ZUDA Comics -- Mathema

I've been paying more attention to Zuda comics recently -- for various reasons.

From this latest batch of quality competitors I've really taken a liking to Mathema:



It's in second place right now and I'd really like to keep reading where this story goes. Voting for this month ends soon as I understand it.

Check it out!

Trek Trinity

My pal, Ty Templeton is writing a Star Trek series at IDW.

I'm an old school Trek fan; it's Captain Kirk for me, baby! So I was really interested in this, even to the point of drawing the classic trio and laying out a few pages for samples, but then I remembered the stories from other freelancers who drew Trek comics in the past and my own experiences on licensed properties and realised I'd rather love Trek from a distance.

I think the McCoy and Spock came out okay, but Kirk needs some work to get a better likeness.

~R

Lightbox

I finally got around to taking pictures of my homemade lightbox in response to a thread over at conceptart:

I built mine into my first drawing table.

It's been serving me well for over 10 years, even though, with the experience of making this one, I'd probably make slightly different choices on the materials and tools I used.

The glass store I went to only had pebbled glass, which works as well as frosted for light diffusion.

I painted the interior of the box white with semi-gloss latex and I smoothed out the corners with a thick caulking compound to keep the light from trapping there.

That's ten years of eraser bits working their way into the box.

I think this is the first time I've even opened it in over five years -- lights are still going strong.

Instead of plug in lights, I used fixtures and put a nice brass on/off button on the front of the box. I also added a real thick pencil edge since I was tired of the flimsier ones breaking.

I have a three prong plug coming out of the back. It's pretty low tech and easy, but the damn table weights far more than it should now. I figured that this cheap table would have broken by now with the additional weight, but it's still going.

Doing it again, I probably would have used a router for the bevel (I used a chisel at the time -- ugh) and a lighter wood, or even masonite for the box.I think it cost me between 30-50.00 CDN to do the lightbox.

Hope this helps.

More Artist Proof Cards

Here's the rest of the approved Artist Proof Cards for Marvel Masterpieces. Yup, that's four cards fitting into one image!

Found out that these cards really don't like watercolours. I mean, really, really don't like watercolours; they resisted the media in spots and dried unevenly.



That's three sets of 4 card images, markers, a little bit od pencil crayon and some acrylic paint.

~R

Artist Proofs all booked already

That didn't last long.

All the Marvel Masterpiece Artist Proof Sketchcards have been booked.

Two blog updates in a day -- weird.

~R

More sketchcards!

Here's a non-Marvel Masterpieces sketchcard I did while I was doing the 20 Artist proofs for both series 1 & 2:

I should start showing the Artist Proof cards shortly.

I've already received the next batch of Artist Proof cards, though!

Same deal as last time; 40.00 for a black and white and 80.00 for colour, though I've been told I'm charging far less than I should, I really don't feel like upping the prices now.

Few things: My second semester description should be up soon, probably after this weekend. Answers to all the questions about Max the Mutt might take longer, I've been sent some questions that require a certain amount of delicacy to answer. I might actually spread out the answers over a few posts so I can adequately explain where the problems are and where some real good information and skills can be obtained.