I'm finished with school and life is finally getting back to normal. I'm getting ready to go to comic book conventions again, so it is about time I get some comic art done. The above is a digital painting I did the other day. This took me about two hours all together. I remember it taking less time when I was doing this stuff regularly.

Now that I'm finished with school I thought of posting on a regular basis. First thing I want to do is just draw stuff I'm interested in—nothing for work. I have a book cover I need to do that has been bought and paid for, so I really should get to that, but I just want to take a little break from the work stuff and draw for fun.

I thought of reflecting on the last 2.5 years and what it means to me, but I really need to reflect on the last 16 years to really understand what the last 2.5 years has meant. First off, I went back to school because I went to school for an art degree back in 97, but got distracted by a number of things going on in my life. I started off taking various music classes and art classes, but I ended up getting married and moving to Colorado Springs to pursue a career in law enforcement in 99. I did this because I thought having a stable career was better than being a full time artist. After I finished the academy and got POST certified I realized being a police officer is not my forte. I ended up taking a job as a machinist and worked in that field for about 3 years, before I was laid off (didn't turn out to be very stable after all). Then I decided to work in IT. I worked for Gateway for six months before getting laid off again. This time I took a job with T-Mobile and stuck with it for over 2 years before I had to leave due to a tragic life event—divorce. In itself it is not a big deal, but my daughters were 2 and 4 at the time and it was just us for about five years before I got married again. After the divorce life was kind of a blur. For five years I just wondered with little direction, worked for Verizon Wireless, Microsoft helpdesk and finally got a great job working for Progressive. I did end up finishing an associate’s degree during this period of time, though.

After I met my current wife life started over for me. I'm the father of four daughters, one of which is starting high school next year. Life is moving right along. So, 2.5 years ago I thought life was at a good point to go back to school to finish what I started way back in 97. I thought "I have a stable job, my wife and I are doing fine, and my daughters should have a father who at least has a Bachelor's degree". Now I'm finished with a BA in Visual Art from UCCS and it is time for me to get back to doing what I love, making comic book art.

I am a different artist now. I’m a cross between a contemporary artist and comic artist, which makes it difficult to explain what I do exactly. I draw comic books, but my art goes in galleries and I say things like, “I’m exploring the way sequential panels juxtaposed with each other can create movement and meaning for a narrative.” I imagine it is difficult to understand what that means to someone who reads comic books for the entertainment factor, but for the academic side of art it means my work has a little more meaning than entertainment, but in contrast it is not just about how the content works with form or theme.

Ultimately, my audience is both the fine art world (mostly academic audiences) and the comic book reader. I consider myself one of the general comic book readers myself. I don’t teach and I have no interest at this time in getting into that field of work. What I want my audience to get from my work is twofold. If you’re a teacher, I want you to learn about comic books. How they can function and how in different ways they can communicate ideas. If you’re a comic book reader I want you to be entertained and learn something about the contemporary art world. I want you to see how comic books can be pop culture and how they can teach us about ourselves. Whether I succeed in my goal or not, I hope everyone enjoys my work.

Josh

I was thinking about all the stuff going on in the world and it seems everyone is screaming about something, which got me thinking about good reasons for screaming. Maria Sharapova has some great reasons to be screaming. I love to watch her play.

A bit of sketching before class starts today. I'm really looking forward to this last semester. I'm finally going to be finished.

Here is a little process and sneak peak at what I'm working on.

Pencil and inks. Notice I switched the angle of some of the panels to flow better.

I do all the perspective work before I ink or while I'm inking. I did all this on the computer. Normally I do most of my work free hand and then scan it in, but my scanner broke, so I have to do everything on the computer for now. 

I put down the gray tones and then use a nice tool in Photoshop to overlay color. I did some traditional (digital) painting after I did the main areas of color. 

Took a break from the sequential pages I'm working to do this sketch.

Quick sketch for fun.

Happy New Year

Did this drawing while waiting for midnight to role around, so technically this is the first drawing of Hulk in the entire world in 2013...or maybe not.

Happy new year to everyone!

Sketch I did today. 

End of the fall semester

Finally finished, but then again this semester feels like it went by so fast. I'm told this is normal, since I'm finished in Spring. My mind is on graduating, so I guess I'm just in the zone where I don't feel the time go by. Here are two pieces I did for my final projects in the two classes I took this semester. I made the suit and the drawing is 19 inches by 48 inches.

Some school work I did this semester. Just two classes left before I'm finished. Then I have to figure out if I want to get a masters or do some more work in comics for awhile. I got some time before I have to make a decision, as I have one more semester after this one.

Most of this work is reference from cosplay and one piece is straight up comic book art...well, I guess all of it is comic art, but one wasn't referenced and the others were.

