Fort Collins Comic Con

Last Friday Monika and I headed up to Fort Collins to attend their first ever Comic Con. It was only a one day event on Saturday but we were asked if we could set up our booth the night before so we headed up north and spent the night with one of Monika's friends.

We were both pretty tired as we drove up to Fort Collins but we found the event center okay and headed in to set up. The whole event was held in a big gymnasium with one of those indoor tracks running around the top of it. I had a bit of a high school gym class flash back but I managed to keep it to myself. The table we were assigned was right next to a runway and PA loudspeaker set-up. I didn't think anything of it at the time but I wish I had. I might have asked to move right then and there.

We did a pretty quick set up of the table and backdrop and called it a night. We had a late dinner and headed over to Monika's friend Anne's house to spend the night.

I always have a hard time sleeping anywhere new so I don't think I fell asleep until around 3am or so. I guess that is normal for me but I was hoping with how tired I was it might have been easier to sleep. The alarm came all too soon at 6:30am and we were up and ready to go.

Because the convention was only a one day event the coordinator's scheduled it from 8am until 8pm. That is one looooong day to be sitting behind a table trying to hock your wears. And, it didn't help that I hadn't slept well the previous two nights.

Things started slow and I didn't even have my first sale until 11am. There were a lot of people in costumes walking around and, because we were right next to the stage, I had a good view of all the costume contests. In fact, once people got off the stage they all gathered right in front of my booth. That was alright but what quickly drove me nuts was how loud they had this PA cranked up to talk to the crowd through out the day. And we were right next to the speaker! It felt like some sort of torture every time this one certain guy with a booming voice jumped on the microphone. We asked if they could turn it down or if he could not yell into the mic but that didn't help. By the end of the day both Monika and I were a bit shell shocked and twitched every time anyone got on the PA.

Other than that things went well. We met some new people and got to catch up with some old friends and I even sold a few books here and there. It was a long long day and I'm not sure if I am in a rush to do it again. The business side of me thinks it might have been too much work to earn how much money we brought in. But the people we met and talked to made it fun so I guess I should turn off my business head sometimes.

I also got to do a bunch of sketches for people and here are a few photos I took of them before I gave them to their new owners.

Oh, and my favorite costume out of all the people I saw there? It had to be the Latino man who reminded me of Guillermo from The Jimmy Kimmel show wearing an orange and blue Denver Broncos Iron Man suit. Seeing that guy made my day and definitely made the trip worth while.

We got back home safely Saturday night and had some ice cream before passing out while watching the beginning of Kill Bill Part One. Tonight I get to see how the first part ends!

Enjoy the art!

Faith in the Future

Phew, it's been another long day and I once again find myself writing this just a bit before 3am. One of these days this schedule is going to catch up with me.

I finished up the newest OilCan Drive page this afternoon and posted it tonight. You can check it out HERE.

I also did a few thumbnail ideas for a client that I hope to hear back from soon so I can get rolling on their next project. It's fun to bat around new ideas but also a little scary. I always hope I am giving a client what they want and the thumbnail stage is at least a good way to make sure we're both on the same page.

I also received a nice surprise from my friend Adam in Nashville. He sent me over the raw files for his newest song so I could open them up in ProTools and play with them. So, as a way to take a break from the drawing board tonight, I sat for a few hours and started mixing his song. I finally had to tear myself away from the fun and get back to work but I am hoping I can get back to it soon. Add this music mix to working on Lou's video and I doubt I'll have time to get bored anytime soon.

I'll also be up in Fort Collins this weekend for their first comic convention so I'm not sure if I'll be able to write tomorrow night. We'll see. I'll be spreading the good word of OilCan Drive and I'll have the usual books, music, trading cards, and stickers to sell and hand out. I'll also be bringing some original sketches that I'll be selling as well as doing commissions at the show. If you're near Fort Collins, come on by and say hello. It would be great to meet you. You can find more info about the convention HERE.

And finally, Craig Finn, a musician and writer who I've come to really admire, put out his second solo album today. About a month ago Craig asked for quick video submissions to go along with a song from the album, "Faith in the Future." I had already pre-ordered the new album and loved the EP of five songs I received for ordering so early. So, of course, I had to submit something.

I sat at lunch one afternoon and, as I drew a little cartoon of Craig with a word balloon singing the title of the track, "Maggie, I'm Still Searching For Our Son," I took photos of my progress. I sent both the photos and the time lapse video to Craig.

And now the video has been officially released and the first place you can see it is over at Rolling Stone. Among a bunch of other great fan submitted content, there are a few pieces of my art. It's really cool and I totally love the song!

Here are a few of the photos I sent in to Craig. Enjoy the video and enjoy the song. It reminds me of a bit of Bruce Springsteen mixed with a little punk rock and something else I can't quite put my finger on but I really like. If you'd like more info about getting Craig's album you can check it out HERE.

Now, it's time for me to get some rest! Too much rocking and rolling for one day!

Ink Day!

Since Friday is coming fast I spent most of the day wrapping up the inks on the newest OilCan Drive page.

I got enough of it done tonight that tomorrow will simply be a matter of graying in the page, writing the script, lettering, and putting it up online. I don't see anything going wrong so there shouldn't be any problems keeping my OilCan Drive Friday schedule going this week.

It has been both scary and fun putting myself behind the right ball again by having to get a page done a week. Sometimes I think a page a week isn't all that much to ask of myself. I was taught and trained that a "real" comic book artist can get a page done a day. But, I figure that "page a day" thing usually refers to a penciler who is simply penciling a page a day. I have to remind myself that I am writing, penciling, inking, scanning, cleaning up, graying, and lettering a page each week. Plus, add that to my usual client schedule and trying to find time to do all the other creative ideas I have in my head and I should probably give myself a break.

