Well I finally got to work on a new set of Disney Villains portraits and up first wil Mother Gothel! I love her character in Tangled and it as a film is one of my favorite Disney films period. You’ll notice I named this one Mother Gothel – Young, because I may or may not have something else planned soon. So keep an eye out for that. Hope you like the portrait and feel free to share it around! 
Well, now that the book is officially out and I’m all clear I thought I post the forst two covers I colored for a recent children’s books series called, Adventures of Peter and Leisle Book 1: A Lesson in Courage and Book 2: A Lesson in Obedience . It’s just now trickling into the US. The publisher is based out of England. The writer, Aaron Friedrick, also provided the illustration, but I colorized the image for the cover of the books.
And I am not introducing a new product I am offering around portrait painting. I am now open to digital portrait painting commissions. Here’s an example of one I did of my oldest daughter, Story.
The portraits start at an introductory price of $250, plus taxes and shipping, as a new service. The painting is done digitally and then printed to canvas, 16×20 inches. Other variations are available upon request. You will also receive the hi-res image of the final piece. The printing done on canvas gives it a very real painting quality and since it is the only copy that will be produced it is the original. If you are interested in learning more about this new product and process, or any other of my services I provide as an artist, please see the commissions page and reach out to me!
Ringing in the new year with a new website design! I have long felt like my site lacked any sense of focus or design, so this is what I have been toying around with for a few weeks. Took the afternoon and banged it out! What do you all think?
I changed around my Batman drawing to pay homage to my friend Mike Maihack’s version of Batman holding a balloon. I loved this drawing and it was fun to throw back to it.
And here’s Mike’s original.
Well I have spent a few weeks quietly working on this site in the background and finally I am ready to announce that my current graphic novel project has its very own site home. VISIT: www.adamsvillecomic.com to follow my work on this project going forward.
I decided to do this for a couple of major reasons. 1) I felt it was time to show the work I had been doing these last few months. So for all of you readers I have made the first 28 pages available as a free preview on the site. You can read the book or even download the free PDF of the first chapter. I am encouraging everyone to share this preview PDF as much as you would like, as well as the site. 2) I wanted to create a central hub for the book going into the new year. This preview is all that you will see publicly of the rest of the bok until its completion, save for preview art, but I wanted a place where everything focused on this project could be found. I wanted a place where publishers, readers, agents, anyone and everyone who would show an interest in the book could find it and get everything could want to know about it.
So it’s important to know that all regular production updates on the book will moving forward will be posted to that site. Any major events to the book will be here though. But please jump on over to the site, explore, read the first chapter and help spread the word. Book 1 will be done very soon.
This past week I began inking chapter 2 and am currently 1/3 done inking the entire chapter and slowly making my way through the coloring process. I have found that the penciling and inking process are the fastest for me and much easier to get going because I can do that at work, on break and so on. The coloring process I have to be home for so I only make measured progress on that. Which is fine because when I get home that’s time for my family and I t0 be together and I don’t want to pull myself away from them too much.
Which brings me to a thought on time managament for everyone. When you are making a graphic novel, I really believe because of the scale of the project it can become really discouraging just how time consuming it can be. How do we get around that? I think two things are particularly important.
1) Try To Finish In A Year
Why 1 year? I think it helps you to get that sense of confidence needed in making these sorts of books. Does that mean that people who take longer are wrong or messing up? No. But! As you are learning to make these books, especially if its not your full time job, it’s good to be completing work. So when I took on making Adamsville I decided that the most important thing for me was I wanted to finish in a year. I want to have a definite date for completion, if at all possible. I did a couple of things that helped me with this.
I had a finished script. I took my time before hand, crafted out a outline, complete script and then sat down and broke the entire script down into pages and panels. Essentially giving me a road map for the whole thing before I even put pencil to panel. What that helped me do was see that the whole project was about 130 pages of completed art. I then realized that I had taken about two months to write so that left me ten months to work with. So that means I have to complete about 13 pages per month to get to my goal on time. Now I’m pushing to be done faster, but having that sense of certainty was really helpful in planning out my project.
I had also decided that I wanted to make the book originally in black and white, but after coloring the entire first chapter, I realized that this book is coming together very quickly in fact in the color stages and that I could handle a completion rate of three or so pages a week without much of problem. So I decided to go ahead with that. But the real reason I did was that because I had a road map I could do the math and see if it was smart or not.
2) Plan Your Day Better
For most of us, making a comic or graphic novel occurs while also working a full time job and other responsibilities. But with my road map in hand I was able to take a look at what needs to happen and when to hit the goal. I realized that I have tons of free time throughout my day that I probably spend surfing the web, starting at a wall or whatever. Now I have really wanted to work all digitally but because I want to keep my home time for me and family as much as possible, I decided I had to ink and draw the book away from home as much as I could so I could free my home life up. It’s worked out great and I’m finishing about five to seven pages a week pretty easily right now. So I’m head of schedule on some aspects!
So think about your own life. When do you have time? How could you use it better? And try to be as productive with what is basically dead time as possible! You’ll be surprised how much you can get done if you do! Here’s a great post my buddy Stephen McCranie made about procrastination and time management. http://doodlealley.com/2011/11/30/be-proactive-not-reactive/
Finally here is the chapter 1 image for Adamsville. Had fun thinking up this image. Work continues and will have a new post on Monday!
I was feeling pretty festive and decided to do a portrait of the big guy in red.
