HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Have a safe & Happy New Year everyone - Cheers!

CBI / HOLIDAY PIN-UP

A few of the Comic Book Idol Finalists (including myself) got together to do some 'Holiday Pin-Ups'. This is my relatively uninspired contribution, I had been kicking it around in my head for a while and aside from the skull ornament, wrapping paper background and pin-up girl, I really couldn't think of anything that I wanted to draw. In the end I figured, what the hell? It's been awhile since I drew something for no particular reason so here it is.

All together now... Meh'

SALEM - QUEEN OF THORNS

So 22 pages and 123 panels later I've wrapped my Pencils on BOOM! STUDIOS SALEM: Queen of Thorns Issue No. 0 - Written by Chris Morgan and Kevin Walsh, awesome Colors by Andrew Dalhouse. I'll be updating with more information (solicitation, shipping, all that good stuff) on this project soon so check back. Cheers!

GOODNIGHT EVEL

Evel Knievel, the hard-living motorcycle daredevil whose jumps over Greyhound buses, live sharks and Idaho's Snake River Canyon made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.

Immortalized in the Washington's Smithsonian Institution as "America's Legendary Daredevil," Knievel was best known for a failed 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and a spectacular crash at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980.

"They started out watching me bust my ass, and I became part of their lives," Knievel said. "People wanted to associate with a winner, not a loser. They wanted to associate with someone who kept trying to be a winner."

018 - GOBBLE, GOBBLE

Okay, that's gotta' be some sort of record... maybe not, I guess it could've been worse. Here's my Gypsy Dancing Girl Type Chick (for lack of a better name). I had a piece of paper left over from my Comic Book Idol 3 Round 2 entry where I printed out the grid from my art boards onto an 8.5" x 11" piece of Bristol - Pencil: 2H Faber-Castell / Ink: Pentel Color Brush (for those who like to know that stuff). In any case - HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I've got lot's to be thankful for and I sincerely hope that all of you can say the same. Have a great one!

017 - HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Happy Halloween All!

Okay - Let's do a quick run down, shall we?

If you've been paying attention at all, you know by now that I got eliminated from Comic Book Idol at the end of Round 2 - Yeah, I was pissed about it for a minute but it's cool, believe me... it's a good thing. There are still some very talented Artists vying for that top spot so if you registered to vote on the CBR forum I urge you to continue doing so. My personal favorites are JOSE HOLDER, DAN McDAID and JON REED.

I've been busy working on some pretty cool stuff but it's pretty early into the process so I'm not going to post any of it here, not yet anyway... so since I can't share just yet and since I go a little crazy if I don't get to draw something just for fun, I started on this little diddy tonight. I'll post the pencils for now and then post it again once it's been Inked, maybe I can get someone to color it up too, wouldn't that be snazzy?!

CBI3: Round Two

CBI3: Round 2 pages are up and the Peanut gallery is in full force!
Go and check them out!

016 - VOTE!

I have to admit, part of me was holding off on doing this sketch until today but c'mon! Can you really blame me? I just wanted to let you all know in case you haven’t checked it out already that COMIC BOOK IDOL 3: Round One has been posted up on the CBR Forum HERE. Each entrants work is listed as a separate thread like so (Round 1: Wilfredo Torres). Depending on how much time you have on your hands you can also go into the Comment Thread and check out what people are saying and drop your own .02 cents in!

Voting starts TODAY, WED. OCT 17th @ NOON and ends TOMORROW THURS. OCT 18th @ NOON

If you haven’t already done so, go and REGISTERED to vote on the CBR Forum

And remember… Cap would want me to win.

Comic Book Idol 3

Haven't posted in a while but here's some cool news...

