as a statue...

...he stood. he began to doubt. how long had he walked this path? a week? months uncounted and unmissed? had this truly been his road all these long years? had everything led to this moment?

the questions plagued him ceaselessly. every step, every mile left cluck wondering at the wisdom of his choice. true, he had seen things wondrous as he traveled this trail - but still there was doubt. every glance toward his home revealed a path more hidden than before by swirling mists and a longing he had never appreciated. had he come too far to turn back? was turning back the act of a coward?

he sighed and looked to the sky. the vast expanse of black bid him onward in search of destiny. his constant companions, the stars, shone their encouragement. and so he walked on in the twilight alone and yet not.

one day he would go home, but this was not that day.

mike wanted to go to rustico tonight. which i heartily agreed to. i needed a beer and a pizza after last week. but somehow lines got crossed and everyone was supposed to meet at 8:30 in alexandria. disgruntled, but unable to resist the call of winter lager and woodfired pizza, i hung around the office sketching in fairfax. my friend jack im'd me a song called 'Chouwa Oto' by kokia while i sketched. incredibly intriguing. my thoughts turned to my ever beloved lord cluck, last samurai of the ohiki.

i did a warm up sketch as a painting began to formulate in my brain. glancing at the clock i saw it was only 6:00 pm. so the sketch was scanned in short order and i busted out the wacom. photoshop CS4 is probably the best tool i've ever laid my mitts on. a new feature lets you rotate the canvas as you please. i happen to spin my paper around to draw from various angles when working traditionally, so i was instantly hooked into this new feature (you'll notice the sketch is rotated so you see cluck standing!), the brushes are incredibly responsive in CS4 as well - a vast improvement over CS3's palette.

why the giant black rectangle? because another feature lets you change the view you're working in. the screen goes black except for your canvas. it's amazing. since i know all the shortcut keys i don't need the tool palettes to ink. this was the first time i've done something digital that felt real while doing it.

anyways, cluck may get finished tomorrow - right now i've got a thumbnail tucked away for a pretty fun little scene that came to mind while doing this warm up sketch. and it's begging to be done. all told, this took about 1.5 hrs from sketch to finish.


EDIT: wait wut's this? color test for cluck was interrupted by something wonderful. check back on friday, january 9th for the reveal of that blessed interruption.

sean vs the nerds

in the words of philip j fry, merry Xmas.

so one of my fav podcasts, tom vs the flash, is outrageously funny. tom katers takes about 15 minutes each episode and blows through each issue of classic comics like justice league (tom vs the jla) and of course the flash. he's pretty sarcastic about the whole deal, but he's a real fan. we all are. but when you look back at the 1960's -- well comics were pretty hilarious back then without realizing it. tom asked his listeners to crank out a logo for him to use. considering how much i HATE podcasts that don't have icons for my itunes library, i felt compelled to submit something. he usually just uses the covers from each book he reviews, but i like a sense of continuity. not mention i'd like to see my logo staring at me everyday.

just a quick vector job i did this morning. illustrator and photoshop. since he's reviewing a classic comic book character, i wanted to use a version of the character from one of my favorite artists. i used a drawing of the flash michael turner did to get the body posture i wanted and used my imagination to create the rest of it -- all in all it took about 3 hours for a fun little ditty.

what are you retarded kid? i'm the batman!

been reading all star batman & robin: the boy wonder. picked up the volume one trade hardcover for 14 bucks at instocktrades.com - which is an awesome place to get whatever you need dirt cheap.

while it's very different for typical batman, i'm overall pleased with it. most people can't stand it, but at least i don't think dick grayson is a queer for wearing that retarded costume anymore.
just finished up a quick doodle. i'm working on a comic book cover for a commission. no, it's not a real one, but the guy wants a batman comic cover for his son for christmas and i'm more affordable than a real comic book artist! so in true fashion, i sketched up the gotham knights (batman, robin, batgirl and the ever badass nightwing) for an over sized cover. it's so damn big i'll have to scan it at the office.
as far as the above posted dynamic duo is concerned, i reached back into the ever flowing spring of arcane wisdom that is rick and drew this clean up in ink. overall, i'm pretty happy with most of it, except robin's hands and one or two other details. i'm gonna redraw those since you can't really erase ink and i didn't have any white-out. one 20 minute color job later it goes up on teh blog for your eyes only.

ciao.

*edit* rescanned batman and played with him some more at lunch minus the wacom today. adjusted the inks around his shoulders and cowl. took almost the whole hour...man, wacoms make like teh easy!

*yaaaaawn*

...the kitjutsu foxes emerged from every shadow of the forest, releasing themselves from the dark embrace of the trees to slink towards the defiant rooster.

in the stillness of that terrible moment, time stood frozen. the mist hung thick about his frame, the banner caught silent and unmoving in the sky, 'peck' and 'scratch' glinting fiercely...death in his eyes.

"come vermin," he clucked softly in a strangely quiet tone.

then twenty they came...forty, fifty, one-hundred.....a legion. the sky above him filled with a mass of red paws and cruel fangs...

and lord cluck laughed...

been busy. real busy. almost...too busy?

perhaps.

but i spent a night in the paintchat with my favorite southern belle rachel. in between sketching on this cluck and chatting with her, i jumped back to the oni forums for the rick and phil hour. a good time was had by all.

a little bit about what's going on, lots of sketches and some nice work developing but definitely lots at the office with furnace breaking into new markets.

anyways, this cluck is perhaps my favorite so far - minus the facial tattoos...gotta finally settle on those. i've been exploring different looks for him, but i keep coming back to this cartooned styling. i'm so tickled with this current sketch i'm going to paint it up classic style. we'll see how it turns out.

peece!