Hello From Florida!

Hello everyone!

A quick update from Florida. I'm currently vacationing and enjoying visiting my family. I've been working on a lot of concept sketches for the second volume of Air-Heart. While the first volume hasn't been published yet, its never to early to start on the ideas for the next. In fact I've got most of it figured out already.

The sketch to right is a concept for an undercover Skyrate outfit for Amelia. I thought it would be fun to put her into some swashbuckling threads.

As far as my current progress on finishing volume one I'm still in the beginning stages of shading but I should be finished on time if not earlier. At this point I only need to hammer out a cover design and finish shading. Then you'll be able to get your copy! Finally! I'll try to post again soon by my internet connection will be a bit sporadic while I'm still on the road... Until then my fellow Pilots!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey folks!

Just a short post today. I finally finished inking the last page of my third and final story for the book. Next up I have to design the cover.

I'll be taking a little time off for the next few weeks to visit the family for the holidays. Hope you all have a great Turkey Day! I'll be sure to post the cover when its done.

Crying In The Rain

Here it is folks!

The cover for the last story to be featured in my upcoming three story book entitled Air-Heart: Taking Flight. This cover is a bit of a departure from the previous two, and features a very somber Amelia. The story of course, has the answers to why. I don't want to give anything away, so you'll just have to wonder until the book comes out.

I'm only a few short pages away from finally finishing the inking and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Its been a long process but its nice to see it all coming to fruition. I'm very excited for the release of the book and I hope everyone will show their support by buying the book. In the meantime I hope you enjoy the cover. More info next week!

Hey everyone!

Its that time of week once again. And this time, I'm proud to report that the book is nearing completion. I'm on page 11 of the final story and I should be done in the next week or two. After that it will only be a short period before the book is ready to go. The book will be around 100 pages and be for sale on amazon and lulu. I'll be releasing more information on all that in the days to come. I'll also provide a permanent link on the website to purchase the book.

In the meantime I've created a Facebook contest to win a free copy of the book. Its a funny caption contest and you may enter by strolling on over to my FB page.

I've also created a group page for Air-Heart on Facebook as well. I'll be updating the group regularly with information on the upcoming release of the book. Of course, I'll also be continuing to keep you updated here on the blog. Stay tuned!

Lights Out!

Hello once again folks! Its another week, so here's another post! This week I'm happy to report that I've finally finished the thumbnails for the final story in my first Air-Heart book. Its going to be around 25 pages or so and I thinks its the best story of the three. I'm looking to begin inking this weekend. I have some vacation time coming up so its possible that I might be able to finish the story by the end of the year. I'm still not sure about the release date yet, as I'd like to be well underway with the second volume by the time the first comes out. So I may stagger the release some so that they overlap a bit. That's all to figure out once I have the book completed. As I work on the next story, I'll be sure to post some of my progress for you to check out. Keep on rockin', see you next post.

Happy Halloween!

Heya fellow ghouls and ghosts,

Its that time of year once again, Halloween! Lenny's favorite time of year, and one of mine too. This year Lenny stars in my Halloween piece. You'll notice he's got yours truly trapped inside that mysterious crystal ball. The piece was really fun to work on, having such thick bold lines is a real treat. My regular work is a bit more delicate than this, so it was fun to really cut loose. I'm pretty happy with how the lighting came out as well. I had a vision in my head but I wasn't sure if I could pull it off. As it turns out I came pretty close to what I had envisioned. I hope you enjoy it, and Halloween this year. Be good, and be bad, but mostly get mad candy!

Ize Queen - Preview

Ok, peeps here it is! A fourpage preview as promised. As I've mentioned before this is only the second story in a book that will ultimately consist of 3 stories. This story winds up being 27 pages long, so there's a lot more you're not getting here. Either way I wanted to give you a little glimpse of what lies ahead. To see the images at full size just click on any one of the thumbnails. The next story in the book is already planned and ready to start being thumbnailed. I'll be posting my progress as I move forward with it. I hope you enjoy these pages in the meantime. Catch you next week.

Amelia - Buttkicker

Hola everyone!

Short post today as I'm going to be out most of the day. This image was ripped right from one of the panels of my latest Air-Heart story: Ice Queen. I'm just a couple of pages away from being wrapped up on this one, and then I have one more story to go.

