SDCC

Comic Book Shark Week 2 - Wrap up

COMIC BOOK SHARK WEEK 2

CBSW2 ran from August 12-19, 2012. How did I fare according to the CBSW Motivation Chart? Well, to be honest I fell somewhere between "Hammerhead" and "Mako"... Not too hot, plus I just realized I blew the caveat and forgot to draw a shark. I have excuses aplenty but no excuse is a good one one during CBSW! 

So what did I accomplish... I started thumbnails for "The Allusion of Life" - about 2 pages worth. I started putting down the tonal under painting on canvas for a piece I'm doing for an upcoming art show and I completed four Angora Napkin comic strips. I hoped for a lot more then that.

We held a 24 Hour Comic Party here at Maison Little and had a great turn out starring: Brenda Hickey! John Dohe! Zen Rankin! Luke Lunes! Carolyn Hickey! Christina Gaudet! Nelly Silva Polanco! James Morrison! Sue Marsden! Toni Timmins! Andrew Ryan! Jean Brunet! Jonathan McPhee! Josh Richard! and Patrick Brunet! Thanks gang for the great turn out and support! 

Check out some highlights from the party:

Wot's all this, then?

Hey gang - ya'll been keeping up with the new Angora Napkin web comic? Check it out at www.angoranapkin.com! Updated every Wednesday and ribbed, for her pleasure.

And you all know about Comic Book Shark Week (CBSW2) beginning on August 12th? 

"We're going to need a bigger pad of paper"

Here's an idea I've been working on. I'm trying to kill many birds with one stone here - this is a bit of concept art for the slowly developing Angora Napkin movie, "The Lurking Moist". I'm going to try and paint this on canvas for the "Gods & Monsters" art show taking place in Ottawa this year during the Animation Festival. If it turns out, I may make it into a print. 

And this little image below is from yet ANOTHER project that may be coming to an iphone near you in the future! More on this as it comes together!

And finally, there's a big interview with me over at Comic Book Resources with an exclusive "Harvest of Revenge" preview! CHEK IT OUT!!!

Angora Napkin: The Golden McGuffin

The new web comic serial is now online! 

Updated every Hump Day!

WWW.ANGORANAPKIN.COM

TCAF! Angora Napkin! Stuff!

     Things have finally leveled off a bit (not really but thinking so makes me less crazy). The awful chaos of packing, cleaning and moving is behind me and I'm functionally moved into the new home. There's SO much work here that could (should) be done but all I can do is chip away at it when I can. Everyone but the cat seems happy about the move; she's busy pulling out her fur in fluffy, anxiety ridden chunks. 

      Brenda and I literally moved in one day and left for TCAF the next! We drove to Ottawa first to visits friends and then over the next few days we hit Toronto, Fergus, Hamilton and back to Toronto in time for the show. 

(Photos stolen from the internets.)

      TCAF (Toronto Comic Arts Festival) is my favorite show to attend. If you haven't been, you are missing out! None of the pop culture, movie and video game crap you get at most cons, just a chance to meet some of the finest talent that comics have to offer and it's free to attend! As much as I love exhibiting, I often wish I was on the other side of the table and able to run amok and geek out over all the cool books!
     Busy!! There was hardly a moment I wasn't chatting or signing books - a first for me! By the end of the day Sunday I had only 4 books left! I managed one quick run around the floor and picked up both volumes of Beartato from Anthony Clark (www.nedroid.com), but other then that my suitcase was pretty light for the ride home!

     If you did make it to the show you may have had a chance to check out the preview for the next Angora Napkin book! I had a lot of people approach me asking about the animated pilot and when the next episode will come out or why the hell did Teletoon drop the ball on that one. Nick and I have  pretty much given up on trying to make an animated series in favor of developing a feature. We're bouncing ideas around but it's a back-burner project for now.