A page a week may not seem like much but it's gotten me half way into a third book and that's not nothing. I know plenty of people who still talk about doing a comic book someday and have yet to draw panel one of page one. So, go me!

Oh, and I also learned a bit more about editing Lou's video today and did a few tests. It's all coming together. Maybe slowly...but it's all coming together!

I wound down tonight watching "Machete Kills" on Netflix. It was fun watching a movie like that after thinking about film and video stuff all day. And I am slowly figuring out how I can do a lot of that stuff here in the studio. It's an exciting time, boys and girls, a very exciting time!

Almost There!

Woo...it's been a long day but I finally made some head way with Lou's video. I think I figured out how to get around all the weird frame jumps and glitches that the first video had but I'll have to wait until tomorrow to cut the new footage together to see if it works.

The good news is that, by doing that first broken video, it gave me a good template to cut the new one to so I can make quicker decisions and, hopefully, get the new video done sooner than later. Right now I am just trying to look on the positive side of things.

I was hoping to show off the video tonight but it looks like it will have to wait a few more days. I hope it's worth the wait. If nothing else, this has been a really good learning experience. For now, I am exhausted and off to bed!

The Steady-Cam Rig

 I tried again today to figure out why the render I did of Lou's video yesterday had all kinds of weird flashing and skipping frames in it. I thought I had it figured out but I guess not. I started to cut the video together again today but Adobe Premiere kept freaking out and shutting down so I finally gave up and started inking the next page of the OilCan Drive story. This video has almost driven me nuts but I am not giving up yet.

And, at least the comic book page is coming along nicely so it's good to know I can still do that without the brush and ink bottle crashing on me.

Here are a few photos of the cheap steady-cam rig I built last week and that I used to film Lou singing his song. It really worked out well and allowed me not only to move the camera around him as he sang a few takes but I also followed him over the shoulder as he walked into my building downstairs, took the elevator up, and walked down the hall to my condo. It really worked well. The only time it really didn't work was when I hit the counter weight on the bottom of the rig with my leg as I was walking.

But, other than that it was easy to use and the raw footage I got with it looked pretty decent.

I finished off the night by going on a bike ride around Boulder. Lately I've been going on these big 14 mile bike rides at night to clear my head a bit and listen to a podcast or two. I end my ride with a long stretch along 4th street, a path that takes me right next to the base of the mountains. And on my ride back down the hill tonight I looked to my right and saw what I think was a little bear running right alongside me. I think it was a cub since it didn't look too big. All I saw was a black shape that was too big to be a racoon hauling ass down the road. I kept peddling since, if it was a cub, I didn't want to be around when the mama bear came running out to see who was chasing her kid. Yikes!

But, I got away safe and sound and am now back home. Time for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a little TV to finish out the night!

Video Shoot

My friend Lou came over today and we did a quick video shoot of one of the recent songs he and I recorded to test some of the cinematic ideas I've had over the past week.

We used one of his songs called "Undiscovered" that we recorded last June. He started with a simple piano riff and, while I recorded and engineered, he came up with this song. He hadn't shot a video for it yet so I thought it was a perfect candidate to do some tests on.

Using my old GoPro Hero2 mounted to the cheap steady cam I built last week I shot Lou singing the song in the front of my living room. We taped at a few different frame speeds so I could test out some slow and fast motion effects to see what both the GoPro and Adobe Premiere could do. I've only used Premiere once and that was a while ago so it took me a bit to reacquaint myself with the system.

I had some trouble syncing up the different video speeds to the original audio because Premiere had trouble processing the video so, when I tried to make sure the lips were singing the right part of the song, the video simply jumped and skipped around so I had no idea how close I was. I got the best I could and then rendered the video.

I thought the video output would be the same parameters as the project parameters but apparently you have to tell the program how you plan to output it. So, after and hour spent on that first rendering, I had to start the whole process over again. Ugh. It took a few tries but I finally got something rendered that wasn't half bad.

It's been a long day but I'll upload the video tomorrow so you can check it out. It's by no means perfect but it was an interesting test. And, I think I may have even learned a few things.

Have a great one and I'll see you all soon!

Happy September!

The last part of this summer has been an interesting ride. Somewhere in the middle of July I felt like I lost any sort of creative mojo I had. No matter what I did nothing seemed to be flowing. Oh, I did work and tried things. The technical aspect of what I do was still there and I was able to work but nothing felt quite right at all.

Then, all of a sudden, once the weather cooled off a bit, my creativity returned with a vengeance. My head started spinning at a million miles an hour and I felt like I wanted to do EVERYTHING! I could barely contain it and I've been doing my best to focus it in some sort of useful direction.

Illustration is still my first priority but my head has been filled with so much more. I am writing more music, from the rock songs with OilCan Drive to actually trying to figure out how to compose for a symphony. I've been working with my friend Lou on his songs as well and honing my skills as a producer and recording engineer. I've started looking into film again and I built a steady-cam rig this week and have plans to do some test filming tomorrow. I've been doing my client work but also trying to keep the page-a-week schedule I set up for myself with OilCan Drive as well as do some more fun illustration for a few t-shirt companies here and there.

It's been crazy and I am just trying to enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts.

For now, here is a piece I did for a t-shirt company of the ghost with the most, Beetlejuice. If you're interested in a t-shirt or print of the afterlife exterminator you can check out my t-shirt shop HERE.

And, because both losing your mojo for a while and then having it almost drive you crazy both seem to keep me away from the blog, here are a bunch of process shots as I was working on this piece. I hope you enjoy and I'll see you all soon! There are so many places to go from here!