Author: phinmagic

Phineus : Magician for Hire is the brainchild of creator Barry Linck. Phineus was created in 1987, of then a high school senior after reading too much of Matt Wagner's "Mage", too much Dungeon's and Dragon's and watching too much of John Carpenter's "Big trouble in LittleChina". Over the interviening years Phineus changed from angellic savior, to reluctant hero, to art student who finds he is a mage, until, in 1991, for a comic class at Edinboro University, he became part of a Husband and Wife paranormal investigations team, with Phineus' sidekick and wife Sara. Barry produced and self published from 1993 to the present 33 comics with our erstwhile heroes, garnering a small but rabid fan following.

Last Days of Phineus Part 1

By Brian Babyok, Colton McBryer and Jordan Harris

This is a script and treatment for a story that never got off the ground. It’s a bit darker than I had planned, initially, but it’s intriguing. I may revisit it at some point.–Barry

Page 1 (full page)

“Dance the Desperate Breath”

Panel 1.          Phineus sits upon an elaborate throne made of bone (ref. H.R. Giger). He is surrounded by a harem of women that all look like Sara, though their ages vary from 14 to 84, all clad in naught but their bloomers and corsets. Phineus is clad as a Victorian gentleman, though he wears no shirt or jacket, merely spats, pants, suspenders, and a vest, revealing his left robotic arm as a work of brass, gears, and steam. More troublingly, his right arm is covered in eldritch runes, and is the only part of him that seems to have any vitality left. He seems utterly adrift, filled with apathy and brooding contempt behind the sunglasses he wears. His sword leans against the throne, stained with old blood and gathering dust.

1  CAP:    Civilization has fallen and risen. Humanity has once again crawled from primordial abasement. Phineus, has watched and suffered. Once the last Green Mage, Phineus has forsaken that noble path, turned from all he held dear by the mistakes of pride and grief. Now, Phineus is sodden and dissolute. How he came to this is a tale to be told…

Continue reading “Last Days of Phineus Part 1” →

Phineus books available on Amazon!

Have you always wanted to own your very own copy of one of my many Trade Paper Back collections of the long-running Phineus comics? Of course you have!

Now, they can be your’s, because they are now available for purchase on Amazon!

Currently, we have 4 Trades, each of several hundred pages, available for both paperback and Lindle editions; another two will soon be ready!

I am diligently working on extra content for the older Volumes of Phineus! All the trades will be getting new covers, extra stories and exclusive stories, that no one has ever seen, before!

So, head on over to my author’s page at MY PAGE and buy some goodies! Thanks in advance!

Barry

Inktoberfest

While I’m not committing to daily, I am trying to ease back into more drawing. I’m doing creepiest. First up this, inspired by a podcast about screaming skulls.

Comicadia Crossover art!

Shout-out to all my peeps at Comicadia! Drawn by @SkySunnymq we’ve got a big crossover here! We such greats like:
@ArtieTom
@kotaotan
@hpkomic
@DojoTheGreat
@Alli_Perry
@phinmagic
@jamilsart
@JosephOpossum
@hauntedstudio
@SeeTheRabbit
@DeftBeck
All at #Comicadia!
https://t.co/xZafWHElSU

Squat HQs

Here are some better photos of my HQs for Rugnar’s Raiders. I use Inquisitorial retinue, leading Imperial Guard squat commandoes and Squat Deathwatch marines.

Duncan Borrl, Squat guard commander.
Nathan the Invincible, Living Anscestor
Kris Kringle Anscestor Lord
Detail of Squat powerfist
Squat cyber berserkers
Squat berserker
Rugnar Grimm Warlord of the Squatwatch
Squat Weaponsmith
MMater of Ordnance
Wounded Seargent
Squat command Landraider
Squat rhino
Squat Assault Landraider

Squat HQ Miniatures

While my creativity has been stifled and rendered me unable to draw much, I’ve been trying to distract myself and been working on my squat army, repainting and touching up older minis.

Here are my HQs for the army. We have Kris Kringle in the gold exo armor, Rugnar the Grimm in the purple exo. Duncan Borll is the fellow with the powerfist. I have a few figs coming, where we’ll see Sheila from the comic as a Commisar with thunder hammers and a male & female pair of Crusaders.

I run my squats in 3 detachments, Imperi Guard, Deathwatch and Inquisitorial.

I borrow heavily from my comics for characters for the army.

And here are the rest of my boys, that need worked on.

And their rides.