Been thinking about drawing some old school knights and I found this cool game called Kingdoms of Camelot for my iPod. Anyway, I drew this for fun. This is Fiona the Fierce. She's my head Knight.

This is one of the pieces I did for this semester. It is 38 x 48 inches.

Practice!

Here is a sketch I did for a motorcycle company.

Drawings to come...

I've been busy for the entire semester and I just finished my last class. I still have to finish up one last paper, but once I'm finished I'll be posting some zombie portrait commissions. I can't wait to begin.

Josh

First page to my X-Men portfolio

Please let me know if you like it.

Where did the time go?

Spring Break is over already?!?! It went by way too fast. I was able to get the cover/pinup finished for Force Galexia...still doing touch-ups on the colors, though. I haven't posted the progress, because I want to post the whole thing when it is done. I'm also working on a new portfolio. I haven't drawn any mainstream characters in a while, so this will be an experience. I'll post those when I'm finished as well. They will likely just be pencils, so I'm going to need to work on the light box in order to keep them as clean as I can. I just saw the lettering completed for Space and Time, part 3. It was drawn so long ago that looking at it again was almost likely looking at it for the first time. As for the full story, as of now, we have something like 31 pages done. I really don't know how much longer we have to finish the story arc. I think at some point, Mike and I will need to come up with a final ending. That way we know how many pages we have to complete. Josh

Spring Break

Finished my last Midterm last night; I think it went well...enough.

I'm working on another piece for Force Gelexia (I hope I spelled that right). I've already finished an initial sketch--several actually--and it is looking good. Andre likes it, which is the important thing--keeping the customer happy. I always like working with Andre, because he trusts me impeccably. Of course I don't want his trust to go to my head, so I try to take my time when I work on his pieces. It helps me get perspective, and focus on what he is looking for, while still keeping my artistic integrity.

I'll likely post the pencils and subsequent steps following them when they are finished. I'm hoping to work on it while taking a week off from both school and work.

Josh

Something new...

School is starting next week, and I'm looking forward to it, but at the same time I'm sad that it means I'll have less time with the family.

This image is something of a question mark. I'm not sure if I'll do anything with it, but the character and story are already made up. It is just a matter of putting together a platform to produce the story. I'm thinking it will be a webcomic. The question is whether I should use facebook or my block to post the comic. If I do it at all. We'll see once school starts if I'm motivated enough to keep it going.

Josh

Break time

I've been done with school for two weeks, and I almost forgot how to relax, but I soon remembered. I've been playing Starcraft II, and hanging with the family. My daughter is playing basketball now. Despite the cold weather, I'm helping learn to dribble. Work is pretty much the same, but I'm changing shifts, so I get the weekend off, which will be nice for a change.

This is the inked image to my final project in advanced drawing. I didn't do that great in this class, though. Just a plain old B, but the other classes I did well. Still, it sucks that I'm an artist and can't get an A in drawing class.

There are three pages in total for the above sequential drawing, but I may try to get them published, so I don't want to post them just yet.

Josh

Final Project for another class

This class is called Advanced Drawing, but this is the first time I'm actually drawing for a project, aside from sketching. This is a story I came up with for this project. I actually like it, so I may do something with it. We'll see.

For now, I have to finish inking this page, and do two other pages to finish it. This is basically the main character learning how to fly for the first time. I also have to do the lettering before this Tuesday. I should be able to do it.

Josh

VAPA Final project

This is for a class project--my final. It's going to be a performance piece about me creating this art, or rather the creative process--more or less. There will be four people total in the performance piece, which will entail each of us showing the creative process. We intend to get the audience's participation too.

What I'll be showing is me starting to sketch ideas for this, which are pre-drawn sketches, and then I'll show the pencils, inks and finally the color version of this piece. The purpose is to show each of our meanings of the story Peter Pan and how we come up with our art.

Pencils were done in the traditional sense based on various sketches I did in my sketch book.

The inks were done in photoshop, freehand, so I can use the real pencils during the presentation and I'll print the inks on card stock paper at kinkos. The color will be done in photoshop too.

Josh

PS: the other classes I'm in will have finals as well, which I will post up here when I have time.

Mobster face-in-hole cutout...

I'm not sure if this is what you actually call one of these but I did this face-in-hole cutout of three mobsters with some fellow students, Chelsea and Codi. We did this for our 3D class. It was fun and our professor is trying to get it featured on campus. If we do get it displayed it might be a nice edition to my resume'.

Josh

2010, 24 Hour Comic Challenge

Did the challenge for the fifth year and a row. I said I wouldn't, but I did it again. I'm glad too, because I was able to figure out a way to feel a lot better by taking a 45 minute nap. That really helped me get through the last 10 hours.

