Too Kawaii To Die Volume 4 is out!

I have had the privilege of being a part of the 'Too Kawaii To Die' zine since volume 1, and now volume 4 is out! It's full of comics and illustrations that both celebrate and subvert cute anime stereotypes and Japanese culture which often results in terrifying, sad or grotesque monstrosities, but in a good way.

The tumblr post for volume 4 has all the download links you'll need! HERE! It's not available for print yet, but if it is in the future I'll be sure to keep you all in the loop!

Below is 2 out of the 5 illustrations I did for the zine.

SHADOW character illustration

Illustration finished! I wanted to be able to introduce the three main characters of my pitch project in color, so here they are! Glenn, Sadie, and Cain, and behind them is Athena, Sadie's Shadow.
Originally I had thought about using this as the cover but decided against it.

[click for larger image!]

More news on this project in the future!

The Future Of Transpose Operator!

Those of you wondering about Transpose Operator's current status - GO VISIT THE SITE!

There's a brand new news post for you HERE!

SHADOW concepts Pt5

Onto part 5 introducing my 'Shadow' comic project I've been working on! Today is another collection of character sketches and process work!
Part 1 talked about starting up ideas for the story. Read it here CLICK
Part 2 expanded on the Shadows. Read it here CLICK
Part 3 focused on the relationship of 2 of the main characters. Read it here CLICK
Part 4 was a collection of character sketches. Read it here CLICK

At the bottom of this image is some process of Cain. He's a big mystery and his shadow is a large black dog named Theo. Like Sadie, I had Cain's personality planned out from the start. He's smart and to the point, but it's clear just by looking at him that he's carrying a lot of emotional baggage. But he's extremely kind, and puts others before himself, something which gets him into trouble more often than not.

Experimenting with some different character age designs. the ultimate plan is for a 3 book series and I'm considering having time jumps in-between each book. We'll see.

Sadie's glasses have been something I wanted to use right from the start. The idea is that she doesn't actually need glasses and instead wears them as a way to put another barrier between herself and the world, she thinks it makes it easier for her to hide and not stand out. So abandoning them towards the end of book 1 was supposed to be a big step for her and a way to physically see her character change.

Then I also thought it'd be funny that right when she abandons them she ACTUALLY needs them because her eyes are bad, haha! I probably won't do that, but it's a fun thing to think about.

So that's it for part 5! There will be lots more from this story in the future!

SHADOW concepts Pt4

And it's onto part 4 introducing my 'Shadow' comic project I've been working on!
Part 1 talked about starting up ideas for the story. Read it here CLICK
Part 2 expanded on the Shadows. Read it here CLICK
Part 3 focused on the relationship of 2 of the main characters. Read it here CLICK

This post is mostly a collection of sketches and working out character designs.

This one is basically all about figuring out Glenn. Originally he was kind of a 'cool aloof' character. But he's turned into more of a blunt and outspoken character, and while he may be good at fighting with his shadow, he isn't really good at much else.

That's it for part 4! Part 5 will be another sketch barrage, so look forward to it!

SHADOW concepts Pt3

And the intrigue continues, welcome to part 3 of my blog post about one of my current comic projects. I still don't have a title yet, but 'Shadow' is the working title I've been calling it by.

When I was brainstorming ideas for the characters and how they interact, I ended up making this mini-comic thing to experiment with their relationship. This was actually the 2nd thing I ever drew for this project, long before I had even decided on their names.

They're not enemies, but not exactly friends either. Sadie and Glenn's relationship is complicated. I spent a lot more time figuring them out because of this. I had both of their relationship's to Cain nailed down from the start though, haha, I feel bad that there aren't more sketches with him in them so far.

As you can see, Glenn's design has changed a lot, I finally have his design finalized but it took awhile, so a lot of these sketches vary from design to design.

The thumbnailed comic at the bottom of this sketch set is kind of a re-do of the original one, their interaction is a lot more intense though, haha!

haha... oops... these guys need to be nicer to each other. This kind of relationship is really fun for me though, I'm looking forward to drawing these dumb kids getting into dumb fights. Especially because when things get more intense story-wise there won't be as much time for this kind of thing.