That brings me to one other point, the first book (and all subsequent books) are going to feature three stories each. That way you'll get a brand new book each year! I'm very much looking forward to finishing this book up so that I can get started on the next. For today enjoy the determined looking Amelia, and I'll catch up with you next week!

Fall II

Hello there!

So as some of you know, fall is one of my favorite times of year. I did a piece last year to that effect, and as you might have guessed, this is its sequel. I was thinking about the fall piece just the other day and decided I wanted to try another take. I'm pretty happy with the results. I like the feeling that this one accomplishes as well.

In Air-Heart news, I'm almost done with the shading for the second chapter of the book. I only have eight or nine pages left to shade. And then I'll be off onto the next chapter. That's all that's going on for now, more next week!

Visions of Air-Heart

So this week its a double post with two Air-Heart related pieces. The first, is my design for the headquarters of The 99 (The organization Amelia serves) I looked at a few "space age" buildings before coming up with concept you see. The headquarters will have its first appearance in the next story in the book, tentively titled: Taking Flight. The story will feature a bit more of the background on our fair Amelia.

Apeaking of Amelia, the second image is a fun sexy portrait of our heroine. As I've done on a couple of the past illustrations, I threw down one swath of color to set the piece off. I think it plays really well. In a perfect world (That is, if printing in color wasn't so expensive) I would love to have a few big patches of color like this spread throughout the book. But its all good, because I definitely enjoy the gray-style that I've created for the book. I'm just about done shading and lettering the second story of the book, and I plan to create a preview here on the blog sometime soon. Until then, be good, be awesome, be here next week.

Ice Queen!

Hello folks!

Its that time once again. What time? Friday time. This week its time to unveil the cover for my second Air-Heart story: Ice Queen. You'll also notice that this cover has the finished Air-Heart logo in place in the upper right hand corner.

This particular story features a brand new villain and the fight over The Ice Rod, a terrible item that can freeze people on demand. Nasty thing for sure! Of course Amelia and Joey face the problem head on in this second story. Also, in case you may have forgotten, this is only the second story in the book. I've got eight more stories to draw out after this one, so its still going to be a while before I'm done. I'm tentatively aiming for sometime next year, but its hard to say for certain. Either way I'd like to finish the book in time to take it on the road with me to a con. We'll see how it all plays out. I'll have a much better sense of the finish date when I get close to the last story. Anyways, hope you enjoy the image. Catch ya next week.

Hangin' Around

Hola People!

So, its another week and this time Spidey decided to drop by the old blog. He's looking a little noir here with the blacks and dark tone. If you're paying attention, you'll notice he's hanging upside down. If you weren't paying attention, I guess I blew the secret...Ah, well.

So I'm only about three pages away from being done with the inks on my second story for the Air-Heart book. After that, I'll be starting the shading and lettering process before continuing on to the third story. I should probably mention that at this point I have decided that the book will consist of ten stories in total. That means I've got a long way to go before I'm even near done! But it is what it is. The bottom line is it'll be a better project for taking the time to develop instead of pushing it out too fast or two soon.

As I start to finish up the shading on the Air-Heart story, I'll be posting a couple of the finished pages up for you to check out, so stay tuned!

The Citizen

Hey everyone! Time for another amazing post. This week's post sees the creation of a brand new character, The Citizen! Inspired by male model Jason Baca. Jason happened upon a gallery of my work and asked if I might be able to help make him into a superhero. These two pieces were the result.

The first image (far left) was the character inspired by the photos Jason sent me, the second image is a more realistic example designed to show off the likeness of Jason's face. A special thanks goes out to Jason for contacting me and allowing me to use his photos for reference. It was a truly fun experience working on the pieces and developing the character.

The Citizen character gets his powers from the magical gauntlets he wears. They were given to him by a mysterious figure after the death of his one true love prompted him to take revenge on the mob that killed her. I also decided that he should have a kickass boomerang as a weapon. Why? Because boomerangs rock.

To learn more about and what it takes to become a professional model, you should check out his latest book here. Jason's book details the steps and hard work it takes to become a successful male model in the industry. You'll notice that I've also provided a permanent link in the links section if you're looking for it in the future. Thanks again to Jason, catch all of you next week.

The Internet Has Returned, And So Have I

Hey people!

I was offline for a little bit due to an internet issue but I'm back in action now, and its time for another post!

