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!