Creepy, creepy...

Every so often I get the itch to try and sculpt a figure. So much so that, a few years ago, I bought a few blocks of Super Sculpey clay and a few sculpting tools. Well, that itch went away and all the supplies have been living in a drawer for the last few years.

Until last weekend.

For some reason I started looking at maquette sculptures of animated characters. I found a few cheap ones on Amazon.com that looked really good and I may still pick them up. But, that's what started it. I started wondering what my own characters might look like in a 3D sculpted form. So, I looked around online and found a bunch of great sculptors who had some informative tutorials.

Out came the blocks of clay and the tools.

Monika has some experience with stuff like this so she gave me tips on how to build the armature skeleton underneath. Then I filled the whole wire skeleton out with tin foil and covered it in a layer of clay. After baking that layer to harden it up I started working on the face.

It's been both a lot of fun and a lot of frustration. But, at times, I can look at my first attempt at sculpting and think, "that doesn't look too bad."

Of course, there are those other times when it just doesn't feel like it's working out right and I want to throw it against the wall.

But, for now, I'll keep working on it and see how it turns out. It's not any one character right now. Just me trying to do a basic person and see how the clay and tools work.

But, looking at his face in close up in these photos all I can think of is one thing.

Creepy, creepy!

Back To Work

After a little more than a month off to myself, working away on the OilCan Drive project, I finally got an email from Stone Arch books saying the vacation was over!

It was great to get a new manuscript to work on but the line in the email that really got my attention was, "how is the book we sent you a month ago going? When are we going to see some of that?"

Umm...uh-oh...I didn't get a manuscript a month ago so I haven't worked on anything! Ack!

So, this week starts not one new book, but two.

I did thumbnails this weekend so we'll see how those go over in the next few days and then it's off to the drawing board to work on two books at once. It shouldn't be too bad as the four books in this contract all inter-relate and feature the same characters.

But, the updates to the blog might not be as daily as I was hoping to make them. But, don't worry, there is always From the Vault Fridays and I'll try and snap some photos of the art table as I work away over the next three to four weeks.

I've learned my lesson not to let the blog go for too long without an update. I feel like a neglectful parent when that happens.

Have a great week!

From The Vault - OilCan Drive Stand-Ups 2004

Well, Jeff mentioned on Wednesday how he wanted an OilCan Drive Stand-Up of his own. So I thought, "what better thing to feature on From The Vault Friday?"

I did these pieces in 2004, not so much to make stand-ups, but to have some character shots of each of the main characters from the OilCan Drive comic book. It also gave me a chance to size them up in relation to each other so I could get a better visual idea of how they would look if they stood together on stage.

The stand-up idea came later because, honestly, it's the closest I could come at the time to make anything that even resembled an OilCan Drive action figure. Yes, I know they are a poor excuse for a real life plastic figure. The playability alone is very low and they don't come with any accessories. But, apparently I've liked them enough that over the last five years they've always been in my art studio looking over my shoulder.

And, they're also in good company. Right next to my characters is a little figure of Kurt Cobain, looking upon my up-and-coming rock band with envy. Well, maybe not envy. Maybe he's scowling. Maybe he doesn't like my band. Ah well, screw him. I'm sure he's not alone.

Here is the original art for each of the stand-ups including one I never built. Two actual villains from the OilCan Drive world, the Lobos Brothers. They're twin brothers who, depending on which incarnation of the story they're appearing in, usually turn up as werewolf-like shape-shifting bodyguards. As their shirts say, you really don't want to mess with them.

Click on any of the pieces to view a larger image.

Ouch!

I totally hit the wall last night while inking the latest page for the OilCan Drive comic.

There were only a few little things to do to call it a finish for the night but I just couldn't seem to do it. So, I sat down and watched a movie instead. And then I took a bike ride.

I'll probably finish up last nights page today but, for the better part of the day, I'm planning on staying away from the drawing board. I'll take a drive, do some errands, and maybe scan in some of those finished pages that have been piling up behind me. Just something different.

The funny thing I realized about the pages I have left is that they are mostly pages featuring Vincent and Nicole. I guess I like inking Ryan and Henry a bit more than those two. Not that I don't like Vincent or Nicole. I think Ryan and Henry are just more fun to play with. Ryan is generally the guy who seems to get the group into more trouble and Henry, bless his heart, is usually right there next to him. For a second, I thought, well if I don't enjoy drawing Nicole or Vincent, why are they even in the book? But, it was just for a split second. Everyone in the book has a role they play and if not for Vincent and Nicole, I think Ryan and Henry would have gotten themselves killed long ago. So, Vincent and Nicole pages are just as important as the Ryan and Henry ones. Just not as much fun :)

I was trying to get all of these pages done by the end of the holiday weekend because I had a feeling some client work would be showing up soon. And boy, was I right. Not only did one new manuscript show up today but two! So, those will keep me busy for the next four weeks. Hopefully sometime in there I can figure out how to wrap up the OilCan Drive comic.

