PanicAttak

Return From Nowhere

2010-08-15T21:23:00.000-04:00

While I haven’t really been anywhere, I figured I should return to posting before I hit a year of no activity.

Since I last posted, I have been busy. Busy with work, my writing, joining a writing group in my area, the Sudbury Hypergraphic Society (http://sudburyhypergraphicsociety.com/), and helping put together their first annual Words in the Wilderness Literary Festival.

At this event, I attended panel discussions on fiction and horror writing with published authors in these areas, including Fantasy author Marie Bilodeau (http://www.mariebilodeau.blogspot.com/), author of the Heirs of a Broken Land series, Horror authors Gord Rollo (http://www.gordqrollo.com/) author of Crimson, and David Nickle (http://sites.google.com/site/davidnickle), author of Monstrous Affections. Just listening to these people talk about their genres, getting published, and the industry has taught me a lot, and inspired me to continue writing.

I also sat on a panel on Comic Book creation with fellow writer Ken Lillie-Paetz (http://www.monkeypharmacy.com/) author of comic series Elsinore and Monkey in a Wagon vs. Lemur on a Big Wheel. This was also very beneficial for me as I was able to discuss parts of my writing process, as well as gain information from others, and see others have similar challenges with their writing.

One of the panellists on the Horror panel, Rob Sacchetto (http://www.zombieportraits.com/ and http://www.zombiedaily.com/) made an off-hand mention to a Zombie anthology comic he wants to work on with a variety of writers. I spoke with him briefly afterwards in regards to contributing something for this project and he was interested, so my next writing project will be to come up with an 8 to 12 page zombie story to submit to him.

Pepper all of the above with my day job and some graphic design projects on the side, and we arrive here, where I am planning on staying a while as I write and work to get published.

P.S. I have also updated my design website. Feel free to check it out at http://dhdonline.blogspot.com/

Pics of Wolverine Sighting

2009-10-31T12:08:00.000-04:00

Below are some pics relating to my Wolverine sighting I tweeted about yesterday. I have included the tweets as captions for the photos.

Wolverine of the Xmen spotted in Sudbury Ontario office

Wolverine ... the best there is at what he does...right now what he does is financial analysis

Epic battle between Wolverine and...unorganized file system?

Winner - Wolverine

Anyone else out there have any superhero sightings?

Issue Two Writing Process

2009-10-24T20:57:00.000-04:00

Issue Two has now gone through my initial edit and has been typed.

As with issue 1, this issue had some work done to it between written and typed versions as well, such as eliminating scenes, moving dialogue, and even adding an entire page. Another major area where changes occured was with the length of dialogue. Wherever possible, I shortened the dialogue in order to let the images tell the story.

So, without further delay, some sample pages

The above page illustrates the diagrams I mentioned in my last blog post, showing the basic layout of the panels for the illustrator to follow. In most cases the artist would not have to follow such a strict, plain, grid format, but this is just a basic idea of how I would like the page layed out.

Although there is dialogue scratched out in the above, I have shortened it even more in the typed version.

Again, this page shows another page layout sample. Going by this sample, it may look like this page would have 11 panels, but even with these sample diagrams I have changed how I wanted it to look, and the middle 6 really represent 3 tall panels.

The astute viewer will notice that the panel sequence on this written sample goes from 2 to 3 to 2 again. This has been corrected in the typed version, and shows how caught up I was in just getting the story written on the first go around.

Here is a comparison of a written page to its typed counterpart.

Page 6

Panel 1

Hero leaping down into an alley from nearby building. Night.

Hero Caption: “Day four and I still haven’t found her”
“I dread what I will find when I do”

Panel 2
Hero crouched next to a dumpster, yawning.
Hero Caption: “I’m exhausted. Been working on little sleep lately”

Panel 3
Side shot of Hero starting to pull off mask
Hero Caption: “Time to get home and rest up”

Panel 4
Behind Hero, view over shoulder out into the mouth of the alley to see the sidewalk, see a well dressed man walking by with 2 others in tow
Caption: “When I see him, the thoughts flood my brain”
Thoughts: “We will control this city soon”
“Death will to the enemies of the Villain”
***AUTHOR'S NOTE: Established in Issue 1 that the Hero can read people's thoughts***
Panel 5
Closer on men walking by, still see good portion of their bodies
Hero Caption: “I finally get a lead”
“the biggest I'll next to tripping over the Villain”

Panel 6
Close on side profile of the lead man, just before he is no longer visible behind the building
Hero Caption: “I’ve stumbled upon Conspiro.”
“The Villain’s right hand man”

A lot of the minor changes in this issue related to continuity items. When I first wrote the issue I still had 3 issues to write after. Now that I am going through and know exactly how the book is written, I can go through and tighten everything up.

