HELPERS PART ONE: NATANYA RUBIN

One of the things I've learned most about doing artwork is that, although it's a solitary process, you can't learn it or work on it alone. There have been many people who have helped me out through the years  by either inspiration, suggestion, or hands on help. One of those people is model Natanya Rubin.

Natanya was one of my life drawing models back when I first attended American Academy of Art. I did many drawings of Natanya during my years there- quick sketches, full drawings , and oil paintings.

Besides being a fantastic model, Natanya was one of the nicest people I had met at the Academy. She became friends many of the students and even met her husband, artist Kyle Bice, there.

 Natanya was always my favorite model. When I was about to start the on going Stormy Tempest feature for AC Comics,  I wanted to have a consistent look for the main character. Natanya agreed to  the part and took the time to pose for the stories that I had thumbnailed out. Sometimes she played more than one character in the script.

In addition to her former modeling work, Natanya is on stage in 2 of Chicago's best burlesque shows: The Belmont Burlesque Revue and the Kiss Kiss Cabaret. Both shows are incredibly entertaining and are worth seeing at least once if not multiple times. 

Natanya Rubin has been a big help to my career and and a good friend for over a decade. I feel very lucky to have had her be a part of my endeavors.

In addition to her shows, Natanya can be found HERE and HERE

MILOS PART TWO- INKS

Back in 2006, Len Strazewski contacted myself, Andrew Pepoy, Scott Beaderstadt, and others to draw stories for an anthology of stories that he wrote. I ended up drawing 2 stories, which have become 3 with at least one more on it's way.

The second story I drew was called Milos and told the tale of a middle-aged gypsy warlock who is fighting evil magical forces while trying to watch over his elderly, Alzheimer's affected uncle. Milos is Len's ongoing epic. 

The following are the inks I did for this project:

THE CREATIVE PROCESS PART 14- DRAWING FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

When I draw my comic pages, I usually use photos as an underlay for proportional purposes. Photos can be useful for other reasons too. Sometimes it's not possible to do live figure drawing, other times you might need to capture a particular expression. Drawing from photos, if nothing else, can help an illustrator to understand the form and the train his/her eye so that it's easier to draw from life. The following drawings were done in 1999, before I attended American Academy Of Art. I found that going into a figure drawing class after drawing from photographs really helped my artwork.

COMING SOON: MISS MASQUE STRIKES BACK #1

Here is the solicitation for AC Comics Miss Masque Strikes Back. This issue contains the story Funny Face Of Death, written by David Watkins, penciled by me, and inked by Jeff Austin. The issue will be shipped to Diamond on July 20th and will be available sometime after that. To see my creative process while working on this story, go HERE

Miss Masque Strikes Back #1
Writers include David Watkins, Mark G. Heike, Rock Baker, Chris Irving and Richard Hughes.
Artists include Rock Baker, Scott Larson, Chris Allen, Mark Heike, Larry Guidry, Bob Oksner and Lin Streeter.
Synopsis: Celebrating the popular and iconic costumed heroine from her beginnings at Standard/Nedor in the 1940′s through her contemporary adventures at AC! THREE all-new, never before seen feature-length MM adventures including “The Head Of Hitler” and “Funny Face Of Death”, plus rare Golden Age reprints and more! 96 pages!!
Special Notes: Best-remembered by collectors for her cheesecake cover appearances rendered by the great Alex Schomburg, MISS MASQUE seems to have captured the imagination of contemporary pop culture fans to a much greater degree in her current revival, as envinced by the upcoming collector’s statue from Reel Art Images and interest in the character in other media. This special album showcases the sexy society superheroine (and long time favorite supporting character in FEMFORCE) in all of her comic book incarnations, with a special emphasis on all-new material. Two of these never-before-seen stories are scripted by television screenwriter David Watkins, while the third is written and illustrated by the multi-talented Rock Baker. Glamorous crimefighting with snappy dialogue and a classy film noir twist is what MISS MASQUE is all about- and there’ll be nearly 100 pages of it here!!
UPC Code: 649241921486
Format: Standard comic-book size; saddle-stitched, 96 page collector’s edition format.
Retail Price: $19.95

MILOS PART ONE- PENCILS

Back in 2006, Len Strazewski contacted myself, Andrew Pepoy, Scott Beaderstadt, and others to draw stories for an anthology of stories that he wrote. I ended up drawing 2 stories, which have become 3 with at least one more on it's way.

The second story I drew was called Milos and told the tale of a middle-aged gypsy warlock who is fighting evil magical forces while trying to watch over his elderly, Alzheimer's affected uncle. Milos is Len's ongoing epic. 

The following are the pencils I did for this project:

INflUENCES PART 15

Andrew Pepoy has worked for DC Comics, Marvel, Dark Horse, Archie, and just about every other comic book company out there. He is one of the best inkers in the industry. The first time I met him, wasn't as a comic book professional, but as a student at Loyola University Chicago. We had 2 very short encounters that I remember but he doesn't from back then. His name kept coming up with several of my teachers once they found out out was interested in creating comics. Andrew had actually started working in the industry while still a student.

When I met him again, it was several years later and he had moved back to Chicago after living in North Carolina and was looking for an assistant. I was recommended to him by a couple of teachers at Loyola as well as Len Strazewski. He sent me a very complex test page which he had inked and needed the large black areas added. This is called spotting.

The first thing I had spotted for him was 2 pages from Marvel Comics Mutant X #3.

Over the next few years I spotted many different pages for him, my favorites being from the 100th issue of Robin, who was a character I loved when I was little.

These are 2 of the pages I spotted in that issue

Andrew also helped me get my first published job in comics, Capstone Press's Marie Curie And Radioactivity and had been instrumental in my continued work at AC Comics. 

Andrew has not been confined to to just inking. Not only has he been writing and drawing Archie Comics' Katy Keene feature, he also redesigned Little Orphan Annie a few years back, and has had Simone and Ajax, a concept he created while still at Loyola, published.

As impressive as those accomplishments are, he has done more.  In 2007, he co-created a tap dance stage show. The Hourglass : The Poisoned Pen played in both New York and Chicago.

You can read an interview with Andrew HERE  and find him on his website HERE

LEARNING HOW TO PAINT WITH MARKER COMPS

One of the things that has surfaced within the past fifteen years is painted stories and covers for comic books. Alex Ross is probably the most well known comic book illustrator who does this type of artwork. I admired it early on but didn't have the knowledge of how to do it. Although I was able to by the time I left American Academy Of Art, I didn't really learn painting there. I learned how to paint by doing marker drawings and by assisting the illustrators at Steven Edsey & Sons. I learned that there were 2 ways to color storyboard frames - either by printing out line work and coloring it, or by placing a piece of marker paper onto a pencil drawing and building the artwork with the colors and shadows. This method is called tone-on-tone and takes a lot longer to do than just coloring in pictures. Although it is laborious, it is fun to see the finished product. Here are some tone-on-tone pieces I did several years ago:

When it comes to advertising, this type of process is practically extinct, due to advances in computer digital art ( although it can be mimicked digitally). I still use this method before working on a painting. You can see an example of that HERE.