Free Comic Book Day Wrap-Up

Here's some of the free sketches I drew for customers at Lightning Comics in Coeur d'Alene, ID on Saturday. I was there with my friends in the Comicsmiths' Guild for Free Comic Book Day.

The shop had a really good turnout, and we were busy sketching the whole time, almost non-stop. It was great to talk to so many people who had been there for FCBD the past couple of years, and were looking forward to seeing us again.

There was a small write-up in the local paper about the event - the Guild got a mention, and they even included a picture of me sketching for one of the kids who was there. You can read it here: The Coeur d'Alene Press

 Also, there's a new comic up on the In Geekness page at my website, so be sure to check that out too!

Sketches and Comic Signing

A bunch of free sketches I drew today at Lightning Comics. I was there as part of the Spokane Comicsmiths' Guild, to support fellow local artist Joshua Covey, as he signed House of Night #2, his big debut with Dark Horse Comics.

We had a good turn-out and Josh was busy the whole time, signing and sketching. Thanks to Matt and the gang at Lightning Comics for having us out and taking care of us while we were there!

Halloween Wrap-Up

I spent Saturday afternoon with my friends in the Comicsmiths' Guild, over at Lightning Comics in Coeur d'Alene, sketching for customers as part of their Halloween weekend event. We had a good time, and had a pretty decent turn-out of people.

I wasn't very good about taking pictures this time around, but did make sure to get a shot of this one, which I was pretty happy with. It was actually for the daughter of one of the other local artists who was there drawing - Joshua Covey, who drew the cover for the new (second) Guild Anthology comic.

We also had the first copies of the new Anthology for sale at the sketch event, fresh from the printers. They're available for sale locally for now - you can of course order them from the Guild and we can figure out shipping costs to your location. We should have them available on IndyPlanet soon as well, along with the first Anthology.

We stayed home for Halloween (had new TV to watch, after all), and actually had a fair amount of trick-or-treaters this time around. We've lived in these apartments for 6 years, and have never had a huge turn-out, which always seemed odd considering we're smack in the middle of a big residential area with a bunch of other apartment complexes. And I know there are plenty of kids living around here. But this year we may have had the same amount as the last 2 or 3 years combined. Maybe the weather was just nicer?


And the library lets their employees dress up for Halloween, so Jenny went as a pirate!

Spokane ComiCon Wrap-Up

Just realized it's been a week since the Spokane ComiCon, and I never actually did a post-convention blog post....

The Con was a lot of fun (per usual) - it had it's highest turn-out yet, which is definitely an encouraging sign of the size of the geek community around here. We met a lot of great folks, and it was also awesome to see people we recognized from past events, who made a point to find us at the Con and get more sketches from us. And of course, it's great to be able to meet more artists and creative types, and catch up with friends from out of town.

The one serious snag in the event was the "fire drill" mid-way through the day... The fire alarm went off, and everyone had to leave the building while we waited for the fire department to show up and make sure everything was safe. We were only outside for probably 30 minutes, but I'm sure there were some who didn't wait around and just left.

And apparently this was a known issue with the alarm system itself, as it had gone off at least twice before that week and hadn't been fixed. Just bad timing, but thankfully most of the attendees took it in stride and didn't let it ruin the day.

I only got photos of a couple of the sketches I did during the Con. The top one is the person's original character, that he was getting different peoples' versions of. And the other was for a little girl, probably only 5 or 6, who apparently really liked Frankenstein. It was great seeing the thrilled look on her face when she saw it and realized it was for her.

Free Comic Book Day Wrap-Up

Free Comic Book Day is always great, as it's kind of "Geek Christmas", but this year's was particularly fun, though a pretty long day...

I was over at Lightning Comics in Coeur d'Alene, ID with my buddies in the Comicsmiths' Guild, where we were drawing free sketches for customers for a little over four hours. There were people lined up and waiting outside before the doors opened, and we kept busy the whole time, with a steady flow of people.

After we were done there, we headed over to the local theater for another 2+ hours of sketching - this time of only Thor (and related characters) as part of a promotion for the new movie. We were only drawing for people who were going to see Thor, and we were still swamped, and stayed longer than planned.

But we had to eventually pack up and leave, as we had a free screening of Thor waiting for us, courtesy of the theater management. I thought the movie was awesome, even with my expectations as high as they were, and being such a fan of the source material.

It was a lot of fun, with a surprising amount of (actually funny) comedic bits and plenty of big super-hero action and fight scenes. Afterwards I was left thinking that the new Superman movie is going to have it's work cut out for it to compete...

But if you do see it, I wouldn't waste your money on the 3D version. I thought it really was unnecessary, and the conversion wasn't the greatest either. Unlike other 3D films I've seen, it seemed like they didn't adjust the brightness or contrast or something, as the glasses actually made things really dim. Which made many of the scenes (like the night-time sequences) a bit hard to see. I'm planning on seeing it again, and going for 2D next time.

And here's the pics I got of sketches I did during the day. These are all from the Lightning Comics session - I unfortunately didn't get any of the Thor pics, but it was kinda crazy at the theatre...