As a side note to this post, but somewhat related, the new blog post at idrawdigital relates to comic and graphic novel writing, so check it out if you are at all interested in this topic or field.

As always, any comments, criticisms, or words of encouragement are greatly appreciated!

Issue One Writing Process

2009-10-18T21:40:00.000-04:00

It took a long time to actually get started writing Issue 1. I wanted to make sure I started strong, yet introduced enough of the story and characters to interest the reader and keep their interest through to the end of issue 5 (at the time it was issue 6, but I digress).

When I started writing issue 1, I found I was still unfamiliar with the characters, how they would get where I wanted them to go, and if the interactions I had planned for them would work within the story. So, as you can see from the scan of my first page of writing, I made many changes to my script as I went.

This page went from being page 1, 2, and the beginning of 3, to part of page 1, page 5, and the beginning of page 8. Some panels were scrapped all together, others were moved to other pages. This was all determined as I was writing, based on what I felt worked best for the story and the characters.

Below is another page where changes had taken place, but not quite as sporadic as above.

This just shows some shifting of page sequences and minor deletions. I also include notes for page references (ie: SEE FRONT PAGE) especially in the case of this issue, since I did so much jumping around to start off.

After this, I tended to stay on track for the most part, ending in pages that looked like this.

There are still deletions and moving of dialogue between panels taking place, but page orders are primarily in tact. I started to hit my stride on this issue and started pumping out some story.

For some pages I also draw a quick page layout to show how I see the panels appearing on the page. This issue didn't have any of those diagrams, but I will include some scans of these for the next issue that has some.

The above written copy was then typed into word. Page 9 in the image above is shown below in typed format. As I type from my written copy, I make changess again as I go through it, tightening up any weak areas, and tying things in better with the way the story unfolds in the later issues.

Page 9

Panel 1

Outside view of apartment. Nice neighbourhood. Daytime

Caption: “The next day”
Off-panel: “Honey, I’m home”

Panel 2
Interior of apartment unit. Man walking into the room, hand in a fist as if holding something hidden in hand. Well dressed, clean shaven
Off panel: “I’m in the living room John”

Panel 3
John sits down on couch next to a pretty woman. His hand is still fisted.
John: “I brought you something”

Panel 4
See the 2 sitting on the couch looking at eachother.
John: “That girl I saved last night, she was all alone.”
“I wanted to get you something”

Panel 5
John’s arm outstretched, hand open now. See a gold chain with pendant.
John: “Something that would let you know you are never alone.”

Panel 6
John putting it on the girl
John: “Something that will always be with you”

Panel 7 The two kissing passionately.

Although the above sample is one of the slower scenes in the story, it has subtle and important ties to events that take place later (plus I want to save the good pages for when there is some art to go with it!). I will probably flesh out the discription portions a bit more so that when the piece goes to an illustrator to draw it all, it will be more clear to them what I am looking for.

Well, that's my synopsis of work so far on the project. I have finished the writing portion of the script, now I am typing and revising issue 2. Once I have that issue complete, I will get some more scans up to discuss my progress.

Please feel free to let me know what you think so far. Any words of encouragement, advice, or criticism are welcome and encouraged :)

Blog Delay

2009-10-13T20:11:00.004-04:00

I am aware of my ever increasing delays between blog posts. Having the 2 kids in the house now is draining me of precious time, but I wouldnt give it up for the world.

I have been busy with standard around the house stuff, preparing for an interview (which I did well on, and they offered me the job), and typing my graphic novel scripts up. I will be sure to make my next post compare my hand written script to the typed up edited version to show my process.

I have also been preparing for Halloween. Still deciding if I will be Wolverine (more logan than fully costumed wolverine) or Dee Snider, singer from Twisted Sister.

I think I may also look into purchasing a digital pen so that I can write out my initial drafts of things, then just download the file to my computer rather than have to spend time typing it all over again. Anyone have experience of this type of product, or have any suggestions? I have only ever really seen the Fly Pen by Leapfrog, but I am sure there is better product out there than that.

