From the Vault: Maddie & the Monster

Maddy and the Monster:
Years ago, after seeing some of the mini books Jon Morris was doing, I started hand making books for family members as gifts (I still owe one to my youngest niece and don't know when I'll find the time to make it for her). This book was for Julia's cousin's daughter Maddy. With a smile on her face she would call me 'monster' when I came to gatherings with the sole expectation that I'd chase her.

Ink & Stein:
This month's Ink & Stein (Saturday the 27th) is at a new location!
Based on the huge success of the gatherings (we have been getting 15-20+ people per month) we felt the need to move the event. The Corner Brewery, our former home, seemed like the ideal location. But they refused to accommodate us. They wouldn't reserve us space without a charge, they treated us like we were in the way, and ultimately were rude to our group. "Sorry we brought a group in monthly willing to buy food and drink Corner Brewery, we will annoy someone else with our spending."

After Katie Cook scoured the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area for a new location she found the MARRIOTT at Eagle Crest! The space is full of tables and chairs that are spread out in a well lit area. This may make it easier for Ink & Stein-ers to socialize and not be locked into one seat as they were at the Brewery. The only drawback is the Bar closes at 11pm. However, it looks like we can hang out after that, but just not order any more.

So if you are an artist (or writer) in the Southeastern MI area, come join other like-minded folks the last Saturday of every month at the Ypsilanti Marriott at Eagle Crest from 7-11pm

Fan Art:
Jason Bradley sent this to me. His inspiration for the two panel strip was Steinbeck (obviously) and the Bugs Bunny Cartoons with Gossamer. Thanks Jason!


Upcoming Appearances:*
----2010----
Alaska Library Conference: March 4-7
CGS Supershow: March 27-28
C2E2 (Archaia Booth): April 16-18
Motor City Con: May 14-16
San Diego (Artist Alley): July 22-25
Baltimore Comic Con: August 28-29
*more 2010 dates may be added

Muppet Snow White:
Here is my cover for Muppet Snow White #1. I originally planned it for the cover of issue two, so it didn't make it into previews for solicitation, however, I have been given the go-ahead from Boom to share it. Snow is being played by Spamela Hamderson, while the 'dwarves' are the Electric Mayhem. Special thanks to Katie Cook who lent me some reference material to get this cover done.

Narnia:I recently borrowed the Narnia audio books from Jeremy Bastian and I have been listening to them as I work. A few years ago, when I still had time for commissions, I did this piece of Reepicheep sailing off into Aslan's country. Bill Willingham wrote in the introduction to the Mice Templar collection that The Mice Templar, the Mouse Guard, and Willingham's own Mouse Police, are "sons of Reepicheep". I must admit, Reepicheep was in my mind when I drew the first mice, his bravery out matching his size. *edit* I just realized after getting to this point in the audio book, that I drew this without re-reading the scene and got the setting and a few details wrong.


Fan Art:This week's Fan Art is from Charlotte Cheng. Thanks Charlotte!
If you want your Mouse Guard Fan Art to appear on the blog, just e-mail a jpg to ericebon (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Upcoming Appearances:*
----2010----
Alaska Library Conference: March 4-7
CGS Supershow: March 27-28
C2E2 (Archaia Booth): April 16-18
Motor City Con: May 14-16
San Diego (Artist Alley): July 22-25
Baltimore Comic Con: August 28-29
*more 2010 dates may be added

Mouse Guard Shirts & Mugs:
I have just revamped the Mouse Guard CafePress site! There are now all new shirt designs for men, women, & children. I also added new mugs. All of the old items (with the exception of a few mugs) are now unavailable. I plan on adding items from time to time, and I ask you guys to help me. If you see something that I don't have, but you need: suggest it to me. CafePress has some limited options with the shirts and colors, but I'll do my best if enough people ask for something.

Valentine's Day
Many folks know that I have a children's book coming out in 2012. It was based on a hand-made gift I did for Julia on our first Valentine's day as husband and wife (which I intend to share next year) . For various reasons there had to be some changes from the original characters of Mouse (me) and Cardinal (Julia). In one of the tests I did for Harper Collins, I tried using a Cardinal for both characters. I also thought it would be fun to go back to traditional painting (the book now has bunnies as the duo and it's illustrated more like Mouse Guard). Here are those samples.

Fan Art:
The awesome Jay Fosgitt drew this for me last week. Jay is an amazing cartoonist, and it was cool to see how quickly he can draw and ink something (I suppose his work as a caricature artist doesn't hurt his speed). I brought the original of this home and colored it.