I've been working a lot on Air-Heart since I've been down, particularly the set-up of the book: things like the acknowledgments, the prologue, and the logo. I knew that I wanted to give her a simple, streamlined logo but I wasn't sure exactly how it would come together until I found the perfect font. The heart behind the lettering was a natural fit, and everything came together on its own after that. In keeping with the style of the art, I also did the grey shading to match.

Concerning the interior of the book I've finally narrowed down how many stories will be featured and in what order they'll appear. I'm really excited about it because it helps to give me a direction and a tangible goal to work towards. I'll be putting another post up soon to make up for being out of commission, so be on the lookout!

Cowabunga Dude!

Post time!

This time Raph gets his second post here on the blog. I did a version of him a good while back now, and I wasn't quite satisfied with that piece. I had been thinking about doing another turtle piece and this one happened by accident. Raph here started out as simple sketch for this week, but he slowly morphed into a finished piece. I think the coloring turned out pretty good, and it was a good rendering experiment if nothing else.

Air-Heart is still coming along for those of you wondering. That's about all too report for this week, I hope you enjoy the turtle action. Until next time...

New Stuffs!

Hey there peoples! Here are a couple of pieces I've done since the last time I posted. The first is my homage to the awesome series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Never mind the doofy movie, the series was wonderful and you should definitely check it out. The second piece is of a character that I thought up after hearing about a place called Thrasher's fries. He's a surfing mystery solving beach dude.

Concerning Air-Heart I've been working on pages and making good headway. Its coming along well and I've also come up with some great ideas for the next few stories. I'm also contemplating how long I want to make the book. I had originally decided that I was only going to have four stories total but now I'm thinking it may be fun to wait just a bit longer and have ten stories or so. I have to think it over but I think it would be neat to have a bigger book. We'll see how it shakes out. For now I'll leave you with these two pieces. Until next week homies!

Breakn' It Down

Ok now! So its time for kind of a crazy post! Sorry that its up late but I really wanted to make it as awesome as possible.

I thought it would be fun to do the breakdown of a piece. I always think its interesting to see how different artists go about working on something, so here's a glimpse into how I do it.

1. The Sketch - For me the first step is to sketch out the idea. I don't normally do thumbnails unless I'm really confused about how I want a piece to go together. My main focus in the sketch is to resolve anatomy issues and such. I make sure to draw through overlapping areas so I know how the forms should be.

2. Blueline - The next step for me is to bring the image into photoshop and do some messing around. First I work on croppping the image until its more to my liking. My second goal is to blueline the image - Blue-lining allows me to have a nice solid sketch on my page for the inking stage that I can get rid of easily.

3. Inking - This one is pretty self explanitory. Using the blueline sketch underneath as a reference I ink the piece. I make sure to take into consideration any changes I feel are neccesary and include details I may have overlooked.

4. The Flats - My least favorite part of the process is flatting. This is where I bring the finished inks back into photoshop to be colored. I love the coloring process but I sometimes find this step tedious. In this step the focus is to get it colored, and to chose the right color tempratures so everything still reads well.

5. The Shades - One of my favorite steps in the process, this is where everything rounds out. In this step my focus is to give another more rounded dimension to the drawing.

6. The Final - At long last it all comes together. In between the shades and the final are a bunch of color tweaks and such to get everything looking just right. This step is where I make the final decisions on how I want the piece to be. Noteably for me, I have come to learn that my color pallette tends to be very crayola: that is, very primary colored. So an important part of this last step for me is to get the saturation of the colors looking right.

And there you have it! That's how I roll...err something. Anyways, that's the way I break down a piece when I'm going from a sketch to the final. I hope it was fun to get a glimpse at the way I work. And I hope it was informative for you artists out there. Oke, well that's it for this week. Catch you later!

Derik Diaz's Devastatingly Dangerous Double Duck Post

A double post this week! I've just finished moving myself in to my new home in Atlanta. As such I've been at home working on looking for a job and I've had a ton of time on my hands. That being said you won't be surprised that I was busy getting caught up on my old school toons. I was inspired to do two "duck universe" pieces this week. The first is Gizmo Duck in all of his awesomeness kicking some butt. The second is none other than the masked mallard himself, Darkwing Duck. I'm pretty sure I've never drawn either of these guys because I probably found the task too daunting when I was just a little dude. Not anymore however! I hope you enjoy. In other news, Air-Heart is still plugging along although I got a little behind since I took about a week off for the move. But no worries! I'm back to action... Until next week my friends.

