On Technique

Since I've already covered the style I'm using for ONE, I'll go over technique.

If you think of style as being what you do, technique is how you do it. Technique is the actual mean/s the artist utilizes to get their ideas on paper (or monitor, or canvas, or music sheet, etc). Some artists like to use expensive drafting tools, some use mechanical pens bought at their local Walgreens, and others use Sharpie markers that are almost dry. They all work, but not all of them work for everyone. So while technique is important, as an artist, you can't be a slave to it. The most important thing is how to get your ideas out of your head and on the paper.

Here's an awesome quote by Neal Adams' in Will Eisner's Shop Talk that goes a little further into the topic:

"What I find is that there are many artists doing many things, and each successful artist has found his own tools. Very rarely does an artist accept the tools of another artist. His responsibility does not include responsibility to other artists or to the general public. His responsibility is to himself. The tools he uses are the tools he finds. The thing he has to think about is what is his goal, not what is his technique."

Amen. It's all about the goal. And as the artist, it's up to you to choose the best technique that will allow you to accomplish your goal.

With ONE, I want the book to feel like an episode of Samurai Jack...but in print. I want to utilize a lot of epic shots and give it a cinematic pacing. I want the reader (actually, audience is more appropriate 'cause there's only one word in the entire book so there's not much reading going on) to be able to get through the book in ten minutes. I'll let C. C. Beck (again, from Will Eisner's Shop Talk) say it best:

"Never include anything that doesn't belong there...[convey] a message to the reader in the simplest form...[Most] young artists are so anxious to show off, all of them, to show things that they can do, that they throw in a bunch of stuff that doesn't belong there. If you have to stop to figure out a picture for about three minutes, then you've lost the thread of the story."

Amen. Again.

I also want to be able to handle the creation of the book. It is, after all, my first real book. Not that I want to make it easy on myself, but I don't want to shoot myself in the foot by trying out new tools and working methods that I'm not already comfortable with. That's why I'm using the animated style. And that's why I'm sticking to good ole pen and paper (8.5x11, nothing fancy) for the actual pages and Photoshop for finishes (cleaning up, editing, coloring, design).

So with my goals in mind, I made a few ground rules. I have to give credit to Ted Mathot for sharing his own ground rules on his book, Rose and Isabel (which I'll be purchasing at the San Diego Comic Con in a few weeks). I basically ripped off some his rules. Yeah, I'll admit it. But they make 100% sense. They helped me decide how to approach ONE best; how to reach my goals.

1. ONE will be in greyscale - Like Mathot said, "Although B&W can be very challenging, it's nowhere near as difficult as color (for me)." I agree. I'm just getting into color theory so grayscale is something I can manage. I'll probably go with a color cover but as far as the interior pages are concerned, grayscale is law. This will also come in handy when I start researching printing options. Grayscale, by far, is cheaper to print than color. And if I end up using a printing service like Lulu or Dream Weaver Press, my checkbook will thank me for going gray.

2. No Rendering - Quoting Mathot: "The greys must be flat color or simple gradients. At the very most I allowed myself a drop shadow or rim light." I'm using shadows here and there to convey scope and specific moods but that's as far as I'm going to allow myself to go on ONE. I'm not even getting into using too many gradiants. Greyscales and flats - check.

3. No fancy brushes or textures - I'm still relatively new to Photoshop so I wouldn't even know how to use the fancy brushes and textures. And since I've already storyboarded most of the book, I already know where I can reuse and repurpose backgrounds. ONE is getting the KISS treatment: Keep It Simple Stupid.

4. Keep Moving - Mathot, again: "If a drawing isn't right (and there are many I'm not totally happy with) I have to keep going. I'll take a few whacks at it, but then move on. If it really bothers me, I'll try to come back to it later." I'm pretty anal about my work but if I plan to stick to my schedule, I can't get hung up on minutiae. And speaking of scheduling...

