Think The Sketchbook Will Be Ready....

I've been at my wit's end trying to get this sketchbook completed--and printed!--in time for the big show. Looks like I'll have 50 or so to carry up to Emerald City, so that is a big relief.

Here's the cover. It will be spiral bound. Trying to get the look of my Japanese sketchbooks.

Because the book makes much mention of the lately moribund Brushpen Breakfast Blog, I am in the process of furiously back-dating posts. Don't want any blessed Brushpen book-buyer to go to the trouble of entering the link and finding something that ended in September of 2012...does this make me evil?
You can check in on my temporal cheating and laugh. Either way, I'm sure I will have to pay for it in my online afterlife.

Bog Monster with Color

Going to try the extra inducement on ebay of including a PSD for the winner It would be interesting to just start over after desaturating something that was worked up in color. But I need new drawings. I'm done with this one.

I blame my brother's grand kids

3 kids making their own unique wavelength of chaos. I locked myself in my room and tried to do a decent sketch. Then continued to try and polish it in a futile attempt at making a bad drawing worth a damn. I'll try something completely different with no kids around tomorrow.

My drawing board. I have limited space. I built this one-by-six spanner to go between drawers on my desk. It's very solid at the tilt shown. Then I use one clipboard to attach to the one by six, and then attach a second clip board to the bottom clip board. Very sturdy. Perfect for what I'm up to. Actually the best sketching ergonomics I've ever devised for myself. Final version. Had some pistol grip clamps that made the perfect tool for securing my regular board to the spanner board. My regular board has rubber stops on the bottom that further aid the nice solid feel of the work surface.

Camel Temple

Link here  

The Face Database is inspiring. We're still babies. We like faces

Heritage Downloads

Kinda pointless to share these in this way. Since the reason I saved the originals wascoz they're HUGE high rez. Maybe some of that detail will be visible in the largest size that Blogspot allows. The detail on the Buscema was interesting for how much white correction tape went down in the middle of the Black Panther inking. These really are objects of art with the clock ticking on them. Wasp is a paste up. 5 , 10 years from now. Someone will say "Hey, wasn't Wasp in that drawing." She will have flown away , who knows where. And the huge Jack Davis watercolor drawings are amazing. Found this great Kirby. The worm with the rotary chiclet teeth Drawing I'm doing with Ebay in mind

PS Enhanced Tuesday

Nick's Monarch Butterfly Drawing, Work Doodles Enhanced

My six-year-old grandson Nick loves to draw.  He saw a film on Monarch butterflies and was inspired to sketch this picture.  I watched him, and was amazed by his seriousness and his concentration.  He is my new role model for how to draw creatively.

A while back work was really boring, and not very busy, so I put my sketchbook on my desk in front of me and just mindlessly doodled.  It had to be something easy and repetitive so that I could start and stop at a moment's notice.  Took the doodles home and scanned them in, worked them up a bit.

Mega Mind Doodles - Rescanned

workwork

Mega Mind sketchbook. Had to re scan a bunch of stuff. Lost a hard drive that had the previous record. Had some animated gifs I lost. I like the super rough stuff. Hope to have some illustrator work I'm doing to show shortly. I've got a Flash sample storyboarded. Inspired by library DVD, Johnny Weissmuller, RKO Tarzans recently viewed.

Trying To Print a Sketchbook....

...hoping to sell some at the Emerald City Comic Con-vention.

In desperation I re-rented "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?" and sketched thusly.

Sketch Dump on Tumblr-Got my TAG SAMPLER!

Waiting Room Sketches from this week ( Mom has an eye infection )

Love the book. It should jump off the table at the con. 

I think "sketchbook" is one of the most popular type of pubs going at cons these days. 

This has that in spades plus a little sequential storytelling. 

You were right about the color Rick. 

It printed just the right amount of darker. 

I'm with Marty on being surprized by the size.

I was visualizing the 6 by 9 I'm showing in my example.

I actually prefer the smaller size but it's a minor quibble. After you've had any potential profit in the coming months, offer it as a free download. I think almost all my lulu books have a free download option. I'd like to monkey with the PDF and get my own copy to fit the 6 by 9 size.

