American Wicked cover art

Cover art for the graphic novel American Wicked. I was sort of stupid and drew the cover without regard for trim and bleed. I guess I was kind of feeling myself.

full sized artwork - India ink on 14x17 paper

So when the cover got trimmed to the book size, I lost some of the badge and a little bit of the Porsche. Learned my lesson!

trimmed art with trade dress

-L

Sketchbook Bug-Man - In Color!

I drew Bug-Man in my sketchbook and enjoyed the drawing so much I scanned him in and gave him some color. I actually colored him twice. Each on a different version of Photoshop.

This one is the first one.

Bug-Man - india ink, computer color - Photoshop CS3

Folks on Instagram quite liked it. I got CC and colored him a second time:

Bug-Man - india ink, computer color - Photoshop CC 2017

I like it better.

Mostly because I was able to use more of the brushes I like for texture and all the other things I use on art that make me feel less insecure.

I hope you enjoyed my ramblings on this piece.

La'ers

-L

HAPPY 100th JACK!

A friend and I decided to do drawings of Jack Kirby characters for his 100th birthday. He chose Mister Miracle and Big Barda, I chose Kamandi-the Last Boy on Earth:

Happy Birthday, Jack!

-L

I don't know why I didn't post this first!

I did a cover for Fabulize Magazine's My Superheroes are Black! Special edition Mixtape issue. Here's the art without all the cover-ness.

If you don't remember, here's the other cover I did for Fabulize (gasp!) 3 years ago!

-Leigh

ALIEN Drumpf

This election season is... interesting.

I saw the Donald on TV and for the longest time, probably for as long as he's been running for president of the US, I've wanted to draw hi as a character and, maybe, include him in a comic I've been working on for, perhaps, too long.

Pardon my verbosity, here's the picture...

I also did an alternative version due to his unfortunate habit of refilling his lungs quickly through his nose into the listening microphone. Yes, people need to breathe, but... COME ON!!!

I truthfully thought about doing a Hillary one too, but she's not as visually interesting as Trump. Maybe I'll revisit when it's all over.

Laterz!

- L

My Adventures with Sketch Lottery Part 3

I've been submitting to the website www.sketchlottery.com.

This was the third drawing, MUNK from Green Lantern.

I'm not a huge GL fan so I've bever heard of the character. I drew him a couple times, one I finshed, one I didn't...

I'm posting a larger version of the one they posted on Sketch Lottery, plus the one I noodled with for a couple of weeks after....

ENJOY!

-L

Toxic Avenger(s)

I don't know if I liked this movie or not, but the character sure did intrigue me. After drawing Toxie, I found out that I drew him wrong. Oh well... maybe this requires me to do a traditional version.

-Me

Another Venom

Did I post a Venom before?

I'm pretty sure I have. Well, here's another...

I love drawing this guy..

I need more of him in my life.

-Me

Punisher commission - process

bitmap - 1200 dpi version

I was commissioned to do a more muscular, black Punisher drawing. The reference image was a computer generated cover (at least that's what it looked like) with the Punisher resting a shotgun on his shoulder and his free hand resting on a holstered gun.

The first drawings were less than stellar, with the pose of the Punisher looking very staid; kind of like Sears Portrait Studio photo shoot for vigilantes.

I sketched the composition on a piece of newsprint
paper then I traced that onto tracing paper to refine
some of the ideas I had on the newsprint. Ultimately,
an unnecessary waste of time.

pencils - draft 1

I got as far as the pencils, at first... A FEW TIMES! I really had to step back, re-sketch and rethink. This was getting a little out of hand.

I returned to the sketchbook and worked out a picture that felt more like something I would draw.

From them, I made a new preliminary sketch, this time I did the sketch on half of an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper with the intention of blowing it up on a copier and transferring it onto Bristol board with a lightbox.

This way, I can see the whole composition; I'm not drawing so close to the page, my lines are less detailed and I can focus more on the gesture.

From the sketch, I started penciling, adding little details as I went until I got to a point I felt I could start inking.

My inking process is usually to block in the figure and add the rendering after establishing the form but, this time I went a little crazy.

I played with folds and shadows. I started  outlining
 accessories and belt packs.

The guns came next. More accessories, more folds,
though, I did start establishing the overall figure.

Everything is pretty much blocked in. I would start the
rendering of his arms soon, as well as effects like scratching
out details with a razorblade, splatter and any application of
white ink..

I wanted to change the shadow of the shotgun cast onto the brick wall background, so I had to ink everything first and change it when it came to inking the shadow itself.

grayscale - 600 dpi version

Voila! The final inked piece. I scan at 1200 dpi in bitmap and 600 dpi in grayscale for my records and maybe for color in the future. I'll wrap and ship this piece once the payment goes through and the client will have a new piece of artwork to hang on their wall.

