I did todays alphabook installment half asleep. I’m happy to report that I am, still, half asleep.
M is for Minerva McGonagall:
Pretty exhausted after the exciting weekend. My daughter and I spent Saturday night at an old TB asylum with a group of paranormal investigators. Lot’s bumps and bangs and interesting things to talk about but That will have to wait for now, for I hear the couch calling me name, yar!
I’ll have more about that trip later this week.
Quick drawing tonight combining 2 of my life long loves, skateboarding and comic books. Ray Barbee is an amazing skateboarder with a natural flow to him that is just, well, amazing. One of my all time favorite classic Powell Peralta graphics was an early Ray Barbee deck. I don’t know why it never occurred to me the similarities between that “Rag Doll” graphic and Spider-Man. Well, similarities in the build and lankiness anyways.
Classic Ray Barbee:
Spider Barbee:
All for the fun of it.
Scarecrow has been up there among my favorites of the rouges gallery from Batman. Almost entirely based on his design more than anything, he’s got a nice horror movie quality to him. Even more specifically, the Scarecrow design from the Batman Animated Series. I’ve always liked the look of him. There has to be someone that watched that show as a kid that was actually scared of him!
I’ve been having some computer troubles and have had to switch back to working on my laptop. I had been using the Monoprice tablet on the laptop and Intous4 on the desktop for awhile now. Having to work on the laptop on Hobo Kings, I had to switch tablets to keep the line work looking fairly consistent. This has me having to re-tweak some settings and whatnot.
So over the last couple days as a warm up and trying to get everything set right, I did this drawing of Scarecrow…
Still a little adjusting to do, but pretty much there.
In other interesting news, this weekend my daughter and I are going along with Paranormal Investigations of Arkansas to an old TB hospital/asylum. It’s huge and creepy type stuff that has a history of reported paranormal activity. This is also the last outing before I start laying out the web comic about these 3 experiences. I wanted to wait for this one before mapping anything out since it has potential to be very interesting. Not to mention fun and creepy!
Also, I designed a new logo for the group…
Part of me feels like I should have waited to do Voldemort until we got to V, but on the other hand, he did have, like, three different forms in the books (if you include his human form, Tom Riddle). So I feel like I could revisit the character again if I wanted.
I also kinda wanted to do Lord Voldemort because that title gets across all of the power and importance he believes he has. It’s a conceited and slightly ridiculous title to give to your self. Plus I like how in the beginning everyone was afraid to say his name, then when they did, they called him Lord Voldemort and then by the end were just calling him Voldemort. At least that’s kinda how I remember it…. I could be a bit off. It’s been a little while.
L is for Lord Voldemort:
I also tried a couple different things form my normal way of doing things. Not entirely sure how I feel about the lighting effect, but that’s ok because I’m just doing a bit of the dabbling.
Last week I started a Facebook page for my art and am trying to use it to post more daily drawings and sketches to help me try and get this blog straightened up a bit. I still do major posts here and whatnot. Head over and check it out and give it one of those coveted “Like” button clicks if you will. KELLY WILLIAMS COMICS AND ART FACEBOOK PAGE
Yay! It’s another late night drawing. Taking a break from Hobo Kings pages and book illustration stuff, I started sketching on the computers. I think Abe is my favorite B.P.R.D. character. He is almost always well written and he’s had lot’s of twists and turns to deal with through out the stories so far. Plus, design wise, I just like to look at drawings of him sometimes. I think there is at least a couple sketches and mindless doodles of Abe in every sketchbook I’ve had since he was introduced.
If I had to be honest, I’ve been anticipating getting to the letter K. I really enjoyed the house elves, but I primarily like Kreacher. Not to mention that I loved the way they made him look in the movies (even though they almost ruined him and the giant part he plays to the story on his first appearance). I dig that he looks like a crotchety old man. Some might say that I’ve been excited to do Kreacher for this project because I could project a little of my own grumpiness in him. You know who you are and to you I say, “I don’t wanna worry about it.”
K is for Kreacher:
This is another one that I just got up and came in here to do. I must have tried 6 different things before settling on this one. I think this was the best too.
Grumble…
With all the pushing over the last month or so for Christian Sager and I’s graphic novel, THE CABINET, another project I’m working on kind of fell to side as far as news goes. Regulars here have probably seen talk and a preview here and there of the project I’m working on with Harvey and Ignatz awards nominated writer, Chris Reilly, (who also is fresh off of writing for the Gumby comic) called the Hobo Kings: Bum Sub.
Chris was in San Diego for comic con and had an 8 page mini of Hobo Kings on hand and ran out first day. We then posted the preview on THE HOBO KINGS SITE (click on the link to go straight there and delight yourself!)