Upcoming Appearances:*
Alaska Library Conference: March 4-7
CGS Supershow: March 27-28
C2E2 (Archaia Booth): April 16-18
Motor City Con: May 14-16
San Diego (Artist Alley): July 22-25
Baltimore Comic Con: August 28-29
*more 2010 dates may be added

Pencil Drawings (now in color)

Though I don't get to do it much these days because of the inked style of Mouse Guard, I also like to do rendered drawings in pencil. Frequently I would also color or tint these drawings in photoshop.

In this example of Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser, I merely tinted the linework on my greyscale drawing using the color balance tool. I also adjusted the levels (the control over what pixes are black, white, and middle tone) and cleaned up or enhanced the highlights.

On this Hellboy piece I also tinted the linework. Because this was drawn on toned paper, the paper also took the tint instead or remaining white like above. Because I started this drawing as a simple sketch, the area on the left was just scribbled in and not completed by hand. I finished that area using the burn tool. The additional highlights were added using the dodge tool.

These two examples are excellent ways of quickly touching up a pencil drawing and adding some quick color. I find that sketches can get polished up to 'finished-drawing' status quickly using this method.

The Joker piece on the left is an example of a more painterly approach to coloring pencil drawings. Once scanned, The pencil artwork was on a top layer set to multiply and then tinted. On layers below, I used various photoshop brushes to digitally paint the tones. I was aiming for a gritty and chaotic look for the Crown Prince of Crime in Gotham, so I didn't worry that the colors didn't strictly adhere to the lines.

This last example (of Red Cap) is a mix of the styles above with an added twist. Besides tinting the artwork and adding painted colors beneath, I also scanned a swatch of painted watercolor paper. With my pencil art and color layers set to 'multiply' the scanned watercolored background is also visible.

I find that playing with pencil drawings in photoshop helps me figure out ways I can make my work better in the future. It's a quick way of seeing if my rendered areas need more or less contrast, if color helps or hurts the lines, or to play with color in ways I wouldn't normally.

Fan Art:

This week's piece is a digital painting from Kyle Galbraith. You can check out more of his work at his DeviantArt site here. Thanks Kyle!

If you want your Mouse Guard fan art displayed on the blog (sculpture, painting, drawing, etc.) send an e-mail to ericebon (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Upcoming Appearances:*
Alaska Library Conference: March 4-7
CGS Supershow: March 27-28
C2E2 (Archaia Booth): April 16-18
Motor City Con: May 14-16
San Diego (Artist Alley): July 22-25
Baltimore Comic Con: August 28-29
*more 2010 dates may be added

Colored Page:
On Ustream last Saturday night, I colored this page while fans were able to watch online and ask questions. I recorded the process in two parts. The first part is me going through the process of 'flatting' the page. The second part is where I get into rendering a panel and talking about photoshop brushes, shading, and texturing. Both parts are available to watch anytime: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/davidpetersen (though they are both long and don't expect many folks to sit through them, but posted them at the request of fans who couldn't make it on Saturday). Because I stopped the recording after I finished the one panel, I wanted to show you all the final colors on the page.

Harry Potter trade:
The awesome Craig Rousseau and I decided to do a trade for Harry Potter pieces. He requested Dumbledore & Voldemort fighting. I found it hard to get both posed where you could see their faces, so I opted to just do two pieces for him. I got these inked and off to Craig a while back, but wanted to splash some color on them before I shared them.

Craig and I are both big fans of the books and found that we both listen and relisten to the Jim Dale audio books while we work (as does Katie Cook and Jeremy Bastian). I'm currently on book 5 (again) in my umpteenth listen through the series.

Ink & Stein:
This Saturday (1-30-10 at 7:00pm) is Ink & Stein at the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti, MI. It's a gathering of local artists and writers to get together and talk and work side by side. There had been some thought of moving the venue for this month, but that may get tested out in the months to come, so if you are in the area, stop by and bring a sketch pad. If you are not in the area, try starting up an Ink & Stein of your own where you live. Getting out of your workspace and talking to other artists is a good exercise!

Fan Art:
Two for one this time around. Greg Hettinger sent these my way via his blog. Greg said: After I read through one of my old Mouse Guard books I decided to knock out a quick sketch/paint before I went to bed. Just sort of made these guys up out of my head, but they are based on the characters by David Petersen


Upcoming Appearances:*
----2010----
Alaska Library Conference: March 4-7
CGS Supershow: March 27-28
C2E2 (Archaia Booth): April 16-18
Motor City Con: May 14-16
San Diego (Artist Alley): July 22-25
Baltimore Comic Con: August 28-29
*more 2010 dates may be added

Muppet Peter Pan #4 Cover Process

Muppet Peter Pan #4 will be out later this week (Thursday the 21st due to the holiday). I wanted to share the process steps in this cover (I have doe this with other pieces, for the blog, so the steps should be familiar). I had been given an outline of what happens in each issue from Boom with a note from editor Aaron Sparrow saying "Captain Gonzo kidnaps the children would make a good 4th cover".