Once I get them all painted up, I’ll do a proper photo session for them.

Phineus + Magician for Hire

I’ve merged the Phineus and Magician for Hire sites. It just seem counter productive and seemed I was competing against myself, constantly.

I have all the Phineus, here. The Magician for Hire comics will post here, as well. And all bonus stories will continue to post here, as well.

Teen Wizard stays on it’s own site, as does Maynard and Grimm.

Hopefully it all makes sense, so keep coming back and I’ll keep making stuff.

Peace,

Barry

Tablet Tutorial

  • I switch easily between my phone and my tablet. Here i show how i do my thumb nails in my notes program on my Note 9.
    I switch easily between my phone and my tablet. Here i show how i do my thumb nails in my notes program on my Note 9.
  • The roughs. Super loose rough layout of the panles. Super fun.
  • Step 2 of the layers of detail on the pencils.
  • Rough, loose pencils. This is the first run at pencils overtop of the roughs layer.
  • Completed pencils over top of the roughs layer.
  • Detail showing pencils done on my tablet. Screen is 10.6 inches.
  • Pencil layer setup, shown over pencils.
  • Detail, showing inking linework, using the correction at 11, to give a smoother line stroke.
  • Detail of ink layer overtop of the pencils layer over top the roughs layer.
  • Completed black inks over blue line pencils on a separate layer. Note, the effect pencils that will be drawn over in color.
  • Flatting the colors on the fist ink layer. You’ll notice I always have a darker brown or gray layer beneath, to disallow white from peeking through.
  • Flat colors, including effects.
  • Color flats shown, along side the layers I created for backgrounds, effects, colors, inks and the like. More complicated pages have many, many layers.
  • Flatter colors shown with a 30% red overlay layer to give the scene a reddish creepy look.
  • Close up panel shading, done in black on a layer set at 25%. I also do a layer above, with white for highlights set at 35%.
  • Detail of the completed colors with shading and highlights.
  • Text is added, first. The program has a number of built in fonts. The desktop version of the program allows you to use your system fonts.
  • Drawing a circle around text, using the elipse tool.
  • Adding a text balloon tail myvdrawing freehand using correction set to 20, for maximum smoothing.
  • Use the fill tool and fill the balloon and tail with white.
    Use the fill tool and fill the balloon and tail with white.

For decades, I made comics in a very old school way. I penciled and inked on paper, scanned the pages and colored and lettered in InDesign. Mainly because I couldn’t afford a graphics tablet or a Surface Pro.

A couple of years ago, I found a free program called Medibang Paint that is really great for making comics. I had a Galaxy Note 8, now a Note 9 that comes with the best stylus in the business, built-in. I created many comics, using my phone alone, small screen and all.

Recently, I was able to upgrade and get myself a Galaxy Tab A 10.6 for about $350. This acts much like the phone, I’ve been using, with a much bigger screen. I am able to run the same program on a larger screen.

Medibang also allows you to share between devices, easily. So, I find myself using my phone for parts, swapping to my tablet and back again.

I have plotted out my progress shots of how I build a page, on two mobile devices. Cheap. Easy. Effective.

Never. Stop. Creating.

Thanks,
Barry

Not so Teen Wizard

Doing some standard fantasy drawing.

Process post

Here are the process steps I took to create the best explosion I’ve done, to date. It was a bit if a different process, drawing in many layers of color, but i think it’s effective.

Imperial Frogz Space Marines

These Space Marines were my first foray into Warhammer 40k, way back in 1992. I’d seen a local game store display the Sons of Elvis chapter, so I did a silly home brew chapter, too. The Imperial Frogz. And that’s a lot of green.

99% of my army is beakie marines, and gret deal of them are old school Rogue Trader minis, as well. I filled in the ranks with newer models as they came out.

I mean to update the pics, as I finish up the couple of straggler figs that still need painted.

I hadn’t dug these out in ages and I’d forgotten just how many I had. Yikes!

Edit: Added new pics after finishing painting all the models. All I have left to do is base 150 models. Yikes!

Rugnar’s Raiders Squat army update

Some updated pics of my Squat army. Still far from done, but looking pretty good. Lots of little conversions in this force. I am especially fond of the 5 mobile gun units that act as Tarantulas. Plus the two custom scratch built Landraiders.

I always play dwarves in any game I play. Warhammer 40k is no different.

Mind Flayer

Count Dismember

The first villain Phin and Sara fought, done in Teen Wizard style.