Welcome to Sherwood, I mean, Gotham

Cory Walker is one of those guys who has stayed under the radar for a while. Yet has a following that is pretty big. If you don't knw who he is, he co-created Invincible with Robert Kirkman, and recently did The Destroyer with Kirkman over at Marvel.

Cory's stuff is pretty cool. Very solid yet minimal in his linework, at least as far as using lots of lines. He makes forms so simple, even if its complex mad scienist machinery! His list of credits in comics isnt very long, but what he's done has been pretty damn kick ass. This Robin piece comes from his blog, where he posts almost daily. A link to it can be found in my links section.

For this piece I decided to ink Cory a bit differently than he is accustomed to. Cory usually inks himself, using minimal line weight variation. Usually opting for a fairly constant holding line. I decided to go with a slicker look for him. I used a sheet of heavy transparent vellum and went in with a hunt 102 crowquill nib for about 90% of it. Giving it a look much like Scott Williams early work, but less extreme in line weight variation. I then took a #3 brush for the cape and filling in of blacks. The border was done with a Pitt artist pen as was the staff.

I like Cory's inking on himself. I've been doing a similar style on some of my own pieces, and I like how its been turning out. Hopefully we'll see more from him this year.

Not George, Paul or John...

What can I say about MIKE WIERINGO that hasn't been said by everyone else in the biz?
Nothing. Not one damn thing.

Mike was a class act, a fantastic artist, and one of the best people to have walked this planet. It doesn't seem like we lost him 3 years ago this coming summer, but I don't think a day goes by that a bunch of us don't miss him.

I always wanted to ink Mike. His work has a wonderful flow to it, his figures all have this energy to them, even when they are at rest. I printed off every piece Mike ever posted to his blog. They sit in a stack by my art table.I hadn't looked at them in a while, but when I paged through them all to find a piece, i just had to sigh a bit in disappointment. Disappointment in the fact that there won't be any more Wieringo books coming out. No more daily blog posts. This is all we got, so we'd better damn well cherish it.

I decided on this Superman piece mostly cuz it's Superman, and I really liked the pose. I used a lightbox to pencil it onto Canson comic art board. I really like their comic board. It's got a nice tooth to it, and it takes ink really well. Brush work turns out fabulous on it. I haven't used a quill on it yet, so I don't know if it bleeds. I inked it with a #3 size Kolinsky series 8404 brush. I used a Pitt artist pen for the 'S' shield and belt buckle. Ink was Dick Blick's Black Cat brand ink with a little Kohinoor ultradraw ink mixed in.

I think I could have done a bit better job on a few of the lines here and there, maybe making some holding lines a bit heavier, but I do like how it turned out. Karl Kesel is still my favorite 'Ringo inker. The work they did on Fantastic Four was pretty damn awesome. Check it out if you can find it.

Tell me about the rabbits George..

Well, here we are at the first art post of the blog. Woot!!
This piece is brought to us by the uber-talented Tom Raney (you can find a link to his blog here on my blog). Tom is currently pencilling the Black Widow mini series at Marvel. Tom's credits include Annihilation, Thor, and an exceptional run on Stormwatch written by Warren Ellis. Tom's stuff is pretty cool! He's got a graceful, organic feel to it, and it drools with texture. Texture is one of my big things. I love inking it!
He called this fellow Lenny. I thought that was a good name for a flesh devouring Zom. I inked this piece on standard 8.5x11 copy paper on a lightbox using Pitt artist pens. The Pitt pens come in various sizes and are pretty durable and inexpensive. I started with a size S (superfine) for most of it, and finished with a size F (fine). If I was doing this piece on comic board, I'd probably go in with a nib for a lot of the fine detail work and finish with a brush. But depending on the paper quality, I may just say screw it and go with all brush. I look at the lines the penciller has put down and see where the stroke began and ended. That gives me the feel for it, and tells me where the energy of the line is. It's a zen thing sometimes. But Tom's piece was a pleasure to ink. I've always liked his work, so I figured I'd let him break the blog in. His linework requires a delicate touch, but not so delicate as to let the depth of the form be lost. I think adding a bolder holding outline to his stuff would work nicely, but not too much as to make it look like a coloring book.

Speaking of Zoms, please keep an eye out in May for the release of The Do It Yourself Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse. I am lucky enough to be doing the interior illustrations as well as the cover. Written by my pals Bud Hanzel and John Olson, it is a tongue in cheek tome of guidance to surviving the downfall of us and the rise of the zoms. Publisher to be announced soon. I am proud of the illos I have already done, and cant wait to get through them all. I'll be posting some of the art on here from time to time the next few months.

So there you have it!

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...

Welcome to the new blog. After totally screwing up my last one to the point of not being able to access it ever again, I've decided to start over. My goal with this one is the same as my old one, show off my art and make commentary about stupid crap.
But, I do plan to do some things differently. I do plan to make a concerted effort to post art on a weekly basis, hopefully several times a week. It's just a matter of doing it. I also plan to show what I do. I know, you're thinking "you draw, duh." Well more to the point, I'm an inker of comics, I take other peoples work and add my spin to it. To quote one of my favorite artists, Terry Austin, who stated in an interview once that "an inker's job is to take what's there, and make it better". If you dont know who Terry is, than you need to get slapped. He was the inker on Chris Claremont and John Byrne's run on X-Men in the 70's and early 80's. He also inked the late, great Marshall Rogers on Detective Comics in the 70's as well. The guy is a master and one hell of a nice guy.
I'm planning on showing off my inks. I'm a follower of a lot of different artists blogs, and lots of these guys post their pencil work, be it sketches, pages, whatever. Each week, I will find one from the many I follow and ink it, to see what I can come up with. It may not be in my style either. I might decide to go into a slick Scott WIlliams style, or a heavy Klaus Janson. I may just experiment with different tools. I dunno yet. I just know it will be fun, and hopefully will show how inking is an artform. Hope you will join me.

Not a tracer!!