Commissions have been rolling in lately. Here's one of Aquaman and Mera. The Sea King has had some rough times in the comics lately, and I'm hoping his return to the DCNu will be a little brighter time for him.
I wouldn't hold my breath, though.
You Can Do Magik
With Major Combat Operations complete on Love and Capes #12, I've been able to catch up on some commissions. Here's one I did of Magik, Illyana Rasputin from the mid-Eighties run of X-Men and New Mutants. I always liked her. Next to Kitty Pryde, she might have been my favorite mutant.
I read her Wikipedia entry to see what happened to her after I stopped reading. My brain twisted inside itself and then exploded. Oh, Illyana, what did they do to you?
The Big Poozer
I've got some commissions that are still on my list from Mid-Ohio-Con and from the internets, where I also take commissions. Here's one done for someone in advance of Baltimore Comicon. It's extra smart on his part, because this way I could color it and he can pick it up at my booth. Since I color on computer, it's not something I can do at a con.
You know, if you were going to Baltimore and wanted a commission, you'd be just as smart to order one in advance, too.
This pic is of one of my favorite Green Lanterns, Kilowog. There were a lot of GLs added to the Corps in the Eighties that had staying power, and I think chief among these is the big poozer himself.
All You Need is Ted
I did a commission of the Blue Beetle (the real one) for my friend Nick in Texas. He's got the original, but there's no reason you can't share in the eye candy, digital style. I borrowed heavily from the excellent Brave and the Bold cartoon style, as excellently voiced by Wil Wheaton.
The Rockewho?
Yup, it's another commission from my current sale. This time I was asked to do a duo, Bettie and the Rocketeer, 
from the late, great Dave Stevens book. Of course, I'm nowhere near the artist Dave was, but I think there are hints of his work in this. I know he was on my mind.
The movie is worth checking out too. It didn't seem to catch on the way it should have. Among other things, it has one of the best and most perfect casts of all time, with Billy Campell as the Rocketeer, Alan Arkin as Pevey (who gets the best line when Cliff tags him for not having a date since 1932, and he responds "Flora Maxwell. There wasn't any point datin' nobody after her"), Jennifer Connelly as Jenny, a pre-Lost Terry O'Quinn as Howard Hughes, and Timothy Dalton and Paul Sorvino to boot.
And Id be remiss if I didn't mention that the publisher of my Love and Capes: Do You Want to Know a Secret trade, IDW, is going to be releasing a collection of his Rocketeer work. I've already bought it, I just don't know it yet.
She Can Do Magic
While I was drawing some commissions, I went ahead and did this Zatanna image, which will also serve as the cover image for Powerful Women #3. There are only a few spots left, and I'd really like to get this filled up so that I can have it done for Heroes Con in Charlotte. So, if you have some requests, get them in soon.
And hey, the sale is still going on.
We're So Glad You're On Our Side
As part of my Saint Patrick's Day Sale (still going on), I received a request to do a 
Wonder Woman commission. I thought back on a couple of the other times I've drawn Diana, and decided that I really wanted to do something with her lasso. I'd used the bracelets as a design element a couple of times, but didn't really work with the golden lariat at all.
I decided to use it as a light source, and set about a design that showcased that. I like her tough expression here, and I haven't done a lot of back views of these characters, and thought it could really work. It's a little thing, but I really like the rendering on the lasso, with the little chain links visible. And then I Photoshopped the dickens out of it to get all the lighting in the foreground and the background.
The guy who ordered it was pleased as well. So keep those commissions coming. I think I might do a Zatanna next.
NYCC2009 - Day Three, a bit late
I never did finish talking about New York, did I?
I should be used to this. It's so hard to write up the last day of a show because it tends to be your getaway day. And then you get back and you're busy and you just don't have time. Plus, things were really crazy back home with work that came in.
Anyway, the last day of the show was pretty good. The crowds were still thick, and I sold pretty well that day, too. I think as a lot of these shows max out and become almost exclusively 3-day attendees, Sunday becomes a huge sales day. After all, if you have until Sunday, why buy until Sunday? Well, because Love and Capes: Do You Want to Know a Secret? was almost sold out, of course. By 1:00 or so, I was sold out, and only had single issues left. I'll have to keep that in mind when I go to San Diego this year.
I did a couple more caricatures, including Jennifer Kale from Marvel's Man-Thing. Yeah, I had no idea who she was either, but the customer had reference, which was good. There were a couple more that escape me, too. Kale and the Spider-Woman that I did are now colored and here on this page. Make with the clickin' and embiggenin'.
Let's review: I did a panel, sold out of a product, did some sketches, and lined up some work. Yeah, I think it was a success.
Bob and I helped Toon Tumblers take down their booth in trade for borrowing some space in their van to get our gear back to the hotel. I had a taste for pizza, so we wound up at Antonio's next to where the Late Night With David Letterman show tapes. It was pricey and it seemed to take forever, but the pizza was good, and it was a great end to a great show.