I sketched out ideas in my sketchbook. In the upper right you can see my rough thumbnail for the layout. Once that layout idea worked, I started sketching out the various characters. Gonzo was first since I knew he would be most prominent, and then I drew the other Muppets a few times until I got something I liked. I work this way so that if I draw say Gonzo, right on the first try, I don't have to worry about messing up that part of the drawing when I get to the next character and it doesn't work out.

I scanned the page from my sketchbooks and cut and paste each character onto their own layers in a new document the size of the cover art. I tinted each character to help me keep track of what lines belong to whom. In this stage I can tighten up the layout. I can move or rotate characters slightly. I can resize parts of them that are out of proportion (either to themselves or with each other). This digital layout of my drawings helps me finalize the image before inking it and without doing much, if any, redrawing.


I print out my photoshop layout and use a light box so that I can see the rough through the bristol paper stock I ink the cover onto. In this inking stage I focus on line quality and texture. That the contour lines of Bean Bunny look like fur and that Scooter's hair looks like yarn. I also like adding patterns that I will use a color hold on when I color the image, like the stripes on Rizzo's shirt or the embroidery on Gonzo's coat or the lace pattern in his cuff.


Lastly I use the color to make this a night scene, turn those dots into stars and add a glow around the lantern. I start with base colors for everyone (most of which I either use reference for or have established on previous covers) and then tint them to the tone that night would change them to, or the lantern's glow would do to them. I chose not to use a color hold on the water this time around. I wanted that sea to be inky black and ominous. (I referenced the ocean waves Windsor McKay did for Little Nemo)




Inking & Coloring on Ustream:
Monday night I streamed for four hours while I inked a Mouse Guard page. The session was recorded, but Ustream caps recordings at 2.5 hours. I want to say that I don't think people would want to watch the long stream after the fact, but I had requests for it. I did my best to verbalize the questions asked in the chat before I answered them so later viewers can still benefit from the Q&A that goes on in my streams. I plan on coloring this page on Saturday and streaming it live. Follow me on Twitter or Facebook for updates on the time of the stream.
The URL to watch a stream (when live) or to watch the recorded streams is:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/davidpetersen

Fan Art:
Paul Davies is in the final year of his studies at the University of Hertfordshire for special effects and television. As part of his final project, he made stop motion animation puppets based on Mouse Guard. He had to sculpt and cast and punch hair and paint every bit of the mice and their attire. He has been updating me with the progress (I hope he makes a blog showing all the steps and variations he made) but I thought I'd share the end result with this beauty:


Upcoming Appearances:*
----2010----
Alaska Library Conference: March 4-7
CGS Supershow: March 27-28
C2E2 (Archaia Booth): April 16-18
Motor City Con: May 14-16
San Diego (Artist Alley): July 22-25
Baltimore Comic Con: August 28-29
*more 2010 dates may be added

Printmaking:

I have my degree in printmaking, and I feel that the process and techniques I learned from printmaking really influences how I draw today. I wanted to show how one of my favorite processes: etching, is done and how the quality of line and tone influenced Mouse Guard.

I'll be using this etching I did in college of Jim Henson as an example along with diagrams that represent cross-sections of the process at a microscopic level.

Line: (A): Etching is done by taking a metal plate (I used zinc) and coating it with an acid resist (these can vary depending on the desired effect, but that's not important for this overview). (B): Then the resist is lightly scraped away with a stylus or needle when an image is drawn on the surface of the plate so that the metal is exposed in the areas where the lines will be. (C): The plate is placed in acid and the acid will only etch a groove into the areas that are exposed. The longer the plate is in the acid, the deeper the groove becomes. (D): When the image is finished the acid and resist are removed and the plate is wiped with ink. The deeper etched lines fill with more ink, making them darker than the shallower etched lines. The surface of the plate is smooth and the ink wipes off clean. When run through a press, the ink transfers to paper for a finished print. This zoom-in of my Jim Henson print shows how his beard is made up of lots of overlapping etched lines.

