So what's up with the title change?

Yeah, so in case you noticed, the title of the blog has changed. What's up with the new name, you ask?

It's my answer to the question "What motivates you?"

:P

It's really happening!

My buddy (and fellow cartoonist on the GI Joe project) Jeremy Dale just sent me this link -- the first of my issues has been announced! WOOT! Guess which one's mine? :)

Hopefully, this means I'll be able to start posting some pencils from the project soon. At least the cover, now that it's public. Will let y'all know.

...it's the one with the train, BTW. Duke and Red Star on the train. :D

...err, this one:



WOOOT! I'm stoked!

Blazeguy Page 7 - revised

So after I posted page 7, I found there were a lot of things bugging me about the page, primarily Blaze's head in Panel 7. I've found myself struggling with faces lately for some reason. The letterer also requested that I nix the BZZT! sound effects in the first few panels. They were leading the eye prematurely into Panel 8, undermining the panel layout and storytelling flow. SO anyway, long story short, I redrew portions of the page. Here's the final version.

High rez version here.

(EDIT: Now Blaze's mom's head looks swollen and his sister's head is too small. Grr...)

Blazeguy Page 7

Here's page 7.

Blaze comes to alone in Dennis' apartment, awakened (awoken?) by the sound of his cellphone. He answers it and it's his mom, sounding terrified, telling him that Dennis has them captive at Dennis Corp Tower and he needs to hurry there to save them. Of course, she's being forced to tell him this by Candace, who holds the phone and a gun to her head, threatening her and her daughter...

High rez version here.

Again, 2H on Fabriano Bristol. Experimented with pencilling in the sound effects directly, a'la Aparo or Alan Davis. I'm a lousy letterer, but I guess that just means I can only get better. :)

BlazeGuy Origin page 6

Here's page 6. Dennis drugs Blaze and Blaze passes out. But not before he tells Dennis the security access codes to his house. Dennis calls Candace, who tells Fire Marshall that Blaze is in danger and is at the Dennis Corp HQ. After FM flies off to rescue Blaze, Candace pulls out a gun and heads back to the house. And of course, now she has the security access codes to get in.

I'm using a slightly different workflow for this page (and subsequent BG pages).

1. I sketch out each panel as a rough thumbnail drawing without worrying about how it will fit into a panel. This way, I can figure out character placement and camera angles and so on without having to think too much about how this all fits onto a page. I have a rough idea of the panel shape and size, but am not worrying about it overly much at this point.
   
2. Then I draw the panel layout on an A4-sized sheet of photocopy paper. And it's only the panel layout, meaning size, shape and placement. I also plan out the flow and make sure the panels flow clearly. I don't draw anything in the panels. It's just empty panels on this sheet. This way, I can plan out the panel contents and the panel layout independently.
   
3. Then I rule out the panels onto the actual 11" x 17" art board.
   
4. Then I blueline the panel contents based on the thumbnails from Step 1.
5. Then finally, I move on to final pencils.

I like working this way. It's worked out quite nicely for me. I've bluelined the rest of the story (up to Page 10) and now only have the final pencilling to finish.

Oh, and I used a 2H pencil this time. Allowed me to get more details in with a lot less smudging.

Hi-rez version here.

BlazeGuy Page 5

Finally! Page 5's done. Whew.

Blaze flees his parents and runs to the apartment of his college buddy, Dennis Dennis III, evil mastermind in the making. Blaze vents, Dennis commiserates, and there's an "awesome" reference in the last couple of panels that makes Dennis get a bit violent and grab Blaze's shoulder. OWW!

Onwards!

High rez version here.

Sketchin', sketchin' sketchin'...

Been a while. I did the Dracula a couple of nights ago and last night I was desperate to draw something, anything. So I did the Green Lantern at about 1:30AM... :)

I've been looking at making my figure work more dynamic and I'll be mucking around with more foreshortening, unconventional angles and trying to get more fluidity in the figures. Also, frankly, it was nice just drawing something again.

The new day job's a hoot but after 3 months at it, it's been a bit of a drain on the energy.

BlazeGuy Page 4

Finally! On to page 5!

My first Newsarama interview!

As part of the follow-up to the Malaysian 24-Hour Comic Day Challenge, I was interviewed by Benjamin Ong of Newsarama along with Sarah Joan Mokhtar, who won 3rd place.

WOOOT! Check out the article and interview here!

Thundercats HOOOOooooo!!!

Finished this piece for the first round of the Grand Championship Drawoff at Penciljack.com, a colossal draw-off that will be running throughout the year.

January's theme was 80's cartoons. I went with what was one of my favorite cartoons from the 80's, Thundercats. I watched some episodes while I worked on this piece and the cartoon still holds up surprisingly well, despite being over 20 years old (eep!).

And yes, Snarf is still as annoying.

HB pencil on Bristol.

Elf Ranger commission -- FINISHED at last!

