LIFE DRAWING PART 6

In order to understand how to draw the figure, it's essential to understand anatomy. Every anatomy class begins with the skeleton. The skeleton is the frame of the human body and muscles are attached to it. Most art classrooms have a real skeleton or two to draw from:

One of the studies that I used to do was to take a photo of someone, create the outline of the person and draw the skeletal structure of the person inside:

Although complicated, without understanding the skeleton, the bones, and the way they move, it is impossible to understand the human body.

THE MIST

After I completed Project Raven for Cherie Donovan,  she wanted to do a story "Marvel style". For anyone who doesn't know what that means, the way Marvel Comics used to produce work was to have an artist draw from a synopsis rather than a script. Cherie had a poem that she wrote and thought that I should draw a story from it - anything I wanted. She emailed the poem over:

The Mist

The mist surrounds me, like a blanket over my eyes. It disguises the world around me, but covers it with a singular, whole beauty. I look around me, searching for something, anything, but all there is, is mist. The beautiful, full mist. It is neither perfect, nor full of error. It is nature at it’s best, but most hazardous.

            My enemies are there, in amongst it, but this fact seems to escape me. This is my native land. I know it more than I know myself. They are chasing me, but I sense their presence, and it does not frighten me. They are lost in this land, and I am found.

            The mist covers all that surrounds me; it is part of everything present now. I look at those that follow me, but they do not look back. This is my terrain, and is my world.

            I can sense their every move. I can hear their heartbeat and smell their very essence, and yet they still persist in hunting me. I am their prey, and they are the predator, and yet this is all just a game to them. To me, it is more than that, it is my life, and it is my survival.

            They search for me, but I have found them first. They are simply footsteps away, and yet they do not notice me, as I slip away from underneath their very eyes. It is them who are my prey, and I their predator, but I feel no need to hunt them, like they hunt me.

            I am one of them, and yet we are separate. We see the world in different ways, and live different lives. They see only destruction and death, where I see a chance for life, and I am one with it.

            I slip away, amongst the mists. She is my friend, and will guide me, where she tricks others. I am of the night, part of it’s life force is in me, and I am at peace with it. I am the she panther. No man shall tame me, I am free.

My first thought after reading Cherie's poem was:

"What the Hell is this?" 

Followed by 

"WTF am I going to do with this???" 

I have to note here that I absolutely adore Cherie, and there is nothing that I wouldn't do for her - including coming up with a couple of pages for this. She is a fantastic writer and a good friend. So I looked at it and got to work.

Instead of trying to map out my creative process, I'm just going to let the work speak for itself:

The mist surrounds me, like a blanket over my eyes. It disguises the world around me, but covers it with a singular, whole beauty. I look around me, searching for something, anything, but all there is, is mist. The beautiful, full mist. It is neither perfect, nor full of error. It is nature at it’s best, but most hazardous.

 My enemies are there, in amongst it, but this fact seems to escape me. This is my native land. I know it more than I know myself. They are chasing me, but I sense their presence, and it does not frighten me. They are lost in this land, and I am found.

            The mist covers all that surrounds me; it is part of everything present now. I look at those that follow me, but they do not look back. This is my terrain, and is my world.

            I can sense their every move. I can hear their heartbeat and smell their very essence, and yet they still persist in hunting me. I am their prey, and they are the predator, and yet this is all just a game to them. To me, it is more than that, it is my life, and it is my survival.

            They search for me, but I have found them first. They are simply footsteps away, and yet they do not notice me, as I slip away from underneath their very eyes. It is them who are my prey, and I their predator, but I feel no need to hunt them, like they hunt me.

 I am one of them, and yet we are separate. We see the world in different ways, and live different lives. They see only destruction and death, where I see a chance for life, and I am one with it.

            I slip away, amongst the mists. She is my friend, and will guide me, where she tricks others. I am of the night, part of it’s life force is in me, and I am at peace with it. I am the she panther. No man shall tame me, I am free.

This story appeared in the anthology, Eleventh Hour Vol. 1, published by Markosia in 2008.