5. Come up with a schedule and stick to it - Quoting Mathot: "This is absolutely essential. Know how much work you need to do and how much time you have to do it. Comics are great for time management cause you can break them down by pages. You can assign X number of pages per month, week, day, etc. If you fall behind or get ahead it's easy to adjust that number." Told ya, the man knows what he's talking about.

Initially, my deadline was mid-July, just in time to have the book completed by the San Diego Comic Con. But reality has set in and the possibility of completing what has grown to be a 250+ page book (aka monster) in the next month has been thrown out of the window. So taking into account what I've done so far, what I need to do, and those pesky real world things that are bound to materialize along the way, ONE should be finished by the end of this year. I may be able to finish the book before then but that gives me ample time to do some quality control and make sure my first book is a good book, at least to me.

Now that style and technique are in the rearview, time for more pretty pictures. Next up - storyboards.

Bernie

Cars

My ten-year high school reunion went down this weekend, making me feel really old. Well, that didn't bother me nearly as much as feeling like I haven't developed or utilized my drawing skills to a higher level. I've seen the volume of work some of my peers have produced and it's enough to make this grown man cry. But I'm not one to sob in the corner so I put foot to ass and went to work.

So after Surly Sergio's Sombreros and between some sudden and unfortunate family issues, I found two hours to watch Disney and Pixar's Cars.

I know, I know. Not exactly work but it's kinda like reference. Kinda.

The movie was good; not Pixar's best but a good, entertaining film nonetheless. The set up for the film took a little too long but once the action moved to the small town (Radiator Springs), the movie went into (excuse the pun) high gear. But overall, the animation was solid and the voice acting was spot. Then again, it's not like they went out on a limb with the character archtypes they choose (ex. Mexican lowrider car voiced by Cheech Marin; Redneck towtruck voiced by Larry The Cable Guy).

So, back to getting some more drawing under my belt. With Cars as inspiration, I did some sketching. Here's the result:


And after a few hours of Photoshop-ing, here's the final drawing:


Turned out OK. I could've done more with the overall perspective and the car designs but the drawing was just a quick reaction to watching the film.

Enough digressions for this week. Now back to ONE.

Bernie

Weekend Digression Part 2

Still working on ONE...really. The focus for this week has been on storyboarding the story. I have an idea on how the entire book plays out but I wanted to thumb(nail) out some of the key scenes to make sure it flows. I'll post some of the thumbs next week and also discuss the logistics on how I'm going to go about actually completing the pages. I may have addressed style, but technique is also extremely important, especially on a project like ONE. In the meantime, here are a few pretty pictures.

Continuing with the retro cereal box theme - Surly Sergio's Sombreros.


Not much in the initial sketch but I put down just enough to figure out where to go with the piece. I wanted Surly Sergio to have a Yosemite Sam-like quality; a short ball of fire that could go crazy anytime. I also added a little Eli Wallach from his character in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Now on to the next step...


I added a few elements like the "XXX" beer bottle (probably NOT on your average supermarket cereal box), changed Sergio's left arm (mirroring the right arm just made sense), and came up with a solid look for the actual cereal. Like Perky Pete's Pigtails, Sombreros are much easier to imagine as cereal than an actual drawing. And a quick Google search gave me a few references for the Mexican styled bowl. I also added a slight texture to the sky so it would stand instead of being just a flat light blue. So far, so good.

Here's the final cereal box design:


Not as retro as I wanted but, well, too bad. As I was adding the design elements, I thought of a few things I could change to give it a true retro feel but I decided that the piece was solid on its own. I'm happy with Sergio's design, I like the overall color scheme, and texturing the sky was a new learning lesson. So I'll put the ideas in my mental toolbox and utilize them on the next drawing.

I have two more ceral box designs left: Happy Hippo's Hoops and an extra special cereal that I'll share before the end of the month. Stay tuned.

Bernie

On Style

After a weekend of ballyhoo and hijinks, it's back to work on ONE.

