Some Updates...

Hey! Like the new blog header up there? It's about time I made this place a little more presentable, right?

There's some pretty exciting stuff going on and it's a been a while since I updated this thing. In the meantime I've mostly been posting warm-up sketches and stuff on my tumblr: csmithart.tumblr.com

The folks at Aspen have been keeping me pretty busy this year, too. I'm working on the final issue of the series Broken Pieces right now, and I've even started work on my next project with Aspen, which I'll talk more about when they make an announcement. But I will say that I'm pretty excited about this one for a couple reasons. For one thing, the subject matter got me pretty excited- I think it's something I could really have fun with. Also, I'll be doing full inks for this book!!

In other news, I'm getting ready for NYCC. I'll be in Artist Alley at table C7 with prints and sketchbooks and original art and everything. And there's more Independents coming your way from me and Ben Christian very soon, so keep an eye out for that.

And the thing I'm most excited about is that I'm writing stories now too. The image in the banner up top is the first piece of art created for a short story I'm writing and drawing titled "The Package". It's a small piece of some stories and ideas I've wanted to draw pretty much since I was a kid, and if it goes well there will definitely be more. So far it's going fucking amazing. Here's the b&w for the banner art:

BROKEN PIECES #3 Cover Process

Here are my cover pencils for Broken Pieces #3, out in a few weeks! I've done a few covers for Aspen at this point, but this is the first one I really had any input on conceptually, so it was awesome to work on. Mark (BP writer) and Vince (editor) gave me a few ideas to run with and I did a few layout sketches to show them first.

 After showing these to colorist Peter Steigerwald, the guys wanted to see a combination of layouts 1 and 2, which I resisted at first. I always immediately think combining two layouts is going to be the death knell for any composition. But I tried it anyway, and it ended up producing the stronger layout in the end, proving I'll always have a lot to learn at this.

And here's the awesome finished piece! I'm really excited for this book to come out- it was a real learning experience and I hope you'll check it out! I'm already hard at work on issue 4...

Head over to the Aspen blog http://aspenmltinc.blogspot.com/ and check out some work-in-progress shots of the coloring process posted last week.

THE GUTTERS- Issue 310

 

I drew a page this week for the webcomic The Gutters. I got to draw one-handed Rick Grimes and some zombies, but I also had to draw a car. So I pretty much broke even.

Here's the inked page:

 

It came out a lot sloppier than I expected. Never again with the Prismacolor fine tip pens/markers. Erasing the pencils lines took off about 40% of the ink too.

181 Days of Jack Kirby Characters

Last year I challenged myself to doing a sketch card daily and posting it to twitter, and I chose to do characters created by Jack Kirby because I knew there were hundreds and it would keep me busy and motivated. Oh yeah, and because Kirby created some of the greatest comic book characters and designs ever and I knew they'd be fun. Towards the end they weren't "daily" so much as "when I had the time", but I managed to finish the set anyway. Here they all are in chronological order:

Here it is ENLARGED.
And here's a link to the Twitpic Gallery.

I also want to really thank everyone who retweeted these cards and helped me spread them around the internet. You guys rule. I hope you enjoyed checking them out as much as I did making them.

THE PRIDE #3 -Cover Process

Here's another cover I did for Joe Glass's comic The Pride. Roughs, pencils, inks. Joe left it pretty much up to me to figure out what to draw here, so I went with a big fight scene (it happens in the issue). 

It might seem like a lot of work for one image, but it got kind of complicated with all the different characters and how they interacted. I even sent Joe this color comp early on to make sense of my messy drawing:

Logan

Angry, bub. Angry.

Fathom #5 In Stores Today

I drew ten pages in this week's Fathom #5. That's 25% more pages than I drew in issue #4, for you statistic enthusiasts. Here's a panel mash-up from the issue:

Inking warmup: Gateway

It's been a few weeks since I've inked anything so I did this little thing on a piece of scrap bristol to get comfortable again.

3x9 bristol, india ink, white paint, brushes, 60 mins

FATHOM #4 In Stores Today

Fathom #4 is available today in stores, and I drew eight pages in it. Go get yourself a copy!!!

Here's a sneak peak at my pencils for a few pages from the issue:

Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive

I've always liked the Black Panther, but the current "urban vigilante" era at the hands of David Liss, Francesco Francavilla and others is one of my favorites. This Panther is just really cool looking. I know he's supposed to be some kind of genius, but he's always been a hand-to-hand combatant to me, so putting him in this SWAT-inspired combat gear is a no-brainer.

Brush, ink, technical pens, inkwash, white paint, bristol board.

