I moved!

Spent some time tinkering around and decided to change my addy.

If you want more, follow me at www.davidjoyceart.blogspot.com

Eagles Nest Posters

Posters for The EagleSpeaker Suicide Prevention Program

Spot Illustrations

Had a ton of fun with these (especially the first one). Did them up for a short story that Jason wrote. If I can talk him into it, I'll get the final version from him and post it up here. Until then, the artwork:

Vegas Trip

I'm not a big fan of flying... it doesn't stop me from travelling, but if I don't keep my mind in check, it can turn into a pretty ugly affair. That said, this last trip I figured out a fantastic way to keep myself focused on something other than the fact that I was thousands of feet in the air, and that if anything went wrong, I and my loved ones would be plunging to our almost certain demise.

I don't think I mentioned it here, as it didn't seem relevant, but Shelley and I picked up iPhones a little while ago. They're neat, and if you can get one for cheap I'd recommend it, but until this week I hadn't really found any way to get my snazzy tech purchase to relate to my life as an artist. I loaded a select batch of inspirational pics onto my phone (some would call them "reference images") and, once we were airborne, went to town in my sketchbook.

I've put all the drawings together into one big image for now, but don't be surprised if individual ones show up in the near future, there's at least a few that I'd really like to turn into finished works. That said, if there's anything here you guys would like to see finished, please let me know. You've no idea how inspiring it can be to get some feedback (especially requests) from the outside world!

Quickie 7

Quickie 6

Behind the Scenes

Thought you guys might like to see what goes into a page, so I figured I'd throw a step-by-step together.

It all starts with a script from Jason. He keeps his scripts very loose, so I tend to do a once over of it to get the jist, and then edit it so that it's in a format I'm comfortable with. Then I give it another read, and start picturing how I want the different scenes to look and feel.

I really enjoy doing a first draft with just panels. It gives my mind a chance to wander and imagine different compositions without nailing anything down, while at the same time defining the general emotion of the scene. All in all, this is probably my favorite stage; I've tackled the blank sheet of paper and turned it into something full of potential. Gets me excited just thinking about it.

Next up is thumbnails. I already have an idea of what I want out of each panel, so now it's time to check that it's going to work out. Things stay loose here, in case I decide to make any changes as I go. Believe it or not, I don't always get it right the first time out... ;)

I follow the thumbnails with some rough pencils. Somethings are well defined, and others are left very sketchy, it depends largely on my mood. This is probably the weakest point in my process, as I tend to leave details for when I'm inking, instead of dealing with them right away.

After the rough pencils are done, I send them to Jason for some feedback. Sometimes he's happy with what he gets, and sometimes I get a long list of corrections to make. Usually it's somewhere in the middle. He helps make sure I keep things authentic. Unfortunately I don't always understand what it is he's after, so it can take a few tries before we're both happy with the page.

Once Jason has given me the ok on the pencils, I start inking. This stage is pretty mercurial for me, mostly because my pencils vary so much between rough and finished work. For panels that I've really worked out, inking is a joy, and moves pretty quickly. For the panels that I slacked off on, inking is a chore. You'd think this revelation would be enough to keep it from happening in the future, but I think this is the 3rd or 4th time I've sworn to pencil things in full "next time". We'll see how that turns out in the future.

Remember how I said it can take multiple tries before Jason and I are on the same page? This is usually where that goes down. Often he'll let things slide in the rough pencils, assuming I'll get it right when I go through and ink it. When that doesn't happen, I end up redrawing things until we're both happy with the results.

Once I've got the inks finalized, I save the files and send them off to Jason to letter. My understanding is that he likes to work the Marvel way (plot first, then after the art is done, dialogue and sound FX). After that, the comic goes live on his site, and it's off to the next project!

Quickie 5

Started this by playing around with different software to see what kind of effects I could get when I'm inking. Turns out, I really only like inking in Sketchbook Pro these days, and anything else was just unpleasant. As such, the experimenting died out pretty quick. I'm hoping to get back to it next week, but I'll be playing around with different styles inside the one program, instead of checking out different programs.

Suicide Comic

Had a lot of fun with this one, due in large part to my being able to play around with different layouts. That, and I used Sketchbook Pro from start to finish with this one, and damn is that a great program. It's not perfect yet, but it's getting there.

As usual I'll repost this once I get a lettered version back from Jason...

Quickie #4

I'm in the middle of inking another 10 page comic for Mr. Eaglespeaker, so I haven't really had time to get to anything else. Hopefully I can get something more than warm up work posted soon.

Quickie

Quickies 2

So last post I mentioned that I've been doing warm up sketches based on other ppl's work. Since I'm having so much fun with them, I thought I'd keep posting every now and then. As such, please keep in mind, anything marked "Quickie" in the title is a batch up warm up drawings from throughout the week. This'll save me from having to throw up a reminder every time I post.

Quickies

Shelley mentioned that my blog was languishing and needed some urgent attention, so I figured I'd toss up some images for y'all.

Unfortunately what I've been working on lately isn't overly exciting. I've been building panel layouts for the next 10 pager from Jason Eaglespeaker. I think it's fun, but visually speaking there isn't a lot going on yet. As such, I thought I'd post a few of the warm up drawings I've been doing lately. Now, I want to point out before anyone else feels the need to, that these are not original images. The point of these exercises is to take something someone else has done, and figure out how they did it, and why it's awesome. I haven't been taking anything to a finished stage (so no colors, at least not yet) but I did scan the images into Sketchbook Pro to test out the inking brush. Hot damn do I love that thing!


Anyways, here ya go!