Kolchak The Night Stalker

Here's a cover and a few preliminary images I just finished for Moonstone Books.

It a two story annual comic based on the old Kolchak the Night Stalker series. I felt very lucky to work on this as I am a huge Night Stalker fan. It was one of my fathers favorite shows and he turned me onto the show when it appeared on reruns on the Sci-Fi network.

Chicago Comic Con 2008

Chicago Comic Con is by far the best place to meet editors and Art Directors for an artist. This year was no exception. I made some really good contacts which I will have to follow-up on and hopefully some really good work will come from these encounters. During my portfolio reviews a common comment was that they liked my palette. I found that to be a pleasant surprise, as I have had to work so hard to achieve it, and only of late have I come to understand the most basic comprehension of color. For any young artist interested in color theory I would highly recommend The DC Guide to Coloring and Lettering by Mark Chiarello. I was also given a lot of good advice on how to improve my work and garner some covers. Some suggestions had to do with subject matter while others advised more dynamic poses and straying farther from my reference. Another piece of advice was to really showcase myself and push my style farther to make it more individual.

Portfolio aside Chicago was a great chance to hang with tons of great people from artists and editors to just fans. Andrew also did really well which just added to the great benefit of the trip.

We got to eat at a great Metal bar/restaurant with kick ass food all named after metal bands.

We also got to meet up with some fellow CCAD alumni and were asked to be in a show in October. I'll post more about the show as the time draws nearer but the theme is Zombies so of course I'm down. After the Con and the unbearably long drive home which stranded us at The Bates Motel I was able to meet up with Eric Fortune. Like any good Cincinnatian we met over a Skyline Three-way. Then Eric showed us some of his current phallic art at Andrew's studio. And just for those interested I threw in some pics of the better Con costumes. Venom Pimp was my favorite. You go PlayA!

24 Hour Comic DAGON

The basic idea was to see what we could do in 24 hours. The concept was borrowed from other comic book artists who do this yearly. Three NKU alumni and myself sat in a room for what ended up only being 8-14 hours but it was still advantageous for me. It was an interesting experience which forced me to do my least comfortable job as an illustrator, layouts. Each person had their own goals. I believe Adam and Oliver were actually trying to complete a comic while Tj was just there to make some collaborative art.

My goal was to thumb out and shoot reference for a short story by H.P. Lovecraft titled Dagon.

I have earlier posted an image I had done for this story and here I wanted to sequential explore the rest of the narrative. The night started out oddly by trying to find a suitable place to make the art and grabbing food. The event then degraded into a Gambit card throwing night of flute playing and other oddities. When all was said and done I had my layouts complete and some kick ass photo reference thanks to all three but especially TJ. After the San Diego Comic Con I can't wait to jump into the story and start working on these images.