Home from Ireland and London!
I apologize that I'm typing this up so late in the week. I had been trying to post on Tues. each week, but after two weeks away and flying over an ocean to get home, there was no way I was going to be able to type anything of substance. The trip was wonderful. Julia and I had a lovely time staying with relatives and exploring Northern Ireland and London. It was a great way to celebrate our anniversary and her birthday.

I have a wonderful batch of photos that I will reference for architecture, carved details, tile work, stained glass, library design, etc for future Mouse Guard stories. Julia also took a great many photos with her camera (an SLR that I'm only allowed to play with if I ask). She has been spending the day processing those photos so she can upload and share them with family. A few ideas came out of our travels for the project I plan on when I need a break from Mouse Guard (not anytime soon) called Fir Darrig, which is set in Irish folklore.

We took a small trip to London for a few days as well which allowed me to do a signing at Forbidden Planet. The folks there were amazing and I really appreciate the warm and polite welcome from my UK fans. The owners of Forbidden Planet are also the owners of Titan Books, who publish the UK editions of Mouse Guard. It was a great opportunity to talk to them and be able to chat about the book's performance as well as looking forward to future UK versions of upcoming Mouse Guard books.

With two weeks over there, we had a lot of places to see and talk about, but among them some of the highlights are the Trinity College's long room, the Book of Kells, Giant's Causeway, Newgrange, Christ's Church in Dublin, Fairy Glen in Rostrevor, and damn near all of London.

I have uploaded photos from the trip to my Flickr page: here

Special thanks to Darcy & Eoin McCartan, Mat Allen, and the folks at Forbidden Planet in London for making sure we had such a good time!

Due to being in Ireland, this week is a continuation of the list from last week of artists whose work I collect:

Joao Lemos:
I found out about Joao's work when Marvel's Avengers Fairy Tales #1 came out. I met Joao in New York two years ago when he was visiting from Portugal. He showed me a journal he had kept for a year in preparation for the Peter Pan story in AFT#1. It was amazing, he had stage plans from the original Peter Pan production, he had drawn characters and settings that were not in the script, just so he got a sense of all of this version of Neverland. I loved Joao's interpretations of the other Avengers as Lost Boys, so I asked him to do this commission for me. You can check out Joao's blog here: http://sete-estrelo.blogspot.com/


Guy Davis:
I had been following the first few issues of BPRD when I first met Guy. He won an ebay auction on a sculpture I made and let me drop it off to him personally. Guy is one of the kindest people in comics you can meet (He also named Conrad in Mouse Guard). No one can out-do Guy for horrifying creatures either. I have several pieces from Guy, but wanted to share this page from Nevermen that featured an octopus-headed villain I really liked named Honshu. You can find Guy's site here: http://www.guydavisartworks.com/


Craig Rousseau:
Craig's work I discovered through the Hellboy.com forum years ago. Craig is known for his artwork on the Perhapanauts as well as his great Canson paper commissions (which I am in line for currently). A few years ago Craig and I were at the Marriot lounge at San Diego and I noticed he was just sitting there while other of us were catching up on show commissions etc. I handed him some scrap bristol and he sketched and inked this Choopie for me. You can check out more of Craig's work here: http://www.craigrousseau.com/

Alex Sheikman:
Alex's book Robotika was part of the 'first class' of books brought into Archaia. Naturally we met at one of those early Archaia booths, and Alex and I hit it off instantly. One of the things I admire the most about Alex is his constant desire to improve every part of his work. He examines others work and dissects it and then dissects his own looking to make the next story, page, panel better than the last. Alex and I did a page trade for this one. His inks are so tight and precise. I liked this page because it had some of everything: action, setting, close-ups, the works! You can follow Alex's blog here: http://sheikman.blogspot.com/


Rebecca Guay:
I knew of Rebecca's work through her Magic Cards (I played frequently back in the late 90's). At my first San Diego Comic Con I saw her pages for sale (grossly under priced) at her booth, but I had run out of money. The next year, with Julia there, we found Rebecca's table and the pages I had admired before were still available. We couldn't pick between two (the stained glass in the one on the left and the cottages on the one on the right), so we got them both. You can find Rebecca's site here: http://www.rebeccaguay.com/