Full Rough Draft COMPLETE!

2009-10-01T21:14:00.002-04:00

Just a quick note to say I have completed the full first draft of my Graphic Novel. It feels great to have everything down on paper. Now I get to go through it all with a fine tooth comb, get everything in just the right order, create the suspense I want, and get this thing refined to the best piece it can be.

Then I have to find an illustrator to draw the thing :)

And in other news...

2009-09-22T21:04:00.005-04:00

I want to plug a blog I started following recently. It's written by a guy who has taken a year off work to learn about making comic books by making one. The blog is called Project Waldo and can be found by clicking here.

This guy's stuff is AMAZINGLY detailed and just wonderful to look at. He is also highlighting and decribing different tools and techniques he is using or learning about. It really is an interesting blog/project to follow.

Also wanted to plug another site out there on the inter-web. idrawdigital provides web resources, tutorials, etc... all relating to illustration (particularly digital illustration, inking, colouring, etc..). This is actually where I found out about the above mentioned blog. I have already found some valuable resources for Photoshop and Illustrator on this site. Check it out if you are interested in advancing your digital art tool box.

More to come, probably once book 5 is complete. Give me a week.

Issue 4 - DONE!

2009-09-12T21:50:00.003-04:00

Still flying along on my graphic novel writing. Just an update to say that Issue 4 is now complete and I am moving on to the final issue. As previously mentioned, there will be some massaging of what I have written involved once I am done the first draft, I don't expect it to be perfect right out of the gate, it is just really exciting to see something I've been thinking about for a while get close to some semblance of an ending (I know, there are still a few edits to make, then i still have to get the thing drawn and inked and coloured, but for me, just getting it written is a big event).

Thats it for now. You'll hear from me when issue 5 is complete. Then I will take a break and maybe post about something else for a change.

Issue 3 - DONE

2009-09-09T20:55:00.002-04:00

I have really hit my stride on writing this graphic novel. I've been working on issue 3 for only 3 days now and I just finished it up. 2 more issues to go and my first complete draft will be done and ready for review/revisions.

I think it was hard to start initially because I wasn't that familiar with the characters since I had never read or written them before, as they are new characters I invented for the story. Now that I have become familiar with them in my head through my writing, they have their own voices and it is really a lot easier to write. I have read that happening with other writers, that their characters often evolve into something they weren't initially intending, and I find this is happening a bit with this story. It is really interesting and exciting to actually be experiencing that with my own writing.

Once I am finished this graphic novel, I have an ongoing series I want to start writing, and I really hope this happens with those characters too. It makes the process a whole lot easier and everything just sort of flows from the characters themselves.

On to Issue 4!

Issue 2 - DONE!

2009-09-07T11:15:00.003-04:00

Things seem to be speeding along in getting the first draft of my graphic novel completed. I have just put down my pen after completing issue 2.

Now, a week an issue might not be that speedy for some, but for me, juggling writing around my day job, time with my son, household chores, and preparing for baby, it is really quite good in my opinion.

Even though I have not yet completed the story, I have already made a few notes for changes/rearrangements of story items that I want to make. Also, I think I have decided that there will only be 5 issues rather than six. The story kind of took on a life of it's own as I was writing and it seems to be going towards one less issue than planned, which will actually work out pretty well for me.

Once I am done I plan on getting a few people to give it a read through, make sure it reads the way I want it to, then work with an artist to possibly put together a submission for Zuda, or, failing that, self publish some of my own work.

Anyone else out there have plans on becoming a writer or artist in the comic industry? Anyone else plan on self publishing just to get your work out there? Let me know, I am interested in hearing any thoughts.

Issue 1 - DONE!

2009-08-30T21:08:00.002-04:00

Well, my wife ended up not being in labour, so that gave me the weekend to finish work on issue one of my comic!

Unfortunatley, it also means the baby dropped and my wife is even more uncomfortable than before. We see the midwife tomorrow to see how things are going.

My son's cold seems to be getting better, but mine has hit full swing, and it sounds like my wife is starting one now too. I hope she doesn't have to suffer through delivery with a stuffy nose or sore throat, the delivery part will be hard enough.

I was hoping to play around with my tablet today on some inked art stolen from MassacreMike over at the Mental Kavity, but unfortunately, that didn't happen. I am thinking I will focus on the comic as much as I can, and maybe try out the tablet when I need a break from writing. I've had it for a few years now and haven't used it all too much, but I've been itching to do something art related for a while now.

Now that I think of it, I do have to start working on the nieces' Christmas gifts soon...

Procrastination and Other News

2009-08-28T13:39:00.006-04:00

I fully intended on writing a post about procrastination this week, but something strange happened. I actually stopped procrastinating and started writing, and I got a good chunk of a 22 page 1st issue of a short 6 issue graphic novel written. It is pretty rough at the moment, and I know it will require a re-write or 2 here and there, but it's started now, so I am happy.

Over to nerd news, the best news I heard all week was that the new V series will be premiering on November 3rd. Its a long wait, but I've been waiting over 20 years, so another 2 months I can handle.

Other geek news is that there seems to be a strong possibility that there may be a third Ghostbuster's movie in the works. I know this rumour has been floating around for a while now, but it has resurfaced and all cast members seem to be interested. Lee Eisenburg and Gene Stupnitsky (the Office) are apparently writing a screenplay. Hope it turns out better than Ghostbusters 2 did, and just as awesome as the original.

And speaking of Ghostbusters, these new action figures look freaking awesome. I will need to get my hands on these ones for the collection.

Well, that's enough procrastination for me, time to get back to writing :)

My Recent Blog Neglect...

2009-08-18T20:01:00.004-04:00

Hello. You may not remember me, but I am the guy that is supposed to keep this blog up to date. I haven't been doing a good job of that as of late, but here's why.

A few Fridays ago I went to the wedding of a friend of mine. It was a really good wedding, reception and dinner, and a good time partying with all my old buddies. I wish Mike and Jane the best wishes in their years together to come.

I had also found out the Thursday prior that I was going to have an interview the Wednesday following for a position substantially higher than the one I am in now (the next step up in my office is more of a jump than a step). Now, I normally prepare for interviews as if I were studying for the biggest test of my life, and I don't want to fail, because the answers are usually about me and my experiences/knowledge. So, up until Wednesday morning, I was pretty much burying myself in all things managerial, leadership oriented, and accounting based (yeah, it was entertaining reading).

The interview has since come and gone. I think I did rather well, all things considered, and look forward to hearing how things turn out. I am of the mind that if I get it, great, if not, no biggie. It was a good learning experience. I will keep you all posted on how things turn out.

Speaking of how things turn out, I never did post what happened to the little rodent babies I found in the yard. The remaining two lived through the night, which I was glad to see. Science North wouldn't take them though, so things looked bleak. But, later in the day, mom eventually came and claimed them both.

Since the Wednesday night of my interview, I have been catching up on some comics. I picked up and tore through the latest issue of Wizard, and am reading 2 trades of the Amazing Spiderman, written by J. Michael Straczynski (of Babylon 5 fame). It is a decent story, and one that I had started reading a while back, so it is good to finally catch the end of it now.

Finally, I have been completing some research for the graphic novel I wish to write. I just had to look up some info on DNA evidence for solving crimes, when it really caught on, etc... Now I am working on piecing everything together to form the outline, then I can start writing.

Which brings me to the topic of my next blog post - Procrastination. Anyone have any thoughts, comments or theories about procrastination? Please share, I seem to be doing quite a bit of that on my self-assigned projects lately. And once that baby comes, you may not see any posts for quite a while...

Strange (and somewhat sad) Find

2009-08-02T20:10:00.004-04:00

When my wife and I moved into our house, there was a child's playset and small sandbox left in the yard. With the coming of our son's first birthday, his memere bought him a new sandbox with an attached picnic table with umbrella. We decided to clean out the old sandbox and give it to his memere for when he visits over there.

Today I got around to doing this little chore. I started by emptying out all of the toys, then shoveling out the old sand. I then picked up the sandbox and tipped it over. My attention was first grabbed by the massive amount of ants and ant eggs underneath the sandbox, but then I noticed a clump of loose, dried grass that looked out of place. I moved it around a little and heard a small squeaking noise. I gently pulled back some of the grass to find 4 pink rodent babies!

