I just finished this little flyer for a workshop I’m running next weekend – New Dimension Comics in my area is having Not-At-Con Day on July 23rd and I’m running a workshop on how to make your own minicomics. If you can’t make it to this one, no worries – I’m planning on running another workshop in Wheeling, WV sometime after August 4th (dates are still TBA).
I’ve been doing a lot of flyer-type work lately outside of comics. I wonder if it’s a sign…
I drew this over the weekend – it struck me as odd that there weren’t any greeting cards for gay men, especially gay black men. So I wanted to draw something.
This sketch is the start of something. I don’t think I’ll use this illustration specifically for a greeting card, but I’ll make a new illustration based on this one.
Thoughtful Dinosaur is a comic I’m making for newsletter subscribers and patrons on Patreon (until I can collect all the strips into one book). It’s the story of a young dinosaur fresh out of college and learning how to be an adult.
It draws a lot from my own personal experiences, and as such, I include lots of references from my early post-college days. This includes locations like a downtown park in Sandusky, OH, shots of malls from Arizona, and other locales I have photos of.
However, I don’t directly copy from photographs. That’s not the point of reference photos.
Reference photos (at least, how I use them) are more for nailing down the layout of a location. For example, in the Thoughtful Dinosaur panel above, I used the reference images and my memory to lay out where the trees and the walking path were laid out. The lighting scheme in the comic panel was drawn mostly from memory – I have a vivid memory of one morning walk I had, in which the sun was just emerging from cumulonimbus clouds in such a way that it was gold and warm. I wanted to capture that feeling with the colors in this panel.
Sometimes I’ll use reference photos for colors and lights. I didn’t do that so much with this panel, but sometimes, if I want to illustrate how light refracts off a surface (like, say, sunsets), I’ll use photo references.
I hope this gives you some new ideas for your own creative endeavors. Thank you for reading!
You. Are. Awesome.
This little illustration was therapeutic to make for me, because this week has been nothing but hair-fluffing angst (I had a Twitter rant about it, but long-story short: I had to ban a bad player from my Dungeons & Dragons group).
Now, what surprises me is when I share art like this, some folks will say this is made with watercolors. It isn’t. This is Copic markers – my favorite art tool in the history of ever.
Expect a mini-print soon on Storenvy featuring this little pixie of a mage. You can check out the Fire Mage and Water Mage in this post.
Next up…EARTH.
Thanks for viewing!
You. Are. Awesome.
So in today’s video, not only do I show off some new swag I got from the Wheeling Arts Festival last weekend, but I announce that my minicomics can now be found at a new shop!
If, however, you’re not in Wheeling, WV, Saint Clairsville, OH, or Chicago, IL, you can just order comics directly from me on Storenvy.
Thank you for watching!
You. Are. Awesome.