Tintin

Continuing to play catch up with this month's "weekly" sketches for the Comicsmiths' Guild, here's Tintin and the Captain, set sail for adventure.

Barbossa

Getting back to posting art here by starting to catch up on the Comicsmiths' Guild "weekly" sketches for the last month...

This was for the pick of "any pirate", so I went with my favorite character from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Though really, Geoffrey Rush is pretty much awesome in everything he's in, so that's no big surprise.

A New Year

Hopefully everyone out there had a happy and safe New Years celebration. I spent the first day of 2011 getting off on the right foot - by drawing! I was at local shop Lightning Comics with my friends in the Comicsmiths' Guild doing sketches for customers, during their big New Years/3 Year Anniversary celebration.

I'm not really one for resolutions, but I do have a lot of goals and plans for this year, mostly involving finally getting various projects off the ground. I should also have some news soon about the upcoming inaugural Comicsmiths' Guild Anthology book.

For now, here's a few of the free sketches I did today (click to embiggen the image):

Guild Sketches - Red Sonja

So, the good folks in the Comicsmiths' Guild have started doing weekly sketches, where one person picks a subject that everybody draws (similar to, and inspired by, the Comic TwArt blog). We've been doing it for a couple of weeks, and participants have been posting them over on the Guild blog and deviantArt page.

This is actually last week's subject - the She-Devil With a Sword, Red Sonja!

Post-Convention Update

This last Saturday was the Spokane ComiCon, which was (of course) awesome. I shared two tables in Artist Alley with my friends Matt and Jesse, representing the Comicsmiths' Guild, and we had fun and met a lot of cool folks. We all did pretty well sales-wise too, selling prints and art and drawing a ton of sketches for people.

After the convention we headed over to fellow Comicsmith Levi Skeen's place for the after-party, where we could wind down and fill ourselves with some delicious BBQ. A big thanks to Levi and Heidi for the party and to Nate O'Brien for putting on an amazing show! Remember to mark your calendars for the next convention - May 21 2011 will be the 5th annual show.

I did a lot of sketches at the convention, but unfortunately only got pics of these 3. The Gambit & Iron Man went to a couple who ended up getting 5 (!) sketches from me and bought 9 of my sketch cards. The bottom one is of a critter from The Maxx comic. I don't know what it is, but thankfully he brought some reference along for me to draw from.

Comicsmiths' Guild Meeting

A reminder to any Spokane locals that the next meeting of the Comicsmiths' Guild is this coming Sunday at Merlyns, from 3-6 pm. We're always interested in meeting local creators and any artists and writers are welcome to attend. We're currently getting ready for the rapidly approaching Emerald City ComiCon.

I didn't take any photos of the drawings I did at our last Guild event (at the Spokane Community College), but I did get a scan of one of them afterwards. This is a sketch of Jeromy Smith, another local Spokane artist and writer. You can see his work over at his blog: The Black Spot

Hello 2010!

I've never been one for New Years Resolutions, either making or completing them (on the few occasions when I attempted them). But there are a lot of things I'd like to accomplish in the coming months. I've got a good feeling about 2010, so I thought for once I'd try listing a bunch of "goals" or "plans" and see how many of them actually happen. So....

I want to have at least one comic launched, with it's own website and updated regularly. I've got a lot of ideas that have just been kicking around in my head - I keep saying I'm going to do something with them, and I just need to do it.

I'm planning on attending at least 2 conventions this year, as an artist: Emerald City ComiCon in Seattle and the local Spokane ComiCon. I'll be at both with my fellow Spokane Comicsmiths' Guild members.

I've been wanting to get back into miniature gaming for a while. I've played off and on since I was in high school (about 15 years ago), and Jenny has played for close to 10 years as well. But neither of us have really done anything with the hobby for the last 4-5 years. So I want to re-learn Warhammer and start playing again, as well as have a completely painted playable army by the end of the year.

Holidays always seem to sneak up on us - and as much as I love them and want to enjoy them, it always ends up being stressful because we wait till the last minute to do everything. So this year I want to get more stuff done ahead of time - buying presents, decorating and sending out Christmas cards.

And, assuming I get enough pre-holiday stuff out of the way, I want to attempt NaNoWriMo (the National Novel Writing Month) again in November. And hopefully I'll actually finish it, as well as...

Finish the 24 Hour Comic Book Challenge. I attempted it this year, made it to 17 pages (of the 24 page goal) and had an awesomely fun time. And this year I want to make it all the way to 24 pages.

And in the realm of art & writing, I've got a lot of other various things I'd like to get done. I've got some long overdue commissions to take care of, an idea for a miniatures game that might become reality and a super-secret collaborative comic book to work on. Besides those things, I just need to draw & write something every day and actually get better.

Honestly, there's probably a lot of goals, plans and pseudo-resolutions that I'm forgetting, but this is a good start. I hope 2010 works out for the best for everyone out there (including me, of course).

Oh, and along with drawing something every day, I also want to blog more and start posting more artwork & sketches on-line. So here's some recent scribbles from the ol' sketchbook: