary, photos, your passport and most importantly -- time to apply. We found a web-site that promised a quick turnaround, but unfortunately that would now put my arrival in Japan just in time for Chinese New Year - or so close to it that I would have very limited time to visit both the Japanese and the Chinese studios.
So instead of my rushing around like a headless chicken everyone agreed it was better to postpone the trip until after the holiday in the first week of February. This will probably work out better in the long run anyway because now I'd have had a chance to look at all the take 2s on The Condor before going over there.
I know this wasn't very exciting for anyone except maybe me and my family, but I thought I owed some sort of follow-up to anyone reading.

In the meantime here's a couple of drawings that some of you might find interesting...

Turning Japanese...

Well, I'm off to Japan and China next week to meet with the overseas studios on the Stan Lee Presents.. productions. I'm going there to check how things are going and to see if I can catch any possible problems befre they get too far along. In theory. Either way it'll be an interesting trip sine I've never been to either place before. And I love Sushi!!
In the meantime I thought I'd post a couple of images I did of the Crimson Avenger. He's been described by several sources as DC's first masked super hero. It sounds like he was intitally DC's version of the Green Hornet. I guess he even had an Asian sidekick.


Later they created a more 'superhero' version of him in spandex. I kinda like the older caped version myself.

Black Cat

I haven't had much time recently just to draw for fun, but now that the post production on The Condor has temporarily slowed down a bit and the books I'm working on are being painted by my son I thought this was as good as time as any to do some drawing. I don't know much about this charcater, but the drawings done by Terry Dodson have always intrigued me. So I thought I'd try one of my own.



I'll have to try a few more...

Just a little edit...

While wandering the web a bit I noticed that there were some who were trying to read between the lines of my previous post....so I did a tiny edit of my last post to, hopefully, eliminate anyone from drawing erroneous conclusions from what was meant to be a positive reaction to the Ultimates screening I attended. I have to learn to be more careful.

The Ultimate viewing...

Well, once again I've been negligent in posting (maybe I should stop apologizing for that and just except it as a fact of life), but I've been busy in editing with the Stan Lee Presents...The Condor DTV. It's actually quite fun to be able to sit with an editor in front of an AVID. There are scenes that I've slowed down parts, sped up other parts and added pauses or removed pauses - I almost feel like I'm actually animating again.
And when I'm not at work I'm at home working on those children's books. These have turned into a nice little side project and I've enlisted a good friend to do backgrounds for them and my son to paint them. I'm very pleased with how they're coming out and it sounds like I'll be doing some more in the future. These are movie adaptations and I'll let you guess what unreleased films I'm working on the children's books for. I hope more than just kids are interested in buying them...

The big news, since I last posted, is that I went to the Ultimate Avengers screening Saturday night. Without giving too much away I can definitely say that the fans will be very saitisfied. It definitely achieves a much higher quality level of animation and storytelling than either X-Men:TAS or Spider-Man:TAS and equal or better in many ways to X-M:E too (and you know how high a regard I hold that show). One of the things I most feared was whether or not the overseas studio would be able to handle my character designs - I breathed a huge sigh of relief. While I might quibble about certain specifics I think overall they captured the feel of what I designed.

Re-takes, line-art, an invite and a trip

Whoa...it's been a really busy couple of weeks. I've been calling re-takes on the The Condor DTV and I'm just about done. I only have six more sequences to go and then I can continue working on the titles and start spotting the music with the composer. Since the overseas studio is starting on re-takes and they're in the middle of animating the second show it seemed like a good time for me to visit their studio in japan. that should happen in a week or so. It should be interesting - I've never been to Japan before.
I'm also finishing work on all the line-art for the children's books I'm doing for HarperCollins. I'll give you more info on these as time goes on, but I'm pretty sure anyone checking this blog will like these.
Yesterday I received an invitation to a screening for the Ultimate Avengers DTV that I co-directed (with Curt Geda) and designed all the characters for. I'm looking forward to seeing how this finally came out. Here's a truncated version of the invitation - I removed all the pertinent info to avoid too many fans from showing up...this basic image has been posted on the net before so I don't think I'm violating any secrets.

This drawing is kind of cool, actually. It's a drawing by Bryan Hitch of characters I designed based on characters he designed. Of course, Cap, Wasp, Giant Man Hulk and Fury are all virtually identical to his designs - though I'm sure he could tell you the differences. Widow and Iron man (and Thor for one obvious reason)are my original designs - sort of based on his, but more base on his thinking more than how he actually drew them in his books.

Whoops...

I just realized (mostly by going to the Toon Zone Forum) that some might have misinterpreted my post from Tuesday Nov 8th and thought I was talking about the Ultimate Avengers' DTV. I wasn't. I was anxiously awaiting footage to come back from Mook for the DTV that I directed for IDT/FilmRoman - Stan Lee presents The Condor.

Let me clear up a couple of things:
1) I was co-director (with Curt Geda) on the first Marvel/Lionsgate feature DTV The Ultimate Avengers and I was the designer for that DTV as well as its sequel. I have not seen any footage from this film.
2) I am currently working at IDT/FilmRoman on a series of feature DTVs called Stan Lee presents. This was the footage that I was anxiously awaiting to see.
And I don't mean to imply anything about the quality of animation in the Ultimate Avengers DTV. I haven't seen it so I don't know anything about it and can't comment on it.

I really have to learn to be more specific while being purposely vague...did that make any sense? Sorry for any misunderstandings.

In the meantime here's a drawing I did of Liz - from Hellboy.

It was a quickie, but I kinda like it...

The Animation Archive

I thought I'd point out another blog. I think most of you should find it interesting. It's the Animation Archive Blog and it shows some of the progress that is being made putting together an actual archive of a lot of animation from the past. It seems to be a worthwhile project and could use support.

Buried alive...

Seems like everytime I promise myself (and those few of you who keep checking in) that I'll be a more consistant blogger I get buried in work and find it's hard to find anytime to come up with anything interesting to say. Or to dig up something new and interesting image to show.
Almost all the footage came in for the direct-to-video I'm directing and I've just started calling re-takes. It seems pretty daunting, but it feels good to be finally looking at what I've been working on in another form other than the still pictures and storyboards.
And if that wasn't enough work to keep me busy I've been helping to illustrate some children's books for HarperCollins. Those are a lot of fun and hopefully I'll be able to share some images from them in the future. I suspect theyll be something that most of you will enjoy.

Well, time to get back to work....

Today's the day....

...that we should finally get the animation back from overseas. I'm not too worried...(ptoo...ptoo...ptoo - warding off the evil eye) , after all I've seen a few test scenes already and they were very well done and I've worked with this company before. We're using Mook - the same company that did half the animation for X-Men: Evolution - so I know what to basically expect. I hope...

I also wanted to point anyone interested to a pretty good blog, Character Design. It was put together by a student in the animation program at BYU and I think he's doing an excellent job of putting together a bunch of interviews of many artists that I've never heard much from. I'm not justimpressed with this blog because I'm included, but it doesn't hurt that he's got such good taste. Go check it out...I think you'll be glad you did.