9.14.2011
MORE PENCIL ART FOR SALE
The X-Men origin story book for young readers was mostly completed when I was asked to re-pencil a few characters and faces. Some Magneto figure work and some young Professor X and young Magneto faces were all I penciled. It's this book, [LINK] which is a companion to the Captain America book mentioned below. As with the Cap pencils, I'll offer these for sale as an 11-page set and they can be viewed in this gallery [LINK]. And again I'll leave them up for offers for a few weeks and close the set to offers on Wednesday, Sep 28th at 6:00PM.
9.11.2011
PENCIL ART OFFER ENDS TONIGHT
At 7:00PM tonight (Eastern Time) I'll close the pencil art to offers and award the sets to the highest offer submitted before that deadline. Will be out part of today and probably won't be updating the high offer amounts until mid-afternoon today. Click here to link to the gallery and high offer info.
8.28.2011
LOCATION UPDATE AND PENCIL ART FOR SALE
To date, this year has been taken up by house hunting in Georgia, selling a home in Florida's depressed market, performing some renovation on the GA place, then a move, and I'm still trying to get completely settled in here. A small amount of work was peppered in here and there, but very little to speak of. On the plus side, I'm living close to my sister for the first time since high school.
A few posts back I mentioned doing some pencil work for some Marvel books aimed at young readers. Two of those, Captain America and X-men, were a series of character pencils or in many cases character parts meant to bring them more "on model" or closer to a Marvel style. Those were incorporated into the existing pages, then more changes followed, and the books were eventually fully digitally painted. My pencil work for Cap is now viewable in this gallery [LINK] and is also for sale as a set.
5.15.2011
OTHER COMICS CHECKLIST GALLERY COMPLETE
More scanning and more rearranging galleries this weekend. The OTHER COMICS galleries in the Checklist section all have content now. Deleted the Charlton Comics separate gallery and placed that stuff in with the Other Comics where it belongs. Also decided against separate galleries for things like trading cards. Very few of them anyway, and those can sit in the Miscellaneous Other Comics gallery or in cases like Topps cards, just include them in the Topps gallery. Some Fanzines scanning ahead of me, and I may finally get the Checklist section wrapped up.
5.10.2011
A FEW MORE GALLERIES UPLOADED
Continuing to work on the 'Other Comics' Checklist galleries, but having to pay attention to a small coloring project at the same time. The Dark Horse gallery, with the few covers I produced for them, is active,.. the Editions Deesse gallery, with my limited edition Punisher portfolios, is active,.. and the Devil's Due gallery, with my G.I.Joe work that came some fifteen years after I ended my Joe covers at Marvel, is active as well. Clicking [HERE] will take you directly to the Devil's Due gallery.
5.9.2011
BYRON PREISS PUBS GALLERY IS ACTIVE
Been scanning and working under the hood on my site this weekend. Hopefully not screwing up my links in the process! The scanning is part of an effort to make some progress with the 'Other Comics' section of the Checklist galleries. The Byron Preiss gallery is up today and I'll hopefully add more content to the Other Comics section soon.
Some people took my Feb. 15th post to mean I was doing some Captain America work for Marvel again. Not exactly. Disney Publishing was working on a storybook featuring Cap's origin. I was lending a "pencil revisions" hand with that. Not completely sure what's going on with that book at this point since some restructuring of projects placed that particular book back at the Marvel offices before the painting process was completed. Hopefully it will be completed and I will see a copy at some point?
To a much smaller extent, I contributed some pencil revisions to an X-Men origins project for Disney Publishing too.
And to a much larger extent, I contributed some finishing pencils for an 80-page Iron Man coloring and activity book for Disney. That one remains in the Disney offices, will be a black and white publication, is in the hands of an inker now, and is of course aimed at young readers. If I see printed copies of the Disney projects as they're released, I'll note it here on the site.
3.20.2011
ANOTHER SET OF CAP SKETCHES AT AUCTION!