     The new book is officially done and out of my hands now! I drew page #1 of this book on May 18th, 2009 and delivered the finished book June 5th, 2012. It's in total about 165 pages long with all the bonus stuff included and full colour - look for it December 2012 from IDW Publishing!!

     The new Angora website is coming together slowly. My lack of coding abilities and the learning curve involved with Wordpress is eating up time I'd rather be using to draw the damn comics. No fixed launch date yet, I'm still juggling things.

     Also working on an demo for an iPhone game! More on that later.

     And what else.... Well, I just finished reading all 28 volumes of Rurouni Kenshin and very much enjoyed it despite Watsuki's constant condemnation of his creation at the end of every chapter. Very influenced by X-Men, fighting games and set in the Meiji era of Japan. I loved the characters and enjoyed watching them evolve over the course of the series. Some of the bad guys were a bit stiff and obviously thrown in but it doesn't detract too much from the overall story. Now to watch the anime!

     I finished my storyboard job for now, so that frees up some time to try and get my proverbial ducks in a row this month before the kids are off school for the summer, which will no doubt slow my productivity. Still have a wedding to plan (hmm, best get on that soon....) and a house to unpack on top of everything! 

     Did I mention I've got tickets to the midnight screening of Prometheus? I've been waiting years for this movie to come out since I first heard Ridley Scott was planning to make it. Yay!!

Angora Napkin / Totoro print

I've been wanting to do a fun Angora Napkin 'team up' image for some time and who better to pair them up with then the Totoro gang! I liked how this turned out so I've decided to make it into the first official Angora Napkin print exclusive for TCAF! 

Here's a quick little "process" sequence of the making of the print:

I love Totoro. I always got a kick out of the way they roar, so I had this weird idea to draw them all screaming at something unseen.... Maybe it's the viewer? I usually rough out stuff in blue pencil and then tighten it up with a HB or 2B.

Inks! I love inking. I traced the rough onto smooth 11 X 14 bristol board and dive into inking with my trusty old Pentel Brush Pen! Next stop: scan and colour in Photoshop. I actually made an attempt to colour this with coloured inks on watercolour paper (to emulate the Ghibli style) but it was an abject failure. SO - back to no-fail digi paint.

Blocking in the girls....

Then onto the Totoros....

All the flat colours done! Now to dig in and render the beast, tweeking colours, adding shadows and all that colourful goodness....

And VOLIA!

So come by my table early at TCAF this May 5th-6th and pick up a signed print - there's only 50 available! And don't forget to check out www.angoranapkin.com on April Fools day for the reveal of the cover art for "Angora Napkin - Harvest of Revenge"!!!

Overworked / Overwhelmed

Sorry about the lack of posts this year - I'm swamped with work! I swear, 2012 looks like it'll be the busiest year of my life! Let's see what's on deck:

- Freelance storyboarding (gotta pay the man)
- Planning a wedding
- Moving into a new house
- Fixing up the new place
- Building a new portfolio website
- Building a new Angora Napkin website
- Going to TCAF in May
- Starting a new Angora Napkin webseries
- Writing my next graphic novel
- Developing an iPhone game
- Going to Iron Maiden in July
- New Angora Napkin book published
- Getting married
- Plus a million other things, not including summer with the kids out of school!

How I'm going to pull off all this is frankly a mystery to me. Just tackle one thing at a time I guess (yeah, right). Anyway, lots of these things are well underway as we speak. Check back early next month and I should have the new www.meanwhilestudios.com website up and running as well as some news about the upcoming Angora Napkin book + web series!

Goodbye 2011 - Hello 2012!

Time once again to look back upon the year and I'm happy to report it was, in the smooth crooning tones of Ol' Blue Eyes, indeed "a Very Good Year".

This year marked a first for me; for the majority of the year I worked almost exclusively on my own projects! It's a total dream come true and I'm very happy with the results, I hope someday this will be just a matter of fact. 