On the way back, I wanted to stop at the Kubert School to buy some brushes. Good art brushes are hard to find, and the Kubert art store stocks a lot of them. I kind 
of need to see a brush before I buy it as there's a whole process to choosing one. They only had one of my current brush, the Windsor Newton Series 7, but they had a selection of the Rafael, a brush I hadn't used since art school.
I bought three.
I even got to go into the school, which had been extensively remodeled since I'd been there. 
The school, the old Dover High School, had been lopped in half and a chunk of the JKS parking lot had been sold off. Kubert had a lot of unused space in it, including a full auditorium and a gym. Now those are gone. Computers are all around, the windows have been replaced (a source of contention for all of us in the old days) and they even have air conditioning now.
Man, these soft, coddled artists today. In my day I drew in the cold and the heat and lived off a box of Captain Crunch because I couldn't afford it and... well, I hated it, but I did it anyway.
Mike Chen was kind enough to give Bob and me a tour, and we even dropped into a couple classes. Bob had asked if I got the shakes coming back into the building. Truth be told, I did get the wiggins when we waited in the waiting room. I don't think I'd been in there since my first day at the school, or maybe when I came out for my interview when I was applying. That room brought back some worries. Everything else was fine, though.
Bob also said he had to get used to seeing classrooms without desks and instead with drawing tables. That never occured to me. I'd just gotten used to it.
The school looks good. The students seem the same, bantering with Mike when he brought us in. Well, there is one big difference: girls. The school got girls since Iwas gone. There were I think three women in my first-year class of 150. Now, with the success of manga and the like, there's a bigger female component, which is very cool. The school even has dorms for them now, which previously they weren't able to provide.
Big thanks to Mike Chen for taking the time out of his day to bring us around the school. It was a great time.
Now I'm back and working again. I've got a couple of weeks before my trip to Orlando for MegaCon, so I'm trying to clear some things out before then. Thankfully, Love and Capes #10 is done, so it's just doing client work, of which there is a lot, thankfully. I've got some cool things coming up, which I'll tell y'all about as soon as I get a chance. So stay tuned, cool things are happening.
NYCC2009 - Day Two
Second day, more of the same.
The show started out slow. I think that the Hollywood Presence and the Ticket Sellouts are being felt. There were so many good media panels that I think they drew from the floor early in the show. And, since the show is so successful, most of the ticket sales are three-day admissions. And, if you can shop on Sunday, why shop on Saturday? There's no impetus to buy more.
That said, I'm almost sold out of the Love and Capes trade. Sold out of what I brought to the show, I have pleny more at home. If I sell out. and I expect to, well, that alone is a good number.
I only did a couple of commissions. Today I did Star Sapphire and Medusa, yesterday I did Gwen Stacy and Spider Woman. The Spider-Woman's a color job, so when I get home, I'll scan and post it.
I had a couple of cool meetings with people I can't mention yet. And I did ride in the elevator with Bruce Timm this morning.
But, my highlight has to be the couple that came by the table near the end of the day. They were a little older than me, and the woman was palpably thrilled to see me. They brought their copy of #9 just on the chance that I'd be there, and she was so excited to have it signed. Then she bought a pin, too. She told me she hated Amazonia because she was always in Abby's way.
Really, you should have seen her. She was so excited. And it is so frakkin' cool that something I did touched someone like that. It's a special moment, and makes me think I'm doing something right wth the book.
Then Bob and I had dinner with our friend Josephine and caught up since we saw her last year. We wandered Times Square a bit, hit the Toys R Us and, oh my, there was a Starbucks there, too. How fortuitous.
So, it's to bed with me soon. Don't forget, tomorrow I'll be on This Week in Media. It's gonna be fun.
NYCC2009 - Day One
Today was the first full day of the show. There's a pro part that started at 10:00am and then the regular portion began at 1:00pm or so and went until 7:00. Whew! That's a long day. But it was a good day, too.
I met a couple of TV and film production companies. You never know what's going to pan out, but it's never bad to make those contacts. I met the lovely and talented Whitney Matheson from USA Today and we spoke of comics and conventions and Love and Capes. I did Douglas Wolk's character design panel, which was a lot of fun I met some friends, chatted, maybe even lined up some work.
One thing I didn't do, though: Twitter. Now, I'm sure you think it's because I was so busy and important that I wasn't able to get to my iPhone to document the day. You'd only be partially right. The big thing is that the iPhone is so frellin' popular that the 3G network is overtaxed at the show. I had a spotty connection at best, which is okay for some light e-mail, but is Of The Bad for Twittering.
I suspect tomorrow will be even worse. Well, better with the crowds and the selling and the awesome, but less good for the communicating and the writing. Sorry.
Guess y'all will just have to come here next year to experience it.