With the main character designed and the the first background complete, it's time to answer some of the big questions regarding the project. The foundation for ONE, the high concept, is pretty simple when you think about it (here's a reminder for those that came in late):

One world. One main character. One bad guy. One journey. One spoken word. One climax. One panel per page. One book. One creator.

The high concept is great but its execution will determine if it works. That's where style and technique come in; two very different beasts that are sometimes mistakenly equated with each other.

I'm sure I'll get a few disagreements out there but in my mind, style comes from the artist. It's the extension of the person's personality/influences, translated through a medium (paper, film, music, etc) and determined by the artist's level of skill. Sure, whatever inspires you will likely work it's way into the art you produce. But as a creator, your mind acts as a funnel for everything you've been exposed to that has peaked your interest on numerous cognitive and intuitive levels. Your skill allows those ideas to take shape to the best of your abilities. And like any other muscle, you have to develop it if you want it to get stronger. The more you draw, the stronger and more personal your style will be.

Admitingly, my style has been a work in progress. Still is. Will be for as long as I draw. It's a constant evolution that is affected by everything around me. I think the growth comes from finding what you like to do and making it your own. You start with a solid foundation of what feels "right" and you run with it. You create. And you let the creations represent you because, in many ways, they are you. Sure, you may like the way another arist draws an ear or a hand so you incorporate it into you own skill set. Into your style. That's natural. Just like Jack Kirby said: "One man is a school for another.” But knowing your style is being comfortable in your own skin. Knowing just enough about yourself to be able to express it.

I'm not sure who said it but I guess when you think about it, putting pen to paper is a brave act.

As for me, my school is varied - Alex Toth, Jack Kirby, Bruce Timm, Akira Kurosawa, Rod Sterling, Gendy Tartovsky, Mike Mignola, Scott Morse, Frank Espinoza, Ben Caldwell, Darwyn Cooke, Tim, Biskup, Dan Krall, Ted Mathot, Mark Andrews, Sam Hiti, Matt Hawthorne, Dave Johnson, Lesean Thomas, Sandford Greene, Jim Mahfood, Dave Crosland, Mike Huddleston, Ghostbot, Guy Davis, Ashley Wood, Ragnar, Ovi Nedelcu, Erik Larsen.

All these creators have somehow affected my style. And for ONE, I wanted to be really comfortable in my own skin for the first time. So far, you've seen some of the sketches for the project and you can see that I'm going with an "animated" style. Look at my portfolio and you'll find Tim Bradstreet, Travis Charest, Jim Lee, and countless of other comic artists. It took years of drawing to finally find my way...but animation has always been a big influence. It's tied directly into my love of film and my love for illustration. Animation marries them like no other medium can.

But I'm coming to the realization that the "animated" style is my style. It feels "right." It's my perspective. And like my dad always said, "It's all about perspective."

Bernie

Weekend Digression

Sorry for the delay between posts but this weekend, 3/5's of the Element X crew (Amado, Marcus, and myself) got together to check out some art from our respective projects and enjoy a trip to a few local comic shops. Anytime we get together, the pretty pictures are free flowin' and hours start disappearing. But the comradre of fellow artists cannot be equaled; it helps to recharge the creative batteries and it pushes you to draw more/better. So once we go our separate ways, the desire to draw left behind is hard to resist.

Anytime you work on a project, it can get easy to lose your focus and begin wavering. Not that ONE is losing it's fun factor but changing gears and drawing something completely different helps on a lot of levels. It keeps you fresh as an artist, forcing you to utilize your skills beyond the task at hand. It changes your artistic perspective. You learn to work out problems by exposing yourself to illustrating new things. And hopefully, you can add that newfound knowledge to your skill set.

You hear it all the time from the pros out there that are working on a monthly title. They start their day with a quick sketch, allowing their mind and body to loosen up before going into full sequential mode.