Below is a fun scene that will probably never make it into the actual storyline. I had been watching a lot of movies while working on freelance and wondered what it would be like if these guys watched a horror movie together.

I liked the idea the despite the fact that they fight these terrifying shadow creatures, Glenn still can't handle horror movies.

All in all however, they're fighting on the same side, and will eventually become best friends, but it's gonna take them awhile to get there.

That's it for Part 3! Stay tuned for Part 4!

Shadow character art process

Lately I've been working on a pitch about a girl and her shadow, and the mystery behind them. At the moment I'm working on an illustration for the story and wanted to share it, and a bit of the process behind it.

It started out as a sketchbook sketch, I ended up inking it and liked it, I wanted to use this is as the prototype for the image.

I hadn't started thinking this was gonna be such a large image so there's a ton of errors here, and a lack of space due to the size of my sketchbook.

I ended up cleaning up the images, fixing some stuff and of course adding feet. I got as far as flatting before I realized this was a bad idea, but I had wasted so much time already...

This goes to show that it doesn't matter how many times you re-draw a thing, if it needs to be re-drawn it needs to be re-drawn no matter how frustrating it may seem.

SO MUCH BETTER! I'd redraw it again if I thought it needed it, and if you're working on something and feel the same way, you should too!

And we're getting there! I'm still working on it but I'm happy with it so far.

Looking forward to sharing the final image and comic page process too! So check back soon!

SHADOW concepts Pt2

Welcome to Pt2 of my posts talking about one of the current projects I'm working on. In the previous post I talked about Sadie and her shadow, and how I created them. I'm going to expand more on it below.

After working though all sorts of other ideas I finally came up with the final design for Sadie's shadow, Athena. She's a clad in armor and acts like a nagging conscience for Sadie, constantly trying to help her improve her life, but Sadie wants nothing to do with her and just wishes she'd disappear.

Poor Athena always tries so hard...

Then there's Theo, he's the shadow of Sadie's mentor, Cain. Theo is a large black dog, often times he is out in public simply pretending to be a normal dog, unlike the picture above. If comics had sound, Theo would sound like an old man, aside from word choice there's not much more I can do about that, unfortunately.

Here's another image of Theo standing next to a prototype version of Glenn, a character who is Sadie's rival, and ally.

I had a lot of trouble with Glenn and his shadow. Glenn is Cain's current student when Sadie shows up and essentially wrecks his life. Everything starts going bad for him around the time she shows up, and her latent potential is greater than his even though he's been training in this kind of stuff for years. To make matters worse, Cain, his mentor/father figure, starts paying more attention to Sadie than him. I wanted the three main characters to form a kind of dysfunctional family, haha.

Anyway, originally Glenn's shadow was named 'Two' and was supposed to be a mirror image of himself, but things have changed around so the image above is a prototype from the previous design.

I messed with a bunch of different ideas, including this kind of Fire Shadow idea. But it didn't really fit, and will actually be transferred to the antagonist of the first book in a way... haha... can't reveal too much yet!

In the end, Glenn's Shadow became something unique- it doesn't have conciousness like all the other shadows in the story. He uses it like a tool and an extension of himself, instead of it being a separate sentient being who's attached to him. This is both an advantage and disadvantage, unfortunately for him.

Well that's it for part 2, be sure to check back for Part 3 soon!

SHADOW concepts Pt1

One of my current pitch projects is something I've been kicking around since I came to LA. I'm getting into comic pages and cover art and preparing to send it out into the world at the moment. I wanted to post some of the early concept stuff here to share with everyone!

This is the first time I drew Sadie, the main character, and at the time I didn't wholly expect it to turn into a full fledged story.

Sadie has pretty much kept the same color pallet from start to finish, although the comic is gonna be in black and white.

Sadie's shadow took a long time to figure out. I was thinking that she may be some kind of spirit or demon companion at this point, so she's taking on a animalistic look here.

I had Sadie's personality figured out from the start. A sullen negative girl who's quick to offer scepticism, she's terrible at controlling her negative emotions, and while she isn't intentionally mean or angry she often comes off that way. She's actually a kind girl, but is too preoccupied by the bad things in her life to focus on anything other than getting by with her 'condition'.

