When Goin' Gets Tough....

... it means it's time to hit the drawing table.  Somehow, it never fails that my safety valve, my way of blowing off steam, always, always involves a pencil, paper, and time away. 

For some reason, November always seems to be that time of year when take a moment to pause and think about the goings-on of the the period, and assess for myself, just what is really important.

In this most recent period of reflection, I've come to the following conclusions, and none of this is anything new, so forgive me if any of this seems obvious or sounds like I'm hitting "repeat".  What's different now is the clarity in which I'm making these observations.

1) Life is too short, and it's going by too quickly for me to be tabling things that are important to me.

2) I need to draw more.

3) I need to read and write more.

A year ago in November, I apparently hit this same point, or at least, I hit the drawing table after what must have been a challenging few weeks (the "new" job seems to demand a lot a this time of year).  I took a few photos of my "process" without giving too much away.  I put them up on Facebook at the time, so I'm going to collect them here because I think they're worth posting again, especially given the subject of this post.

Some ideas will start as "notebook art".

Some ideas wait until I'm at the table.  Concept art for "Battle Robo III".

Scanned lineart, waiting to be digitally colored.  From "Orionic Wars"

Coloring in progress...  from "Orionic Wars"

Some of my favorite background art is drawn directly on the computer.

It's been a long road back to relative health following that bad shoulder/neck strain that kept me away from the table.  You could say it was a bit like cutting off my left hand.  Believe me, I found enough to do with my time to make up the difference.  But given the recent changes going on in my life (which I won't elaborate on here), it is time (actually past time) to shuffle the deck.  Some decisions have not been easy to make.  In time, though, I think the outcome will be for the better, and the results I hope to share here, I hope will be amazing.

Stay tuned.... 

Wayback Machine: The Super Kids League!!

No it's not the Justice League, and it sure as hell isn't Teen Titans Go (good grief, I hate that show!!). It's not even the Legion of the Super Heroes but if you guessed if they inspired it, you'd be pretty close!  Ladies and gentlemen, dusted off for the first time in three decades, is an original drawing of some super teens that I came up with back when I was a teen myself... (drumroll please)... THE SUPER KIDS LEAGUE!!

Here they are, as they looked back in 1980-something... Wonder Kid, Inviso-Kid, Colormatic, Thundercloud, and Wombat, just to name a few... my new favorite is the one at the top, center.... Flame Boy (think "Human Torch") with his hand tea-potting on his hip with just the right amount of Fabulosity.... if that's really a word (I doubt it).

I mean, the work is all very derivative... if DC or Marvel had a hero that did something, I made my own version of it.  I actually designed two sets of heroes back then... Laughing Lad (top row, right) was in both leagues.  Of course, for all the things I loved to create, I never really took these works to the next level... I did actually start a comic for Zippy, the borderline inappropriately named boy speedster.  It was to be a secret origin tale where he (and untold others) gained their powers from a tremendous glowing meteorite that lands in the woods behind his house.  He later meets up with Inviso-Kid and become anti-bullying champions.  That book, along with many others, lay filed away and unfinished.  For years, I berated myself for having so many unfinished pieces of work, but I've since learned their purpose.  They were all skill-developing endeavors.  It was a big problem to start a project, only to find that your expertise and style were now much better than when you started.  It would have been too much to go back and start everything over... so I took them as far as I could at the time and moved on.  In the end, I became a better artist.

It just so happened the other day, that I was cleaning house, and as my mind normally does, it wandered on to something a little more entertaining than vaccuming, and it just so happened that these heroes came bubbling up to the surface of my mind.  Suddenly I was plotting out what could be the makings of my next full comic.  One never knows... this is really a good sign.  I did post recently about balance in my activities... the more these things work their way to the surface, the easier it will be for me to choose what comes next!

Oh... so that people don't think I totally, totally abandoned these kids to time... here is a rework I did a few years ago... luckily I had the good sense to file them all together so that I could find them.  I wanted to know what these heroes would look like if I drew them today.  I avoided all manner of "Hollywood rewriting" and instead just drew them with today's skills - minus the hands... I totally admit I rushed the hands to get the below drawing done.  As they came to life on the paper, the pencil nearly ran away from me with excitement to see these guys again after so many years.  I could almost see them animating themselves on the page.  It may be time to reboot Reflex Comics!!