A few highlights of the year:

 - Going to Wizard Con in Toronto and hanging out with fellow Eisner Nom of 2010 Ken Nimura (I Kill Giants).

- Finished drawing the next Angora Napkin book!

- A road trip with Brenda to Ottawa and getting to couch surf and visit so many old friends.

- Seeing Metallica in Halifax.

- A 2 month summer Artist in Residence job in Summerside and getting a start on my next two major projects.

- Seeing my kids off to their first day of Kindergarten!

- Kate Beaton book signing in Halifax!

- Getting engaged!

- Christmas vacation sledding with my girls.

- The creation of Wine Club (Don't talk about Wine Club).

- Almost completing the colouring of the Angora Napkin book (10 pages to go)! 

And while no year is ever 365 flawless I do my best to make the best of things. I'm truly grateful to have such a great family, friends and time in which to work on my art. I feel so lucky I could burst!

2012 is going to be exciting! Hopefully a new Angora Napkin book will drop and I'll be well into the next project. It's unlikely I'll be able to have another self indulgent year like this anytime soon - gotta find a good paying gig as I've got a wedding to plan! 

See you next year! 

Covered!

For a while I've been wanting to contribute a piece to the "Covered" blog (artists re-interpreting comic covers) hosted by Robert Goodin but never got around to it until recently. I knew just the cover I wanted to do, if only for the simple reasons that A) I'm a huge Indy fan and B) I remember buying this issue off the spinner rack and having my 10 year old mind blown finding a letter I wrote made it into the letters page! (I think I only ever wrote 2 fan letters in my time, this one and one to 'Groo the Wanderer' - which to my knowledge never saw print).

Original cover by Keith Pollard

(Click to embiggen)

(TRANSCRIPT: 

Dear Marvel: 

   The artwork in issue #28 of INDIANA JONES was excellent, and the plot was great. But I was kind of disappointed that Indy called Alec "crazy" when Alec jumped the horse across the cliff. I thought that Indy would have done the same thing without hesitation. Whatever happened to the old "Jones luck?"

   I'm a devoted Indy fan, and this is my first time writing.

   We hope it wont be the last, Troy! Regarding your observation, we agree. If Indy had been in control of the horse, he would have done exactly what Alec did. But he didn't know Alec had the skill to pull off a stunt like that. Indy's willing to risk his own life - but doesn't like someone else doing it for him!

END)

Yes, I am the eternal skeptic. Nonetheless, I was very satisfied with their reasoning behind Indy's actions in that particular thrilling adventure.

This was a fun little diversion, I'll probably do one again someday if the notion strikes!

My Lovely Assistant

I just passed the 100 pages mark colouring "Harvest of Revenge"! My kids have taken a real interest in colouring on my Cintiq so I let them help me out now and again. Ah these modern kids and their fancy colouring books - and check out the results! Not bad for a 5 year old lefty, she even signed her work! :D

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

Sorry about the blog neglect, life got really busy – let me get you up to speed:

A freelance storyboard gig came up and that pretty much kept me sleepless for the better part of September. The rest of October was a mixed bag of unfortunate events. Lets get the bad out of the way first -

My Father, who just turned 80, has been suffering from Alzheimer’s for some time. Things took a turn for the worse as eventually happens to people struck with this miserable disease and he has had to be taken out of his home and put in a manor. My amazing mother has done well to keep him home and care for him as long as she has but despite that it’s impossible not to feel like we’ve failed him somehow. Alzheimer’s is an absolutely awful way to go, and though he’s still here and relatively well in many respects it feels like the beginning of the end. It saddens me so much to see him fading away.

Next was the shocking news of the passing of my childhood friend Craig Arsenault at age 37. He fought a difficult battle with cancer and despite all hopes to the contrary lost the game just a few days before Halloween. Craig was one of the funniest, smartest and all around good guys on the block. I have a lot of great memories of Craig, he was a big part of my young life and I’ll never forget him. He leaves behind a lot of people of loved him and my thoughts are with his family and especially his young daughter Bella. None of us ever imagines we’ll check out so young with so much life left to live, I’m sure Craig felt the same. I miss you old friend, it’s unfair we should be robber of your presence so early.