I told my wife about it, who then wanted to see them. We decided to leave them there, covered as they had been, in case their mother came back looking for them. We checked on them every so often to make sure they were still okay (though, really, neither of us would know what to do to help them anyway, but we were concerned just the same). After a few hours, we checked and saw that 2 of them were gone. They are too small to get anywhere far on their own, and the nest wasn't disturbed, so we ruled out some sort of predator (that would have probably torn the nest apart and taken all of them at once). Below are the remaining two babies.

We don't really know what these guys are, as most rodent baby pics online from this stage seem to all look alike. Their eyes are still sealed shut, as you can tell from the photo. We are hoping that the mother comes back to get these guys before it gets too late and cold out for them. We have debated taking them in, but then the mother wouldn't come back later for them, and we have no idea how to take care of them anyway. We also may take them in for the night and bring them to Science North tomorrow, as we are bringing our son anyway.

It was interesting to see these guys, but kinda sad knowing that they may not make it through the night (yeah, I know, they are just rodents. I guess having a baby at home and expecting another in the next month and a half has that kinda effect on you).

Anyone have any idea what these guys could be?

Comic Creator Collaboration

2009-07-26T21:19:00.003-04:00

I had this great idea one day that it would be cool if there was a website along the lines of Facebook, that was for aspiring comic writers and artists to post samples of thier work, look for people to collaborate with, add them as "Collaborators" or "friends" and post any projects that might get developed through their time on the site.

So I took a look online to see if anything like this existed. As I wanted to create this site and hopefully make some money off of it, I was very upset to find that there were some sites somewhat like this already on the web. Once I got over my greed and sense of loss of potential income, I was interested to see what these sites had to offer, and how they could help me work my way into the comics industry.

So, for others like me who are interested, below is a quick review of 4 of these sites. Please keep in mind, not having become a member on any of these sites yet, I may not have complete information.

Zeros to Heroes - www.zeros2heroes.com

This is the first "by the people" online comic site I came across, and it impressed me because it's actually a Canadian site. It is currently a Beta, so the site is slow as hell, making navigating from page to page a chore and enough to make a potential user leave the site before they get to what they want to see (I have looked at this site on a few occasions to get the info I wanted).

The site is interesting however, in that users submit pitches for their ideas, and can rate and discuss the pitches of other users. There are various competitions held on the site where pitches are voted on by other users. The more a user contributes to the site, the more weight their vote has.

The site is partnered with media companies such as Telefilm Canada, Astral Media and Teletoon. The marketing department takes winning pitches and uses it as a foundation for a film, series, video game or graphic novel. Some competitons result in the winning pitch being turned into a 22 page comic book.

And the best part is, Paul Dini (Batman: The Animated Series) is the Editor-in- Cheif!

Zuda - http://zudacomics.com

The second site of its kind that I came across, was Zuda, which I heard about through an article in Wizard magazine.

Zuda is a project by DC Comics, which in itself is a big draw for creators. Because of this it also has a presence at Comic Cons, which can expose hopeful creaters to a professional audience. From what I can tell, like Zeros to Heroes, this is not so much a social network, but a site with monthly competitions where creators can post completed comic books to be voted on by other users for publication (onsite, though a winning series, Bayou by Jeremy Love, has been adapted for print as well).

This one seems more high profile and has more potential for busting into the industry due to its ties with DC.

ComicSpace - www.comicspace.com

I dont really have much to say about this site. It does not look very professional, doesn't seem to have any ties to the industry, and just seems like a hang out site for comic creators. It is also not very easy for new users to navigate, which could be a disadvantage for drawing new fans.

The only intersting items I can see that this site has over the others is the ability for artists to sell their work on the site, though with Etsy shops, etc... this feature is not a huge selling point (no pun intended).

BarkIt - www.barkit.com

As this site is new to the scene (late July) it is still very Beta and there are lots of features that they advertise as Coming Soon. It states it will be a social networking site for creators, but I am unsure how user projects will be presented or promoted.

I will have to wait and see on this one to be able to provide more information.

As far as I can see, none of these offers the ability for a profile page for users to post samples of their work, add other users as "collaborators" and post projects completed with other users, so I may still have my chance to make my millions :)

Zuda is standing out to me as the best option at the moment to break into the comic business, but Zeros to Heroes has some benefits for breaking into other types of entertainment media. ComicSpace looks like a waste of time to me, and BarkIt has some potential, so I will have to keep my eye on that one.

I am left wondering if Marvel has any plans to create a site in this vein for creators to submit and create their ideas.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on the above sites as I may have missed some information or misinterpreted something, or please recommend any other similar sites I haven't mentioned here.

Where I've Been

2009-07-24T20:09:00.005-04:00

Since it's been a prolonged amount of time since my last post, I figured I would give an update on what's been keeping me from my blog.

On the 10th I turned 30 years old. I had heard that 30 is supposed to be the hardest birthday, but it didn't really effect me either way. Just another day, and hopefully I have at least as many left in me. On the following Saturday, my wife surprised me with a guys poker night at our house. I thought we were going to dinner and to see Transformers and that her mom was coming to babysit. Then my brother showed up, followed by the explanation that I had been duped. Turned out to be a good night with friends, and I came out $20 ahead without even winning a game, so I can't complain.

I have also been using my spare time (what little I have with a 16 month old and a pregnant wife) conducting research for a graphic novel I am writing. More on that as it develops...

I also picked up Ultimate X-Men Vol.2 at the library. I have volume one and hadn't read much past that. I enjoy the Ultimate line and the different twists they have put on the Marvel U characters. I especially enjoyed Wolverine kicking the $#!T out of Cyclops.

And the last few days I have been tending to a sick baby. Found out yesterday he has tonsilitis. we have been fighting to keep his fever down. It's been bouncing between 100 and 104 degrees F. Hopefully with the antibiotics we got yesterday, the fever will break within the next 24 hrs. Its sad to see my little guy sick.

I'm hoping I can get back into the swing of things and post on a more regular basis again.

Comics! (Part 2)

2009-07-10T19:54:00.002-04:00

Well, I have been busy in the world of comics lately. I finished "New Ways to Die" and quite enjoyed the story, and the art by John Romita Jr was fantastic. It brought Eddie Brock back into the Spider-man fold and injected some new ideas into the symbiote story. I haven't read too much of this Brand New Day storyline in Spider-man, but it reads very well and seems like it has revitalised the Spidey line.

I followed that up with the most recent issue of Wizard Magazine. It has some decent articles on tech for digital art, and notes from comic colourists on how they do what they do so well. I think I might try to get some practice with my graphics tablet and see if I can get the hang of digital work using that.

I ended up picking up Planet Hulk at the library and got caught up in that. It is a fast paced story, delving into Hulk's psyche and strengthens the character. I am totally looking forward to picking up World War Hulk now to see him kick some hero ass! And I was never a huge Hulk fan to begin with. Very well written.

I think maybe now I will go do some drawing or writing, now that I have been inspired!

Comics!

2009-07-02T21:04:00.005-04:00

Hey, I know its been a while, and it will be a while longer till anything of substance gets posted :)

I went to the comic store today (the one mentioned on the Mental Kavity blog a few days ago, check out http://thementalkavity.blogspot.com/2009/06/recommended-blogs-and-short-trip-down.html to see what I am referring to) and picked up the "New Ways to Die" trade and am just about to read it.

I have been waiting for this trade for a little while now for a few reasons. Once I am done I will shar emy thoughts.

In Honour of MJ

2009-06-26T14:32:00.002-04:00

Thoought I would post a link for my all-time favourite music video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyJbIOZjS8

Recent Design Work

2009-06-25T21:17:00.008-04:00

Every year I work on the Student Handbook for the Laurentian University Students' General Association. I am currently working on the handbook for the 09/10 year and thought I would share the designs.

This is the cover. The above ties in their school colours, creates a theme for the school's 50th Anniversary, and incorporates the people/community aspect of the school and the SGA itself. The SGA asked that the people be androgynous rather than overly male or female. The gold represents the past and is smaller than the blue that represents the future of the school, looking to the future.

The inside basically takes the design elements from the front cover and uses them in a way that allowes for content to be displayed and read easily, and allows the most room for text and ads for local businesses. This content section is to be printed in black and white.

The calendar section will be 2 colours (blue and black), and requires even more space than the content section. I used the lineup of people and the blue as the constant design elements in this section to tie the whole book together. If all goes well, this project will be completed this weekend and off to press by mid July.

If you would like to see more of my design work, please visit http://www.dhdonline.ca/

In Honour of Father's Day...