Planning to list these six sketches on eBay later this afternoon or evening. When they're up, you can check out my eBay auction page here [LINK]. I have some preliminary sketches connected with these pieces as well. I'll post those in my Art For Sale gallery at the Comic Art Fans site. You can go directly to that gallery here [LINK] (*** Well, never mind that last link! The prelims sold the second they were posted to the Comic Art Fans gallery. At least you'll have 7 days to visit the auctions before those are snagged!)
Would like to be able to get to a few more Cap sketches between now and the release of the movie but not sure I'll be able to find the time. I'm planning to relocate over the course of the next few months (nothing so disruptive as moving!!). Also still looking for some pockets of time to contribute pencil art to a Disney project, but time is pretty scarce. Okay, so let me see about getting these auctions underway tonight...
2.15.2011
CAPTAIN AMERICA FOREVER!
Seems that way for me anyway. Since I drew the title some 30 years ago and a number of covers after that, a year hasn't gone by where I haven't drawn some Captain America commissions, or pinups, or recreations, or??? And now I find myself lending a hand on a book again.
I don't think I can say much about it at this point. One of many Cap projects prompted by the upcoming movie I imagine, and will cover the Captain America origin. It's undergoing a fair amount of modifications as it passes through the editorial and approvals process and that's where I come in.
I've been revising some figures, helping to bring some characters "on model", and anything else I can do to help. In the end it will be a digitally painted graphic novel and from the few examples I've seen of finished work, it should look really nice. I'll post more info when I can and will surely mention the book here when it's published. Anyway, that's what has been keeping me busy these past weeks. Into my fourth decade now of an on-again off-again relationship with Steve Rogers.
1.4.2011
DC COMICS CHECKLIST GALLERIES ARE NOW ACTIVE
Some more scanning and some more gallery building equals some more progress in the Checklist Galleries. All of the DC Galleries have content now. Kind of time consuming, but still trying to find little pockets of time to keep moving forward on the checklist. Would like nothing better than to check that off the 'bucket list' this year. Hopefully back with more soon!
12.24.2010
A LITTLE MORE GALLERY PROGRESS
All Marvel Checklist galleries have content now. At some point I'll get back in there and edit and item or two, but much more to look at today than yesterday. (Pictured below, from the Marvel Miscellaneous Gallery, is Nick Fury wearing Gucci for his appearance in the European fashion magazine, Arena.)
11.29.2010
THOSE CAPTAIN AMERICA SKETCHES ARE ON EBAY TONIGHT
The sketches that I mentioned in yesterday's post are now on ebay. Six separate auctions, all are on letter size bond paper, and all are rendered with pigment brushes and markers with pencil shading. Ganged image below. Check the auctions for a bit larger image view.
11.28.2010
MORE GALLERIES UPDATED
The previous CHECKLIST gallery state was MARVEL 1, MARVEL 2, and a portion of MARVEL 3 completed. Those have been converted to the newer gallery format and I finished out MARVEL 3 while I was at it. Meaning that Punisher, Rom, and Secret Wars now have galleries where they didn't before. I'll more than likely stay within the Marvel universe and work on MARVEL 4 next.
Visit again in the next day or two as I'll surely have another update. I found a half dozen sketches I didn't realize I had here. All Captain America and done a few years ago. Totally forgot about them, but now that I ran across them, I'll prepare some eBay auctions and post the info here once I've done that.
11.22.2010
ANOTHER PRINT ADDED TO EBAY LAST NIGHT
This time a classic Dave Stevens limited edition print, "Betty's Bath". Betty hung in my bath for many years, but time to redecorate. Seller's page here if you want to visit the auction.
11.19.2010
SOME ZECK OUT OF PRINT POSTERS ARE UP FOR GRABS!
Visited the flat file drawer containing my personal set of posters from the 80s and early 90s. Shot some pics so I can hopefully add them to my checklist galleries in the near future. Then posted them on eBay as a 17 Poster Set!