Prints are available through my print shop in sizes 11×14 and 8×10
11×14 PRINT
Well three big things of interest here as we plow ahead on the book.
1) A NEW NAME!
After doing a new google search for the name The Unknowns, I discovered that there are actually two books named that out there. One is a comic and another is a kids book. The comic is actually optioned as a movie with Bret Ratner heading it up. I decided this is too close and that a new name needed to be instilled. Really unhappy about it because I feel pretty connected to this name, but I do know that I want my book to be easily recognized and not confused. So I thought about it and decided to change the name to ADAMSVILLE: BOOK 1 – THE UNKNOWNS. Adamsville is the name of the city they live in and I thought it gave off the right vibe.And well The Unknowns part is self-explanatory.
2) I have started work on Chapter 2 of the book and it’s clocking in at 25 pages. It’s penciled in its entirety and printed out now for my printing pleasure. Here’s a terrible pic from my iPad (I though the camera was supposed to be awesome sauce) :
3) A New Print From ADAMSVILLE – EARTH’s GREATEST MYSTERIES 12×18
If you’re like me, you love the strange and paranormal. And that plays a big part of this book. I decided to make it a print. I think it stands alone on its own as an image. It’s on sale for $11.95 right now. Pick it up if you like it! Also my whole store is on SALE! 30% or more for Christmas. Get that awesome piece of art for your house today!
I feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief. With so much going into the pitching process and everything that has been going on up to this point I decided I will share just a bit about what my plans are going forward.
You know, I’ve shared the story several times of how I pitched this book 3 years ago and how long and drawn out that process was. This is project I conceived nearly 5 years ago and thus far not much has shown up from it. Tangibly. It has, in the business sense of the word, been a case-study in failing with flare. It’s a book that I have felt so sure of that I have gone to tremendous internal lengths to give this book every shot to succeed in the traditional sense of the word. I just know I have a solid story on my hands.
I’ve kept it largely to myself because I wanted surprise people with it, unveil it in some grand way when I showed you all a picture of the finished book in hand, but sadly that hasn’t happened. The last few days have been a lot to process. Most of it has felt inevitable. It’s hard getting a book published nowadays, but I do think there are some key take aways for every aspiring artist to consider from my own self-reflection:
Sometimes You Have To Realize Your Place For Now:
I’ve never been one to shy away from taking chances, dreaming big, falling hard and then getting back up again. I believe this is a good thing. I want to be willing to fail gloriously. Like “if I’m gonna go down, let’s go down in style” type thing. So I’ve pitched books, submitted paintings to prestigous contests I probably have no right to be a part of, take business chances and far more often than not, the dream in my head is never fully realized. But point is I TRIED.
It’s enough to make someone go batty. I mean how many times do you have to fall before you just decide it’s better to just lay there and take a nap?! But what if we think of this as failing upwards? Because I’ve been willing to take chances, I’ve pushed myself to learn and explore. I’ve looked at the talented creators I aspire to and said to myself “I can achieve that too!” and tried to. Each failure has taught a lesson, helped me grow as a person and an artist, given me endurance… All of those things to where you stop and realize, you haven’t really failed at all!
I took all of that though and thought to myself, why do I bang my head so much against the same doors? Is this worth it? Is there a better way? A more sane way? Thankfully there is…
It took a great deal of pride swallowing for me to realize one simple thing at this point… I’m just not there yet and I shouldn’t try and force myself to be. When I say that I mean… as a comics artist, I’m really an obscurity. I have no real creditials to my name. No real finished books (even my first graphic novel was just the first in a series)… This whole thing has been and should have been, about learning to be a professional. Gathering the tools necessary to handle the job. And I’ve spent the last year really focusing on that. I’m finally starting to see the consistent professional look to my comics I’ve always wanted and things seem to be moving along quickly with making this book, but I was still holding on to trying to pitch a book the traditional way… That’s not my place yet.
I need to be just out there, showing you guys what I am made of. Giving people a chance to read my stories, gather a following and just focus on telling the story. I’ve had a number of great friends share with me their “breaking in” stories about how they landed that publishing contract, or got contacted by an editor. All of them have left me with one bit of advice I just think I (wrongly) shrugged off for so long: Just focus on the craft, the work will come to you.
So after licking my wounds some, I regrouped and thought long and hard about this book and what it should be. Then I realized it should be my portfolio. My declaration to the world that I’m ready to take on the bigger projects. It should be the place where I put my nose to the grindstone and just SHOW you and everyone else that I am working on the professional level I believe I am. So I’m bringing it all back. Reasserting my goals with this project and annoucning I will be self-publishing for now. My goal is just tell the story. Get it out there and get as many people to read it as possible. Then, we’ll see where things take me. Seems simple enough, but failing upwards for me has been a five year process. And now I just breathe in deeply and get ready to share with you all, this book I have fallen in love with over the last five years.
I leave you all with that advice. I feel a bit like Solomon in Ecclesiastes warning the youth to abandon all folly. You can learn from my experience and save yourself some roadblocks and nonproductive work. I’ve worked long an hard at futily in this manner and if I can offer any bit of wisdom it would be: KEEP YOUR FOCUS ON BECOMING GREAT AT YOUR CRAFT. I have to believe if you do that, you won’t get ignored for very long.
I dont want to say yet what I’m doing with this book, but trust me I’ll let you know when I am ready. It won’t be very long.