Anti-Rant #1 : Scooby-Doo : Mystery Inc.

So this week I decided to draw up a more sexy version of Amelia. I don't usually do any pin-up type stuff with my characters so I thought it would be fun.

My last couple of posts have been rants so I thought I would do something a little different this week. Everybody complains about things. We all love to talk about what bugs us. Today I'm taking a break from that and introducing the worlds first Anti-Rant! An Anti-Rant by my definition, is the praising of something that is awesome and should be appreciated for its awesomeness. This weeks Anti-Rant concerns the brand new Scooby-Doo show from Cartoon Network called, Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc. Scooby has been around for quite some time and certainly has some staying power since he's still getting new revamps! I'd like to praise Cartoon networking for continuing to keep the character contemporary. I think the new look of the show is very current while still paying homage to the psychedelic flair of the original. Moreover, the most impressive part to me is that the network also features games and other media on its website exploring multimedia presentation. Its a very cool age to be a kid! CN, has created a killer interactive game on the site that is updated every week and features a brand new mystery and villain. That's definitely innovation, and dedication. What a neat way to provide entertainment on multiple fronts. Way to go CN! Keep up the awesome work! If you're a Scooby fan, you should definitely check it out over on Cartoon Network's site!

Anti-Rant!

Old Timers Day - No School Like The Old School

Posting a little early this week as I'll be gone this weekend off to NYC where I'll be taking in not one, but two Yankee games. The first game is a really special one as its Old Timers Day. What's that you ask? Well, the Yankees having so much history have the unique opportunity to put together a game featuring beloved players of the past. Its a great time for the fans and a wonderful way to keep the retired Yanks in the spotlight, and in the family. Its a very special ritual and one that I feel sets an important example.

Today's media is flavor-of-the-minute. Crazes come and go faster than one can blink. American Idol, no wait Top Chef, no wait Justin Bieber...Oy! Who can keep track of it all? And what does this do for tradition, retrospection, and appreciation? I'm not saying theres anything wrong with staying current, but there's something to be said for appreciating the things, people, and places of the past. And that's exactly what Old Timer's Day is all about. I will say I think its a shame when people refer to things that are only a year old as old news. Like last years hits have somehow become pre-jurassic over the course of 365 days. What a shame! I feel like todays media breeds a certain lack of respect and appreciation for what's come before. People today don't care about what happened even a few short years ago, its all about the now. If its not new, it doesn't matter. What kind of way is that to be?

When I was still at SCAD learning about some of the old school artists from the early days of comics, I didn't always get it either. Sometimes I wondered why these guys were important. What did they have to do with the styles of today? Everything. You can't go forward without looking back. And lets face it, the media doesn't exactly promote looking back. So I'll be toasting the old school this weekend! And maybe you can take some time as well, to look back and reflect on some of the amazing people, and times that have given way to the things you dig right now.

Cheers,

~D

Cannon Strike!

Hello all!

This week has been a pretty productive one. I'm already up to page six on Air-Heart's second story. Outside of that I've been working a lot and have been pretty tired as a result. None-the-less I've been plugging away as best as I can. The pages are coming out good and I definitely see the progress I've made having done the first story. Its amazing how much you progress with every dozen pages you draw.

This week Cammy of Street Fighter fame graces the blog with her presence. I haven't drawn a SF character in years, and since I recently purchased SSFIV recently, I thought I'd give it a fresh go. In the past Ryu has been my favorite character to play but Cammy has become a surprise favorite for me this time around. I feel like she and Amelia would have a lot to talk about being that both are strong female police/agent types.

That's about all for now folks. Catch up next week.

Movie Magic...A Thing Of The Past?

Now, I can honestly say I have almost never gotten on my proverbial soap box here on the blog before. I've always tried to focus on my work rather than my opinions but, I've had something on my mind for a bit that I feel compelled to share. Those of you who know me well know that I love going to the movies, or rather, I used to.

Unfortunately it seems that its reached a point where people can't even have the common courtesy to allow others to watch a movie in peace. Texting, talking, standing, and feet on the back of my seat have simply caused me to reach the end of my rope. Of course I stood up for myself from time to time, asking people to be quiet, even going as far to bother management when things were out of hand, however, that's a waste of energy. I've simply come to the conclusion that its time for me to give up the theater.