***

Now onto the good news. November, I’ve been looking forward to for some time now and it’s off to a perfect start. My girlfriend Brenda Hickey and I took a trip to Halifax for her Birthday to attend the Kate Beaton signing at Strange Adventures. We were first in line (and the line was looong we discovered when we left) and happy to leave with a freshly signed copy of her brilliant ‘Hark a Vagrant” book.

Later that evening I proposed to Brenda and she accepted! (Sorry to upstage you Kate!) Anyone who has met Brenda knows what a lucky guy I am – she’s a complete goofy sweetheart and I love her madly. The past few years I’ve spent with her have been some of the best of my life and I’m so happy to imagine that trend continuing on for the rest of my days. Thank you Brenda, I love you!!!

And as for the next Angora Napkin book? Well, I’m on page 92 of the colouring and still clinging to the remote hope it’ll all be done by years end. I’ve enlisted two helpers, but I fear this will in fact slow down progress as they’re still working on staying within the lines. Nonetheless, they figured out how to pick colours and flip the pen around to erase so you never know. Maybe they’ll teach me a few tricks!

PACE - Wrap up

FINAL REPORT

September 1, 2011

            It’s with a heavy heart I gave up my keys to the West End Cottage, 471 Notre Dame Street, Summerside. This had been my home away from home for the summer of 2011 and it was an opportunity unparalleled in my experience.

            My original and primary intention during the residency was to begin work on my next major graphic novel entitled “The Allusion of Life”. This and so much more came out of my time as the PACE Artist in Residence.

            Meeting with the people at Wyatt we planned out the two months events. I spent 2 hours of almost every day out on the streets of Summerside as part of the ‘Arts in Motion Festival’, letting people know about the PACE Program and talking about my work. This worthwhile event did much in the way of drawing people off the beaten path and into the house to see the artwork and it’s development.

As well I also held a presentation for a group of video game summer students talking about the art and design that parallels the gaming and animation industries. I was unexpectedly invited by local kids to help spray paint the graffiti wall at the park (didn’t have time unfortunately) and hosted a ’24 Hour Comic Marathon’ which turned out to be a massive success!

It’s worth mentioning this event further, as it was a definite high point of the Residency. I had a group of talented people take part (A film director, a tattoo artist, an animator from Ottawa and local comic artists) in each creating a 24-page comic in 24 hours! We livestreamed the entire event over the Internet and had plenty of people and media check in on our progress as the hours wore on. It was a lot of fun and I’ve heard some of the participants say they’d like to do it again!

Events aside, I myself am beyond pleased with what I accomplished with my time. I’ve written over 40 pages of the first draft of “The Allusion of Life”, did plenty of concept drawings and even the first 2 finished pages from the book!

Also, I began work on an “Angora Napkin” adventure comic strip - completing seven strips and numerous bits of pin-up artwork that will be included in the next book. I even managed to get in a little oil painting late one night with the company of a friend who was trying his hand at abstract art.

Some days I worked without interruption and others there seemed to be a flood of visitors to the property. Some local people came in to see what was going on after seeing it reported on the CBC, many just fell upon it by chance or word of mouth. I had visitors from as far away as San Diego, Maine, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

The PACE Artist in Residency program was an incredible experience; I’m excited for the next artist to be able to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. My undying thanks go out to the PEICA, The City of Summerside, Wyatt Heritage and all the great folks who helped bring this fantastic project into existence!

PACE: August 29th -31st Schedule: FINAL WEEK!

I'm down to my last few days as Artist in Residence!!!! Wow, those two months flew by!! So, last chance to come by and see what I've been up to this Tuesday & Wednesday.

