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.