Tone: (A): Instead of coating the entire surface of the plate, you can dust the surface with a powdered acid resist (this is traditionally called and Aquatint). (B): When placed in the acid, the tiny 'dots' of resist protect very small areas of the surface and allow lots of pits to be formed all around the protected peaks. (C): The ink wiped into and filling up the pits and wiped clean from the surface creates an area that has thousands of tiny white 'dots' in a field of ink filled pits. The surface would feel similar to sandpaper and depending on how deep the etch is, the darker it becomes. The backgrounds of the Jim Henson print as well as a lot of his facial tone was done with this process. You can see that depending on how evenly the resist goes on, you can get rougher or smoother results.

Printmaking forced me to think about the kind of lines or tones or patterns I wanted to make long before I made them. I had to prepare my zinc plates in advance for what process I was going to do first, and second, and third, and so on. Etched lines can be used for tone by overlapping them. Patterns can be formed with repeating line structures or careful application of acid resist. In this same way I now think about line and pattern and tone when I'm inking Mouse Guard. cross-hatching is like lots of etched lines, stippling is like an aquatint, etc.

Fan Art:

Though he has never done any etching, Jeremy Bastian is a natural fit for this post. He has the sense of line and use of line to create texture and tone, and the patience and methodical nature that a good illustrative printmaker needs. This gem he gave to me over the holidays. I left it at 150 dpi so that you could still see the detail. The mouse from hat ornament down to curl of tail is only 4.25". Wow! Thanks Jeremy!


Upcoming Appearances:*
----2010----
Alaska Library Conference: March 4-7
CGS Supershow: March 27-28
C2E2 (Archaia Booth): April 16-18
Motor City Con: May 14-16
San Diego (Artist Alley): July 22-25
Baltimore Comic Con: August 28-29
*more 2010 dates may be added

Muppets!!
Joe over at Toughpigs.com a Muppet fan-site was kind enough to do an interview with me about my Muppet Covers for Boom. You can read the interview here. I'm really glad to have the privilege to do these covers and having the fans enjoying them makes me happy. Muppet fans are not the easiest to please, so I'm glad that the response to my work has been positive.


I also got word from Boom that I can now share all 4 Muppet King Arthur covers! I know I had shown two of them before, but thought I'd show them all again and in order (#1's cover was used for solicitation for #2, but I am assured that it will print on issue #1)

Mouse Guard Model:

I did a quick glimpse of this on Twitter a while back, but wanted to give you some better images. This is certainly the biggest and most complex model I have made to-date. It's the interior of the June Alley Inn. It will be featured heavily in the Anthology series Legends of the Guard, so to make my life easier I took some time (a full day and night) to build this from scratch. The materials are bristol board and balsa wood. The stairs would lead up to the rooms, the two doors on the rear lead to the kitchens. There is a staircase behind the bar (under the staircase) that leads to the cellar for drink storage.

Fan Art:
A childhood friend of mine and I reconnected on Facebook. His daughter Madeline LaVere did this drawing for me when she and her dad and her younger brother came over to visit and see where Mouse Guard is drawn. So it was wonderful visiting with an old friend and getting to meet his budding artist of a daughter.


Upcoming Appearances:*
----2010----
Alaska Library Conference: March 4-7
CGS Supershow: March 27-28
C2E2 (Archaia Booth): April 16-18
Motor City Con: May 14-16
San Diego (Artist Alley): July 22-25
Baltimore Comic Con: August 28-29
*more 2010 dates may be added

Color Tutorial: Color Hold:
A color hold is a technique where the linework becomes a color rather than black (or different from the rest of the linework in color). Here is the way I prepare my files for color holds. In 'A' I have my scanned artwork (greyscale) and I have made a duplicate layer of it that I named 'masterhold'. Using the 'select color' tool, I select white. There is a sensitivity adjustment that I found works well for me at '150'. Then I'll clear (delete) the white. In step 'B' I adjust the contrast down and the brightness up. This takes out some of the stray variant pixels so that everything is even, it also helps show me that this is not black linework, it's going to be a hold. Notice that with no other layers visible, 'masterhold' is transparent everywhere but the line work and is set to layer mode 'normal' (unlike a lineart layer that I set to 'multiply as I mentioned before). Step 'C' shows where I have erased all the areas on 'masterhold' that I don't want held as a color, leaving just the decorative swirls to be painted any color.

New Year's Games:
This week is New Year's Eve, which means Tower, the board game I made is dragged out and played by our guests. I found a bunch of the artwork I did nearly a decade ago for the character cards. As I mentioned before part of the goal was to make more diverse characters for Tower than it's predecessor Dungeon had. Many of our old D&D characters served as inspiration.
These were mainly done with a black ballpoint pen and watercolor pencils.

