My outstanding co-creator, writer David Hine emailed and suggested that we should throw caution to the wind and give you all a peek at the black and white art for the first issue of our upcoming run on The Darkness. My reply– “Why the hell not.”

We’re doing a new format with these covers. Starting something new. New creative team. New direction. Cool new wraparound covers. I love ‘em.

I’m going to let the cat out of the bag and get all artsy fartsy for a minute here. My goal with these covers is go try and deal with the balance of light and dark. I’m focusing on making the front (right) half something striking and evocative and then really letting go with the back (left) half. Our eye typically is used to reading things right to left. Doing things this way is kind of a challenge. I’m really trying to make sure that the front half can stand on it’s own and at the same time be part of a more elaborate…and ultimately disturbing whole.

Be sure to check out David’s blog for all sorts of insight, previews, and delightfully mad tidbits–

http://www.waitingfortrade.com/2012/01/darkness-cover-art-preview.html

I’m going to be giving you another sneak peek at the black and white cover to #102 on Thursday. Be sure and check back then.

Now I’d better get back to drawing more of the Darkness. It’s messed up stuff. You’re going to like it.

Thanks!

FIRST OFF, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who helped promote and re-tweet The Beauty during this last round of Pilot Season. I really appreciate the support. You all helped put us over the top.

As much as I’d love to have given the page to everyone, it came down to one winner. Every post and re-tweet counted. I had my son, Ethan, randomly selected one name from all of the entries.

And the winner of The Beauty page iiiiiiiiiiiiis–

Donald Stewart III

So, yes, Donald drop me an email and we’ll set up getting this puppy sent to you.

Thanks again for all of the support. Look for a couple of important official announcements in the next couple of days!

Thanks!

So we’re down to the last few days of the final round of voting for Top Cow’s 2011 Pilot Season. It’s come down to our book, The Beauty and Theory of Everything. Competition is pretty fierce and we’re pretty much neck and neck.

As we come to the close of the last round, I’m going to have a promotion contest. I’ll be giving away the page of original artwork above.

Here are the rules-

One random person who reposts my facebook post, or RTs my Tweet about this contest will win a FREE page of original artwork and signed copy of The Beauty.

For Twitter – RT for a chance to win original art from The Beauty: Head over to http://topcow.com and vote for The Beauty to win Pilot Season!

For Facebook – Repost this for a chance to win a piece of original art from The Beauty. Head over to http://topcow.com and vote for The Beauty to win Pilot Season!

Repeat as many times as you want!

Best of luck to everyone. We will contact the winner by Monday the 16th, get shipping information, and all that.

Thanks for your support!

So this weekend, The Beauty made it to the final round of this year’s Top Cow Pilot season. It was a tough round, but thanks to all of your help and support, we pulled ahead and came in first.

We’ve gone from eight great and vastly different books, down to just two. In this round it’s our book, The Beauty and Theory of Everything. We’ve both worked hard on our books and on promoting them. The Theory of Everything is a solid book, with an out there concept, great art by Thomas Nachlik (who I loved from Last Mortal), AND both T.o.E. and The Beauty were colored by the amazing John Rauch.  I’m proud to have Theory of Everything as our opponent in the final round.

NOW, there is one thing that I really need to say…more of a plea, really. Please PLEASE keep voting on the up and up, in this last round. I know that people want to show their support and I know that everyone wants to win. The truth is, I don’t want to win Pilot Season if it comes down to people using bots and underhanded tactics. I will gladly tip my hat and offer a hearty congratulations to Dan Casey, Thomas Nachlik, and the Theory of Everything Crew, if they win. The only way I can feel good about us winning is if it’s done through good old fashioned fair play. I really appreciate this.

So, all of that said, get to voting. You can go HERE to the Top Cow website and vote ONCE per day, per computer. Also, right now, you can read both The Beauty and Theory of Everything in their entirety, there on the site, for absolutely FREE! Not bad, eh? So vote. Tell your friends and family, hell even strangers, to check out the books and then vote every day this week. We all appreciate it.

In the end, my the best book win.

Thanks!

So it’s finally time for round two of voting for Top Cow’s Pilot Season. It’s down from eight entries to four. This is where things get tricky, folks. If you liked THE BEAUTY, please vote for it. You can vote once a day per I.P. address and every single vote counts. We are currently in THIRD place. That’s nowhere near good enough. We have a lot more story to tell and the only way we’re going to be able to do that is if we win this thing.

I’ve posted it before, but here is another look at the first five pages of the book.

We absolutely appreciate all of the support. Please get out there and mention it on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets. And most of all, vote. Anything helps.

Thank you!

I just got my stack of Darkness prints for The Fantasy Shop /Top Cow “ARTIFACTS- END OF THE WORLD EVENT”. I’m really happy with the way they turned out. As I’ve mentioned before, they are 8 x 15 in images, screenprinted on a nice, 140lb acid free watercolor stock. I’m only bringing a limited number, and because this is a special event, I’m going asking $10 each for them.

Also, since it’s a signing within walking distance, I’m bringing a TON of original artwork. I’m going to have a few folders with artwork from my recent Artifacts run, as well as my DC work, such as Detective Comics, Manhunter, Arkham Reborn, and Gotham City Sirens. On top of that I’m bringing along a crate of special $25 pages. This is a variety of pages from just about every book I’ve worked on over the past ten years.

