Dumpster Diver

On Friday I stopped over a friend's house to pick up a project I was helping him and his wife with. I hadn't seen him in a while so we hung out most of the afternoon getting caught up and he showed me some of the editing and special effects he had been working on for his demo reel he will be sending out to potential clients.

We started talking about all the things he could do on the computer and we watched a few short films people had put up on YouTube and Vimeo. While he could do all sorts of effects he didn't have story in him that he wanted to tell. So we started brainstorming about all the sorts of things he could do and, together, we started working out a basic story that we could film in two days and then he could edit it and make it look really cool.

While talking about the story we started talking about what kinds of props we both have that we could use. While he pulled out a few things he mentioned he had some more stuff in the garage. And there, in the garage, was a bass guitar he said he had pulled out of the dumpster a few months ago. It didn't seem in such bad shape so, after we were done talking about the story for the movie, I took the bass home and spent yesterday afternoon cleaning it up, tightening some loose bolts and screws, and giving it a new set of strings.

And now it plays like a dream. It's not the best bass in the world but, for the cost of a little time, a little love, and twenty bucks for a new set of strings, my friend has an essentially free bass he can learn to play music on.

As for my own music playing and the recording of the OilCan Drive album...between playing the guitar and bass for weeks on end and playing this new bass all day yesterday my hands have really taken a beating. They don't hurt at all and my fingers have really toughened up but, as you can see from this picture, I won't be doing any hand modeling anytime soon.

Have a great day.

From The Vault - Birthday Cartoon 1999

Back in 1999 I was so poor that one of things I would do for friend's birthdays is draw some art for them. I had known Desmonne since 1997 and, in 1999, she and I had become good friends. She turned me back onto a love of hockey that I had forgotten I had and gave me a new team to root for in the Colorado Avalanche.

So, for her 20th birthday, I drew a caricature of her in the captains jersey of the Colorado Avalanche.

I have no idea if she even held on to this or if it hit the trash can as soon as she got home. But, it was the first time I had drawn the Avalanche jersey that I would later use a lot as the main shirt for Ryan Burke in OilCan Drive. So, for that alone, it makes this piece special.

And, while, looking back, I'm not too happy with the way I portrayed a very beautiful twenty year old girl in this cartoon I did get a chance to draw her again years later for her wedding day.

I think I got it right the second time.

Of course, she is missing the cool Avalanche jersey. But, I doubt either she or her new husband would have appreciated that.

Model Mayhem

Not only have I had my work featured on my own website and a few other pay sites for a while, but I've also been on a website called Model Mayhem for the last year or so.

It's a site that caters to mostly models and photographers but there is also space there for make-up artists, fashion designers, and painters/illustrators. So, since I enjoy drawing a model every now and then, I signed up and put some of my pin-up work there.

I never really got much work from the site but people seemed to like my work and it's never a bad thing to have a place to look for people if you happen to need a model. But nothing seemed to lead to anything concrete.

That is until I got a message from one of the models yesterday. She liked my work and was wondering if I could do something of her. I found a little free time in the schedule and told her I'd do a quick portrait of her to see if she likes how I draw her before we go along and do any more stuff.

So, I spent last night and a bit of this morning doing this quick inked portrait of her. Now we'll just have to see what she thinks.

Who knows, this might lead to something fun. Keep your fingers crossed.

Have a great day.

Web Comic

I've been having the itch to do another OilCan Drive comic book again lately and I've been thinking that it might be better to do this one as a web comic rather than a printed book.

As much as I love doing books and seeing them printed, honestly, if I look back over every book I've done, I don't think I've ever made my money back on printing any of them. So, if I'm not going to make any money doing it and I'm still going to do it the easiest answer I could come up with is to simply do one and put it up on the OilCan Drive web page once it gets done.

The only stumbling block I am having is how to format it. The last few OilCan Drive books I had gone completely off the books and done square, 8"x8" books to mimic the old 7" album sleeves. But, while working on the Exit 6 collected book I found a renewed love for the old 10"x15" tall format. But, would a tall image, scaled from 10"x15" work on a computer screen? I took an idea from a friend and chopped the page in half, making each image a horizontal 10"x7.5". It works and looks like an old Sunday comic strip and I could put the images together to make a 10"x15" scaled image if I did print it as a comic book.

But, would making two Sunday strip style comics per page hurt the storytelling? I don't know and it's something I've been wrestling with for a while now. I figured if I did a quick sketch of the page size it might help but it only leads to more questions.

I do like this page, though. I especially like the fourth panel's dialogue where one small character is saying to another, "no need for stupid!" Can I write or what?

So, what do you think of the format? What do you think would work best and be the easiest to read? I really need some help here before I start down the wrong path.

Of course, when I asked one friend she probably gave me the best advice I've gotten so far...

"Just start drawing it and it'll look fine. You'll figure out the rest later..."

Ha ha ha....so, I may just do that. We shall see.

Have a great day.

Love!

I feel like I've been waiting for this movie to come out FOREVER! And, while that statement usually means I saw a trailer six months ago and now I have to wait, that isn't the case for this movie. No, for this movie I have been waiting for it since 2005!

But, it's almost here. I've found out there will be a one night screening in 500 theaters sometime around August 10th. And, if I miss that then the DVD and double album will be hitting stores on November 11th, 2011. So I don't have to wait that much longer.



One of the things I love about this movie is that the director, Will Eubank, not only directed the movie but pretty much built all the sets himself. There is an interview with Will HERE where he talks about the movie and how he built both the space station interior set and the Civil War props in his parents backyard. And, if you'd like to see a bunch of videos of how he built everything you can head over to his Vimeo channel HERE.

I really love the Do It Yourself attitude this guy has. And, from the looks of the trailer, he makes a $500,000 movie look like it cost fifty million bucks.

So, yeah, I'm counting the days until August 10th.

Have a great day.

Happy July!

Woo, July! How did it get here so fast?

I've spent the day in a hot studio playing the Ryan Burke parts on guitar for the OilCan Drive EP album. I got all but one song tracked today and, honestly, my hand is killing me. I was going to attempt to do the last song but I think, for today, I did enough.

Anyway, I am off to go and meet some friends and enjoy a fourth of July barbeque. Enjoy the Nicole piece in the new July blog header.

Have a great weekend and be safe!

From The Vault - Spider-Man Inks 2000

Here's another piece of inking I did over David Tata for Marvel Comics back in the year 2000.

The editors up at Marvel must have thought I was competent enough after inking over David's pencils for a few X-Men cards that I showed off HERE and HERE. And, I knew from talking to David that he was really happy with the way I inked over his stuff so I got to do a few more pieces of Spider-Man. I'm not sure which version of Spider-Man this was but, hey, I'm not picky, it's all Spider-Man to me, no matter what costume he is wearing this week.

I did the inking work for Marvel after most of the painting work I was doing for them dried up once the computer coloring took over and an airbrush artist was no longer needed. Plus, there had been a lot of shake ups at Marvel and a lot of the editors I used to work with were no longer there. Actually, after knowing about a dozen different editors up there during my painting days when 2000 came around I only knew one. But, at least he was one of the higher up editors and when I called him asking if he had any work available he took a chance on me and let me do some inking.

Unfortunately, a few months later he was let go too and every connection I ever had to Marvel Comics was gone. Who knows what might have happened if he had stuck around and kept sending me work. I may have been a Marvel inker for a lot longer than a few months in the year 2000.

Ah well, it's still fun stuff to look at and I wouldn't wish my life or career any differently.

And, I get to say I worked for Marvel Comics once and got to work on Spider-Man.

I think the nine year old kid inside of me is definitely satisfied.

Have a great weekend.