Saturday, June 20, 2009

Checking in from Heroes Con. Helping my sister maintain her booth. Doing alot of free sketches, which is fun.

Not too much Solar-related stuff going on. I'm actually trying to avoid mentioning it at all, since it's nowhere near ready to be viewed by fellow artists or editors for that matter, and I'll probably be shoving it down everyone's throat in a month when I'm in San Diego. I did draw a closeup of Godfrey's arm though.

Gonna go buy some overpriced crap! Yaaay!

~N

Friday, May 8, 2009

It's been mentioned a couple times that there's a spelling error in the robot poster. I've since corrected that (thankfully *before* I ordered them), but much thanks to the people who pointed it out. Feel free to mention my errors any time you see them. You never know, you might save my ass someday.

Thursday, May 7, 2009



Today I completed the first page of Solar. There are alot of pages in the works, and this one is actually from about 30 pages into the first chapter, but this just happened to be the first one I finished.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

I ordered some Solar postcards made about 5 minutes ago. Another thing to give away to people. Yaaaay

Sunday, May 3, 2009



Second poster. This one will also be given away at the San Diego Comic Con.

Thursday, April 30, 2009



We're going to be giving this away at San Diego Comic Con.

Monday, April 27, 2009

I realize now how often I use the phrase "when it's done" here. I talk about alot of things I'm working on, and promise to post them when they're done. Well, to be perfectly honest, the only thing that's been stopping me lately is the lack of a decent scanner. Alot of these promised drawings are, in fact, finished.
But I'm setting that right today. I'm going across town to SVA's scanning lab with a full portfolio of things that need digital recreation. I look forward to sharing all of them with the few people who get a chance to read this page.

Ciao!

~N

PS: As a preview, here's a panel in progress of Godfrey kicking some ass.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

I'm the map! I'm the map!

Last night I sat down and drew out a map of the entire city-state of Gaspar. It was a little tedious, and I probably didn't need to take it quite as seriously as I did, but I'm glad it's finally done. Next I load it into photoshop and start naming all the districts! I wish I was crazy enough to name all the streets, but that seems entirely superfluous. I'll post it here when it's done.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Free stuff. We all like it.

I started work tonight on a drawing that I'll be putting on a poster. Nick and I will be giving them away at the San Diego Comic Con. I'll post the final design when it's done.

2.0

I decided this morning my take on the architecture of the city of Gaspar is all wrong. I'm starting a few pages over again. I'm just glad I came to this conclusion before I had any pages finalized or, heaven forbid, in print.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Here's an oldie



This is one of the first drawings I ever did of the protagonist, Faris. Not too much about his look has changed, surprisingly. I found this on a flash drive I haven't used since last year. Here ya go!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Cover/Poster art. How I go about it.

I thought I'd share more stuff regarding how I go from a sketch to a finished piece. Because it's fun for me. Here's a cover I've devised. It may not actually be used as a cover, but rather turned into a poster or postcard. We'll see.


This is the final inked drawing, fresh and lovely, with no retouching done at all. I would like to show the very, very first sketch I did of this idea, but I can't seem to find it. In any case, it looked almost just like this. It was one of those rare instances where I knew exactly what I wanted.
As you can see, I laid this out fully intending to put a title at the top from the beginning. I don't really like the idea of putting text over the artwork and having it compete and interfere, so I always separate it. I just think it looks nicer, and its less for me to fret about. From here I begin by adjusting my levels and...


I initially intended this piece to have the same thick, painty feel as the picture of Elios below, so I did my initial color sketches in Corel. I already had an idea for the title art, so you can see I knocked it out first. Eventually, I decided that I wanted this piece to have a more photographic feel. I wanted something that looked a little closer to home for some people, and I really wanted to showcase mood more than style and texture. So I, while keeping this brainstorming in mind, I reloaded the original document into Photoshop and...


Now we're getting somewhere. All in all, this is about 12 hours of work, including the time to draw and ink the original piece. It's still not finished, but I'm having alot of fund putting unique textures on things. The bike really is starting to look like a true hunk of crap, which is great. The color scheme for it, I'll admit, I did steal. The blue in the body and yellow in the tire are meant to be reminiscent of Tetsuo's bike in the Akira animated film. Dork, I know.

Til next time,
~Neal

Wednesday, April 15, 2009



Moth and Faris. I think I'm going to have this printed on postcards. Click for the full image.

Coloring started on April 15th.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Tales of Interest

Here are some concepts that I've been working on to showcase the supporting cast of Solar. I'll also post the finished versions, but I always like when artists lend a little bit of light to what their process goes through, so that's what I'm doing. I'm using Corel Painter, by the way.


Cairo and Shilah, 'The Twins.' Entirely unsatisfactory so far, but I like the colors. I still wonder what they're so sad about.


Elios. Farther along than the first one, but still not nearly good enough.

It just occurred to me that these are the first pieces of art that I have scanned on this blog. Expect that to change.

Til next time,
~Neal

Monday, February 9, 2009

There goes the neighborhood. Three feet away.

I just read an article describing how scientists have teleported matter three feet. Granted, it was something like one atom, but still.

I find this relevant to the blog because I'm writing a sci-fi story, but it seems like every idea I have that could considered 'cool' or 'futuristic' is soundly trounced by real life. It's probably something that most sci-fi authors in this century have felt at one time or another. Except maybe Frank Herbert. He was far, far out there.

Thankfully, there is no teleporting in Solar, as far as I know. Maybe I'll surprise myself and throw it in there somewhere.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Ben Franklin, how you loved the ladies.

I'm very pleased with the progress I've been making on Solar the past couple days. Of course, that hasn't been reflected in blog form, but I consider this blog to be possibly the last stop on the train of importance regarding this project, so take it as you will. If people were clamoring to see scans on the random shreds of paper I write the story on, or to see more poorly-photographed images on unfinished pages, I'd oblige, but it hasn't happened yet.

I'm thinking of bringing a co-writer onto this project. My first thoughts were of my sister, but I don't think she would dig writing this story too much. I'm sure she'll like reading it, but not writing it. It's just a sad fact that when you're writing, drawing, inking, and post-production-ing an entire graphic novel by yourself, things don't get done very quickly. Especially considering that I'm making it a personal mission to leave my work as 'pure' as possible, in that I won't be correcting or adding any elements with photoshop that I can draw by myself. Color or texture is another story, but I'm not taking any shortcuts.

I could go on a small rant about computers and comic books, but I won't. All that I'll say is computers will be a very important and positive element comics in the future. The key words being 'will be.' I think comic books and computers are still getting through the finer points of their initial foreplay, and it's going about as well as a virgin's prom night. Some artists whom I greatly admired in the past who have gone the way of photoshop and wacom tablets seem to actually be unlearning how to draw. I feel that alot of artists still need to come to terms with the fact that art on the computer is not a realm of 'can I do this?' but 'should I do this?'.

Anyway, back to the grind I go. Take care,

~Neal