So...having purchased the Krazy Kids' Food! Vintage Food Graphics book recently, I wanted to take a stab at designing a fake retro cereal box. While my girlfriend was watching a 3-hour made-for-television Audrey Hepburn movie starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, I started skeching and came up with this:


Perky Pete's Pigtails. Heh. I also came up with Happy Hippo's Hoops and Surly Sergio's Sombreros. I'll get to them soon enough. As for Perky Pete, here's the colored version, sans cereal box design:


After scanning the pencils, I just dug in and finished it in Photoshop. The actual cereal was probably the hardest part. Coming up with the name was easy. But drawing actual cereal pigtails? Not so much. I also did a few designs for the bowl but quickly realized that a detailed design, however retro, would go against the simplicity of the overall drawing.

After a few hours of work, here's the full-blown retro cereal box:



And because I couldn't resist...
The whole thing took the better part of my Sunday. What can I say, I'm a little anal about design and I wanted to make sure it was perfect (plus, as hard as it may be to believe, I didn't mind missing out on the Audrey Hepburn flick, even if it was Jennifer Love Hewitt's best acting performance to date...next to Scream, because, well, she screamed...alot). But the whole process was worthwhile. I'm pretty happy with the drawing and I learned a few Photoshop shortcuts that I'll take with me when I go back to ONE. Problem is, now I can't wait to work on Happy Hippo's Hoops and Surly Sergio's Sombreros.

If there were only more hours in the day there'd be time enough at last (a little Twilight Zone reference for those not in the know).

Bernie

No One Puts Backgrounds in the Corner

When it came time to attend high school, I had two choices: 1. Attend my "assigned" high school located about 4 miles from my parent's home, or 2. Apply to another, much better but much farther high school and hope for acceptance based on my grades.

I chose the latter.

My high school of choice? Lane Technical High School, located on the corner of Western and Addison in Chicago, about 2 miles from glorious Wrigley Field (home of former MLB team Chicago Cubs, present home of the most expensive AAA team in the sport...a little Cubs humor, sorry). Here she is in all her glory...

God, it was huge. Still is.

Anyway, the "Technical" part of the school's title meant that they had fields of study such as drafting, woodworking, and engineering along with the regular college prep courses. I picked drafting. That meant that for the duration of my stay at Lane, drafting would constitute the core of my classes. Architecture 101, Architecture 102, AutoCAD, Landscapes, Machinery, Advanced Drafting. Yup, took them all.

That concentrated exposure to drafting and architecture for four years was a key factor in shaping how I would come to view art. I started to appreciate backgrounds, cityscapes, landscapes, and machinery blueprints more than characters. Perfect sketches of human anatomy just didn't compare to an engine's internal specs. I even remember buying some Legend of the Dark Knight issues because they had Anton Furst's Gotham city designs for the first Batman movie.

As the years passed, I knew what I was looking for in my comics, movies, and animation: good design, well-constructed backgrounds, and interesting layouts. So I gravitated towards creators such as Katsuhiro Otomo, Bruce Timm, Genndy Tartakovsky (also a Lane Tech alumni), and Nihei Tsutomu; and their creations: Akira, Batman: The Animated Series, Blame, Samurai Jack, Biomega, Star Wars: Clone Wars.

So when thoughts of ONE started developing and shaping in my head, I knew I wanted to create a project where the background and the design were characters of their own. And not just extras or walk-ons; I'm talking about full fledged name-in-the-opening-credits characters. Easy to say, not so easy to do. At least I knew exactly where ONE took place - Mad Max/Avalon/Akira/Samurai Jack post-apocalytic wasteland wonderland. That meant lots of debris, rubble, and collapsed buildings.

Collapsed buildings. What a great place to start.

That's the actual line art, drawn on 8.5x11 using a mechanical pencil, assorted Micron .005 pens, Sharpie fine point markers, and about 1/4 of an eraser. Took about an hour to complete. The final, grayscaled version can be seen at the top of the blog.

Go ahead, take a look. I'll wait.

The final, grayscaled version was done in Photoshop 7 and the aid of caffeine. Lots if caffeine. I'm a self-educated Photoshop user so I'm sure it takes me twice as long to do something in the program then it probably should. But if I had to guess-timate, I'd say the clean-up and grayscales took about 3 hours.