Be sure to come by the house from 4:30 6:30PM on Wednesday for a free BBQ meet and greet, check out the artwork and meet the next Artist taking over the space in September!

SCHEDULE August 29th - 31st
Monday: CLOSED
Tuesday: 9:30am - 3:00pm
Wednesday: 9:30am - PARTY!

*All time are tentative / flexible in that I sometimes need to run errands or whatever, but I'll do my utmost best to be there for the listed hours. I'll update any changes should they arise.

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC: 471 NOTRE DAME ST. next to the CREDIT UNION PLACE.
Come on down, check out the art, chat & have a coffee!

PACE: August 22nd -28th Schedule

SCHEDULE August 22nd - 28th
Monday: 9:00am - 2:30pm
Tuesday: 9:30am - 5:00pm
Wednesday: 9:30am - 5:00pm
Thursday: 9:30am - 5:00pm
Friday: 9:30am - 5:00pm
Saturday: 10:00am - 3:00pm

*All time are tentative / flexible in that I sometimes need to run errands or whatever, but I'll do my utmost best to be there for the listed hours. I'll update any changes should they arise.

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC: 471 NOTRE DAME ST. next to the CREDIT UNION PLACE.
Come on down, check out the art, chat & have a coffee!

PACE Schedule: Aug 15th - 18th

Short week this week due to the Charlottetown Parade on Friday and my kids birthday party on Saturday!


SCHEDULE August 15th-18th

Monday: 10:30am - 3:30pm
Tuesday: 9:30am - 3:30pm
Wednesday: 9:30am - 5:00pm (or later)
Thursday: 9:30am - 5:00pm

*All time are tentative / flexible in that I sometimes need to run errands or whatever, but I'll do my utmost best to be there for the listed hours. I'll update any changes should they arise.

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC: 471 NOTRE DAME ST. next to the CREDIT UNION PLACE.
Come on down, check out the art, chat & have a coffee!

CBSW 2011 Wrap Up, PACE Schedule Aug 8th-13th

COMIC BOOK SHARK WEEK 2011 IS OVER!

I hope you all had a productive CBSW last week. How did you rate? I'd lump myself in as "Mako", but only because of the 24 Hour Comic Marathon, the rest of the week was a jumble of distractions I couldn't get away from. In any case, I'll be ready to tear into CBSW 2012 like a wounded seal next year!

Big shout out to all the participants of the 24 Hour Comic: Brenda & Carloyn Hickey, Peter Murphy, John Dohe, Sue Marsden, Pat Brunet, Christina Gaudet and the official 24HC mascot Sneakers! It was a blast peeps, you were a great bunch to hang out and draw with, let's do it again next year! 

So what else did I get done during CBSW? I'm still spending the summer at my home away from home as the Artist in Residence in Summerside and taking part in the Arts in Motion Festival daily. I managed to draw and ink an Angora Napkin pin up, did a lot of writing on my next book and some brainstorming for another Angora web comic. I even managed to fulfill the CBSW caveat and include a shark drawing in my 24 Hour Comic! Not too shabby.

SCHEDULE August 8st-13th

Monday: 9:30am - 4:00pm
Tuesday: 9:30am - 11am
Wednesday: 9:30am - 11am, 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Thursday: 9:30am - 11am, 1:00pm - 5:00pmFriday: 9:30am - 4:00pm, 4:00pm at Lefurgey Centre Arts in Motion wrap event
Saturday: 9:00am - 3:00pm


* From 11:00am - 1:00pm Tues-Thurs I'll be available at Spinnakers Landing as part of the Arts in Motion Festival.

**All time are tentative / flexible in that I sometimes need to run errands or whatever, but I'll do my utmost best to be there for the listed hours. I'll update any changes should they arise.

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC: 471 NOTRE DAME ST. next to the CREDIT UNION PLACE.
Come on down, check out the art, chat & have a coffee!

24 Hour Comic pics

24 Hour Comic, a set on Flickr.