last post

So it has been some time since I posted here and the reasons are legion.
Firstly the sketch 365 went away as my scanner died it’s last death. It had started acting up and giving me the occasional problem but now everything it scans is green. “He’s dead Jim.”
Next is that I have been spending time working on the first issue of Tex and by the time I’m done drawing I have almost enough brain power left to check Facebook and then go to sleep.
The third and newest reason is my new puppy “Soap”. Yes, I named my dog Soap.
Possibly the final reason is that I’ve been feeling at a crossroads with my art these past few weeks and I need to figure out what makes me happy when I’m making it. I’ve worked in several different styles and might start playing around with some new media but first I need to pick a road to travel down before I start thinking about how I’m getting down that road and who’s coming with me.
Honestly I’ve been feeling like ending this little dance for a while now and I think after checking the stats on this thing I will.
I still have plenty to say but it’s personal and doesn’t belong on the internet for all to read.
Maybe I’ll start another one of these up in the future but I’ll cross that bridge when the road leads me there.
So I’m turning off the lights, not locking the doors, and leaving the place a shambles for the landlord to clean up. Lord knows I wasn’t getting my security deposit back on this place anyway.
Best wishes, now Jog On.

Shane

074

Hatchlegs

So I took a little time away from here, almost 2 weeks I think.
It was in a way an unintended addition to my vacation.
I spent my time away from work drawing 8 more pages of the comic. I had hoped for 10, one for each day away from my job, but lost a day to sickness and a day to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Actually they were consecutive days.
I meant to keep up with the daily sketches in the beginning but after my usual 10 hours spent at the drawing board I didn’t much want to draw after that. I also thought about using the time for a “warm up sketch” but I’ve never been a warm up person, I just get into the art with a few quick thumbnails and then the panel layout.
The sketch above kind of represents a turning point with my art, a point I didn’t think I wanted to go to and actually told myself I wouldn’t. It represents a more detail oriented style, form over function in a way. I actually drew the sketch Saturday night in a minor bout with insomnia, insomnia won as it usually does. I had been looking at a lot of art blogs, stuff I have recently found, trying to find that thing that would push my art up a notch. I’m tihnking that thing is detail.
For the most part I deal more with making things seem “right” or “accurate” than I do with details but really the two go hand in hand at times. If you want to really demonstrate perspective it’s a great way to make it work. Sometimes the reader needs to be uncomfortably close to something to really make something else feel far away.
I took time and concentrated on the hatching of the far leg as I’ve never really taken the time to get good at it what better time is there than 3 am on Sunday morning normally I’m far too drunk or tired for that sort of shit.
Of course the drawing manifested in a pair of dirty pants and cowboy boots as I’m currently living in that little illustration world.
Inspiration comes from weird places at strange times and for odd reasons with me and some days it’s just 3am Sunday morning and I have to hatch out a pair of legs.

073

After nine hours at the drawing board today, this is how I feel.
Don’t get me wrong, a lot of good things came out of drawing today, maybe my best page thus far I just have a headache now and feel completely whipped.
I started with a plan and reference for said plan, but “a plan is just a list of things that don’t happen”.
So many panels were drawn, erased, redrawn, erased, reredrawn, and finally finished. I restructured the page and added panels to “decompress” a little of the story telling. Some of it I felt was necessary for the benefit of the story, other panels were added I think because of my short comings as an artist at this point.
I try to approach my layout, storytelling, and movement of the panels so that things would make sense if the reader only had the pictures to tell the story. Even if they were making up dialog in their head the story would come out to the same conclusion.
In my head I think this is the best approach but I still kind of hate deviating from the script as it stands. But I think it’s a big part of my job that if in my head something doesn’t read I need to spell it out so it does.
But now it’s late and I have no idea if this post is coherent and I don’t want to read back through and make sure it is. Cause myhead hurts and proofreading these things just isn’t my style.

072

Total random sketch tonight. No idea where it, the style, or anything else came from.
Maybe I’m still in the Halloween mood?

071

Quick sketc at the end of the night of Green Lantern

070

I was feeling a hippo today.
Maybe it’s because that’s how I’ve been feeling as of late. People perceive the hippo as a big cuddly thing, thanks Disney. The truth being that they kill people.
Wait that makes me sound like a serial killer…
I think I was trying to talk about perception, I think…
Crap.
Anyway I drew a hippo tonight.

069

Not very happy with this but it’s late so it will have to do

068

Getting into the Halloween spirit with a crazy little goblin thing.
The bigger the top of his head got the cooler he looked.
I also made no attempt to add any finish to this sketch whatsoever.

067

I drew Iron Man tonight in more of his classic 80’s style armor.
I like keeping the sketchy structure drawing under these. I keeps the sketch style, adds a little more movement to the piece and I like the not-so-finished look to the piece this way.

066