Now some of you might say that that's letting the other guys win, but really if I stay home and watch my movie in peace without causing a fight with someone in the theater, who wins? Everyone. They can go to the movies and talk, and I can stay home, watch in peace, and not waste my money trying to watch a movie while simultaneously having to hear why Pete and Kaity broke up this month.

Its sad to me that movie goers seem to have such lack of respect for others these days, but at least for now, I'll get peace of mind by staying at home. Sure, I might have to wait a little longer for new releases but, for me its worth it. And so I say adieu to the theater, I shall always think back on you fondly. As for my readers, I hope you can forgive me for ranting a bit here on the site, but I needed to get it out there. I appreciate your time. Also to add just a little color to this weeks image, it features Amelia, Lenny, and Joey dealing with a "movie jerk."

Amelia In A Circle

Hello once again!

So another week has passed and here we are on Friday! Today's post is Amelia in a circle. She's not wearing her usual uniform, I wanted to explore what she would wear outside of her adventuring. I'll admit I threw this one together pretty fast. I wasn't quite sure what to put up this week. Things are going well with her next adventure. I've already thumb-nailed the whole thing. I'm planning to start the drawing this weekend. I'm looking forward to this next story because I think its got some really good things going for it. That's it for now folks. See you next week!

Air-Heart: Brownout, Complete!

The first story of my Air-Heart book is done!

It took quite a lot of time to get this done but, I finally finished. The image on the left is the interior cover for this particular story. I'm very happy with the way it came out. The most notable part of having finished this is that it marks Amelia's first truly complete adventure. Prior to this her longest adventure was about ten pages.

Now that the first story is complete its time to move on to story number two. I'm working on the script this week and I expect to be thumb-nailing by the weekend. My hope is that this next story won't take quite as long now that I know what to expect from the working process. I hope that you all enjoy the cover for now. When I get done thumb-nailing the next story, I'll be sure to post up some sketches for you all to check out.

A Costume That Makes Some Sense!

Another week, another Friday!

Its that time once again folks. Time for me to delight you with a post of rambling nonsense. This week I submit to you, Joey for your entertainment. I did the blue shading with a half-dead high-liter, turned out to look pretty neat! I decided I wanted to take another crack at Joey's costume. It occurred to me that it made no sense for him to have a karate gi inspired look. He's not exactly a fighter. I feel like this look suits his character much better. Its a little bit lighter and a little less imposing. Not that you can see it, but he also has a backpack on for carrying different gadgets for Amelia to use on their adventures. I only have one last page to shade and then I'll finally be done with the first exciting chapter of my book. Then I can move on to my second story. I'm really looking forward to getting back to the drawing stage. I can't wait to do me up some thumbnails! Until next week, stay cool!

Bold Is Better

Ok! So I figured I owed you at least two images this time around since I didn't post for a while. I was viciously sick and it really stunk! But now I'm doing much better.

So as the title of this entry suggests, bold is better! I've been working on Air-Heart for quite a while now, and I've finally figured out the secret of the bold containment line. I really think that's what gives these pieces some real punch. A long time ago I used to play with a heavier outline but it was just something I forgot all about. That said, I think it really compliments my style these days. These images aren't for anything in particular, just promo materials for my upcoming book. Props to my buddy Brett Brooks for accidentally helping me to figure the whole bold outline thing out. Oh yeah, and Scooby-Doo as well. Make sense? Probably not, but it does in my head. :)

The Scoobster!

Hello there!

So, its been a while since I posted. I've been a bit distracted working on some other materials but, I thought I'd get off my butt and give you some Scooby! So here he is in all of his glory. I'm still plugging away on Air-Heart but I won't have a chance to finish up for a little bit since I have some other things going on. I'll try to post next Friday but it might be a bit longer than that. We'll see.

T-U-R-T-L-E Power!

Hola bloggians!

Friday time! This week Raph is rockin it here on the blog. I was really itching to throw something a little more finished up. I've also been working exclusively on digitally shading Air-Heart, so I wanted to make sure I did a little drawing as well to keep my wrist loose.