INFLUENCES PART 7

1992 was a very strange year. When it began, I was living in a dorm at Loyola, going to school and working full time at the university's bookstore where I had been for 3 1/2 years . Although the job was never going to go anywhere, I didn't foresee a day where I would leave - probably since it was my first job ever. Imagine my surprise when, in late January, I was let go along with the rest of the stock and register people. It was very hard  to deal with and my grades suffered for it. At the end of the semester I moved back home with my Pop and my brother.

At first I didn't know if I would go back to school or not. I was paying for it myself and with my income cut off I didn't know how I was going to be able to afford it. So when I discovered that I was getting a lot of financial aid, I was pretty happy. I decided that I would get some stupid part-time job that the university offered and ended up in one of the hearing labs listening to sounds for 1 1/2 hours, at minimum wage, four days a week.

So having a stupid job like that really made me stop and think. What was I going to do with my life - I mean really?? What did I want? I remember thinking and thinking about this until the answer came back - I want to draw comics. How do I start? At the beginning. So I set out to draw some pages. This was the first - May 1992:

This was a scene taken from the War Of The Worlds

TV show, which was a favorite of mine. After this page, I did 

some pages from The Marvel Try-Out Book.

Even though I had lost my main source of income, I still continued to buy comics. The Flash by Mark Waid and Greg LaRocque was my favorite, Dan Jurgens had just taken over the JLA, and there was a revival of a superhero team that I was particularly interested in. The Justice Society Of America was a group of golden age superheroes who had been taken out of continuity 6 years previous and, because of reader demands, were making a comeback. I was excited about this because I was one of those readers, even getting a letter printed in the Flash asking for a return. The people working on the soon to be new series were writer Len Strazewski, who had written the mini series that proceeded the new ongoing, and penciler Mike Parobeck, who had worked on a couple of issues of the mini and had just finished up and Elongated Man series that I had gotten. I liked his artwork a lot and wished that he had drawn the entire JSA mini series. I was really looking forward to this series.


The day the issue came out, I didn't have to go to work. I lived about 3 miles from the University and decided to walk over there and work out at Loyola's gym. On the way, I stopped into a nearby comic book shop and bought JSA #1.

As I walked down the street, I flipped through the issue. I became aware that this tall red headed guy who was walking in front of me kept turning around and looking at me. He had a huge smile on his face and I couldn't for the life of me figure out who the hell he was. The most plausible explanation was that he was someone I knew from the bookstore, but I didn't recognize him. Finally he stopped and walked over to me:

"I'm Mike Parobeck," he said pointing at the first issue of the Justice Society that I had in my hands,  "and I drew that comic that you have there."

I can not describe the feeling that I had at that moment. I handed him the book and asked him to sign it. He asked if I wanted him to write my name in it too:

This was an amazing experience, not only because I happened to have Mike's book in my hands, but also because of what I had decided to do with my life. So why did this happen? Coincidence? Fate? Divine intervention? I had no clue, but decided to take advantage of the situation.

Mike had been walking over to Kinko's from his apartment, which was a couple of blocks away. After I got home - convinced that my running into him was no accident- I wrote him a letter and asked him if he'd be willing to take a look at my work. He was reluctant, he mentioned later, but did agree. We sat down in one of the Loyola buildings and he went through my work. He pointed out stuff that he liked, and told me when he was finished that he wasn't "going to sugar-coat it".  I had a long way to go. Considering that it would be 13 years before I got my first professional job, I'd say he was right.

One of the things Mike pointed out about my work was that I wasn't taking full advantage of camera angles. He did a demonstration for me:

When we were finished, Mike asked if I'd like to see what he was working on. We walked over to his apartment and I saw the finished pencils for JSA number 6. It was very cool! As it turns out, I got a letter printed in that same issue, and Mike sent me a drawing of the Golden Age Flash to say thanks for writing:

Mike was nice enough to meet with me periodically to look at my artwork. Over pizza, we talked and he gave me a lot of good suggestions. He brought books to show me examples of what he was thinking and loaned me his Alex Toth Zorro book, which had inspired him. In April of 1993, Mike moved to Key West, Florida. Before he left, he signed a number of comics for me, gave me a drawing of Superman and Batman that he had done for my birthday, and provided me with Len Strazewski's phone number, promising that Len would look at my work and help me out the way he did.