I thought it appropriate that my first finished piece of the new year be the much delayed Elf Ranger & Horse commission done for my friend Richard, the web wizard who hosts my web site at http://www.sheldongoh.com. Richard, my apologies for the super-delays on this. I hope you like it!

Some extra info: the writing on the sleeves are actually (badly transcribed) Tengwar, the Elvish script. His right sleeve (our left) says "Sorry" because I've taken a really long time to finish this. His left sleeve (our right) says "Richard Rocks". :)

This piece is done on 11x17" Bristol board in HB pencil.

Happy New Year everyone!

The Zeppelin Of Fate

The inaugural Malaysian 24 Hour Comics Day came and went about a week ago on 16 Dec 2006 and yours truly was a proud participant, one of 20 Malaysian cartoonists making up the pioneer batch of sleep-deprived cartooning zombies that day.

I was proud to have taken part. It was a real honor and quite an experience.

Now that Christmas is over and out of the way, I've been able to scan the pages and upload them. I'll talk more on the whole experience and give the DVD-type commentary on the art in a later post. For now, here's my 24 hour comic, "The Zeppelin Of Fate".

Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Page 14
Page 15
Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Page 21
Page 22
Page 23
Page 24

(I've corrected the problem where all the links were pointing to page 1 -- thanks for pointing that out Paula!)

Three months later...

The elf piece nears completion! HUZZAH! Here's a sketch of the costume design:

Man, what a month --!

Sheesh. It's been a month and a half since my last blog post and what a month it's been. Son#1 caught pneumonia. A couple weeks later, Son#2 had a lung infection and the rest of the family has been pretty much constantly sick with one variation or another of a cough, cold, flu or fever.

Anyways, back on the horse I get. Here's a quick sketch I did tonight of Dennis' dad for the Awesome Storm Justice41 BlazeGuy Origin story.

ASJ41 #11 Cover Pencils - DONE!

And here it is. Turns out Layout #2 was preferred by the editor, so that's what I went with.

Someday, I'll post a step-by-step. For now, I'm going to sleep.

Assjay #11 Cover Thumbs

Did a couple of thumbnails for the cover of the upcoming webisode #11 of Awesome Storm Justice 41 (check out the blog too!).

Thumb 1:

Thumb 2:
Based on feedback from Loston, I'm going to rework the first thumb, but make the reaching hand more prominent and flip Dennis' head so it's on the left. I must say, I do like the ominous Dennis in Thumb #2 though.

Picture dump!

So here's some other drawings I did today (yes, 3 drawings in one day!). Two are samples for a job with Marshall Cavendish Malaysia. I'm trying out as a book illustrator. Wish me luck.

The third is an itch I needed to scratch. It's a (pretty badly drawn) sketch of an elf archer - I forgot to draw the bloody elf ears -- firing an arrow from a kneeling position in a field. The more I look at it, the more things I hate about it. But one of my resolutions is to draw more and not worry about every piece being a masterpiece. Done super quick (5 minutes?) with a blue pencil, Copic brush pen and a Pentel correction pen for the white grassy bits and the bowstring.

Not particularly proud of it, but I did it, so there it is. The masterpieces will come. But I need to get all the crappy drawings and sketches out of the way first.

Oh yeah, these were scanned on my new scanner (WOOT!) -- a Canon 4200F -- which I picked up from Low Yat Plaza yesterday. The old scanner, a Canon FB310 is 9 years old and was really starting to show it's age (dodgy driver and slow as all hell). It still works, but was starting to be a real pain in the butt.

The new one looks slick as spit and the USB2.0 Hi-Speed interface is nice and quick. The heck is "USB 2.0 Hi-Speed" you ask? That, apparently, is the REAL USB 2.0 running at 480Mbps. If your USB 2.0 device doesn't say "Hi-Speed", it's apparently not really USB 2.0.

Apparently.

Bluelinin'

Holyshit. I can't believe it's taken 2 weeks to be able to post this. It's been nuts the past couple of weeks and I haven't had as much time as I'd have liked to draw. Or as much energy either. Let's just say I'm all IKEA'ed out and I'll leave it at that, 'kay?

Anyways, I won't make excuses. Here's the first of the bluelines.

More to follow. Soon.

Really.

The Elf & Mr. Ed

So I found a reference shot of a horse's head that was at the angle I wanted. Photoshopped a quick mockup and voila! Horse positioning problem solved. So I have my reference sketch/mockup.



On to the blue-lining!

Sketchpost #1 - Gesture/figure studies

"Study" is such a high-falutin' word for this. Am trying to expand my repertoire of poses and gestures. Each one took about 10-15 seconds. The idea is to work fast and capture the pose/motion I see in my head. The paper is left on my desk and I do one whenever I feel like it.

IMHO, the hardest poses are the most ordinary ones -- people sitting at a table, standing in line, etc. But I have a thousand stereotypical superhero poses I need to work out of my head first.

Jeez, I ramble on, don't I?