Here is a link to my 24 Hour Comic Challenge, Stranded.

Sketches for school

Just some work I've done in my sketchbook. Got insperation from Mike Cho in a couple of pieces.

School

Hi to all and thanks to everyone who is following me on my humble blog. I haven't had a chance to scan in any new sketch, but I do have them ready for scanning. I wrote a short paper about an exhibition that I learned about in class last week, however, I didn't get a chance to use it for my class. Apparently I was supposed to hand it in as a hard copy rather than email, as most instructors would like. No problem, though. I quickly hand wrote a shorter version while in class and turned it in on time. So, here is the full typed version that I didn't use.

Feel free to research about this artist and dig on your own, as it is quite interesting.

The Tate Thames Dig took place in London, England in order to document its culture and industry. Mark Dion, the orchestrator of this dig and artist, and his team combed the shores of a river in Bankside and Millbank. They were waring protective gear using what Mark calls “scatter-gun” approach to search for items of all kinds. Due to the sites protected nature, as it is a conservation area, they could not dig deeper than six inches. They collected many reminisces of London, such as antiques, clay pipes, ouster shells, cattle teeth, toys, old shoes to a fragmented human shinbone. With advice from many experts on what to expect at the sites and techniques to use from archeologists, the team used a field-walking method to search the shores of the river.


Once the team gathered their findings they organized items in red bins, cardboard boxes and plastic clear bins with red and green lids, which were labeled, making sure to keep the contents of both sites separated. Cleaning of the items was done with brushes and water and then dried. Once the team finished cataloging the items they were placed in a large antique cabinet/chest, one side showing off Millbank and the other Bankside. Placement of items were meant to seem arbitrary, however, Mark placed objects of an antique nature alongside modern ones in order to give the audience free rain to interpret the objects in their own way. The installation was placed and acquired by the Tate Gallery.


Mark Dion is questioning the relationship of archeology and art, by using techniques from both fields to document, catalog and display the findings of a dig in a gallery. While there are many differences from what Mark has done and what archeologists do, one cannot help but find the similarities to both fields. In archeology items are placed in museums to help understand cultures from the past and yet what Mark has done is quite similar, but placed in a gallery instead. Mark is an artist with no professional background in archeology and what he has done is found an intersection to the two fields that questions what each does and what role they have in society.

Thanks for reading,

Josh

Redwolf

So Image Comics took a look at my very rough idea of this story and they did not like it. They were very specific about it too, which is rare. On two accasions I've gotten good feedback about my submission and in both cases the issue was always how the story was written and in the case of Redwolf both the story and how it was written was not up to their standards. I don't like to give up and since they saw promos in my art I'll send the story off to another writer to look at and if they can make something of it we'll send it to Image Comics again.

On a side note about submitting to any comic company. Be professional at all times. You can start a great relationship with an editor even if they gave you a harsh critique about your work. You may not even agree with what they said, although in my case I agree with what Image Comics said, you need to be professional and reply with a thank you for taking time to critique your work.

The pages I've posted are unfinished, since I'll most likely submit the comic again at some point to a publisher, not necessarily Image Comic again. I wouldn't want to publish work that was finished and have to explain to a publisher why the finished work is online already. Please leave a comment if you find what I've posted at all interesting, as this may help me gauge how well this may work from the point of view of the audience.

What's up!

So I've been drawing, but not much I can post up. I sent a short story to Image for review and if they like it I'll finish it. I'm still working on Space and Time and I did this sketch just yesterday after I had spent all day cleaning my office.

I think I was inspired or something. I was drawing a portrait of a friend and decided to make her into some kind of sci-fi character. Maybe I'll use the design in a comic or something.

Lunch time, so I'll have to cut this post short. See you around.

Josh

Work and sketching when I can

I haven't had a lot of time to finish the page I've been working on, so I've had to resort in sketching. This is a cross between Alex and Emilia, because I wasn't sure who I was drawing.

School is getting closer to starting for me. I'll be repeating Calc 1, because I don't want to bother trying to remember what I learned five years ago. And I'll be taking Java 2. Just those two classes this semester. I don't want to kill myself trying to work full time, draw and go to classes. Due to my odd work schedule I have to go to class five days a week. In a way that is good. It forces me to keep doing school everyday, on the other hand I won't have a break for four months other than the weekends.

Back to work I go.

Thanks for reading.

Josh

Space and Time

So I got some new pens. Pilot Pigment Ink pen and a Pentel Arts Pocket Brush pen. Did this sketch to test those bad boys out and I like them. The company I bought them from was JetPens. It was really easy to buy and isn't a small company at all.

I've already finished two pages for the next chapter of Space and Time. I may post some preview pages in a week or so.

Josh