Sean Wang:
After reading Sean Wang's Runners book I e-mailed him telling him how much I liked it. Sean has a real mind for detail, not just detailed linework, but detailed designs and worlds. He take great care in designing his fictional sci-fi world. Everything from clothing to customs, to ships, guns, and furniture are carefully crafted to be believable. Sean did this sketch of Grissom, one of my favorite alien designs he's done, while we were both an the New York Comic Con a few years back. You can follow Sean's current Runners series twice a week at: http://runnersuniverse.com/


Mark Smylie:
Mark's book Artesia is fully painted epic fantasy. I admired Mark's work even before he became my publisher back in '06. I had my eye on a few pages from Artesia Afire featuring some cool ghosts. It took a while for me to get over those pages being sold before I saw this page (also from Afire) that I really liked better. While Mark is known for his huge military-style armored warfare scenes (as well as Artesia's adult scenes) this page offered a nice slice of life that I think shows Mark is a skilled world-builder. You can find out more about Artesia here: http://www.artesiaonline.com/


Jason Shawn Alexander:
The first original artwork I ever purchased was from Jason. It was my first San Diego Comic Con. I had gone with Jeremy Bastian, met a lot of great people in person, and showed Mouse Guard to Archaia. I ended the trip on Sunday by getting this page. I didn't know anything about Jason but that he was rumored to be working on an Abe Sapien mini-series. The third panel on this one is what sold me. You can check out Jason's blog here: http://bloodandwhisky.blogspot.com/

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Back next week with a 'fresh' (aka not pre-typed) post

While I'm away, this week & next week's posts will be about Artists I collect the work of. I want to share these artist's amazing stuff and ways to find them.


Jeremy Bastian:
Not only one of the most talented people I know, he's also a good friend to boot. Jeremy's work is amazingly detailed and creative. He does all his inking with a brush, which a lot of folks do, but not with Jeremy's 19th century engraver's-line sense. This piece was a gift because Jeremy knew how much I admired this character's design. You can find more of Jeremy's work at http://www.jeremybastian.com/

Mike Mignola:
Since 1993 when I saw the Wizard cover announcing Dark Horse's new Legend imprint, I have loved Mike's work. Hellboy has been one of my favorite comics ever, and I think Mike is a genius at panel by panel storytelling. I bought this piece from him in Chicago, which was my first big con to attend..it's also where I first met Mark Smylie). It took almost all my convention spending money to get this piece, but I really wanted it and Mike was pretty much the only guest I had come to see. http://www.hellboy.com/


Eric Canete:
I found Eric's work via his old blog (he has since overhauled it and started fresh) and was really amazed with how dynamic his compositions are. I love the energy and complexity he puts into each piece he does. Last year Eric did an Iron Man series for Marvel called 'Enter the Manderin' which just goes to prove he can do more than single images, he's a great storyteller as well. Just last week at the Big Apple Con, I browsed his original work and had to buy this Robotech/Macross piece. You can find Eric's blog here: http://kahnehteh.blogspot.com/




Evan 'Doc' Shaner:
Evan and I met through cartoonist Jay Fosgitt. Evan's work is more than just a 'throwback' to Toth lovers, he is really doing something original that it's hard to quantify. It's familiar and different at the same time. Evan's mugshot lineups are one of the staples of his commission list, so I recently asked for him to do a lineup of my favorite X-men team, the All-New/All different Giant Sized team. I also love that Evan is hand coloring these with guache. You can catch up with Evan's blog here: http://www.evanshaner.com/



Katie Cook:
Katie often gets labeled as a 'cute' artist, and while she knows how to work the cute angle, I think she is also equally witty and genuine. Though Katie does full sized commissions and comic pages, she is becoming more well known for her mini-paintings. They can range from comic characters to food mascots, to harry potter teachers, to cult movie creatures for subject matter. Katie seems to have no end to her familiarity with all things geeky. This mini-painting she did for Julia and I on our 5th wedding anniversary. You can follow Katie's blog here: http://katiecandraw.typepad.com/




Nate Pride:
Nate's artistic talent hasn't been as widely seen as it should due to his years placing balloons and aligning text. But, it's clear to me that his real place is as a pencil and ink guy. Nate's linework is something that I envy. He can throw down a perfect contour line to describe someone's arm or leg in a single stroke, or make hundreds of little hatches and tics that make a surface look moldy or weathered. This piece is one I bought from him a few years back at the Motor City Con. Nate can come up with these great characters that seem for all the world like they have a backstory and life to them. You can check out Nate's work here: http://www.natepride.com/