About a year or so later, Mike moved back to Chicago. He stopped by my place ( By then my Pop had passed away and I was living in my first apartment by Loyola) with a Christmas present for my nephew - a signed copy of the Batman Adventures trade paperback. I didn't realize this at the time, but Mike had been suffering form some health problems that had resulted in a diabetic coma earlier that year. The last time we met to look at artwork was Good Friday 1995. Mike was very distraught and it was clear something was wrong. A few weeks later I ran into him while he was walking his dog and he told me that he was moving back to Key West. The cold of Chicago was getting to him.

In the fall of 1996, Len Strazewski informed me that Mike had passed away due to his diabetic condition.

Mike Parobeck was one of the nicest people I had ever known. He helped me with so much and the day I met him literally changed my life. I often wish that he could have been around to see what I've been able to accomplish because of his guidance. I still live in his old neighborhood and in the mornings jog past the building he lived in. I never fail to think of Mike in those moments.

There is an excellent article about Mike Parobeck and his work HERE

THE CREATIVE PROCESS PART 6- EXPERIENTIAL RESEARCH

As important as  photo research is, I would rather do hands on experiential research. I got my chance while I was working on the second Stormy Tempest story for Femforce # 154. There was a scene that took place in a "Gentleman's Club". I decided to go to one of the local ones - sketchbook in hand. There were a lot of things that I observed that made it into the story.

What I found was that the girls use a scrunchie as a wristband to hold money:

Every single girl who worked there had a tattoo of some kind. Most of them were stars, which was great for the story, because that's the emblem that Stormy has on her costume. Because of this, I decided that Stormy would have several star tattoos in different places and that we would be able to identify her by them ( I also gave her a star necklace):

There were other, more unique ones as well. One girl had a rose on her back. There was a tattoo of an eye. My favorite was the girl who wore her "heart on her sleeve" quite literally. I gave Stormy's friend that one:

In the story, there's a scene that takes place in the locker/preparation room of the club. I knew there was no way they were going to let me see what the room looked like so I didn't bother asking. But, one of the girls was nice enough to draw a schematic of the room and described it for me:

The biggest challenge of the scene that I was drawing was the pole dancing move. It was written into the story as Stormy and her friend both on the pole at the same time. When I asked the girls if they ever did that, they said no, because there wasn't enough room at this particular club, but it could be done. When I asked them about upside down moves ( that I was planning to put into the scene) they did a demonstration of it. I was then told that the best way to learn the move was to look it up on youtube and that the name was "The Gemini".  I had no idea!

Here's how the the finished panel came out:

The girls who helped me out asked for no money in return, nor did they receive any. The were really nice and incredibly generous with their time. I interviewed quite a number of them and got a lot of information about how they started the club, how long they wanted to stay there, and what they wanted to do afterwards. Their back stories were very interesting and will, I'm sure, find a way into a future story.

In all honesty, this story could have been drawn without me going anywhere. However, I feel that the artwork was much richer because of the research. I also feel that there's some realism that's been added that wouldn't have been in the work otherwise.

LIFE DRAWING PART 5

In the fall of 2001, I started my third and final life drawing class at American Academy Of Art. It was a rough autumn - between some personal things I was dealing with that had happened over the summer and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, I was pretty devastated emotionally. The result of that was I don't remember much about that class. What I do remember, however, was how fantastic the teacher was. David Jamieson had studied at the New York Academy Of Art, and taught us in a way that was different and more detailed than what had been done before. David , in addition to doing multiple poses, also had us work on a single pose over the course of one week. That means that we had the same model and he or she would hold the same pose for 3 1/2 hours a night, three nights a week. This made for some  more accurate drawings on our part, because we were forced to slow down and really observe the figure.

I have 2 regrets about this class. The first is that I feel like I sleep-walked through it and was unable to pay closer attention to what I was doing, and the second is that it didn't go on longer. I think that David was one of the best teachers that I ever had and wish that I could have had more classes with him.

