More sketchies

Here are some more sketches I did for some of my students that bought some of our books. It's always fun to take a crack at established characters. I slapped some color on the Iron Man. I was feeling inspired after watching the movie (which I highly recommend to all of you)!




These two were requested by a student who really likes cheese and tacos. A boy after my own heart.

Jam comics!

Free Comic Book Day was a blast today. Elton and I hung out with fellow local artists Amber Stone and Randy Rustin, sold some books, did some sketches, and gave away a bunch of mini-comics. It was great hanging out with fellow artists and checking out each other's artwork. Hopefully we can make this a yearly tradition here in Joplin!

Maybe the best part of the day was doing some jam comics with Amber and Randy. The way it worked was that we each drew the first row of a one page comic and then passed it on to the next person, who drew the middle part and passed it onto the next person, who drew the end. The results are pretty loose and fun... check 'em out! (Amber and I must have had zombies on the brain, as the two we started feature the undead.)


Created by (in order): me, Randy, and Amber...



By Randy, Amber, and me...



By Amber, me, and Randy...

Free Comic Book Day

For those of you that don't know, Saturday May 3 is Free Comic Book Day across the country. The day you can walk into any comic book store and demand "Give me my free comics!" Well, as part of the event this year, we will be setup with a table at our local VINTAGE STOCK here in Joplin. We'll be there (along with some other local comics people) selling comics, doing sketches, and giving away some mini-comics. So if you're local... come by and see us!

And now for some new sketches:
This one was for a Beatles sketch challenge. It was inspired by the line "wearing the face that she keeps in the jar by the door... who is it for?" Sorry if it depresses you.



These two I did during Planet Comicon. I like how they turned out... drawin' zombies is dang fun.

You had to be there.

Over the last couple of years, I've been writing down odd sentences that have been said in my high school art classes. Really odd ones. The kind that make you wonder "What was the conversation that led up to that?" Well, here's some of the crazier ones... presented in comic format.

(The really odd thing about this is the lady in the last panel. I drew her and then realized I had just drawn the exact likeness of my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Coulter. )

Planet Comicon 2008

These conventions are getting addictive! We had a dang good time up in Kansas City this weekend at Planet Comicon. That's Matt and Elton there behind me. Matt is a new member of Three Trees. He is busy working on his own anthology, which should be completed pretty soon. I think you all are going to love his work!

Anyway, we were able to sell a good amount of books again. I drew a bunch of sketches for people (they were free with any purchase)... everything from our characters to Superboy to fairies to Yoda. Drawing some for a bunch of little kids was the best!

My wife Laura went around and got a ton of great pictures for us. I think she enjoyed her first con.

One of the highlights of the con for all of us was getting to meet other creators. I was able to talk to Eric Powell (The Goon) and discuss exciting things like scanning artwork. There were several KC area creators there that I've corresponded with online and just now got to meet, including Bill Hook, Lee Leslie, Kevin Gritzke, Hector Casanova, Kyle Strahm, and P.R. Sholtz. It was great swapping books with them and seeing what they are up to.

There was also a fellow teacher there, Chris Wilson, who is exploring ways to incorporate comics in the school classroom. He runs a blog on that subject, and he's from Springfield so we'll definitely be keeping in touch. He was very interested in the different ways that I've had my student make comics.

ROOK CITY #1... approved by the Empire!

Kenny Baker AKA R2-D2!

Adam Rebottaro and his girlfriend, Courtney, who had a table next to us. Adam was doing some awesome sketching for people.
Unfortunately, Courtney was later killed by Darth Vader...
Jimmy and Kelli Jarmin, who will be running the Defcon 7 convention in Tulsa. It looks like we'll probably be going to this one, too.

I went to college with Amber Stone. She had some great sketches for sale and is preparing to launch a new webcomic soon that looks very cool.

That about does it. Can't wait for the next con!

SKETCHINGS #1...and another convention!

Here is the first of our three new books... SKETCHINGS will be a series of collections of some of our better sketches. Some of them probably shouldn't even be called sketches, as they are pretty developed pieces that took quite awhile. But there is also a lot of just quick, fun stuff in there.

