EMF Soldier Finished

And here is the painted and finished piece of the EMF soldier I've been working on for the last week. He'll be showing up again on September's blog header in just a few days.

For now, enjoy the piece and have a great weekend!

EMF Soldier Inked

The inks for the EMF soldier are done and now he just needs to be scanned into the computer, cleaned up, and colored.

It looks like, for once, I'm a bit ahead of schedule!

Enjoy and have a great day!

EMF Soldier Pencil Sketch

It's getting closer to the end of the month and I knew designing a new header for the blog was just around the corner. Instead of rushing at the last minute to put something together and throw some random piece of art up there I decided to do a new piece instead.

This month I decided to tackle one of the military figures from the OilCan Drive story, an EMF soldier (EMF standing for Environmental Military Forces.)

I really like drawing these guys. They have cool heads that can feature either a simple black face or a night vision goggles look. They are bulky and filled with pouches and gear and whatever other cool things I want to draw on them. They are a great contrast to drawing a band full of on the run kids.

So, I'll ink this guy up soon, color away, and should have enough time to get him done and into the header before the end of the month.

Have a great day.

OilCan Drive #2 Cover - Finished!

And here is the final cover for the second issue of OilCan Drive #2!

This cover should drop on the OilCan Drive web comic site sometime in late November or early December.

For now, enjoy the preview of things to come. Now it's time for me to get going on the actual story and interior of the book. There is lots of work ahead!

Have a great weekend!

OilCan Drive #2 Cover - Let the Color Begin!

 The black and white inks for the OilCan Drive #2 cover have been scanned into the computer and the coloring process has begun.

The first step was cleaning everything up and then cutting apart certain elements in the computer so it would make the piece easier as a whole to color. I cut Lily out of the background and gave her her own layer so I could work with her separate from the melee of figures behind her.

I then did basic cut-out flat coloring on all the characters in the background and Lily herself. Now it's a simple matter (which will take longer than I want to think) of shading everyone and going from there.

When the piece is done I have the idea of Lily being in full color while the rest of the cover will fall into a monotone sepia, helping to pop Lily out and put her front and center. You can see the basic idea I have in my head here. We'll see if it works or not when all is said and done.

But, for now, it's time to start shading and see where this piece goes.

Have a good one and, hopefully, the finished results will be up tomorrow!

OilCan Drive #2 Cover - Inking the Right Side and Finishing Up

The right side of the new OilCan Drive cover has finally gotten the ink treatment and the cover is coming together nicely. I had to pull out the previous book to make sure some of the characters looked the same since I have only drawn most of them only once before.

I took a few shots of the inked right side and then took a few more shots of the cover, fully blacked in and complete with white-out touch ups. All that's left now is to scan this cover into the computer, prep it, and let the color flow!

Enjoy the black and white version of the second issue OilCan Drive cover while you can because color is coming next!

Have a great day!

OilCan Drive #2 Cover - The Left Side

 Looking at how many characters there are on the new OilCan Drive cover I planned to try and ink two or three characters a day. But, once I started on the left side, I just couldn't stop.

I guess that's a good thing.

It's fun watching this piece come to life. It reminds me of a lot of the old Evan Dorkin pieces which I loved where he would really cram the page with as many figures as he could. His thinking was, "hey, if I can't draw well, I'll just draw a LOT!" I always love the way Evan tried to give the audience their moneys worth when he produced his art. It takes a little more time but I can definitely see the appeal in drawing as much stuff on a page as you can. It's really fun and looks great.

Here is another photo of the progress so far a little closer up.

It's not there yet, but it's getting there. More coming tomorrow!

Have a great day!

OilCan Drive #2 Cover - The Inking Begins

The inking on the cover of the second issue of OilCan Drive has begun!

I didn't get too much done but I knew I had to get at least the basic inking on the main figure of Lily started. There are a few mistakes and smears here and there but I'll fix those once the piece is completely inked and I can go over it with white out.

The easy part is inked, now it's on to all those fighting figures in the background!

Have a great one!

OilCan Drive #2 Cover Pencils

Between client work and (still) trying to get the OilCan Drive Kickstarter video finished I started working on the cover for the second issue of the OilCan Drive book this past week. I kept going back and forth as to whether I should show off this piece since, by seeing it, it's jumping ahead in the story a few months.

But, then I figured if you're into OilCan Drive enough that you're checking out the blog to see some of the behind-the-scenes fun then who am I NOT to show off something like this? Besides, with comics they always solicit three months in advance and always show the cover for the newer issues. So, why should OilCan Drive be any different?

But, instead of just showing off the finished cover I thought it would be cool if, over the next few days, I showed the process behind the cover. It will all culminate in the finished image which will start the next chapter of OilCan Drive in late November.

Today, here is the pencil sketch for OilCan Drive #2 right from my art table. I hope you enjoy the idea so far.

And, if you haven't been keeping up with the OilCan Drive story you can check out the webcomic HERE.

Have a great weekend. It's been a busy month but I'm really glad to be back!

Happy August

Summer is more than half way over and I still don't feel like it's hardly begun! Things have been busy here with client work, video work, and all things OilCan Drive. Hopefully I can figure out what I can and can't show you sometime soon.

For now, I figured the bikini illustration of Lily would fit perfectly for a hot summer month. I hope you enjoy and have a happy August!