Overall, I was really happy with the final drawing. Exactly what I'd set out to do. Moreover, I knew I was onto something when my girlfriend looked at it and asked me if I drew it. So with the first background complete, it was time to get serious about the book's design and really cement the style I would be using for the project.

Bernie

Alex Toth 1928 - 2006

Bad Ass & Bald

Now that I'm back from my Samurai Jack season 3 marathon...

As I was saying, I came to the realization that the main character needed a human face rather than just the trio of circuitry dots. But considering that this is my first full solo comic creation adventure, I wanted to create a face that I wouldn't get sick of drawing over and over again. It had to be simple and iconic. Guys like Mignola and Toth can do it in their sleep. Their styles are very economical in the linework department but the results are beyond effective. They draw just enough to let the audience know what's what.

After skimming through a few Hellboy trades, I pulled out some of my animation artbooks for reference, mainly the Batman: The Animated Series and The Incredibles artbooks. Both books have some amazing concept sketches that detail the amount of work that goes into designing a character's head/face. I also went through Frank Espinoza's Rocketo trade (one of my newest prized possessions). Although I'm not working with a brush like Espinoza uses on Rocketo, he utilizes a limited number of strokes to create all the elements of a face. That's the level of efficiency I was looking for.

Since I'm a movie buff, I also like to imagine who would play the part of a character if the book was made into a film. I treat it like a shorthand for the character as I work on the project. If I'm stuck with a scene or a line of dialogue, I just picture the actor performing the action and it provides some momentum. For ONE's main character, I knew I wanted him to be older and weathered. And the second I realized he needed a face, I'd thought of Clint Eastwood's character in Unforgiven.


Scars, squinted eyes, wrinkles, crow's feet - the whole nine. Then I rememberd how much I liked Ed Harris' character in Enemy at the Gates. He played an older, battle-hardened German sniper who was sent to hunt down Jude Law.

There was something very cool about Harris in this role that I wanted to replicate in the main character's head/face. He was calculated and thoughtful. Harris made you believe that he could stalk someone down and snipe them from hundreds of yards away with only one shot.

All that being said, here's my first sketchbook attempt:

A few good things came out of these sketches that found their way to the final design - the bald head, the scarf design, and the eye scar. The bald head made sense because it suggested age and a level of sophistication or aristocracy. Think Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The scarf covering the face reinforced the post-apocayptic Mad Max thing I'm going for. And the scar made him look bad ass.

With those elements in hand I took one more trip to the sketchbook. Here's the result:

He came out a little too lanky so I had to crop the sketch a little. But overall, I'm diggin' his look. Not only will he be fun and relatively easy to draw, the design allows me to play around with contrast and shadows.

"I love it when a plan comes together."

Bernie

Robot Evolution

I got a little sidetracked with the last post but I hope you don't mind. Just like a director might do research for his film by watching other movies or looking at certain illustrators or photographers, I'll give you the DVD-behind-the-scenes-making-of-featurette to everything I'm digging into as I work on ONE. In some small way, I'm sure it all works itself into the final product. But I'll try to keep the occassional digressions entertaining with the inclusion of some pretty pictures.

Alright, back to work...

So once the robot idea emerged, I wanted to flesh out the design. Here's my first stab at him:

So far, so good. The Kirby-esque circuitry dots theme was moving in the right direction. And all that black makes him look kinda sleek (at least to me). So after performing a little Photoshop magic, here are two variations, all cleaned up and grayscaled.


As you can tell, the second cleaned-up robot has a few more circuitry dots thrown in. At first, I thought they made the design look too busy. But after going over it a few times (and showing it to my girlfriend), I think it's the better of the two. Considering that the robot is pretty much all black anyway, the dots make up for the lack of detail and add some texture. They also give the design that cool Kirby/Timm/DC animated cartoons/Dave Johnson feel.