I’ve had several messages asking about sketches durning the signing. I WILL be doing sketches. Due to the number of requests at this sort of thing I’m going to just be doing nice, color,  head and shoulder shots. Since it’s an in store event signing I’m only going to be asking $20 for them. Here’s an example of the sort of thing I do–

So there you have it. I’m heading out bright and early in the morning. It’s going to be an amazing trip.

Here is the information on the signing locations and times, again.

Fantasy Shop Florissant
8232 N Lindbergh Blvd
Florissant, MO 63031
Phone:314-831-5211
Email:fantasyshopflo@gmail.com
www.fantasyshoponline.com

11am-3pm

Fantasy Shop South County
10560 Baptist Church Road
St. Louis, MO 63128
Phone:314-842-8228
Email:fantasyshopsoco@gmail.com
www.fantasyshoponline.com

5pm-9pm

If you get the chance, drop by and say “hi”!  I can’t wait to see everyone.
Thanks!

Recently a friend of mine asked I’d do him a favor and do a sketch of Sam from the television show Supernatural, for an employee. Since he’s a great guy and I’m going to be in his neck of the woods soon, how could I say no? What he didn’t know was that I’m a pretty big fan of the Winchester brothers and couldn’t pass up the chance to do a little more than just a standard quick sketch.

I thought I’d go ahead and give you a peek at the process on the piece from pencils to finished greytones. This was done pretty quickly over the Christmas weekend. It’s fairly straightforward, but was a lot of fun.

Pencils:  The pencils were pretty standard. I penciled a little tighter than I usually try to now-a-days. I was a little nervous about getting the likeness right. That sort of thing is never easy and one of the quickest ways to earn the ire of Supernatural fans is to not get the look of Sam and Dean right. I think I did okay with it.

Ink linework:  After fussing over the pencils, getting everything just right , the inks went really quickly. Everything was done here with either a Hunt 102 Crowquill or Micron pens. As usual, I did all of the organic lines with the crowquill and everything else with the pens.

Ink fills: Once the linework was finished, all of the grey pencil areas were filled with brush and ink.

Greytones: I already showed this one earlier, but I’m O.C.D… After the ink fills were added, I kind of wanted to go in and give the piece just a little more depth. Usually for this sort of thing, I’d use Copic markers or even a bit of watercolor. This time around I opted to use inkwash. This gets a LITTLE tricky. The green bottle Yasutomo Sumi ink I use isn’t completely waterproof. Going in with any kind of water can be risky. I had to go in quickly and try to be concise, out the gate, so that nothing got smudged. The scan is a little light. I should have messed with it some more, but  it’ll do.

All in all, I’m really happy with this piece. I showed it to my buddy and he said that she was going to love it. I’ll get to see her reaction next week. If it’s good enough, I might just have to do a Dean to go with it.

Alright, I’m off to bed. Busy day tomorrow!

Thanks!

NEXT WEDNESDAY, January 4th, I’m going to be signing at The Fantasy Shop in St. Louis, Missouri, as a part of the big Top Cow “ARTIFACTS- END OF THE WORLD EVENT”.

I’ll be there signing copies of Artifacts #12, doing sketches, and hanging out.  As a part of this, I’m going to have a VERY limited edition of Darkness prints available. They’re going to be beautiful, 8 x 15 in images, silkscreened on a really nice watercolor stock. These are pretty high end things, but for this signing, I’m only going to be asking $10 each for them.

I’m going to be appearing at two store locations so, if you’re in the area there are twice the chances of me signing near you!

Fantasy Shop Florissant
8232 N Lindbergh Blvd
Florissant, MO 63031
Phone:314-831-5211
Email:fantasyshopflo@gmail.com
www.fantasyshoponline.com

11am-3pm

Fantasy Shop South County
10560 Baptist Church Road
St. Louis, MO 63128
Phone:314-842-8228
Email:fantasyshopsoco@gmail.com
www.fantasyshoponline.com

5pm-9pm

For those of you that aren’t in the area be sure to check out my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram feeds for pretty constant updates of the event.  We’re going to be posting all day with shots of the sketches I do and the fun along the way.

I’m going to post a shot of the prints, once I get them, in a day or so.

Thanks!

I’m behind on Life Drawing posts. Sorry about that.

We met a few weeks ago for our 31st session. Our model for this studio was Christina. It was her first time modeling and she did a fantastic job.

As usual, we did 10 one minute, 5 two minute, 4 five minute, 2 ten minute, and a final 20 minute drawing.

Here are a few pieces that I liked from this session. I hope you dig em!

1 minute drawings

2 minute drawigs

5 minute drawings

10 minute drawings

20 minute drawing

I’m glad that we’ve gotten back to Life Drawing. It’s nice to just cut loose and draw.

I’ll post another session next week.

Thanks!

A big Happy Holidays to you and yours! May the time with friends and family, good food, drink, and gifts be plentiful.

I decided to do this fun marker piece last night. It was pretty fun. I hope you dig it. …once I figure out exactly how I want to do it, I’m going to have a little contest and give it away.

Okay, I think I’d better turn in so that Santa brings me cool stuff.

Thanks!