But, for now, I plan on having a relaxing day.

Ink, Ink, Ink...

I can't remember the last morning I didn't wake up and think, "by the time I go to bed tonight I want to have another page of the OilCan Drive book inked."

The bad news is that the days are turning into blurs and I'm having a hard time keeping track of which day is which.

The good news is that the pages are slowly piling up on the shelf behind me so, as of this writing, I have only six pages to go to complete the interior of the book.

I figured it might be a bit boring to show another photo of my desk as I'm working on a new page so I spun around and took a shot of the shelf behind me. Here's where pages go into a few different piles when they leave the desk. One pile is completely done and ready to be scanned. The other, to the left, still needs to be erased, blacks filled in, and some white out touch ups applied. There are a few other piles not seen of pages that haven't yet been touched by ink as well as a pile of completely finished pages that are done and scanned into the computer.

So, the assembly line continues.

For now, I'm off to bed. Because tomorrow I have to get up and ink another page. Have a great day!

The Warlord of Mars

The first time I heard of the John Carter of Mars series of books by Edgar Rice Burroughs was my first year of art school. One of our teachers, Mark Pennington, gave us an assignment that had us drawing a scene from the first book, "A Princess of Mars".

I really had no idea what to make of some of the descriptions I read from the manuscript he handed out. The men and women of Mars wore no clothes, save for their armor and weapons. The creatures John Carter lived among and fought, the Tharks, were large green Martians with four arms, bug eyes, and huge tusks.

So, I did my best. I'm not sure how the piece turned out because it's been lost after all these years but I wish I could see it now.

So, it was the memory of how much Mark and a few of my other instructors really loved the John Carter books that made me seek out the stories now and read them for myself. Luckily, I found out that the stories, because they were written so long ago, are now free of copyright and in the public domain. After searching around the web for a good place to find the books I found a website called the Guttennerg Project. It's a project that has taken a lot of the old stories that are now in the public domain and posted them for free use on the web. I downloaded the first three John Carter books and printed them out to read.

I'm almost through with the first book and, I have to say, I'm really loving it. Just the images alone that this book brings to my head is amazing.

It also made me wonder. If these books are in the public domain, could I do twenty or so illustrations for the book, take the original manuscript, and publish my own version of the book? Something like an "Edgar Rice Burrough's Princess of Mars with illustrations by Sean Tiffany"? If any lawyer type person out there has an answer I'd love to hear it. Most people, when posed with the question answer, "sure, sounds like you could do that...it's public domain and all." But, then you mention the book you want to do is something like Tarzan. That's when it's fun to watch them back peddle a bit and step over their own feet.

Not that I plan to do a book of illustrations for the John Carter series but it would be interesting to see if it would be possible. Besides, not only was I first introduced to that fantastic world back during my first year of art school but I was also introduced to the artwork of Frank Frazetta.

And, if you have any idea about how great Frazetta is, then you know my illustrations of John Carter woudn't stand a chance.

I Know...

The inking on the OilCan Drive pages is going well. It's been a grind at times but I've widdled away at it and I only have seven pages left to go. The ink seems to have been flowing really well these last few days so I'm hoping I can keep it up and have the whole interior of the book done in the next week or so.

While riding my bike around town tonight and listening to a band called the Outlets I realized it's been a while since I talked about the music side of OilCan Drive. So, I finally got the guts to put up another very very rough idea for a new song. It took a while because, while I like the idea of this song, I'm actually singing on it as well as playing the guitar. And, like I said, it's rough.

As before, these recordings are really just meant for me to get my ideas down for the music before I forget them. Too many times, even if I write down the chords and the progression, I'll forget how the melody goes or how I'm actually strumming the guitar. So, recording these ideas has been a God send.

The idea for this song came to me really quickly on a day when I had to run out of the house in ten minutes. It started with one simple chord and when the melody came into my head I knew I had to capture that little snippet on tape. And, I had very little time. What happened from there is interesting.

What started as just one chord and a simple melody changed as I played it. You can actually hear me changing chords as my voice struggles to keep up and change the melody. And then, from no where, a chorus appears.

I think it's clear in the playing and my voice that I was definitely channeling something for a few minutes. I listened back to it and a driving drum beat easily came into my head. When I got home later that night I arranged the whole thing in a few minutes. For now, it's working title is "I Know."

So, this is a song I am dying to do a full recording of. But, like most songs, it has very humble beginnings. I hope you can hear something fun in the first attempt I had at remembering how it went. Don't judge me too harshly :)

And, if the embedded player doesn't work, you can find the original MP3 file HERE.