Merry Christmas, one and all! While you're enjoying your holiday, I hope you also enjoy this year's Christmas Card!
Small Business Saturday Sale
I'm running a Small Business Saturday sale, all the way through Cyber Monday. You can check it out here!
A Christmas Co-inkie-dink
Every year I do a Christmas Card. It started back when I was in art school, and it's taken off to the point where its actually a pretty daunting task to do these days. There are people who tell me they have kept all the ones I've done and look forward to the new year's. It can be a bit of pressure. So, I was in Target looking to see what cards were out there in hopes of inspiration and I found this one.
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Which obviously reminded me of this one I did in 2011.
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These kinds of parallel development happen, I know. How many volcano movies can Hollywood make in one year? I like to think this validates a good idea I had a years ago. And props to this artist for actually drawing the reindeer.
Big Damn Hero Six
I'm looking forward to checking out Big Hero Six. I hear great things about it, and it's a great way to blend Disney and Marvel. Every commercial so far has looked great. Amy pointed out a tweet from Nicole Campos reading: I'm not the only one who keeps saying "Big Damn Hero 6" by mistake, right? Then Amy said, "You should totally make that happen." And she was right.
So, I present to you Big Damn Hero Six. One of these days I might make a print of it.
Happy Halloween!
I'm down at Wizard World Columbus dressed as Rick Castle for the convention. Come on down and see me if you can. And whatever you do, have a great Halloween!
Disney Art Drop Wrap-Up
I did my last Disney art drops on Sunday. I'd had a couple days where I didn't get to place any, so I released my Jack Skellington, Up, and Frozen pieces all on Sunday. I found a particularly good hiding space for the Frozen one, behind the Nikon Picture Spot sign by the carousel in Fantasy Land. I was actually afraid no one would find it. In one of those moments of utter perfection, a young girl did right before she got to meet Anna and Elsa. Her mother emailed me about it (since I helpfully included my email and Twitter on the note inside) and it was just the sweetest thing ever. I'm so glad the art went to someone who so perfectly was the target audience.
It's the only feedback I've received, so far, but I couldn't have asked for anything better.
Doing these were so much fun and, whenever I can, I'll continue to do so. It just makes the Disney experience so much more, well, Disney.
Disney Leave Behind: UNCLE SCROOGE
Uncle Scrooge is my favorite of the classic Disney characters. Even when I was a straight superhero reader, I still read Scrooge. The Barks stuff is just brilliant, and yes I’m totally getting the IDW Artist Edition of his work. And Don Rosa, too. He picked up the baton in the most impressive way. Scrooge was quite the explorer, so I left this one in Animal Kingdom. It was at the Shamba-La stand, tucked in the straps on a bicycle. Hope someone found it!
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My Disney-Marvel Team-Ups, Infinity Style
I've been fascinated by the Disney Infinity figures, not because I play the game but because those designs are just so freakin' cool. (Please, Disney, put out an art book of these designs!) They do a remarkable job of scaling every character to a similar shape and style so that they can all work in the same universe. So, I got it in my head that I wanted to draw some in that style, with a little bit of a my style thrown in. Along the same time, I started thinking of Disney/Marvel pairings that were just too good not to draw. And hence we have these drawings.
I'll be selling the originals of these along with one digital color print. I'll have them at New York Comic-Con, and then they'll be available on my site and at other shows (like Wizard Columbus and Akron Comicon).
I don't think I'm done with these, either. I have some other ideas for pairings that are in my head.
Weekly Warm Up Round Up: Disney Villains
I'm really enjoying doing these warm up sketches. They're expanding my digital drawing technique and they're also a lot of fun. Inspired by Walt Disney World's upcoming Villains Unleashed event (which, man, I'm tempted to make a stupid road trip down to) I started drawing Disney baddies. Chernabog, from my beloved Fantasia is well-known as my favorite villain. I love the design of Hercules' Hades so I had to do him. I'm a huge Uncle Scrooge fan, so Magica De Spell was a natural. I think Princess and the Frog is vastly-underrated so I did Dr. Facilier. The Mignola-artwork that was the basis from Atlantis was just too pretty to ignore, so I did Roarke and Sinclair from that movie. And I wrapped up with Ratigan from Great Mouse Detective. It's one of Disney's largely forgotten films, and I have the one-two punch of one of my Kubert instructors having worked on it and telling great stories of Vincent Price re-recording his voice to do it better and the great memories of taking my younger brothers to a dollar show to see it.
So enjoy my walk on the evil side.
Your Guardians of the Galaxy
As part of my continuing sketch warm-up/Manga Studio expanding process, I decided to draw the Guardians of the Galaxy… the original Guardians. Well, the 70s versions that I remember. So Starhawk, Yondu, Vance Astro, Charlie-27, Martinex and Nikki. I also tried to expand my drawing techniques in Manga Studio. I tried a few more things with guides and rules, especially on the Charlie-27 rivets on his uniform. I also did a couple of things as separate layers, such as the brush-like highlights on Starhawk which I could just change the color of in Photoshop. I also had a lot of fun figuring out the fastest way to do Martinex's look.
I kept the characters close to their Bronze Age incarnations. I wasn't looking to re-invent them, though I did tweak some gloves and other accessories to help delineate each character.
And want some Bronze Age fun? Check out the first Guardians collection on Amazon or Comixology.