While I had Sadie's personality figured out from the start, her Shadow was another story. I had bounced around ideas that they were friends, that they were a reflection of each other, or that the shadow was a curse of some kind. When going with the curse idea I figured it could go two ways, either they both sympathize with being stuck together... or the shadow would be downright hostile towards Sadie. In the end her shadow turned out very different, and their relationship is not hostile at all, but this sketch was experimenting with that idea.

More brainstorming!

Well that's it for part 1! There's tons more to show from this story in the coming months, so check back soon for part 2!

Mia Sketches and other stuff

Wow, some of these are super old, from before I had completely nailed down Mia's character. It's interesting to see these older sketches right alongside the newer ones. Originally I had been writing this story as a novel, and it's changed a lot since then, so it makes sense that Mia changed too. There's also some thumbnails from a scene I may or may not be using in the final version, either way it's fun to experiment with this kind of stuff

Too Kawaii to Die issue #4

My comic bro Zach has been putting out a subversively bizarre anime zine called 'Too Kawaii To Die' and I've been lucky to be a part of it since the first issue.
If you wanna find out more about it and look up past issues then check out the official tumblr HERE.

Submissions for issue 4 are almost up, so I wanted to show a preview of my contribution this time around.

If you're looking through the old issues and it's your first introduction to this zine then be warned that there's NSFW material in it, so proceed at your own risk.

Grimoire Sketches +2

More sketches from one of the pitch projects I'm working on!

Character Retrospective

So back in High School I wrote a story in a spiral notebook. It was terrible and didn't have an ending, but it was the first story where I looked at it and thought, 'yeah, I should do this as a comic'.
And so that's what I did.
The end result was... uh... interesting... over 80 pages of pencilled comic pages, countless character designs and  illustrations. All of which make me cringe to this day just looking at them. But as much as I may cringe there's also a sense of relief that this thing exists. It was the first story I stuck with long enough to actually make something from it, and it was the first comic project that I actually dedicated myself to. No matter what the end result was, the fact that I made it was important and set me on my way for future things.

In 2010 I decided I should draw the main characters from this old project every year in June, it started off as sketches and evolved into finished illustrations that I plan to do every year.

June 2010

June 2011

June 2012

June 2013

I'm really happy I started doing this, I only wish I had been doing it since High School. It's fun to try and 

re-interpret these guys and see how my style has evolved and my skill has improved. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Transpose Operator Character page - MERCER

If you've been paying attention you'll notice that Transpose Operator Chapter 4 page 9 introduced 2 new characters! One of which being Mercer, an authoritative no nonsense lady.

Check out the full image on the Transpose Operator webcomic website in the Characters section!

Transpose Operator Character Page - AVID

The newest addition to the Transpose Operator line up- Avid! Check out Avid's full character page on the website.

TANKADERE Anthology - now you can BUY IT!

I recently contributed to an anthology called TANAKDERE Vol 3, it's all about Daring Dames, so if you like female protagonists you should definitely go check it out! I have a 7pg story called SPROUT that is along the lines of Transpose Operator, but actually not because it's far more hopeful than Transpose Operator... basically I am telling you to GO BUY IT because it is a cool anthology with a ton of awesome contributors, including Alicia Muhm, my MCAD compatriot, and fellow Periscope intern bro Matt Rainwater.

Here is the cover again!

And here's a 3 page preview of my story - SPROUT!

 

 

GO BUY THE BOOK to see the conclusion and support me and all the other fine artists in this book!

PANACEA cover and 8 page preview!

I worked on a short story for a competition and finally got around to doing the cover after I finished the story and submitted it. It was fun to revisit these characters who I hadn't seen in awhile. The cover preview is below!

There's sketches on a post from awhile ago if you're interested, you should definitely check it out.

I know I did a post with the first 4 pages as a preview, I tweaked the pages a little since then, and I wanted to give you a slightly longer preview, so here's the first 8 pages!

 

 

 

 

I want to post the whole thing online! ...but I'm not sure how to go about it yet. In the meantime I hope you enjoyed the preview! Find out what happens to Kanna in the full version of PANACEA!