Nothing more exciting than having a book featuring your art in your hands.

Thanks Rick.

The cover is fixed

It looks like the cover is fixed now.  Grrr.  I doubt that I will get any satisfaction from Lulu... I'm still waiting to hear back from them.  Anyway, double check the cover before you order:  http://www.lulu.com/shop/rick-schmitz/tag-sampler-1/paperback/product-20684899.html

Got My Books!! Love 'Em!!

Now, about that "typo"... I don't mind the gold Times-Roman font, nor the way it repeats our title above the Teen Ellis's head. I think that's kinda cool.

...But when I saw the gold "Rick Schmitz" smack in the center of interest on the cover, my first thought was, "Geez, did I piss Schmitty off somehow...?"

(I think my scanner needs those color-blindness glasses, huh? Yikes.)

The book is incredible. Everybody's work looks amazing. Everybody except Scott Benefiel's, which of course isn't in there. OOF! Talk about yer classic bait-an-switch...we will have a lot of angry letters from Cork fans who bought this book based on the cover (mea maxima culpa!).

And above all else, a GINORMOUS "THANK YOU!" to Mr. Rick Schmitz. You were the driving force behind this, you did all the heavy-lifting, and you took on the complicated task of getting this thing formatted and printed. Hats off.

Your name will always be golden with me.

New Technology for Curing Color Blindness

 

Just in case any artist out there is color blind -- I knew a color blind artist in college, a couple of years older than me, Gary Ruddell.  Very talented guy. He started doing major illustration work right out of college.  Became known for science fiction and fantasy covers. One of the school's success stories. Went over to his studio once.  He asked me if the pair on pants on a character in his painting looked okay or if he was mixing up his red and green.

Anyway, new glasses that cure color blindness:

http://io9.com/5981916/how-mark-changizis-weird-theory-on-human-vision-helped-him-conquer-colorblindness-with-eyewear

Don't order anyu more copies of the TAG book

I'll explain after I make the fix.

Disegno @ Getty Museum

Had a fun exhibit at the Getty that just closed Sunday. "Disegno (which means both "drawing" and "design" in Italian): Renaissance Drawing from 1520-1600." We went and I got in a few sketches like the one on the left, (a copy of a sketch by a guy named Bloemaert (really!)--he drew in that typical style for the era--lots of curvy, balloon-y muscles strung over some wild proportions)(I tried to keep a bit of his Mannerist flavor (like the giant arm), but reel the anatomical believability in a little for my "interpretation").

The sketch on the right is from a Houdon bust in marble (not in the Disegno show). We sat on a bench in the middle of a gallery and I tried to get a decent drawing of this guy (who looked a lot like Robert Helpmann of "The Red Shoes" and "Tales of Hoffman"). I kept struggling, grunting a little "Dam-mit...." every few minutes, making Blair shush me repeatedly with the admonition, "There are children near!" 

Punched Batman-Next Painting

The idea is Batman is punched so violently the cowl stays in place while his head liquefies and spins within it. I'm going to get some shots of fighters at the moment of face punching, good ref on a Batman head, composite them and then sketch. Do a little more prep than usual.

Extra Tuesday sketches on my Tumblr

The most bizarre thing you'll see...

I remember this from 1971 Drive In days.....finally got it from Amazon at a discounted price. Is it a biker flick, exploitation, horror, grindhouse or all of the above. It's funny that so many pics like this got made back in the schlock days of movie making. Kind of miss it.

Drew This When Jeff Watts Was Downtown San Diego

Nhia was very unimpressed

The cartoon Color acrylic on this thing is the same I used for the Ape vs Batman

And when I say "the same" I mean the same squeeze bottle of color.

New chatacters

Some of the characters I've been doing for that phase 2 of the game I'm doing

TAG Sampler Vol 1 is available NOW!

Get it HERE

I haven't added any mark up on Lulu, so I get no profits from selling it to TAG folks, or really anyone who finds it on Lulu.  Enjoy!