Jay Fosgitt:
Jay and I met through e-mail and then later in-person after he and his wife moved to my neck of the woods in Michigan. Jay's sense of humor is one of the things I like best about his work. On top of having beautifully clean smooth inks, he knows how to poke fun. Jay and I are both big Jim Henson fans. To return a favor, he offered to draw me my favorite Henson-based character..I told him it was a toss up between Gonzo and a Skeksis. He was awesome enough to do them both and throw a gag in for good measure. You can follow Jay's blog here: http://jayfosgitt.blogspot.com/


Duncan Fegredo:
Like many fans of Hellboy, I was nervous about a Hellboy book not drawn by Mignola. I didn't have the problem with BPRD and Guy because it was always intended to be a spin-off book. So when Darkness Calls hit shelves with Duncan's artwork I was very pleased to see what he had done. His next Hellboy arc: The Wild Hunt, is even better and I had to get some of his work to own. The cool thing about buying Duncan's work is that he pencils, scans the pencils and prints them out in blue-line on heavy bristol and inks the blue-line. So when you get a page from him, you get both the pencils and the inks are separate pieces. You can check out Duncan's site here: http://www.fatotto.nildram.co.uk/Site/index.html


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next week 8 more awesome artists, originals, and links

This week's post is a bit of a hodgepodge. After doing 5 shows in the last 7 weeks, I only have unrelated bits & bobs to share

Recent Commissions:

Here are six commissions I have done at cons (or taken home from cons) from the recent past. All are 7" x 7" ink on bristol.

top row L-R: Obi-Wan Mouse, Celanawe, Watchmen/Minutemen mice.

bottom row L-R: Lieam & Crab, Arkham lineup, a mouse herald

New York Highlights:

While in New York for the Big Apple Con I had two major highlights.

1) Tour of 30 Rock studios.

Scott Adsit who plays Pete Hornberger on the show is a comics fan. We met at Heroes this year and I did a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen piece for him (which I don't have a scan of unfortunately) He, in turn, invited Julia and I to visit the set while they were shooting. We met Tina and Alec, and watched them all film a scene with Scott. Later we sat in on a table read where the entire cast was there. It was great! Thanks Scott! I owe you another LoEG piece!

(Photo: me sitting in Liz's chair in her office on-set)

2) Meeting Carol Cleveland

I'm a big Monty Python fan. Holy Grail ends up on my top 5 movies list fairly consistently. And at the Big Apple Con I was able to meet Carol "the female python". I always appreciated that besides her fitting the bill and looking sexy and cute in their skits, she completely got the sense of humor and had great comedic timing. She signed a "Zoot" photo for me and took time out to talk to me all three days of the con. I love that in this photo we took together, Carol still looks like herself (and not a victim of vain plastic surgery) and I still have the look on my face from when I was 11 and giggled all the way through the Castle Anthrax scene in Holy Grail)

The Old Guard:

While searching through old sketchbooks, portfolios, and file cabinets I found a bunch of Mouse Guard work from '02/'03. This would have been about one to two years before starting on 'Belly of the Beast', but I think shows a very close connection to the art from that first issue.

Saxon, Kenzie, & Abe: In this incarnation Saxon had studded armor but his trademark ear-notch and longsword were there from the start. Kenzie had a long tunic and coat-style cloak. My goal for his longer and more coarse fur is evident near his cheeks. Abagail was 'Abe' at this point. Healers had hoods as a trademark in my mind, but male or female, I knew this character was up to no good.

Sadie, Quiggly, & Lieam: You can see Sadie's dagger was part of her early history as was Quiggly's hat and squinty gaze. Lieam's cloak was more like a coat here and the 'triangle sword' looked more like a traditional short sword. This drawing of Lieam I did at a family function and I remember after all the stippling thinking 'I could keep up this style of work forever'

Aubrey, Gwendolyn, & Rand: Aubrey has only been seen in a few panels of the comics so far, but it looks like I borrowed her skirt and belt design for the current incarnation of Gwendolyn's costume. Gwendolyn always had a polearm as a weapon. Rand's shield design started as something based on crusade shields, but has now taken on new meaning I will explore in later series .