David and his wife, Melinda Whitmore, own and operate the Vitruvian Art Studio where students can learn the same techniques that these two wonderful people taught me.

PROJECT RAVEN

While I draw, I am always listening to something. Usually it's an audiobook that I've checked out from the library. Sometimes it's music. My all time favorite thing to listen to, however, is various podcasts. One that I really like is Wordballoon, which is hosted by fellow Chicagoan John Siuntres. Siuntres interviews different comic book creators - writers, artists, etc. and the show is not only incredibly entertaining, but also informative.

One night, back in 2007, I was listening to one of the many Wordballoon interviews with Brian Bendis. A question was read about breaking into the comic business and Bendis started listing off different websites that could be used to connect to people, show off work, and get jobs. One of the sites he mentioned was DigitalWebbing. I visited it and there were people advertising for artists. At this point I had already drawn Marie Curie and colored Benedict Arnold for Capstone and was working on a couple of different stories for an anthology that Len Strazewski was putting together. Still, I did have some time on my hands, so I started answering some of the ads.

One of the ads was by someone named Cherie Donovan, who lived in England and had a 6 page story she needed penciled for  Orang Utan Comics. I read the script and thought it was decent enough (to be honest, I thought most of the scripts I read from people on DigitalWebbing were pretty good). Then I found out that Cherie was only 19 years-old! For someone that age, this script was phenomenal! The story consisted of secret government genetic experiments that were used to create super agents ( aren't they all?).

The story appeared in the anthology The Eleventh Hour #2. What makes this work a bit more significant is that Cherie was one of the colorists for some of Markosia's books. Because of that, when Markosia ran into scheduling problems with Heretic, I was recommended as a replacement for the penciler. I ended up drawing well over a hundred pages for Markosia, between Heretic and Kong. Those hundred plus pages changed the way I draw and made me a much better artist. Little did I know that would be the outcome of taking an hour to listen to a simple podcast.

INFLUENCES PART 6

For my 17th birthday, my Pop got me what was probably the most influential book of my life.

The Marvel Try-Out Book, for anyone who doesn't know, was designed for creative people who wanted to get into the comic book industry. It showed very clearly and concisely the steps that were taken by each member of the creative staff in order to produce a single issue of a comic.

Printed on 11x17 bristol board, it started out as a regular story - written by Jim Shooter, penciled by John Romita JR., inked by Al Milgrom, lettered by Jim Novak, and colored by Christie Scheele. After 3 pages, the story lost it's color, and the reader was assigned the task of coloring. Tips were given and a description of the tools that a colorist uses were listed. 4 pages later, the inks disappeared and the reader was asked to ink the pencils ( printed in non-photo blue). Then the lettering was gone and the reader was given 2 pages of script and was asked to letter it. Then the script vanished leaving only the pencils that were drawn from the plot,  and the reader was asked to script the story ( as well as letter, ink, and color it). After that the pencils were gone leaving the reader with only a plot for 5 pages to draw from. Finally the book just ended and the reader was expected to finish it.

I tried my hand at the coloring, inking, lettering, scripting, and penciling portions of this book. As interesting and educational as this book was, it was also incredibly difficult and overwhelming, especially to a 17 year-old kid with no experience whatsoever. Here's one of the pages that I penciled and inked from the plot that was given.

I ended up putting the book aside for a number of years. I returned to it in the summer of 1992 when I decided to "get serious" about what I wanted out of life. I skipped all of the steps and went straight to the pencils. After completing the 5 pencil pages and I started coming up with pages to draw on my own- in 3 to 5 page increments. Here's the pencils I did from the Try-Out Book in 1992:

Although these pages are very raw, they were a really good starting point for going where I wanted to.

The Marvel Try-Out book was invaluable to me. Because of it, I really learned how these books were put together. I also learned what I was personally capable of. Every once in a while, I toy with the idea of going back and drawing these pages again. It might be interesting to compare what I can do now with what I did back then. Unfortunately, this book is currently out of print, however a copy can be found on Amazon  and on ebay