Packus: His design is somewhere between George Lucas and the Pringles logo.
Tyne: The last of these I painted because the character kept changing through development
Lucas: My D&D thief. I never played the same Lucas though, I just kept re-making him
Madaline: A character that was in the TSR Dungeon game we based Tower on, thought it would be fun to carry her over.
Ninja: This is where we were getting desperate for ideas.

Dalton: Was based on a guy my friend Seyth and I worked with at Starbucks. I think we included him because he wouldn't like the idea of being included.
Solae: I have a soft spot of this drawing, and I can't even tell you why.
Luthor: Looks like I was inspired by some anime here.
Fike: Based on my friend Mike and his desire to name all his characters 'Mike Fox'
Quiver: Seyth made up this guy. I dunno why I gave him a Mike Nesmith wool cap

Fisher: This was Seyth's long standing D&D Dwarf character. He is way too powerful in the game Pax: She was a fill-in character we made up who had her name changed a lot.
Jhan: Based on Seyth's roommate in college 'Silverthatch' was a joke because he wanted to dye his hair silver.
Annice: This one of the other character portraits I'm happy with and I can't point out why.
Demtremi: My college roommate's D&D character which was strongly influenced by Drizzt Do'Urden

Fan Art:
Derek & Nikki Davis of Bitter Tea Studios gave me this original strip from their online webcomic. This one they said was inspired by Mouse Guard. Thanks for the art and including mice of daring-do in your comic Derek & Nikki!

Upcoming Appearances:*
----2010----
Alaska Library Conference: March 4-7
CGS Supershow: March 27-28
C2E2 (Archaia Booth): April 16-18
Motor City Con: May 14-16
San Diego (Artist Alley): July 22-25
Baltimore Comic Con: August 28-29
*more 2010 dates may be added

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
For our first Christmas as a married couple, I made a nativity set for Julia. I have loved nativity sets since I was a kid. This set I made mainly out of wooden frame stock for stained glass windows that I had left over. The textures were achieved through wood carving tools, branding the wood with various tools, and a dremmel. I also made use of 5-6 different wood stains and assembled the pieces after the stain had dried. I wasn't able to handmake a gift this year, but wanted to share this one that we love bringing out every year. I also want to wish all my fans a wonderful Holiday!

Coloring Tutorial: Dodge/Burn
Last post I showed the way that I layer my color in photoshop. This time I want to revisit the method that I 'render' the colors. I start with a base color for every area and then use the dodge and burn tool to add the shading and highlights. The Dodge and Burn tool (circled in green) allow you to lighten (dodge) and darken (burn) the colors. Each tool has a setting (circled in red) as to which range of colors it will effect the most, but that setting also effects how it darkens or lightens. I did a few quick spot samples to show that burn on medium (B-M) tends to saturate the color as it darkens, just as dodge on highlights (B-H) saturates as it lightens. While burn on highlights (B-H) and dodge on medium (D-M) desaturate as they do their jobs. I also want to point out that you can use any of the various brushes with dodge and burn and also alter the 'exposure' (strength) to your liking.

Muppet Geek:
Last week Katie Cook and I joined Jamie D, Shane, and Adam 'Murd' Murdough on Comic Geek Speak for an All-Muppet themed episode. While recording I brought up that as a kid I had the Kermit Fisher Price Puppet, but none of the others (I have them now thanks to ebay) but it led me to build my own. After the CGS show I dug out my VHS tape of me working on them and took some screencaps of me as an awkward looking pre-teen holding up my handmade Muppet puppets . The Comic Geek Speak Muppet episode is available now through the CGS IPhone app, and will be released on their website for non-IPhone users in a few months.

Ustream:
After watching Karl Kerschl do a live video stream from his drawing table on ustream.tv, I thought I'd like to give it a shot. I have done two of them now, and I really enjoyed them. I have a mic going so the viewers can hear me (as well as either see my drawing table or my PC desktop). I read the chat messages that come in from viewers as I'm working so in addition to talking about whatever process I'm working on, I can answer your specific questions. This piece is one that I inked and colored last Sunday on ustream. There are no specific times for when I'll do the next stream, but I post notices with links on Facebook and Twitter the day I plan to do one.

Fan Art:
Unexpectedly in the mail today a package from Evan 'Doc' Shaner arrived. He sent me this original art featuring my mice along with Hellboy and Abe Sapien! I really like that the Black Axe and the Right Hand of Doom are touching...very epic. Thanks Evan!

Upcoming Appearances:*
----2010----
Alaska Library Conference: March 4-7
CGS Supershow: March 27-28
C2E2 (Archaia Booth): April 16-18
Motor City Con: May 14-16
San Diego (Artist Alley): July 22-25
Baltimore Comic Con: August 28-29
*more 2010 dates may be added