I hope you enjoyed this trip through my process, Thanks for sticking around.

-L 

Dawn of Justice Dark Knight in the Rain

I guess I need to do a Superman one as well.

Hellcat drawing

Patsy Walker: Hellcat

MORTAL KOMBAT!!! (dun dun dun dun dun-dun dun-dun da d-da d-da!)

NYCC 2013

I ended up going to New York Comic Con this year.

I wanted to avoid it and I thought it would be a great opportunity to stop and think about what I wanted to do with my art.  I mean, yeah, it's definitely going to be about publishing a comic, maybe a graphic novel, maybe a cartoon but what do I REALLY want, you know?

Anyway, I went and helped out Daniel Cooney at his Valentine table and it was good fun.  Dan's a brilliant storyteller and an accomplished teacher and comic booker.  He's been doing it since a little before senior year of college and he's still going strong.

I think I wanna be him when I grow up.

Anyway part deux, I also got to chill with the Florida Comix Scene, the gang from Cosmic Times and Creature, who were doing their thing with a fury!  I got to hang at the Creature table for a couple of days doing sketch covers.  First day was cool, the second was cool but I didn't sell any covers... that's how it goes, unfortunately, but I got to hang out with a brilliant bunch of guys (and girl) that, if I can get more organized, I would like to do some work for.

So the show was fun, funner than usual.  I'm a little upset that I didn't get to hang with the Pronto Comics collective and I'm sad Grayhaven didn't make it.  Next year, Gadget... next year!

The Zombie Years #1
Creature Entertainment sketch cover by me

Ravenous
Creature Entertainment sketch cover by me

Now for some plugs:

Daniel Cooney and Valentine

Grayhaven Comics

Pronto Comics

Epic Proportions

Creature Entertainment

Cosmic Times

Ken Knudtsen

Seeya Soon

Leigh

The Art of the Sketch!.. or how I learned to to stop worrying and love penciling.

Hiya,

I've been drawing a long time and when I find ways to make it more interesting to do so, I try to stick with it.  Usually, that comes in the form of inking or how I ink or what I ink with.  The W&N series 7 #3 is one of those times I found a tool that really likes me and I stuck with it.

When it comes to penciling, I can't stand it.  I hate the amount of thought and struggle when trying to get the right angle or the right action... it's maddening.  Also, I make the pages dirty with my sinister, left-handedness...

ANY-WAY, I've gone through a dozen or so different techniques to make the actual DRAWING of the page less of a hassle.  The favorite up to this point is the half-page (as I call it).  It's a full comic book page, drawn at half the size of an original and then blown up and light-boxed to create an original.

This was meant to alleviate the amount of time it took to draw a page because all the thinking was done smaller so all the heavy lifting was done in the initial, smaller stage making it, for one, easier to see the whole page as well as the speed in which one can draw a page that measured 5 x 7.5 inches.  It was great.  Also, I believe if you can see what's going on that small then you will be able to see it when it's blown up.. or printed.  That's what counts.

The down side of doing it like this is that there's a bit of time between doing the sketches and doing the finish where you're doing something else.  Whether it's scanning the pages to be blown up or going somewhere to get the pages blown up.  That time, for me, is enough to cool the inspirational fire and even though I can get the page finished, it takes me a bit to get back in the swing of things.

So, because my printer is low on ink, I decided to go back to doing something I used to do in college, that's draw my pages, full-sized, on tracing paper and then transfer those sketches to the board.

It came out, okay.  I used marker to refine what I was thinking in the sketch and it turned into a bit of a mess, but I could see what I was doing so it wasn't that big a deal.  I finally transferred the image to board and inked and... Voila!

It worked.... and what's best was I rode that drawing buzz all the way through the end of the piece.  AMAZING!  I'd forgotten how much fun it was.  I did one, so I decided to do another...

This time, it was comics shaped; 10 x 15 live area border on a 14 x 17 piece of tracing paper with intentions on putting it on a same sized piece of Bristol with a slight kid finish.

I did the sketch on the tracing paper (made a few mistakes, erased the whole image and redrew it on the same piece of paper without missing a beat, I was rolling) and tightened up some of the looser bits with a brush pen.

I liked it. Time to transfer.

Not bad.  I started inking, one thing led to another...

I feel like this step being more immediately followed by the transfer led me to wanting to try and experiment.  I used to do a lot of experimenting with my pages when I was in school and I think it was because I went straight from layout to page without the in-between time of looking for a photocopier.  It makes for a much tougher job when traveling (I'm thinking in those instances it's going to be computer or back to the half page) but while I'm in the studio, this is going to be my mode of travel for the foreseeable future...

... also, it gives me more possible things to sell.  ;)

-Leigh