And update to my Al Ca-Pope....finished!

With the election of a new viccar yesterday, I felt the need to do the new Chicago Pope. So, here's a quick sketch of Al Ca-Pope.

So, remember the Elon Musk/Trump piece I did? It was CHOSEN to be included in the American Illustrator's AI44!!!!! WOOHOO!

It's been awhile, I keep forgetting about this platform. Going to do my best not to let that happen again.

Based on the current state of our government in Washington, I felt really compelled to do some illustrations about it. Here's the first:

Let me know what you think!

I am working on my painting skills. So, I did a Magik in oil on a 5x7 card. I used a clear gesso over a pencil drawing. Great lighting reference from my daughter and the New Mutants movie...and off we go!!!

Throwing something up here today for fun and for sale.
This is a customer sketch cover of X-23 (The All-New Wolverine).
For sale: $80 shipping anywhere (free in the USA). PayPal G&S or F&F

The final post of my comic page creation (up to inks, coloring and lettering soon). I take the page into Photoshop and add the digital pieces (text especially), and clean it up for the coloring process. With this page, I added a headline and copy to look like a newspaper headline

I am still a traditionalist when it comes to inking. I always print out my pages for traditional inking. It just FEELS better. So, blue line onto 11x17 Bristol. I use Tombow Fudenesuke pens for lines and Comic brush pens for black. I add props to fill out the space and bring it to life!!

Day 3 Comic creation: DIGITAL!
After finalizing the thumbnails, I'll scan them in & use @clipstudiosozai.bsky.social for pencils. I use the perspective rulers & panel borders to make sure everything is in place & do the construction work on my figures. Making sure proportions are right.

Creating Comics step 2: after designing the initial black and white shape designs, I'll do thumbnails. Still traditional, I work on a quarter of a standard letter-sized sheet of paper.
In this stage, I finalized shape placement and caption boxes and word balloons for eye movement and page flow.

As promised, some comic book creation processes.
Step 1: Black and white shape. I look for the BIG visual directions of eye movement from top left to bottom right. I am not looking for anatomy, perspective, drawing. This step is shape design and emphasis.

Come back for more tomorrow.

So, I am going to try to start posting some educational comic and illustration content on here. This is the opening panel of a 5 page comic I am working with @pilotstudios.bsky.social gonna post the page process soon. But, here's a teaser.

I am going to be in Denver December 5th-7th until 5 pm at the Denver Christkindl Market signing my mugs and steins and selling high-quality art prints (see below) of the Civic Center Park series of designs! Come see me!!

From @nolanwoodard.bsky.social if you see this post something pink:

Watching some of my kids soccer, and decided to throw this into the sky(?) .