In Air-Heart news, I'm just about halfway done with the shading process at this point. Its still going well and the lettering is coming together well. Its amazing just how much the letters and balloons enhance the look and feel of a page. With any luck I should be starting work on the next episode before the end of this month. That's about all for now folks. Catch up with you next week!

~D

Air-Heart Preview

Hey folks!

So here's a little surprise for ya! This is the opening scene to the story featuring our bad guy, Watt. This will be the finished style for the book with the gray shading. I'm pretty happy with how these have turned out so far, and I also have the next scene just about done as well. I hope you enjoy them. Be sure to leave me some comments. That's it for this week, catch ya next time.

~D

Let The Shading Begin!

Well Hello there!

Hello once again people. I just got back home late last night and thought I would put up a bonus post since I wasn't able to put anything up while I was away. Of course I'll be putting up another post on Friday as well, so its two posts this week!

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago I've finished inking all of the pages of the first Air-Heart story. What you see to the left is a collection of materials including a few sketches. I'll be starting the shading process now that I'm back at my computer and I'll be putting up at least a few pages for your entertainment when I get them done. I had an awesome time on my trip, it was so wonderful to relax and see my girl. Of course now that I'm home, its back to the grind! I'll be posting on Friday so come back to check it out!

~D

In Atlantis

Hey people!
So like I said I'm in Atlanta. Things are going well and I'm enjoying having some time off for once! I have been sketching all kinds of things getting ready for the second Air-Heart story as well. I won't be able to post much while I'm down here so I'll make a big post with some of the sketches when I get back. Until then have fun!

~D

Robocop

Its that time of the week again!

This time around I decided to do my take on Robocop. I hear he might be getting a new movie treatment soon so I made my version a bit of an update. He's more organic, and much less bulky.

In Air-Heart news I'm almost done inking the first story. I only have a few pages to go. After that I'll be taking a bit of a hiatus as I head to Atlanta for a few days. When I come back, I'll be shading and lettering the pages, then its on to the next story!

To round things out this week I'd like to give a special shout out to my lovely lady, Mackenzee who has a huge job interview at The High Museum of Art tomorrow! All of the best of luck to her from Robocop and I! That's all for now folks. Catch you next time!

Spring Forward!

Well hello my bloggerts!

Spring is finally upon us here upstate. Its nice to finally get some sun! Its amazing how the weather can effect your mood. I know I always look forward to end of winter because I'm definitely a spring/summer kind of guy, hence this weeks image featuring Jynx and Meteor girl. Once again these characters are some older ones that I don't do much with at the moment. He's an alien, she's a super-powered teenager, needless to say they're in love.

I'm keeping pace with Air-Heart and I've still been learning a lot in the process. Other than that, the baseball season has started and that's always a treat in the Diaz household. Not only are we watching the games on TV, but its time for catch as well! I love being able to get outside once again. Make sure you get out there too and enjoy some sun!

Its a me, Mario!

Its Mario Time!

This week I was in a Mario mood. I've actually never drawn him before, so I thought I'd take a shot. I also decided I'd give a little respect to all of the poor goombas who have lost their lives to this jump-addicted plumber.

In Air-Heart news I'm still plugging away at the inks for the first story. Its going very good and I'm really excited about how the pages are turning out. I've been having a ton of fun working on the project and I'm really excited about getting started on the next adventure too. As I had mentioned previously the final book will consist of three or four 25-30 page adventures each, so there will be plenty of bang for your buck.

In working on these pages I've been learning a lot about the working process and, I've been discovering a lot of things that will come in handy as I continue with the next three stories for the book.

I'm also giving a lot of thought to having one of the four stories in each book be a little bit more comical and not necessarily focused on action and adventure. It would still be an Air-Heart story just maybe a bit of a breakaway from the regular "save the day" kind of story. Maybe something along the lines of Joey hanging out in the control tower alone for a couple of days and the kind of trouble he might get into there. I'm not sure yet, we'll see! That's it for this week, until next time.

Well this week has been a busy one, working on a lot of Air-Heart. I've finished up with the tight roughs and I'm now on to inking the finals which is always a fun part of the process. The pin-up to our left is something I put together to showcase the way I'll be finishing the images in the book. If you're asking why I ditched the heavy blacks, its because I really like the animated feel that the grays give the image. Also, sometimes I find the contrast of the blacks can overwhelm the eye a bit. Either way I'm planning to do the book in this gray kind of cartoon style. Another one of the aspects I really like about working this way is that the shading really helps to give my stuff volume. My style can tend to look fairly flat until it gets to the shaded stage, where it really comes to life.