This first issue only features my work, but future issues will display the talents of Dusty (and possibly others). Most of the sketches you have seen here on the blog (or on our sketches page), but there are some new ones in there as well. It mainly consists of realistic drawings of real people and looser images of various characters. Several people have asked me if I was going to put some of my extra drawings in print form... so here ya go. It's 32+ sketches all in one book. I hope you all enjoy it. You can order Sketchings #1 from the Indy Planet Store.

If you're in the Kansas City area, another way you can get Sketchings (along with all our other books) is to stop by and see us at Planet Comicon on April 5 and 6! We'll have a table there for the first time. It'll be great to hang out with a bunch of the KC creators that we interact with on message boards with all the time!

Two conventions in under a month... didn't see that coming. They sure are dang fun.

Being productive and Devious!

There are new images up on my art blog at:

http://ink-xercise.blogspot.com/

In other news I decided to become Devious, check out my Deviant Art page also:

http://noodlephish.deviantart.com/

Both these will be home to new images and are a source of networking, please feel free to comment and connect.

HurleyCon 2008

Elton and I had a great time at the inaugeral HurleyCon here in Joplin on Sunday. Turnout was really good... which is a great sign since this is the first real con in Joplin for many years. We were busy pretty much the whole time... selling books, talking to conventioners, doing sketches. A lot of my current and former students stopped by, which was great. (I had been spreading con propoganda to them all week.)

You'll probably notice some new books on the table there with me. There is Rook City #1, which collects the first several stories from that series. Also, we had Sketchings #1, which is a collection of some of my best sketches (most of which you have seen here). And then there is Duel #1, a brand new book I just finished, about two overly competive artistic kids. I will post more on all of these later, including ordering info. It was great to have multiple books to talk to people about this time. People really seemed to dig all of them.

That last picture is of Randy Rustin, a friend of mine who works at the local comic store. He is one of the fastest artists I know and a great guy.

Jason and Nathan Hurley (of Hurley's Heroes) put this all together, and they said that turnout was good enough that they'll probably do this again next year or maybe in 6 months. I'm hoping this con leads to the start of some sort of comics community here in Joplin. There are quite a few of us that love comics, and it'd be nice if we could get together and encourage each other to do more.

Con Men

I thought it would be awhile before we hit a convention again. But it seems that a pretty cool one is coming to Joplin. Like the poster says, this will be the biggest one Joplin's ever had.

We are going to be there with a table. And we should have four books for sale. That's right... four. More on that later... It'll be fun to hang out, sell some books, do some sketches for people, and meet some more Joplin area artists. Hopefully there's a decent turnout and we can have more of these.

So if you're in the area on March 9, stop by (it's free!) and say hi. We promise to try to be friendly.

Here there be sketches.

Here are some fairly recent sketches. Kind of all over the place. This first one was just messing around with a brush pen, plus some Photoshop alterations.



These are from photo reference:


This is based on a wood carving on a cork.



Drew these while showing my students the Corpse Bride (great movie):


These were done while waiting around bored at parent-teacher conferences (art teachers don't get a lot of traffic):

Don't mess with the god of thunder.

Two posts in a week? What's going on here?

Here's something I did for a sketch challenge. Not sure if I'm happy with the values yet, but it was fun.

My drawing arm is fatigued. Not from drawing (unfortunately), but from playing so much Wii Sports. I guess that says something.

A One Page Story

Here's a one page story I just finished. It was just a simple little idea I got in my head one day, but it turned out to be a bit more complicated to execute. Not sure how easy it is to read, but it was fun to make. I'd like to do more of these one-pagers... see what you can do with limited space.

More stuff should be posted soon, but I don't want to say anything until it's actually up. Although I guess I just did. Oops.

A belated Christmas card.

I hope everybody had a Merry Christmas.

Inkxercise

Started an art blog to force myself to be productive. Now you know.

Here's the link: http://ink-xercise.blogspot.com/

Check in on me and keep me accountable. Thanks.

-Dusty

Drawing Each Other

I've been doing some life drawing with my high schoolers after school. Dusty sat in on our last session and came up with the above sketch of yours truly. He says it makes me look "venerable." I prefer "sage-like." (My students thought "Santa Claus.")

Anyway, here's my take on Dusty and some of my students... Dusty's got a bit of a Stevie Wonder thing going on. It's been great to just spend some time pushing the pencil around on paper.