Most of these are single copies only, I don't have duplicates, so it's a one of a kind auction. I'm pretty sure it represents my total on-sale poster output plus some promotional posters thrown in there too. Image below is a group shot, and if you want to visit the auction page click here.
10.26.2010
A GALLERY UPDATE!
The Licensing Art Galleries are updated to the new gallery format. The scans are newer, so there may be some images absent which were in the former galleries and there may be some new additions as well. Two galleries are totally new...
BRAVE AND BOLD
Images there from Batman: The Brave and the Bold style guides as well as a few images created for the Mattel line of BBB action figures and toys.
COVER PROJECT
Enjoyed recreating some classic DC covers for style guide use as well as appearances on a number of items celebrating DC's 75th Anniversary.
The READ ME page in the Licensing Gallery is also updated if you want to find out a bit more about the gallery contents.
(BTW... I recommend clicking the 'full screen' button on these galleries. You'll see much larger images depending on your monitor size, and you can also browse with the arrow keys in that mode.)
10.13.2010
THE LONG AWAITED UPDATE OF SORTS!
Been a while, huh..!?!? Well, in the immortal words of Luther in "48 Hours" after the parking garage attendant lets him know his ticket stub is 3 years old... "Yeah,.. I've been BUSY!"
Actually I haven't had a day in the last couple of years where I haven't had a licensing assignment waiting for my attention. DC's 75th anniversary, the upcoming Green Lantern movie, and to a smaller extent the Jonah Hex movie all added a ton of extra projects to the already busy schedule of style guides, toy licensing, etc.
The only reason I've been able to come up for air this week is because the licensing department is a part of the chunk of DC comics that are soon to be relocated to the west coast. Surely that kind of transition will bring some disruption to anyone's schedule!
Anyway, there are still a few licensing jobs here calling my name, just not as loudly as before. I'm trying to find pockets of time to catch up on some of the many things on my long, long "to do" list.
So where to start with this update?.. I think here...
COMMISSIONS? CONVENTION APPEARANCES?
In brief, no and no. Still getting email requests for both, but even if I find the occasional day off, I have plenty of personal projects to attend to before I start accepting requests. I'll announce here and elsewhere if that time does arrive.
SPEAKING OF COMMISSIONS...
I've been working a bit under the hood here on the site over the past few days. I want to eventually complete my Checklist galleries, but I also want to alter the existing galleries. I've changed the galleries in the COMMISSIONS section, and eventually want to do the same with the rest of the already built galleries. Check it out, and if you're having any problems, make sure you have the latest Flash Player version. Seems to work okay across browsers (even in full screen mode), except maybe Internet Explorer,.. but does anything ever display properly there?
DO YOU TWEET?
A month or so ago, I activated my Twitter account. Some time ago John Beatty, who has been tweeting for a long while, registered my name at Twitter to make sure it was reserved for me if I did want to use it. Not finding time enough for the web site or email, I figured I could at least generate the occasional tweet. Follow me here if you're into that sort of thing.
On that same "social" note,.. my wife, Sheryll, activated a FACEBOOK account for me. I haven't done anything with that yet and don't visit that page, so if you land on that page, don't look for any updates at this point. Better to look here.
WHAT ELSE IS IN MASSILLON?
A bunch of nice people are still in Massillon, but my almost monthly commute to Ohio has stopped.
If you followed my posts from a few years back, you'll remember that I was seeing to my Uncle's needs in Massillon, including his transition to the nursing home, Medicaid application, and so on. Also seeing that he always had his iMac and internet so he could continue to quench his thirst for knowledge. He passed away late last year, and he was craving gadgets right up until the end. In one of the final pictures from Massillon (below), only a couple of days before his passing, he was learning finger gestures on my iPhone and demanding that I order one for him. He was completely enamored with it.
I'm determined to finish the build on this site (hopefully before the end of the Mayan calendar!), and will try to make updates as I work on a section or have news to share.
Until then.