it's been too long.

i haven't been arting for too many reasons. but I wanted to drop a note here about this site i have recently learned of:

The Grid System is an incredibly useful and interesting site about grids. grids make the world go, as any comics artist would know first hand.

i think seeing the philosophy behind their use in other fields is pretty valuable. also directly applicable to all the web stuff today's cartoonist/illustrator is pretty much obligated to do.

happy holidays, and may all your type adhere to a baseline grid.

Design By Humans shirt

I did this illustration the other day and figured I'd give it a shot as a t-shirt design over at Design By Humans. Check it out and if you like it, please vote for it. If you don't like it, vote for it anyways (I've got student loans to pay!). Here is the direct link: http://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/25972

in stores tomorrow:

POPGUN 2:

featuring a story by Ulises Farinas with colors by Ben DeRosa. See previous post for some preview pages.

Art-Burn Team-up GO! Popgun 2 preview @ act-i-vate.

Act-i-vate has a posted some Popgun 2 previews, including Leaf & August by Ulises, with colors by me (Ben).

read it!

batman? who?

haven't seen the new batman movie yet, but...

tintin wins easily, i think. hopefully the next batman movie will reflect this (crossover?).

(photo by me. hooray)

Giraffe-man is going to be a huge hit...

Here's an interesting piece on alex ross, photo-reliant/mimicking art and what it's done to comics. The comment section is mostly worth reading as well.

What drives me crazy though, (even if i agree with the central premise: ross=lame, fumetti-esque comics=suck) is how photo reference has somehow become a catch all pejorative term for quasi-plagarism/lazy/crutch-for-the-unskilled.

Photo reference doesn't mean photocopying, tracing, duplicating, or stealing a photograph. Photo reference means just what it sounds like. It's reference. It's the visual research you do, so you know and understand what it is you're planning to draw. Let's imagine I'm drawing a comic that features a giraffe (yes, the imagination is a terrifyingly powerful thing). I have a vague idea of what giraffes look like in my head. I know they have long necks, and sort of look like a cross between camels and horses, but beyond that it's pretty fuzzy. How long is the neck in the relationship to the body? They've got those knob things on their heads, but what exactly do they look like? and where exactly are they on the head; are they behind the ears, or between the ears? And what the hell kind of ears do they have? Shit if I know off the top of my head.

photo by digitalART2

photo by cornstaruk

photo by Wildcat Dunny

Oh, that's what they look like. Now I can draw any giraffe I want. Thanks, photo reference. And thanks, baby giraffe...

photo by Ron D’Raine

Creative rights may be in some serious trouble

Sal Amendola just forwarded this email to his class:

"FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

A Million People Against the Orphan Works Bill
http://www.petitiononline.com/Stop2913/petition.html

The petition is now the 7th most active on www.petitiononline.com
Let’s shoot to make it first.
Please keep the signatures coming by forwarding this email to any interested parties.

Remember: you don’t have to be an artist, photographer or performer to be threatened by this bill.
Anything you’ve ever posted on the internet would be exposed to commercial infringement unless you’ve registered it with a couple of large corporate databases.
These databases would then control access to your intellectual property.
That threatens the passive copyright protection all citizens now take for granted.
And that threatens our personal property, freedom of speech and the right to privacy embodied in copyright law.

For more information about Orphan Works, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list,
email us at: ipa@twcny.rr.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name
and the email address you want used in the message area.
________________________________________________________________"



So, sign the petition and do everything you can to pass this information along.

Alex

Girl who leapt through time

This week the ImaginAsian theatre is showing the girl who leapt through time. I don't know much about the movie but the Ad was pretty interesting, and I am sucker for time travel.
Any one wanna go?

An internet hug from Ira Glass

A nice piece that certainly applies to anyone making art.



parts 1, 2 and 4 are pretty interesting as well.

Know Your Rights!

actually, Complete Control would be a better Clash reference for this story...

caution: when you see this label, run:



so chances are you may of heard of the new tokyopop contract-y thing[pdf] going around. apparently it seems to be written in "friendly" non-legalese ("hey stupid, you should be able to understand this!"). it's actually written in sleazy con-artist-ese.

anyway brian lee o'malley has posted a reponse on his blog. it's definitely worth a read. he breaks it down, and nails all the important bits. go read it.

in closing, fuck tokyopop.

James Bond

Penguin Books updated the James Bond novels with new cover designs featuring the art of Michael Gillette, proving that books should be judged by their covers after all. If you bought any of these, I think you'd be obligated to store them cover-out on your bookshelf.

Another one bites the dust

Hey everyone I got engaged! Yay! Below is a picture of my fiance.

MOTRO on new ACT-I-VATE website launch!!!

There's a new website for ACT-I-VATE, the webcomix collective i'm a part of. Everyone shall check it out!!!!!!

here's the web address.

http://www.activatecomix.com/

DC probably a bit upset

Kind of a big deal,

Siegels now own half of Superman

Alex

Non-Repro Blue

I'm about to start working on some pages but the last thing I want to do is spend time erasing when I'm done inking- I'm not too great at photoshop so does anyone know some good blue pencils that would be easy to remove in photoshop?

Hallmark Contest

http://www.hallmarkcontests.com/funnyness/index.cfm

Want to make a Hallmark card?
Now's your chance. Hallmark contest thingy.
I think I may submit my Monster valentine.

Frank Stockton

I've recently been visiting the blog of illustrator Frank Stockton. Not only is he a talented illustrator, but he uses this blog to give insightful tips on the business side of illustration , talk about artistic integrity in a commercial art form, and show his creating process step by step. It's been helpful and entertaining so far. Check it out.

