Day five: Ambush Bug
Quick one today of everyone's favorite fourth-wall-breaking super guy.
Nothing new or challenging in the drawing, except maybe trying out a couple of different pens. The big thing I did was 
I did remap the keys so that the button for pencil is identical in both
Day four: The Enchantress.
Second female character in a row. With this one, I was less concerned about learning on the Manga Studio/Photoshop/Razer rig, and more about pose. I wanted to do a reclining pose.
It seems small, but changing the drawing to have a lot more left-to-right rather than up-and-down lines was very different. I found I rotated the drawing canvas a lot more to get a more natural movement while inking. I also did a lot more tweaking on the pencils with the transform tools.
At this point, the key commands are working well, but I'm debating
Day three: Superwoman, Earth-3 evil flavored.
I picked this one because I wanted to draw a woman after drawing two men.
I also started assigning commands to my Nostromo to control Manga Studio. With the keypad, I can switch tools, zoom, undo, and use the
I did manage to keep my pencil layer separate this time. Click to embiggen either, and feel free to suggest some characters to me. Use the hashtag #tzadvent.
Day two of the TZAdvent project… Green Goblin.
Here's what I learned on this one. I started experimenting with how Manga Studio handles curves and rulers. There's a snap-to function that allows me to ink as if I was using a French curve, complete with variable pressure on the lines. This is huge. It's something that is essential to the Love and Capes background style I have, and something I use a lot in other places, too. Finding a way to replicate that is unimaginably important.
Also, I need to talk about Doug Hills. He wrote the Manga Studio for Dummies book (which covers version 4, not 5… hopefully there'll be an update soon), and has done a ton of YouTube videos showing how to use the most recent version. They've been an invalua
I have pencils for this piece, too, but I got mny layers confused and inked the Goblin Glider over the pencils. I'm still working on my workflow for this project. I'll streamline it and not cover any of my pencils next time.
I'm trying to do a Advent calendar of sorts. All through the month of December, I'm going to draw a super hero or villian a day. I'm doing this to force myself to learn Manga Studio and my Nostromo Razer keypad. If I learn to use these tools better, I can learn to work more efficiently and faster, and that means I can do more things.
I'm also taking suggestions for who to draw. So tweet me suggestions, or hit me up on Facebook. Use the hashtag #tzadvent.
Drawing number one is Bizarro, Superman's imperfect duplicate. Pencils and inks were done
For November, I tried to do a drawing a day. I managed to make that threshold. So, I think I want to come up with a Drawing-A-Day project for December. Adding to this is that I just got a new Mac. So. Much. Faster. So I now I feel like I can really start playing with Manga Studio and learning that program. So, I want to have a project that will be done solely on that system so that I can force myself to use that program and really become comfortable in it.
What I want to do is this: I want to draw a different super hero or villain every day. I'm going to keep them black and white, and possibly collect them as a sketchbook. We'll see about that. One character a day is the right amount of work is to play in Manga Studio and still keep my workload going.
I'll post them as they get done. I may take a day off here and there. After all, Christmas is December. But, what I'll do is either work ahead or get caught up. So, if you don't see one every day, you'll know why.
Here's where you come in: I need suggestions for this kinda-Advent Calendar of characters. Give me a shout on Twitter with the hashtag #tzadvent and I'll pick and choose whatever moves me from the list.
This version of Superman, which I like to refer to as Electric Blue Ice Skater Superman, is one of the weirder artifacts of the 90's Superman. In truth, I like a lot of the idea. In the story, Clark's powers changed and he got electric abilities. Part of the trade-off was that he lost his invulnerability and other powers. It was fun to see
But the costume design is still pretty cool, so it was fun to get to draw this!
The great thing about doing commissions at conventions is all the stuff you get to draw you'd never think of doing yourself. I was a huge fan of the Godzilla movies as a kid,
The 90's remake was pretty abysmal, but if you have the time, do yourself a favor and check out the original script. Much, much better. Godzilla's the good guy!
At ComicPalooza I got the opportunity to draw Godzilla doing his thing. Pretty cool!
Chernabog is one of my favorite Disney villians. He's got such a cool design, and he's in one of my favorite Disney films. I just wish he were on more merchandise
More Chernabog and more Hades, that's what I'd like to see.
This is a commission from DragonCon, and it was a ton of fun to do.
I was commissioned to draw a Thor piece a while back. (Look! It's a Thor: The Dark World tie-in!) The interesting thing is that I was told that this would be turned into a tattoo as well.
That just blows my mind. I've famously said that I would never get a tattoo* since I'd feel obligated to get some of my own artwork, and I can't stand anything I've drawn that's over six months old. That's part of the nature of being an artist if you're doing it right, though.You should keep improving.
So when someone says they want to affix some of my art to their person forever, that's amazing. The art I did was flipped to make it work better on the designated location, but i's definitely my art. Incredible!
(* The only exception being if Paul Storrie and I ever become hunters and need an anti-possession tattoo.)