2009-06-21T21:34:00.007-04:00

A few posts back I mentioned that I was working on a mural for my 14 month old son's new room. This weekend I finally got around to finishing it. Before I get to the pictures though, I figured I would start with the first mural I did for the nursery before my son was born.

The artwork for this mural came from the bedroom set we chose for the nursery called "Little Pond". I painted it before the baby was born. Each animal was drawn on and cut out of 1 inch thick styrofoam. I then painted each animal, colouring the edges black to make them pop off the wall. I was originally just going to put an animal here and there on the walls, but then decided to paint the pond background on the wall. I then mounted the animals on top. His crib was placed underneath, so he would sit in his crib and look at the animals.

Now with the new baby on the way, we wanted to keep this room as the nursery, so my son got to move to a new room. We choose another animal theme for his room and decided to do another mural. Since the walls in the room were already green and I wasn't planning on painting it, I used a green and brown blanket with animals on it that he got when he was born as a theme. The result is the below.

These are three of the animals from the blanket. These were just painted right onto the wall. I painted all but the black outlines. For this I used a paint marker I picked up at Michael's. This was the first time using one of these markers and I really liked the outcome. It's wedge tipped so you can vary the thinkness of the line, and the paint flows very smoothly. I may experiment a little more with these, as I normally dislike paint as a medium.

And by the way, my son likes his new mural very much.

More Recent Artwork

2009-06-16T21:13:00.008-04:00

Now that I have had the chance, I have scanned some more recent artwork I have done. I have completed some face sketches to work out my comic book style and to get me back into the groove of drawing. Below are 6 of these face sketches.

All of these were done with photo reference to capture the expressions, etc... though I have made these faces look different from the source material.

I also took one of the above and created a colour version.

I used coloured pencils to create the coloured version of this face. I think it turned out fairly well for it having been quite a while since I picked up a pencil and drew in a more comic book/cartoony style.

My next round of drawing will include some figure work, as my skills relating to the human figure are lacking in my opinion. Plus, if I want to write my own comics and illustrate them (even just the covers) I think I will need to improve in that area. My problem is I am quite slow when I am drawing because I need everything to be perfect, which is an issue when trying to build on basic shapes to create a human figure. I just need to get past that mental block.

Quick Update

2009-06-14T22:10:00.002-04:00

Just a quick update on how I spent my weekend. I split my time between painting a mural in my son's new room (had to make room in the nursery for the coming little one) and working on a Student Handbook for Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. It's a yearly project that I have been doing for them for about 10 years now, both with my old design company and now on my own. I really enjoy working with them.

Once I am done working on both, I will get some pictures posted.

Homemade Christmas Gifts (2008)

2009-06-10T21:17:00.007-04:00

Having posted some of my work last night, I thought of some of the gifts I gave to family this past Christmas, which were items that I made for them.

My neice, whose name is Briar, is into Barbie dolls. So, I decided to make a custom "Briar" doll for her.

I had to look high and low for a Barbie doll with brown hair that didn't cost close to $20 (trying to be economical with my gifts, hence making things). I eventually found one for $2 at Value Village. I designed the packaging, printed it in colour and put the box together. My brother has 2 beagle pups, so I included a small beagle figure in the box as well, along with a small Nintendo DS that I made using a piece of Popsicle stick.

For my other neice, Logan, I created a comic book cover. As she is into Manga and Anime, I did it in that style.

She is also part of a group (along with my brother and the whole family) called the Society for Creative Anachronism, and her character is a Pirate named Loki, so I based the comic off of that, using her garb as the character's costume. Once I had the picture drawn, I coloured it with coloured pencils. I should have used a different medium for the background (it was getting too close to Christmas to draw an actual background) as you can see the pencil strokes way too much and I don't personally like the look of it, but overall I think it turned out well. I plan on doing one for her each year.

Finally, for my wife's brother and his fiance (the Godparents of my son), I drew a picture of them with my son Christopher at his Baptism.

I didn't scan this one, I just took a picture of it once it was in the frame, hence the shadow in the lower right half. I drew this from a picture from the Baptism, modifying it to bring the two of them closer together.I really like how this one turned out, though I am still not happy with how her mouth turned out (everyone else in the family tells me I am being picky and that it is fine, and I probably am). This was done with graphite pencils.

I will get some other pieces together and post soon.