Street Fighter Contest

http://www.udonentertainment.com/blog/?page_id=86

Udon is putting out a Street Fighter book. There's an open call for Street Fighter based entries. Winners get into the book and a free copy of said book.

Interesting? I may have to do a Dhalsim drawing for this.

Ben Ross on Drawn.ca

Ben Ross animation featured on Drawn

Gotta go with 'Ducky Fire' as my favorite so far.

a fancy thing for your website perhaps...

FancyZoom is a lightweight javascript that enlarges images inline. there are some examples at the link.
it took me less than a minute to get it up and running on my site.

i've never been crazy about the behavior of opening images on websites. either it takes you away from the page you were on and forces you to hit the back button, or it opens up an additional window which is plain rude.

i was using the lightbox js on my website, but i was never satisfied about the default functionality. it had a cool feature for viewing sequences of images, but i felt the effect was too severe for one at a time viewing. i'm sure it's possible to alter the lightbox script to suit different needs, but that's outside my code monkey abilities.

anyway i like FancyZoom. it's from Cabel Sasser of Panic software. (if you're using a mac and maintaining a website, i highly recommend you give Coda a try. what little coding i am capable of i taught myself using Coda.) FZ is free to use for non commercial websites. if you make money off your site (i sure as hell don't) it's a one time fee of 39 bones. though i'll gladly fork over the money if things get rolling over at inksktink.net. ha.

apparently FancyZoom has issues in IE 6 (because IE 6 is terrible), but for reals... nobody worth knowing uses IE 6 anymore.

Beasts! Book Two

YOU CAN BE IN BEASTS! BOOK TWO

Seriously. This is pretty big shit.

Seriously. I'm totally gonna try to do one.
Read the post for entry rules.

SUPERTRASH

For those interested I did a little review of the SUPERTRASH exhibition on MY BLOG.

Pick A Square

http://patchblox.com/

Simply pick a patch, upload a 50x 50 gif and add a hyper link. You can even do an image made up of several squares.

I've gotten a bunch of hits on my blog from this. So I made second one, made up of 2 squares, for my site.

Use it. Or don't. What do I care.

SVA T-shirt contest

Can we do this? It doesn't say 'current students only' or anything. A little late notice though.

SVA T-shirt Design Contest‏
From: All Concerned (do.not.reply@sva.edu)
Sent: Wed 2/06/08 7:37 AM
To:

Design the SVA Spring T-Shirt. Our student body picks the winner. Grand prize is an iPod and seeing your shirt design produced.

RULES:
-Design a one-color logo
-Pick the color of the shirt
-Submit a .PNG, .AI or .PSD file on a CD or DVD to the VASA office, located in the George Washington Mezzanine, 23 Lexington Avenue
-"SVA" must appear somewhere on the shirt
-Deadline for entry is 5pm on Thursday, February 14

**Don't forget: the Fall T-shirts are on sale still. We are currently ordering more of the "grey athletics" shirts. Stay tuned.**

drawing again for the first time

just a heads up: the free weekly figure drawing sessions at sva have started again recently:

Wednesdays @ 7:00 PM in the solarium of the george washington building

Thursdays @ 7:00 PM in the 12th floor studio of the west side building

i favor the thursday west side sessions as the poses are shorter (2-5 minutes mostly) and the room is set up for figure drawing specifically. it's also closer to my apartment, and i am lazy. this week i knocked off some rust along with gabe and roni.

>>edit: you can get in the buildings with your alumni card and photo id. though the guard at the west side building never asks...

WHO IS YOUR NEW GOD NOW AND FOREVER?

My Funny Valentine

First!

MY POSTER

FOR DEATH RACE 2000!

Art Burn's '100th Post' Valentines Contest

Time to create a fresh piece for your dated portfolio! Valentines day is just over 3 weeks away and what better way to get an art directors attention than with a timely relevant illustration?

Take the theme of Valentines day and make an awesome eye-catching image. Do something beyond the usual hearts and flowers. Bask in the enjoyment or dwell on the depression of such a dividing holiday.

Finished illustrations should be posted here by January 31st, and sent off to art directors within a week of completion to get there in plenty of time.

Extra non-existent points will be awarded to the competitors who send their image to potential employers and post who they sent them to here.

More trash for you

here's my entry for the supertrash show:



the original, for the curious:

I'm Finished?

I think I'm done. I may work on the font a bit more. And I'm not sure if I wanna add textures to this or not.

Suggestions?

*EDIT*
After a discussion with Mr.Sperry Last night, these alterations came about. Better? Worse? The Texture feels a lil tacked on, but I like the warping of the text. I'm a little on the fence about the color on the people.
#2 Did this after trying a bunch of different ways to add more depth to the monsters body. I like the pink. But again I'm a lil on the fence about the dark brown. It seems to work better on the right side of the monster.

TOOLS

What are everyone's favorite tools for art making? I try new things here and there, but I'm starting to be more consistent in my process lately.

for illustration:
1. paper - usually just printer paper, since I can't afford nice texture stuff yet
2. inks - i like a gnarled up or slightly dried out micron 05 or 08. and any ink pen with a chisel tip - i got a sharpie with a nice edge and this cool chiseled pen by ITOYA called Doubleheader.
3. colors - photoshop usually, sometimes build palettes in illustrator, or pull colors from rich photos.
4. texture - if i need a little more texture, i'll sometimes pull some from old photos or grungetextures.com

Hoppy New Year

Yipee! 2008!!!