We also have some great news, the Hobo Kings has found a home at Alterna Comics! I’ve had a long relationship with the publisher and am excited to bring a new project to the imprint. you can check out Alterna if you haven’t yet HERE . I’m also contributing 5 cards to the Alterna Originals card sketch card set that will be available soon.
Alterna is also in the last 50 or so hours of their “Reverse Fundraiser”. Clearing some books out and covering some old publishing and distribution costs. You can get a lot of awesome stuff, from PDF collections, hard copy collections, signed books with sketches, or even original art from Peter Simeti, Sean Von Gorman, Michael S. Bracco, Jeff McComsey, Rafer Roberts, Jeremy Massie, or Bret M. Herholz or myself. All of this for a low cost and you’re helping keep a creator owned publisher punching it’s way to the top. There isn’t long left though, so hurry up and help them hit thier goal! ALTERNA COMICS REVERSE FUNDRAISER
This is exciting for us and we are proud to bring the Hobos to Alterna Comics. Keep an eye out for more updates on this soon and, by all means, follow the Hobo Kings site as well, I plan to start posting more sketches and so on there very soon.
Because I hate posting with no new drawings, here is a quick concept doodle I did awhile back for a video game that’s in development…
I decided to take the night off from drawing and play a video game and read a little. My wife and daughter have been watching movies and tv shows so I ended up playing the Witcher 2, which I recently got on PC.
It wasn’t long before I was in a town and walked past a well. Nothing special about this thing, it was just there. For some reason this made the thought of Ringu (or the American version by the same director, the Ring) pop in my head. No idea why, but I just kept thinking about it.
No matter if you like the movies or not, there is no denying that the little girl “spirit” imagery is powerful and sticks with you. It’s a great example of how the simplest of imagery can be extremely creepy and say tons with little to look at.
So, next thing I knew I was in Manga Studio doing this sketch:
It’s been awhile since I did a late night sketch post, so, there you go. Also, I listened to Bauhaus the entire time I was doing this.
Towards the end of our kickstarter I was up late one night and said on twitter that I would do sketches of whatever right then for people that helped spread the word. I had pretty much one taker. In hindsight, I think I’m relieved about that. The request was Popeye on meth, if I remember correctly. I’m all for funny stuff so I did a pretty bad sketch right then. It was late and I was a bit on the tipsy side.
Anyway, I got to thinking about how Popeye kinda fell off in popularity for a while, granted he never went away, you just saw less of him. Then I started thinking about how IDW just launched a new Popeye comic.
So before his hard struggle to clean up and become the lovable, pugilist by the power of the green and leafy we all remember, I figure, he must have been hooked on meth. I hope soon to see an account of his downfall,struggles and triumphant return in the future. People eat that stuff up! Think about it, look at how popular Breaking Bad is, and it’s about what… Meth! Those are Oscar winning ideas when put together. I could also be completely off the mark on all of this too. Oh well.
Here is a better sketch of Popeye smoking meth in a back alley.
Now that THE CABINET kickstarter is over and successful I have a more time to pay better attention to other comics type fundraising projects. I noticed while I was in the midst of our kickstarter, that publisher Alterna comics had begun their “Reverse Fundraiser”. I, unfortunately, didn’t realize how close it was to finishing until late last week.
Alterna is a small company. I mean, like, really small. Like, it is one dude, Peter Simeti. Alterna has been around for awhile and published many fine works. One of my first published pin-up’s was in an Alterna book (American Terror vol.1) and over the years I’ve continued to work with Peter on other Alterna projects. He’s a great guy and has a dedication to comics and creators rivaled only by a select few. Alterna continues to release creator owned titles on a regular basis, I mean, hell, they distribute FUBAR which was actually on best seller lists.
The time of creator owned comics is rising fast. More and more, creators want to focus on their own creations and not giving them away for a check and a pat on the back to big companies. It’s hard though. It’s hard to make the money you deserve for your hard work and it’s hard to get publishers to take a gamble on your ideas sometimes.
This is changing though! That’s the best part, and it’s because of brave publishers like Alterna.
If you can, help out in the Reverse Fundraiser. Help keep a dedicated creator owned publisher around to bring new and fresh ideas to our hands and eyeballs. There are loads of good rewards too, you get some dang good stuff for helping. I’m even doing drawings for the $20 level original art (note: my name isn’t listed because I came along after they could edit that. But you can pick me just the same. Really.) There are even rewards dealing with the soon to be released Alterna Originals card set (I contributed to that too!) which is going to be pretty killer. There are only 7 days left so, please, spread the word and contribute if you can! ALTERNA COMICS REVERSE FUNDRAISER
So, yeah. Oh, here is a drawing of Link I did goofing off this weekend…
treebeerdstuff 