Once I was done with these drawings, I went back to work on the final outline for the story. Most of the story was already cemented but I wanted to go back and nail down a few loose ends before putting more time on the drawing table (or my living room carpet, same difference). I'll drop a credit to my buddy Andre for being a good sounding board. We've been friends for a long time and his input on whatever I'm working on is always useful. Just like that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Picard and the Darmok talk in a language rooted in alien metaphor, Andre and I do the same thing but with movies, animation, comics, and video games.

I'm very much a visual learner so it was helpful to be able to stare at the the final robot and use the drawing as an anchor for the narrative. Sometimes that's all it takes. One solitary image can make the whole story come into focus.

But as I was looking at the robot, I came to a realization that he needed a face. A human face.

If the whole concept was based on one character performing one action, the audience would have to create some type of connection to the main character. I'm not talking about "feeling his pain;" I'm talking about being able to look at his face and see a pair of eyes, not a pair of dots (or a trio of dots, same difference). Taking into account the climax of ONE, I just felt that the dots don't allow for that connection to exist.

So it was back to the sketchpad.

Bernie

Concept Sketches

Afer gaining some inspiration from looking at those four old Drifter drawings, I pulled out my sketchpad and went to work. That in itself is a relatively big departure for me because I really don't do any sketching. I typically keep the designs in my head and drop them on the page when I start working on a drawing. And since almost all of my drawings are taken to completion (you'll only find a handful of unfinished drawings in my possession), I tend to work stuff out on paper rather than in a sketchpad. Maybe not the best method but it's worked for me (can't say the same for the number of erasers I've killed along the way). It makes me feel like I'm being efficient with my time and energy.

But lately, I've been questioning whether I've just gotten lucky on the page or if I'm settling for what works when a little doodling in a sketchbook might make for a better drawing. I don't want toss out the "Everyone else does it" line and make it sound like I'm jumping on the band wagon...cause I'm not. Just wondering if I might be able to develop my skills by simply doing some more sketching before jumping to the final drawing.

Alright, enough thinking aloud (or rather, in type). Where was I?

So...after gaining some inspiration from looking at those four old Drifter drawings...blah, blah, blah...sketchpad. Got it. So here's what I came up with.


I was trying to push the Western theme out of the picture by giving the character more of a post-apocalyptic feel by way of the goggles and the hood. That would explain the disappearance of the cowboy hat. However, the scarf was a keeper. It was an element that seemed to work from the Drifter drawings so I decided to keep it. Plus, flowing scarfs are cool. Remember Shinobi? There you go.

As I was playing with the post-apocalyptic idea, I thought about pushing it a little further. Here are the results:


I know, I know. Is that a robot? Yup. Not sure how he got on the page but maybe there is some magic in sketching. The hat came back, albeit briefly. But the robot idea got me thinking.

Bernie

A Little More Background

Have you ever seen one of those evolution diagrams where they show the transition from the monkey to the upright man?

Well, when I was developing Drifter, by comparison, my drawing skills were at the amoeba stage. I was able to handle some basic concept designs but quickly came to the realization that my drawing skills were not up to par.

And unlike other artists who were the “art kid” in school or drew mini-comics featuring Superman fighting Spiderman, I’d simply never developed that muscle. No practice makes perfect. No sketchbook sessions. No late-night drawing frenzies under a blanket with a flashlight. If I was going to work on the project, I knew I’d have to put forth some serious effort and work to become something resembling an artist.

This is the part of the movie where the “Five Years Later” caption would appear. We’re talking early 2006.

After some stylistic changes and a few false starts, Drifter was still on the indefinite wait list. By now, I’d developed over a dozen comic projects and filled a handful of portfolios with artwork. But I still hadn’t worked on my own book. There was nothing out there that was 100% me.

More than ever, I wanted to take on a book that I could write, design, storyboard, illustrate, color, and letter all on my own. So I started looking at my old drawings for inspiration and found some of the early Drifter designs. Among them, I found four drawings that got the wheels turning.





