Blackcat Revisit

For the third episode of THE PLOTMASTERS PROJECT, Jesse Glenn & I revisited an old super-hero/vigilantly character of mine called "BLACKCAT".

Now I know some of you are yelling at your screen (and in some ways at me) "But there already IS a character named "Blackcat" in Marvel comics...

...yes. I know that, now.

To the left you can see my finished new piece for the BLACKCAT episode of THE PLOTMASTERS PROJECT, and below I'll break down who the character was, and how I created this updated image for the podcast.



Blackcat was a character I created as my teenage alter-ego vigilantly. He patrolled the rooftops of Flint, MI and kept neighborhoods safe. He was agile and nimble, and at one point had a grappling line just like Batman. He wore my same trench coat, and my same tee-shirt, and in a case of life imitating art, I made a cloth mask so I could go as my own character for halloween. Embarrassing, I know. The only thing semi-unique about the character and his name was that he could alter the luck of those around him for the worse and improve his at the same time...because "you didn't want a Blackcat to cross your path". To the right you can see my high-school drawings of him.

For the updated version, I didn't really want to change the character costume/design at all. I wanted to capture the idea of the clothes being something a teen would have access to, and having sewn that mask myself as a teen, I knew that part was doable. I looked up some parkour reference to find something that could highlight Blackcat's agility prowess (and show a teen showboating a bit). And instead of the typical rooftop backdrop of vigilantes, I opted for the marquee of a Flint, MI landmark, the Capitol Theater.

These were sketched on copy paper (with a printout of the pose already on the background drawing for reference)


I scanned the sketches and assembled them in photoshop. With each drawing having been done on separate sheets of copy paper, this allowed me to tweak each component, adjust, resize, rotate, etc until I liked the composition. It also made it easy to tine the background a different color than the character to help me see where the character's lines end and where the background begins.

At this point in creating this piece, I realized that I wasn't so much drawing Blackcat, but drawing the background around Blackcat. This piece had gotten away from me like the CATS TRIO piece.



With a printout of the above layout I was able to start inking. First I taped the printout to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. Then on a lightpad I could see through the bristol to the printout and ink safely on the surface of the bristol. I use this method to save a step in erasing any pencil and to keep the final inks clear of even any blue-line.

I ink with Copic Multiliners (the 0.7 nib mainly for this piece)

Below you can see a few photos I took in-process as I was inking on the lightpad:

With the inks finished, I scanned them and started the coloring process by flatting in the colors. Flatting is the boring part of coloring. It amounts to adult coloring within the lines, but only with flat colors--no textures, no lighting, no effects. The color selections were mostly made for me by either the old Blackcat costume design or the real Capitol Theater in Flint. Laying in these flat colors makes it easier to quickly isolate any particular area or group of areas to render them alone without affecting other part of the image.

Lastly I got in to do the fun part, all of the shading and lighting effects. for the rendering I mostly use the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop with a textured brush. Its in this step that I add layers to help me paint in the reflected neon light as well as the glow around the letters. I had fun revisiting my old paper alter-ego Blackcat for the purposes of the Plotmasters Project episode. In the same way that familiar scents or sounds can trigger the memory into an instant flashback of a point in time, I am routinely transported by these old characters to a great moment in my life.

You can watch the BLACKCAT episode of 

The Plotmasters Project on YouTube:

And follow us on Facebook & Twitter

2017 Appearances: 

New York Comic Con: Oct. 5-8

Quietus Revisit

For the second episode of THE PLOTMASTERS PROJECT, Jesse Glenn & I revisited one of his characters: QUIETUS.


To the left you can see my finished new piece for the QUIETUS episode of THE PLOTMASTERS PROJECT, and below I'll break down who the character was, and how I created this updated image for the podcast.




Let's start off with the original character. To the right you can see Jesse's early 90's high-school drawings of her. Quietus was a espionage type hero who's father made a pact with a demon which also included an arrangement of marriage for her. All of this dark muddling gave Quietus untested and vague--yet immensely powerful magic.

Jesse said her key design feature was drawing 'scribble hair'.




For my update drawing for the podcast I was challenged. I not only rarely draw ladies, especially sexy ladies, but even in my youth, I'd never drawn Quietus. I used some photo  reference for the pose (a yoga model doing a sorcerer pose?) and then tried to keep the basic design of flat-black bodysuit, red accents, metal bangles & bracelets, and curly scribble hair to make Merida from BRAVE jealous.

I ran out of room on the copy paper I was sketching on and had to tape another sheet on to get the full body in.




With the sketch penciled, I taped a copy of it (one I'd darkened & resized on the photo copier) to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. Using a lightpad to see the sketch I used Copic multiliners to ink the piece. I inked Quietus on one side and then removed the sketch and inked 'vague magic' effects on the back side (using the lightpad to register the hands and body)


After the inks were finished I scanned both sides (mirroring the magic effects so they registered with Quietus) and started flatting the piece in Photoshop. The colors were established for me mostly by Jesse's original design. The magic (seen here as a separate semi-translucent layer). With the areas all established with flat colors, I could start the rendering and effects to get to the final piece.