Some process shots:

Uncanny X-Men

This is a piece I did for Pat Loika after he was nice enough to give his artist alley table at NYCC to me and Ben Christian. The X-Men are among my favorite things to draw, so when Pat asked for these characters I was psyched. Pat also does an excellent podcast that you can listen to here.

Blindside: now with color!

Marat Mychaels' Blindside. B & W art by me, colors by Frank Cuonzo.

THIS is why I leave the colors up to more capable artists. I love what Frank did with this.

A big ol' art dump

Some of the work I've done over the last few months:

 

Feels like forever since I've posted new art. These are as follows:

1.) The Pride cover (& rough pencils)- done for Joe Glass and Gavin Mitchell's comic series The Pride. I had a lot of fun doing this one-love doing these kinds of design-heavy compositions. I think it will appear on issue #2.

2.) Blindside pin-up (&rough pencils). Soon to be in glorious color by Frank Cuonzo. We're showing this to Marat Michaels for the launch of his comic Blindside.

3.)Thundercats- just for fun, really. The new cartoon got me thinking about how much I loved these characters in the 80's. I had colors in mind when I drew this, but I never got around to actually doing them. Something like this with a strong light source would be a good challenge/exercise. One of these days...

4.)Youngblood's Shaft. Did this to be part of a jam piece with some other artists, but it never really came together. Again, I thought of this with colors in mind. Again, one of these days...

5.)The Independents cover- inks & colors- This is going to be part of our pitch for for The Independents. The pitch is still being worked on, but we used this image as the cover for our 12 page comic that we had copies of at NYCC this year. Some of you lucky devils might even own one. I needed a lot of help with the colors on this, and I got it from our series colorist Steve Talaba and the awesome Dean White!

6.) Some Gladstones School for World Conquerors art I did as a warm-up one day. More on this soon...

Come on give me some of that vampire money (c'mon)

This is a drawing of The Independents from back in January that I colored up this weekend. Ben Christian and I are preparing a comprehensive pitch for the series that includes scripts, a series outline, pages of roughs, character bios, a 4 page teaser/trailer comic, ideas for an ad campaign, a finished cover, and lots more. Is it too much? Probably. But we've spent the last year pouring ourselves into the project and re-tooling and re-evaluating and re-thinking how to make ANOTHER superhero comic appealing to publishers. We've gotten invaluable input and advice from several generous pros and friends. We've learned a ton, and The Independents have come out the other side 100% better for it. At this point, to put anything but our best foot forward with it wouldn't make sense.

I'm not great using color as a medium, but each time I try to use it I end up a little more comfortable with it. Yeah, I know that's how it's supposed to go. Duh. But I have such a lack of confidence in my understanding of color that I get excited when I know enough to make the sky blue and the grass green. I'm jinxing myself saying this, but I feel like I'm starting to turn a corner with my coloring skills. I'm turning it slowly, with my hand out the window to signal.

Also, this is the beginnings of my attempt to update this blog with new art more regularly. Sorry that this place currently looks like garbage. I'm in the process of developing a new look for this site which includes a new logo/header. I'm still about a week away from completing it, but last night I started playing around with the new features/templates on blogger to see what my options were and just ended up leaving the place a mess. If anything, it'll motivate me to get it all done sooner rather than later. So please bear with this eyesore until the all-new, all-different (but not really) CSMITHART.BLOGSPOT.COM goes up.

Muscle Mary page

This is a page I did for Joseph Glass, Gavin Mitchell, and Kris Carter's comic The Pride. Gavin is the regular series artist, but Joe has been having guest artists do back-up material for the book in the form of these 1-page origin stories for each of the characters.

I had a lot of fun doing it and got to try some new inking techniques in the process. I'm gonna have to try and incorporate that inkwash into some other things.

The guys have a page on Indiegogo.com and are currently accepting donations for the project, so go support them HERE. They're pretty close to their target, so help push them over the edge, why don't ya? Take it to the limit, if you will. Aw shit, now it's montage time.

My roughs and a warm-up sketch of Mary:

Sketch Card Sheet

I just wanted to see what this would look like. I'll probably make prints out of groups like these at some point. Or maybe even make a giant poster-type-thing out of all 200+ of them once they're done, but they might end up too small for it to work. Split it into 2 posters?
Decisions, decisions...

Guess what I drew? A Turtle. Again.

Brush and ink on watercolor paper, colors in PS4.

And some process:

If you follow me on Twitter (you probably don't, apology accepted) you might have seen me posting this bit by bit yesterday. If I had thought about this as a blog post from the start, instead of just a fun warm-up on twitter, then I would have taken better scans and more of them during the process. Thinking I'll try some more step-by-step stuff like this in the future, and maybe do a full write-up to accompany it for you process junkies. Cool? Cool.