As some of you know, I’ve been selected as a finalist for Comic Book Idol 3!!
http://cbi.comicbookresources.com/

For the next 5 weeks (depending on how far into it I get before I’m eliminated) 9 other Finalists and myself will be going toe to toe in weekly challenges that will be reviewed by Celebrity Judges (Marc Silvestri, Artist and CEO of Top Cow Productions, Chris Ryall, Writer and Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of IDW Publishing, James Lucas Jones, Editor-in-Chief of Oni Press) among other ‘Guest Judges’ yet to be announced and then voted on by the public… Now this is where you come in. I need all of you to take a few minutes to visit the CBR forum and register to vote here - http://forums.comicbookresources.com/register.php

Here’s how the competition is set up:

Thursday: Art assignment posted

Monday: Assignment deadline; judges begin posting comments

Wednesday: Public vote

Thursday: Elimination; next assignment posted

The first Challenge will be announced this Thursday Oct. 11th and the first round of Voting begins on Wednesday Oct. 17th - I hope I can count on your support!

Thanks... and since I've been such a slacker, here's a bit of unfinished fun -

015 - SINESTRO

If Parallax is the one behind all the craziness, how come its the Sinestro Corps? Anyway that's two Green Lantern villains in a row, hopefully that makes up for that horrible sketch in some small way ;) I could just keep going on these but I think this is going to be it for the Legion of Doom... bring on The Avengers!

014 - BORN ON A MONDAY

It was a bit of a toss up between Solomon Grundy and Bizarro, they're two of my favorite villains but in my interpretations at least they're too similar visually - Grundy won the coin toss. Happy Friday!

013 - MANTA

Ah, gimme a break! It's hard to make Black Manta look cool... meh'.

012 - COLD

I had fun with this one, never drawn Captain Cold before or any of the Flash's Rogues Gallery for that matter - may need to correct that. Happy Friday Everybody!!

011 - MANEATER

010 - CLOWN PRINCE

Heh...

009 - MASTERMIND

Oh yeah... you know where I'm going with this now.

008 - GUARDIAN

Blargh!! A truly crappy Hal Jordan... never have been able to get him right.

007 - MANHUNTER

I guess this one is a bit of a departure from the rest of the spandex crowd so far but honestly I find the idea of Manhunter doing the whole 'psychic detective searching for the key to human nature' thing far more interesting than anything that's been done with him recently... I'm not even sure what he looks like anymore.

006 - KING OF THE SEAS

005 - SPEEDSTER

Appropriately I guess, a very rushed sketch that came in just under the wire.

004 - LEAGUE INTERUPTUS

Okay... literally just got back from the very cool Boozer Doodle at The Vortex Midtown where the lovely Suki Sanchez not only modeled for us but performed a Frida inspired Burlesque and in the interest of not missing a day of posting here's just one of the pieces I drew up tonight (between beers)... tomorrow night we resume our regularly scheduled programming of men in tights!

003 - AMAZON

Are we detecting a pattern here yet?

002 - DETECTIVE

I've always been a big fan of this rather intense Gentleman... Whatever happened to that whole "World's Greatest Detective" thing? I find that aspect of the character much more interesting than the whole angsty guy angle.

001 - BOY SCOUT

Welcome to THE MAIN STAGE - Inaugural Sketch Blog!

For a while now I've been checking out the late Mike Wieringo's art blog as well as Eric Canete and Cory Walker and they inspired me not only with their amazing talent but with their discipline in being able to regularly update their Blogs, despite their busy schedules. So since the work is piling up and the Missus is giving me a hard time about staying focused I decided, "What better time than NOW to start my own Blog!"... hmm, genius.

Anyway, here's the deal so you can all help to keep me honest - I'm (foolishly) challenging myself to follow Cory Walker's formula and 'try' to maintain a DAILY sketch blog. All of my pieces should follow the same format: 5.5" x 7" Non-Repro Blue on Bristol / No Inks / No Color - I've got several sketch themes in mind and they should be more than enough to keep me busy for at least the first month but 'where to start' was a no-brainer. For me... it all started with the Boy Scout.