Revenge of the 5th

"You think you're so damn clever!"

Happy Cinco de Maulo!

33 days...

May the 4th be with you.

Happy Star Wars Day! I got you a Batman.

34 days...

Fryd-Day 5: Re-Fryd Scenes

Part 5 in a weekly series exploring the adaptation of a childhood creation into a new comic for TR!CKSTER's 2013 volume, Childhood Heroes.

I thought I'd share a bit of my process today.  Here's a look at my title page, from rough tones to final color.

Of course, before I even get to tones, every panel starts as a supper scribbly layout sketch. The main goal here is to nail the composition, and capture some feeling for the gesture and acting.

35 days...

 A few passes later, I have the final sketch. Hopefully, the spirit is still the same!

I always work from color palettes. In these color palettes, everything is graded light-to-dark, and sometimes shaped to help me remember what aspect of the character the colors belong to. I am now realizing how dirty the shape of that flesh palette looks, but I promise, that's just the character's flesh tones and nose.

Stay tuned. Next week, I'll start posting final pages!

35 days...

Smiles, Scales, Webs, and Claws.

Dinosaurs are usually my default doodle, but since I draw them all day on The Good Dinosaur, you're going to see a lot of my second favorite subject: superheroes.

Little-known fact: Joker only has the second largest smile of any Batman villain. First place goes to Killer Croc.

Super or no, even Peter Parker has to do his oblique workouts.

Has anyone done the triple slashes for the Wolverine logo? Seems kinda obvious.

This concludes today's installment of super sketches. Any requests for supers I should sketch?

36 days...

Warm-Up Sketches of Steel

Getting in the mood for Man of Steel. Just over a month up, up, and away!

Above is a rather Reeve-y version of Supes. Below is my take on Zod, Bizarro, and Bruce Wayne. Bruce is the one bottom-center, of course.

Bruce really has it easy, as far as rogues go. There's a reason Penguin doesn't go sailing his umbrella into Metropolis.

Though I would like to see Supes take on some better villains. Maybe Middle-Earth would offer a greater challenge to the Man of Tomorrow!

Especially is Smaug has a Kryptonite-breathing cousin.

38 days...

Happy Birthday to Eric Hann and Jason Topolski

I love doing birthday cards because it's an excellent way to both roast and honor a buddy. The first card is for a pal I've known since highschool. He's a huge fan of Starbucks and Indiana Jones, but I wasn't going to do the kindness of caricaturing him as the hero himself. Plus, this scene between Belloq and Marion really captures Eric's relationship with his wife, Alexa.

The second card was for my buddy Jason, who is co-creating a horror-themed boardgame with me. Naturally, I had to make him his own player card!

That's our game's killer, Otis, preparing to kill Jason with the film stock of the very movie that the game is parodying. It's game-ception.

39 days...

Think of the tauntauns.

In response to my good friend, Nathan Ring, who posted:

41 days...

Fryd-Day 4: Plane Crazy

Part 4 in a weekly series exploring the adaptation of a childhood creation into a new comic for TR!CKSTER's 2013 volume, Childhood Heroes.

One of the challenges in adapting my childhood comic is that I haven't improved much in my ability to draw planes since I was thirteen years old. 

Originally, Fryd's plane ("The Dipper") was a bit of a rip-off of the Rocketeer's plane, the Gee Bee, which is more of a racing plane than a crop-duster.

Since Fryd is supposed to be a mild-mannered crop-dusting pilot by day, I decided to take a look at crop-dusting planes, and found this beaut: the Grumman Ag-Cat!

There was so much clunky character in this rickety dust bird, and I knew I had cast my noble steed at last. All that was left to do was caricature the plane, and push the proportions a little.

 

Suddenly, I could picture the Dipper chasing down getaway vans...

...trading blows with ne'er-do-well bank robbers...

...and destroying public and private property in the process!

I'm still not very good at drawing planes, but at least I have a feeling for the character of THIS plane.

42 days...

Happy Birthday Jack Nicholson!

76 years young and still smiling! Here's my tribute to the greatest of Jack's performances:

"I always smoke after."

"You mean to tell me you've never even TRIED it? Oh c'mon, Bats, one eensy-weensy pull of the trigger!"

"If you gotta go, go with a smile."

 A criminal profile.

45 days...

Fryd-Day 3: What's in a Name?

Part 3 in a weekly series exploring the adaptation of a childhood creation into a new comic for TR!CKSTER's 2013 volume, Childhood Heroes.

Above is the logo I created in 1997. As you can tell, I was a real font maestro, and even included a registered trademark in case anyone tried to rip off my work of genius. 

Below is the revised logo, which gives a bit more of a flavor for the subject matter:

Maybe I'll actually register the trademark this time.

49 days...