In other news, I have a side-project coming up that I'll probably post here when its finished. I'm going to be designing a drawing for Best Buy, where I work, that I think will be really cool. If all goes well, that should be next weeks post! That's all for now, catch you next week.

Another Friday, another post! Today's post features my favorite monster Lenny having fun bouncing around. I've been hard at work on Air-Heart and making some very good progress. I've had to make a few adjustments on the story but everything is on track and going well. I've also rediscovered a few tricks on both the writing and drawing ends of the process that have really been helping me out.

In other news I've been reading some comics again as well. I recently bought a few things from Amazon and have been enjoying myself thoroughly. I've been exploring just how important it is to be a visual media-junky in order to keep your artistic eye sharp. Its amazing how much you learn by osmosis just enjoying your favorite things.

That's about all for now folks! Next week!

Billy Joel / Elton John...Plus Meteor Woman!

Well hello once again! I have to apologize for getting this post up late today but its still here on Friday!

So last night was a crazy concert adventure for me as I went with my Mom to Billy Joel and Elton John. For anyone who doesn't know, these guys play for a solid four hours. If you have any interest in going it well worth the money because you really do get two full shows in one. It was a great show, and both guys had an incredible amount of energy still! I could take all day to tell you how great the show was but I think you get the point by now so I'll let it go. But definitely check it out if you ever have the chance.

Moving on to Meteor Woman, she's another old-school character of mine who I don't use very much anymore. I did this sketch of her the other night and really enjoyed the loose almost finished look. I've been giving some thought to trying to do a short comic completely in this half-finished sketchy manner but I haven't thought of the right project for it yet. I feel like the story would need to be a little gritty to go along with the harsh edge of this sketchy style.

Well that's more than enough for now people! Until next week.

Gargoyles!

Its Friday time!

This here is Goliath! I'm sure many of you remember him from the Disney cartoon series Gargoyles! Now that was a really cool show. Thanks to my lovely lady, I just got to check out the first season again for the first time... well probably since the first time I saw it live on TV! Looking back at it, its amazing how well the animation holds up. They really did an incredible job on this thing. The characterization and the maturity of the show really shines through. If you've never gotten a chance to check it out I would highly recommend it. Goliath was the leader of the Gargoyles and probably my favorite character on the show. From the minute you hear him speak you're hooked thanks to the amazing voice of Keith David. Looking back I can definitely see why I liked this show as a kid, and I've found dozens of reasons to like it again as an adult... or whatever I am!

Forgotten Worlds

Its Friday once again!

Here I am with this weeks post. The character to my left is one of my very first characters ever, Robat. I came up with him when I was just a little dude in fifth grade! As you can imagine he's gone through countless revamps and alterations since then, and this is his most current appearance. I don't do much of anything with him these days since all of my attention is focused on Air-Heart but, I thought I owed it to old Robat here to let him live once again on the blog!

Drawing Robat again got me thinking about the characters that we all come up with when we're really young. Most of the time their obvious rip-off's of the characters that we wish were ours, and Robat is no exception. Its curious to me just how many people, artists or not, all invented characters if not entire worlds that they abandoned as they got older. I'd like to think that all of those words still exist on some other dimension, and maybe we'll get to visit some day. That being said hopefully even when I'm not working with him, Robat is still out there somewhere having amazing adventures. Maybe your childhood character is there too. You never know.

Its Friday once again! So, as per the new mandate its time for the latest post. Today Bupkiss is gracing the blog with his presence. For those of you who don't know he's Amelia's (Air-Heart) sarcastic and feisty sidekick, although he'd have you believe he's the one in charge. He's been a lot of fun to play around with and I really enjoy what he adds to the story. He's small, but mighty! In other Air-Heart news I've been plugging away on some pages and making as much progress as my schedule allows.

Meanwhile, the Olympics have continued to amaze! Unfortunately I haven't been able to watch as much of it as I had hoped. As of this post the U.S. currently has 20 medals! Way to go Team U.S.A! There have been some really great accomplishments and it seems like the U.S. is poised to take the whole thing home! That's about all the latest for this week, come back next Friday for more!