Celanawe & Midnight: My goal for Celanawe was to show him as an amazing old grizzled mentor who can still hold his own, but has a backstory where he was even more impressive in his prime. I think this may be the first drawings of Celanawe. Midnight was a good character at this point. He had a backstory made up by a pal of mine where he was a former circus performer turned swords-mouse. I kept the name and look, but changed most else about him.

Fan Art:

At Dragon Con I had my first experience with Mouse Guard costumes aka Cosplay. The female trio reminded me of the drawing Nate Pride did for me a while back of a more booth-babe geared Mouse Guard. Thanks ladies for your dedication!!

Ireland:

For the next two weeks, I'll be in Ireland and will be unable to type up new blogposts. The trip is to relax and celebrate Julia's Birthday and our Anniversary. I also plan on using the time to do a bit of research for later Mouse guard stories. So, as I have done in the past, I'll pre-type some posts for Blogger to auto-update for me. The subject matter will be Artists whose work I collect.

Legends of the Guard:
Mouse Guard will have an anthology spin-off mini-series starting next year called Legends of the Guard. The handpicked creators will be getting to tell their own stories in the Mouse Guard world. The list of creators on-board so far is very hush-hush, but a few names that I can mention are Jeremy Bastian, Nate Pride, and Mark Smylie. You can read a little more about it on CBR.

Design tips:
When I was in high school and my friends and I wanted to design characters (or perhaps even redesign our characters costume) we would use a sheet of photocopied 'blank' superheroes. This way we could just draw costume ideas or try colors without having to redraw the human form over and over and over.

When it came time to design Mouse Guard clothing, I used the same technique. I drew two 'blank' mice and copied them so I had a full sheet worth. And just like with my high school heroes, I can sketch out ideas, even crazy ones, without having to redraw the model. I find this very freeing to my designs. Not only do I save time, but I'm more likely to try unlikely ideas because of the lack of risk in screwing up the drawing underneath. Here you can see some of the designs that ended up going into the Winter extras and epilogue.


TMNT:
As a long-time turtles fan, I was really happy to pick up and read the collected volume that was just released this summer. And I found out that someone I owed a favor to, was also a TMNT fan, specifically of Raph. So I took the opportunity to do a drawing for him. After I colored it and mailed him the original inks and a color print, I thought it would be fun to play with photoshop to replicate the look of the old B&W style tones that were used in the original series. Here are the results.

Hellboy:
As long as we are on the subject of gifts and fan art. I wanted to share this piece I did as a gift for Mike Mignola. I love Hellboy and was really taken with the twist the latest 'Wild Hunt' storyline has taken. After reading Issue #6 I was forcing Julia to read the issue and study the panels and impact of what Mike and Duncan had done. I was planning on doing a drawing for Mike that I owed him for a favor, but the recent issues cinched what the subject would be. Julia and I want to express thanks to Mike and Christine and Katie for their kindness.

Fan Art:
Christopher Rice dropped this off at the Archaia booth at the Long Beach show while I was away from the table. It's funny because I saw him working on it in the Archaia panel at that show. Sorry I missed meeting you Christopher, and than you for the artwork!

Upcoming Appearances:
Big Apple Con Oct. 16-18
Forbidden Planet London signing: Nov. 7
Live Reading at the Flint Public Library Dec. 8 (6:30 & 7:30pm)
(2010 dates coming shortly)

Winter 1152 in Previews!

The Black and White ed. of Winter is in the Oct. Previews! Winter has received the same treatment as Fall 1152: 12" x 12" Printed pages (same size as the original artwork), cloth cover, velum overlay pages, and slipcase. The fans asked for it and Archaia delivered. As mentioned before, the price has gone up, but only due to the hand-tipped-in vellum sheet count tripling from Fall's (from about 20 to about 60!). So if you would like one, have your local retailer to use order code: OCT09 0693.