The style was simple…but it worked. Thing is, I didn’t want to do a Western. I didn’t want to do Drifter. In those five years, I’d taken the Drifter concept to another level and it had become something completely different. But these four drawings got me thinking.

I had this idea called ONE that was never really fleshed out beyond the main concept. It would be a challenge but I felt I could handle it.

One world. One main character. One bad guy. One journey. One spoken word. One climax. One panel per page. One book. One creator.

One.

Bernie

A Little Background

About ten years ago (wow, has it really been that long?), I was working at Best Buy with two of my best friends, Chris Stevenson and Andre Walker. During our shifts, aside from complaining about the company and management, we'd talk about comics, movies, animation, video games, and all things fanboy. But the really good conversations happened at Chris' house where we'd talk about the state of the entertainment industry and attempt to answer the age old question: "Well, what would you do different?"

As fans, we just weren't getting what we needed. Something was missing. Something was wrong. And, of course, we knew how to fix it. Our collective knowledge, built upon thousands of hours of movie/cartoon watching, reading comics, and playing video games gave us (at least in our minds) the perfect resume. So we put foot to ass and decided to create some of our own stories.

Comics was the easist way to go because, in our infinite wisdom, it seemed easy. You write a story, someone draws it, and you have an instant comic. Oh how little did we know. In hindsight, I can see that the concepts we created were born from the same comics, television shows, movies, and video games that we were obsessing over at the time. Chris created Watchers, a Buffy: The Vampire Slayer-esque WB teen drama. Andre created Black Dragon, a gritty, urban hero that was a cross between Batman and The Punisher.

And I created Drifter.

At the time, I was really into John Woo. I'd never seen anything quite like A Better Tomorrow, Hard Boiled, or The Killer in American cinema. So I read up on Woo and found that one of his influences was a director named Sam Peckinpah.


In an attempt to connect the dots, I watched The Wild Bunch, The Getaway, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and Straw Dogs. The Wild Bunch struck the biggest cord. Even though I'd become quite the movie buff, I'd always felt that Westerns were lame so I'd never really allowed myself to watch any of them. But The Wild Bunch was different. So I kept connecting the dots and ran into Sergio Leone.


A Fistful of Dollars. For A Few Dollars More. The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. Once Upon A Time In The West.


Eventually, I'd round off my Western education with some Clint Eastwood, mainly Pale Rider and Unforgiven.

During this time, I was also discovering the world of animation.


I was watching the Batman and Superman animated series’ religiously.


They paved the way for the Fleischer Superman cartoons.

And I was starting to get into anime thanks to Giant Robo, Ninja Scroll, and Robotech.

Animation became a viable art form, capable of maturity and inventiveness beyond the after school and Saturday morning cartoons I’d watched as a kid.

So it should come as no surprise that my idea for a comic was Drifter - a gritty western revenge tale filled with violence and bloodshed, set in the backdrop of a barren wastelend…and told in an animated style with cinematic pacing.

With concept in hand, it was off to the drawing board.

Bernie

Friday Night Fun

With my girlfriend camping in Michigan for the weekend, I decided to take advantage of the freedom by throwing all my art supplies on the living room and sketching like a madman.

Yeah, I know. Pretty lame.

But here's what emerged...


Since I've been trying to develop my animated-style skills, I kept this one simple. Although I didn't do a full pose, just imagine her being pretty tall and having really long legs. That's probably the only way she could have her (ahem) relatively large chest.

After a good scan and half-an-hour of Photoshop-ing, here's what she turned into...


Bernie

Space Ghost - Part Three

Alright, here is the final colored pinup.


However, since the souvenir book is printed in black and white, I converted the pinup to grayscale. After playing around with the contrast, here's how it turned out.


I sent it over to the good people in charge of the San Diego souvenir book before the April 15th deadline and I got an email confirming that they received it. I guess I'll find out if it made it into the souvenir book once I get to San Diego in July. If it made the cut, it'll be a cool surprise. But if it doesn't, that's OK. It was fun to work on.

Bernie