Belated Post Comic-Con Report

Well, I've finally managed to get a little free time to blog following the craziness that is the San Diego Comic Con! It turned out to be a fruitful convention, with me making some great new connections (leading directly to some new freelance work beginning mere days after the convention!) as well as catching up with some fellow geeks I haven't seen in a while. A few of those said geeks can be seen on Parkablogs, the blog of Teoh Yi Chie, who took the above photo. There is great coverage of Comic-Con as well as great reviews of art related stuff!

My new book "Show Me the Body" sold well for me, and if you weren't at Comic-Con, you can still order it through Stuart Ng Books, who any true connoisseur of illustration know is THE one stop place to shop for quality, hard to find books featuring eye-popping illustration. You can also order it through Amazon.com
or through my CreateSpace e-store.

I'm not used to doing a lot of public speaking, so I was a little nervous on Sunday morning when I did a little talk on storyboarding and illustration. But things turned out fine as I showed some of my storyboards from past jobs and the resulting footage. I also showed some of my animation from my LucasArts days and answered questions from the audience. Things went fairly smoothly and I was relieved when I was told it was well-received.

Although the start of the convention was disappointingly slow saleswise, it picked up considerably on the weekend. Vice, a reliable top seller within my oeuvre sold pretty well. The big surprise was the popularity of my original animal sketches, many of which I have posted on this blog, like here and here and here and here and here.

Keep your eyes peeled for news on buying your own animal sketch online in the future.
I'm sure an animal sketchbook won't be a long way off either.

By the way, if you like my animal art, you'll love it on a canvas bag or on a mug or shirt! Check out Anson's Artzoo!

Comic-Con, Baby!

Well, San Diego Comic Con is coming up! If you plan on being there, come by and visit me at my Artists Alley table EE01. Where is that? Right here:



I'll be selling my new book Show Me the Body as well as my older titles, Saturday Nite #1 & #2, Diddly Squat, Vice, Hand of Fate and Babes In Space. And while you're there, make sure to say hello to my brother, who will be sitting next to me at his table EE02. He will be selling, among other things, his new sketchbook, Striking Work. I will also be selling some original sketches (a couple of samples are below). If you're not going, you can still pick up Show Me the Body by ordering here.

My New Book!

Here's a little preview of what you will find in my new book, "Show Me the Body". This is a collection of my sketchbook art, life drawings, oil paintings, and creature designs featuring a 7-page comic story, drawing tips and how-to's, and an animated flip book! It's 72 pages, 8.25" x 8.25", square bound and features full color throughout.

Order it today!


Click on images for a larger view.

Robots on Parade

More concept art. These are part of an upcoming project I'm working on that I will be announcing soon on an upcoming blog post.

Monsters on Parade

My concept art portfolio was long overdue for an update. So here are a bunch of creatures I designed with one taken to completion.

Wolverine, Bub!

Well, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" is out and doing strong box office. And on the Nicktoons network, the new X-Men cartoon series, "Wolverine and the X-Men" is well under way. I happened to storyboard on an episode of that series, the one premiering this Friday, called "Code of Conduct". My scenes are basically a warehouse fight involving Wolverine, Rogue, and a bunch of ninjas, with an appearance by the Silver Samurai. The scene required a lot of martial arts and swordplay, so I really had to bone up with a lot of research of old ninja movies, anime (particularly Samurai Champloo), some of my favorite Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, and Kill Bill. From what I understand, this episode was banned in the UK (the entire first season has already had it's run overseas) for it's use of swordplay.

Here's a taste of the episode with a few samples of my storyboards on my Flickr site.

EDIT: I got the airdate based on the episode number (17) and the episodes already aired. When I wrote this, I was unaware that the show had taken a two month hiatus. The episode will air at a later date.

Morning Sketch

Drawing is a lot like athletic ability; it's very much "use it or lose it". If you don't practice, you may experience a decline in your abilities. Regularity in practice is also important--practicing one hour a day, every day is superior to cramming in seven hours one day out of the week.

In order to maintain a certain level of proficiency, I recently started a new ritual for myself: my "morning sketch". Every morning when I wake up, before getting out of bed to brush my teeth or anything else, I draw in a little sketchbook I keep next to my bed. I choose to do it this way because if I just pledge to do drawings in the sketchbook at any other time during the day, it would be too easy to be deterred by the inevitable distractions of life, and not get it done. I do not put any restrictions on myself as to the quantity and quality of the drawings. That way, if I fall short of my own expectations, I won't beat myself up about it, because that can eventually lead to me just giving up.

The only restriction I put on myself is that I have to draw something. So if the drawings suck, thats okay. If I only come up with one tiny little doodle, that's okay too. This doesn't mean that I don't challenge myself, I just don't turn it into a pressure situation; you can see that over time, the number of drawings increases, that I experiment with the complexity of the poses and in the later drawings I write down the beginning and end time of my sessions to try to gauge progress on improving my speed. Click on the strips below to see the first month's worth of sketches. As you scroll across to more recent pages, you can see a gradual improvement in the drawings as time goes by.

Week 1:



Week 2:



Week 3:



Week 4:



Sketchbooks are a great way to get the rust out. But you gotta be regular about it.