Bat Vehicles

2009-06-09T21:48:00.004-04:00

Just to get some artwork posted up here, I thought I would start with a couple of comissioned pieces from about 2 years ago. A girl from work asked me to draw these pictures of the Batmobile and Batjet.

I worked on the Batmobile first and it was based off a picture of the Batmobile from the Tim Burton Batman movies. I think this was actually from an Onstar ad.

I followed that up with the Batjet. This too was from a photo, but it was a photo of a model version of the Batjet from the first Tim Burton Batman movie (wanted to keep the vehicle look consistant).

I used graphite pencils to draw each of these images, and they were both done freehand (no grid method for me). I was actually upset to have to give these away once I was done.

I do really well when working from a photo or reproducing another's art, but the quality slides dramatically when I try to do anything right from my brain. It's drawings that I do like these that make me call myself the human photocopier.

Weekend Work

2009-06-08T21:11:00.003-04:00

This post is a bit of a diversion from the intended use of this blog, as it's about work around the house rather than comics or tv or anything.

Well, this winter I had 2 sections of my fence blow out in a huge windstorm. I had to trudge through the snow and brace the rest of the fence that was now blowing in the wind. Since my yard is about 3 feet higher than that of the people behind me, I wanted to make sure my fence didn't fall into their yard, possibly on top of someone.

After that, this spring I came home from work one day and about 6 more sections of fence along the side had blown down due to strong winds. Upon inspection, the metal fence spikes were all broken, explaining the fence falling in. So, I now had my summer yard work for the year.

I managed to salvage the majority of the lumber from the old fence, replaced the fence spikes and rebuilt the entire thing. I spent this past weekend finally finishing it off. It took a few weekends to work on it, since I was doing it on my own and couldn't work on it during the week at all. It was a lot of work, but I actually really enjoyed it.

I also spent some time cleaning out the spare bedroom. We are moving our son into that room to make room for the coming baby in September. So now instead of a spare room packed with extra junk, we now have even more extra junk in the basement :)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-06-05T20:06:00.004-04:00

I have been eagerly awaiting the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and recently I went out to see it and my initial feeling at the end of the movie was .... meh.

It was alright, entertaining overall, but I was really hoping for a lot more Wolverine berserker action, cutting through bad guys left and right, and being the best there is at what he does. Instead, Logan seemed to be the calm voice of the movie, trying to keep Victor (Sabertooth) calm, and not really doing anything himself.

Now, there were some pretty damn cool action sequences, and there were some good moments of Logan taking care of business, I guess I was just expecting more.

I did however leave with some items knawing at my brain. If you haven't seen the movie, these may be spoilers.

1. Sabertooth doesn't know Logan in the first X-Men movie. Having them so involved in this movie seems to forget that or not care.

2. The reason Wolverine doesn't remember Sabertooth is because he lost his memory. Ok, got it. But adamantium bullets to the brain? He's not the wolfman. Does that mean Logan has 2 holes in his Adamantium skull now?

I get it, I know it's just a comic book movie and I am most definitely sounding like a whiny fanboy right now. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the movie overall, it was just a different type of movie than I was expecting.

Agree? Disagree? Thoughts regarding my issues mentioned above?

V is coming back!

2009-06-04T21:22:00.005-04:00

A friend of mine provided me with the link below

The original V the miniseries blew me away when it first aired in the early 80's, and V the Final Battle was a superb follow up. The ongoing series that followed that...well, left something to be desired. Having tapes both mini series and the ongoing series, I watched all 32 hours of it at least once a year when I was growing up, and I have been waiting over 20 years for some new V material. I am a die hard fan of the original material.

That being said, the first time watching this video one night before going to bed, I had a grin from ear to ear. This new series looks like it will visually blow away the old one. I just hope it can live up to the original storytelling, the small plot details that made the Visitors seem so superior and scary as hell.

Let's just hope this series will live up to 20 years + of expectations!

Pilot Episode

2009-06-03T20:25:00.003-04:00

Hello all, and welcome to the PanicAttak Blog.

I plan on using this blog to share interesting things (well, things I find interesting anyway), possibly post some of my art, and generally get me into the habit of writing on a regular basis.

Themes that may and will be covered will be comics, movies and television, games, art, with others in between. I hope to add content daily, but I know right now it will be less than that. Hopefully someone out there will find what I have to say interesting. Please feel free to let me know what you think as I get more content up here.