Thanks for entertaining my creative whims. I get into moods and move where the winds of my muse take me.
Do expect more RPG stuff. It’s stuff I’ve been planning for a long, long time, but has been of the backburner. I will try to mix it better with comic pages, though.
As the last few pages of “Boy Wizards” are finished, I’ll be moving onto a few new comic projects.
I’ll be starting work on the new Phineus graphic novel, “Queen of the Cold Night” with Brian Babyok starting sometime in May. Once “Boy Wizard” is finished up, I’ll have design work and thumbnailing to do to get ready for the story to begin posting. As usual all my preliminary and work up stuff can be seen first on my Patreon. Check out Brian’s novel here on Amazon.
Next up, I’ll be starting a new Bonus story (also posting exclusively on my Patreon) that will go into what will be my next Trade paperback, The first volume of The Complete Magician for Hire. This story is called “Council of Phin’s”.
And thirdly, I’ll begin design work and thumbnails for the crossover between Phineus and Explorers of the Unknown with Shawn Atkins. This should be fun, as we’re doing a story plotted by Shawn, drawn the old Marvel way by me and inked by Shawn. Should be a lot of fun. Check out Shawn’s stuff here.
It’s going to be a fun year of new comics, new stories and new collaborations.
This week check back for the exciting finish to “Boy Wizards”!
Here’s an art piece I did for Draw or Die’s Secret Santa! Starting to feel better after Covid and a Sinus infection right after, been a rough month and a half.
Drawing every day isn’t always easy. Seems easy. Just draw. Stuff can get in the way. You’re tired. You’re busy. You’re sick. I get it.
I used to draw every day. For years. Decades, even. There a few years, back in the early 10s where I almost did 200 pages a year. I slowed down, as stuff happened.
My daughter was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease and we spent a lot of time in Children’s Hospital for a good 6 years. Still, I drew, if not every day, most days.
Then, the Car accident happened and I lost a lot of mobility and strength in both hands, most in my drawing hand. Months of physical therapy and I taught my hand to draw again. Since then, I’ve had fits and starts. I deal with pain and arthritis from the injury, and PTSD from the roll-over crash.
But, ironically, the best medicine, for my mental health is drawing. Without art, I become depressed, anxious and miserable. So, I fight through it. I fight through the pain, the doubt, the self loathing, the fear and the desperation, because I know art is my salvation.
I usually, these days, draw digitally. I miss the tactile feel of pen and pencil on paper, so I’m doing a lot more sketching and doing stories on paper to mix it up. Drawing is drawing.
Draw or die is a very real thing. Researchers discovered that people who engaged in artistic activities, such as painting, drawing and sculpting, in both middle and old age were 73% less likely to have memory and thinking problems, such as mild cognitive Impairment, that lead to dementia.
Right now I am in a stretch of about a month and a half of drawing every day. It feels so good!
I know I’ll go through bouts of doubt and art block. I’ll fight through it and draw.
I’ve been on a roll. I’ve drawn 18 pages in the last month. And they’re GOOD! I thank you all for your patience over the last few years. My car accident not only messed up my hands, but my head as well. Hopefully that’s behind me, I’ll keep drawing!
Here’s some pics of an older page, as I drew them back in 2013. I don’t think I ever shared them. I sometime miss doing pages on paper with ink. That’s why I’m doing just that on the new bonus story. “The Lake Erie Horror”, available to Patrons on my Patreon page.
If I dig up any more shots like this, I’ll post them. A new “Barcrawl” page will be up very soon, as well.
I’ve been working on new pages and fleshing out story ideas. A lot of my time, recently has been spent working on a commission story. This has been financially helpful, as well as a good kick in my creativity! I haven’t felt this good about art and art making since before the car accident that ruined my drawing thumb. I’m so excited!
The plan is to work on the commission AND my comic at the same time. Now that I’ve unstuck myself, should be doable!
I have been working out some kinks in the two current stories, buy sketching them out in my sketchbook. God, I missed sketchbooking. So, more of sketchbooking to come, as well. Helps me think out loud.
I should have a new page of “Barcrawl” out this week. Above are what I’ve been drawing in the last few days!
Here are some old sketches from my college sketchbooks for Phin and Sara. This was all prepping for what would eventually be “Dismember Me When You’re Gone”, the official first Phineus comic.
There was a lot of playing with looks and poses. As well as a lot of sloppy texture. It’s a fun look back at where I was way back in 1990-1991.
The Contessa is (barring Howie from Teen Wizard) my oldest existing character. I’ve been drawing her ever since I saw Tobe Hooper’s “Lifeforce”.
The Contessa was ported into my comic as a major villain, however, aside from a cameo in “Wake the Dead” she didn’t show up until 2012’s, “Have a Drink on Me”.
I am missing the first picture I made of her, which was confiscated in Middle school, due to nudity. In the class where I fleshed out Phineus, a pre-college art class at CMU, using an early Photoshop like program called Pandavision, I traced a pencil drawing into the program to digitally draw and color it (you can see it below). Keep in mind this was in 1987.
So, on Tuesday I attended the second monthly Draw Together event put on my D.J.Coffman and his wife Ally for Draw or Die Club in downtown Pittsburgh at the Federal Gallery
It was super fun, and I got to hang out with some old friends and met a bunch of new artists to sit, eat, talk and DRAW together. It’s a really fun thing to do, to draw around other people and socialize. As an artist, I usually sit and draw by myself. It’s so much more fun, with company
Draw or Die Club is a club that promotes drawing, every day. For fun, for profit, for mental well-being. It’s awesome. https://drawordie.co/
DJ had a list of prompts to go from and you could roll a dice and see what to draw. I ended up doing one of each and an extra doodle, too.
I’ll probably do this next month, too. And if you’re in Pittsburgh come on down and hang out!
The old site was run on clunky Comic Easel software that hasn’t been updated for a while and from a host who had the site down far too often.
The new site is much more stable, fast, and ,as you can see , a blog. All new pages and will post in the blog. All comics are backed up to Comic Archives (listed above), which are read in super quick galleries that fill the screen on websites and mobile.
I hope you all enjoy the new place, I love it. Wander around and take a look. If you see anything out of place, let me know so I can fix it.
So, this are pages from a one – off story featuring Fr. Ben Billings, my bad-ass priest and demon hunter.
I am creating the story free-style. Freestyle is what I call writing and drawing a comic without a script. I just sit down and start drawing. It’s very liberating and fun to do it this way. Sometimes a bit frustrating. If nothing else, a bit surprising.
This is 7 pages of a story I had guessed would be 6-7 pages long. I am nowhere near the end, so it’s growing like some ancient forgotten thing in the basement. And I’m loving it. We’ll see where the story takes it.
Phineus + Magician for Hire 
You must be logged in to post a comment.