Here again is the finished piece. All of the rendering was done using the dodge and burn tools and a textured brush in Photoshop. I toyed around with the color of the magic...shifting it from yellow to green to blue to red and back again. This was the version I was happiest with and I added in Jesse's symbol for the character with a little name typography to fill the composition in a bit better.

It was an interesting challenge to redraw not only someone else's character, but one who is all the things I try to avoid drawing normally. But, as we go forward with more Plotmasters Project episodes, I'm sure I will be pushed out of my comfort zone again...

You can watch the QUIETUS episode of 

The Plotmasters Project on YouTube:

And follow us on Facebook & Twitter

2017 Appearances: 

Rose City Comic Con (at the BOOM! Booth) Sept. 8-10

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 22-24

New York Comic Con: Oct. 5-8

Cats Trio Revisit Cover

Jesse Glenn (real-life Kenzie) and I have started a video podcast called 'THE PLOTMASTERS PROJECT" Where he and I revisit our oldest characters and stories and then each create a new piece as an exercise. For our first episode we looked back to the first project we ever worked on together: CATS TRIO! I've blogged about Cats Trio in the past, but to quickly summarize, it was a TMNT homage where three mutated/anthropomorphic cats befriend a similar raccoon as the group discover their shared origins, survive in abandoned places away rom human eyes, and avoid being hunted by another of their kind.  To the left you can see my new finished piece for The Plotmasters Project, but below I show the process from sketch & concept to finished colors.

I also want to state, that Jesse and I have no current plans to develop Cats Trio (or any of the subjects for our series) beyond these exercises.

The first order of business in creating this piece was to review the archive of Cats Trio stuff Jesse and I have as well as look at some of my most recent attempts to draw the Cats characters. Back in 2011 (20 years after Jesse and I first drew them) I started this piece. I was looking for something that spoke to their transient lifestyle. So they are out of doors, in the field near their abandoned farmhouse, cooking, drinking, and relaxing. But I never really took this piece further than this rough stage.


Much more recently, in 2016 (25 years after Jesse and I first drew the Cats) I did these pieces on toned paper at a sketch session with some other artists including Jesse. I inked them and added white like i would a typical toned paper commission, and then colored them digitally using the same technique for my Gotham Academy story. I felt really good about these headshots. They felt like the old friends, but not outdated or stuck-in-time artistically. These headshots and the unfinished outdoor rough above formed the foundation for my new piece.




My plan was to do a mock cover. It would feature all four of the main characters, have the transient outdoor vibe, and the feel of the headshots. I started sketching new poses for each character. As I drew I kept wanting to add details of gear they'd each own that not only help tell the story of what they do on a daily basis, but individually give them personality (flasks, canteens, binoculars, kitchen knife, kerosene blowtorch, wieners on a skewer, a beat-up roadsign, etc.). The only problem I had, was that I didn't like any of the new heads I drew better than my toned paper pieces...

...So, as I composited the figures together into a photoshop cover template, I also plopped in the headshots in place of new sketched heads. I also wanted to show their house, for what may be, the first time it's ever really been seen. It's an abandoned derelict farmhouse far away from prying eyes. Jess and I always had them using the basement as shelter, so when searching for reference (which I didn't redraw, but just dropped into the  rough) I liked the photo of a farmhouse where part of the roof is missing and all of the windows are broken and missing. As per usual, I tinted each character's sketch to help me understand what lines belong to which character.


Below are some in-process shots as I inked and tightened up pencils (I inked this with the above rough taped to the back of my bristol board on a lightpad, but had the light off when snapping these shots.

As I said above, I inked this on a Huion lightpad with the rough printout taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series Bristol board. I used Copic Multiliners (the 0.7 and 0.3 nibs...tough I did also resort to a 0.2 in a few tricky spots). I tried to keep the contours more important than the textures, but for their fur and some of the bits of their clothing and inventory, I had to add some dings, scratches, wear, and dents. When inking the house, I made sure I didn't ink those lines directly up to the characters. This helped me isolate that linework in the next coloring step, but also allowed a bit of breathing room around them and gave them some depth-of-field distance from the background.

After the inks were finished, I scanned them into Photoshop and started the coloring process by isolating the inked linework of the background and doing a brown color hold on it, and then laying in flat colors. This process of adding the color is called 'flatting' and is like the professional act of "coloring within the lines". It establishes that the various parts of an image are different colors from one another. This allows me, as I render the image, to quickly isolate each section to either shade and highlight it independently of the other parts or shift and adjust the hue & contrast.




Again here is the finished 'cover' with a "Cats Trio" typeface logo treatment. For the Plotmasters Project, I do not always intend doing something as big and as involved as this piece. But Cats is very special to me. These characters feel like old friends. They occupy a special place in my heart that idealizes a great time in my life. So I wanted to give them the respect and level of quality they've deserved from me for years.

You can watch the CATS TRIO episode of 

The Plotmasters Project on YouTube:

And follow us on Facebook & Twitter

2017 Appearances: 

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 22-24

New York Comic Con: Oct. 5-8