Ink & Stein:

For the next few months, Ink & Stein will not be on the last Saturday of the month. Because it interferes with Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, we have bumped it a week before it normally would be (Oct. 24, Nov. 21, & Dec. 19). If you are an artist or writer in the South Eastern Michigan area and would like to join us, feel free to do so on all or any of the upcoming dates. We meet at 7pm at the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti, MI

More Layout Tricks:

I'm happy everyone is enjoying the step-by-steps and behind-the-scenes posts I have been making about the process of making Mouse Guard. This week, I'm showing a model I made to help me keep track of mouse placement. For the funeral pyre scene in issue #6, I knew I wanted more than just the key characters present. And to keep track of all those mice, I'd need a layout key.

I used paper plates to rough in the balcony shape. Then I took soldier pieces from my RISK set to represent my characters. I used key colors for key players (though I was limited to the Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, Black, and Grey that RISK comes with) and filled in the rest with grey. I toyed with the placement of each of them, knowing who needed to be close to each other for the dialogue.

Once I liked the placement, I drew circles around each piece's base and labeled what character was there. I took photos from several angles. This way I should be covered, but if not, I can recreate the scene using my guide photo. I really like the simplicity of some of these types of models. It didn't take any more than 20 minutes to set-up, and saved me far more than 20 minutes down the road of drawing and coloring.

Fan Art:

This piece was given to me at Windy City, I believe. Unfortunately, I don't know the artist's name other than it's signed 'Gabo'. I apologize, to the fans and the artist. I'm so swamped at conventions and being pulled in every direction, that I don't remember people's faces or names more often than I'd like to admit. If you are the artist in question, let me know and I'll credit you appropriately.


Upcoming Appearances:
Baltimore Comic Con: Oct. 10-11
Big Apple Con Oct. 16-18
Forbidden Planet London signing: Nov. 7
Live Reading at the Flint Public Library Dec. 8 (6:30 & 7:30pm)

(2010 dates coming shortly)

Long Beach Comic Con & More:
I'll be 'touring' Southern California part of this week and next. In addition to the Long Beach Comic con (Golden Apple #555 & Archaia booth #265) Where I'll be signing an exclusive poster, I'll also be doing several store signings and appearances. Here is the quick run-down:



Wednesday, September 30, 4-7 p.m.
signing at Comickaze Comics Books and More
San Diego, CA

Thursday, October 1, 7-9 p.m.
signing at Secret Headquarters
Los Angeles, CA

Friday, October 2nd, 8:30 p.m.
Live Art and Music Party, Co-Sponsored by Atomic Apple, ComicVine.com and Archaia
Room #204
Long Beach Comic Con at the Long Beach Convention Center

more details about the events can be found here

Overlay Drawings:
As promised, I wanted to show a technique I use when I'm struggling with a complex scene or layout. I find it useful to draw parts of the scene and then place them on the lightbox to work on another portion. For example, I can draw this background inside Lockhaven and then on a different sheet of paper, be drawing the hares. This way if I don't like the hares, I can erase or start over without worrying about ruining my background drawing.

In this example, I was also having to fit in lots of mouse characters. So I used yet another sheet of paper for that. Again, this way I can draw and erase the mice until I get what I like without ever altering or disturbing the hares or background. Once this step is done, I can scan the sheets in and composite them in photoshop. Here I color coded some of the characters he help me remember which mice they were as I inked & colored them on the final art.

Another example of when I'll use this is when the perspective can be tricky and I want to really get the background just right. I can draw all sorts of perspective lines and construction lines as I build up the setting. I then use another sheet to add the characters in using the background perspective as a guide for their scale and foreshortening. Scanning the sheets separately again (but using little 'X' calibration marks in the corners to realign them) I can also tint the background to help me see and focus on the characters more.

Ultimately, the photoshop composited images, which are cropped and sized for the final page layout, is printed and lightboxed onto the final bristol page.


Fan Art:
Patty Barden writes: "Last year, on November 1, my son and his sweetheart's wedding featured a Mouse Guard wedding cake--see attached. True fans. . . "
Awesome Patty! And Congrats to the happy couple!
(no mention as to who made the cake)

Upcoming Appearances:
Comickaze Comics signing: Sept. 30 (4-7pm)
Secret Headquarters signing: Oct. 1 (7-9pm)
Long Beach Comic Con: Oct. 2-4
Baltimore Comic Con: Oct. 10-11
Big Apple Con Oct. 16-18
Forbidden Planet London signing: Nov. 7
Live Reading at the Flint Public Library Dec. 8 (6:30 & 7:30pm)