Art for Today - Shanghai

Here are a few more pages from my self-published book, Shanghai. This one was written, drawn, colored, lettered, and published all by myself.

Desktop for Today - Gen 13

Found a neat rendition of Gen 13, but not sure who the art is by. I used to love this book back in the day!

Gallery of my art

I haven't posted any new art in a while, but here's a slideshow reminder of some of my past stuff- the pen & ink stuff is my digital inks in Manga Studios over some pencil work by other artists, and a bit of coloring done in Photoshop. Enjoy!

New Art - Shanghai Cover

Here's a new cover for the Shanghai series I'm working on.  This was rendered in DAZ Studio, postwork in Photoshop.  Issue one is almost done and should be available through print-on-demand soon.

New Art - Goons

Here's a few armored goons from a panel of the new Shanghai comic I'm working on. Rendered in DAZ Studio.

Heart of the Wizard

Looking ahead to jumping back into my comics work this week.  I ordered a few books from indyplanet.com to check out how their printing is, and browsed a bunch of online comics to see what's out there now.  I'm about half way finished with the next issue of Shanghai, and I'm not quite sure I want to do that as my first new shot in publishing.

I did about 10 pages a few years ago of a story called The Heart of the Wizard that I'm actually more excited by.  It's the same 3D art, but I had heavily filtered it to give it more of a traditional comics feel, so that it looks like it could be hand drawn, and I have to say, I like that better.

I started expanding the story yesterday, but am still keeping it very simple.  It's a fantasy sword & sorcery setting, but no highbrow plot as of yet.  Just basic fun and action.  I re-worked the main character last night, and gave her a more acceptable outfit, and I'm feeling pretty good about it.  I tossed together a test cover, which is above.  The actual cover will have more thought and time in it.

The style has bold outlines, over-saturated colors, and dot tones & flash lines like the comic art I grew up with.  Some people really like the clean look of the straight 3D art better, but I think the more stylized stuff is a better fit for me.  I'm going to try and get some new pages of this done and see how it strikes me.  I think the characters lend themselves very well to a one-shot book, with the chance to come back and tell a lot more stories, as opposed to one grand story arc that I lock myself into.

We'll see.  Either way, I'll have something new in print soon!

Getting back into Print

I've been wanting to get back into mainstream comics for quite some time now. I have lots of new material in various stages of production, but have been unsure about how to get it into the hands of readers in a way that would make a modest amount of money and not be easily duplicated and passed around illegally on the web.

I bought a set of markers last night, and did some drawing, which I've not done in a long time. I was intending the resulting art piece for eBay, but I was disappointed with what I ended up with. It's frustrating, because I'm trying to duplicate on paper what I can do with my art software on the computer in a fraction of the time. The digital art looks much better, but I can't sell it as an original in an auction.  It just seems like a lot of time and effort to sell to one customer.  It feels like I should be working to a larger audience.

Back in the 90s, I self published a few full-color comics of my own.  Paper printing is pretty expensive, but I think I finally found an option that will get me back into print at almost no cost, and no risk. There are several print on demand services that will custom print in small numbers - like 10 books if you want, or hundreds. It's not the quality of Marvel & DC, but it gets you a handful of books, and they also have an online store that only prints what they sell. It's basically a method to get some material in print so a bigger publisher will notice you. And if I get a small stack of books done, a trade-paperback is easy to do the same way.  I don't have to pay for 5000 copies and hope the major distributor will pick it up.

I'm still researching, but I think this is what I've been looking for. I get to do my own thing, have it in print, and I can go to comic shows with a small stack of books to peddle. I can be an independent publisher for very little investment or risk, which is perfect. It also has the possibility to open doors down the road.

I'm going to sift through all of my years of artwork tonight and see if I can come up with enough material to do an "Art of Skulfrak" book.  I've always wanted one of those!  The Shanghai series will be back in print now as well, and I have lots of other concepts waiting in the wings.

More to come!

New Art - Battlefield

I was just playing with a mixture of new models and some very old models with fun results.  A giant power-armor battle, just for the heck of it.  :)

More progress on the new site

I've gotten the layout and structure in place on the new www.skulfrak.com, and it's coming along nicely.  I think once I stopped trying to force a theme on it, and just let it develop naturally, it started to come into focus.  It's nothing intricate, but it's clean, functional, and starting to look kinda cool.  I have high hopes for the new direction I've been going in and can't wait to see where it leads me.

Getting to work on the Website

I've been trying to pull together a cohesive theme for my new website - www.skulfrak.com - and it just wasn't getting there, so I decided to just work on the framework and get some material plugged in for now.  It's nothing fancy so far, with just a few thumbnails, but there will be a lot more soon.  I've told myself this is a project I'm not going to stress over, so I work on it for now when the mood strikes me.  I've also been focusing more on the comics I'm going to be publishing there, so the site has been a secondary concern for the past month.

I have six pages done of the new Shanghai comic so far, and I'm very happy with it.  I'm not ready to show it yet, but I'm excited to see where I can take it.

Ultraverse - Prototype

Back in the 1990s, I was an inker for Malibu Comics on the Ultraverse line.  One of the books I did a long run on was called Prototype - sort of an Iron Man with a twist.  I had great fun during those years, and it's a shame that this stable of great titles is sitting on Marvel's shelf now in obscurity. I did this as a piece of fan art to illustrate how that character might look almost 2 decades later.  I may even do a few other faves from that era. Thanks for looking!

New Art - Corinne

Another character study for the new Shanghai comic - this is the main character, Corinne.  I rendered this shot in Poser with the HDRI lighting.  I've been using DAZ Studio more and more lately, but Poser 8 has some really nice lighting features that for some renders make all the difference.

New Art - Guns

Rendered a new character study of the main character from the Shanghai comic I'm working on. This was done in DAZ Studio.

Back to it

Okay, time to start doing some art again.  I have my story plotted for the new Shanghai comic, and most of my characters and sets are built.  I have a new website to publish the book on - www.skulfrak.com - so, now it's time to start producing some sequential art!  I've had a nice refreshing break while I did some soul-searching about what kind of art I want to be doing, and comics is certainly what I'm happiest at creating.  I've got the tools, I've got the time, and I've got the drive, so let's roll!

Here's a new character study of one of the goons from the Shanghai storyline - really like this armor set. This was rendered in DAZ Studio.

A few Shanghai shots

I've put these up elsewhere, but I guess I should post them here too, for those who haven't seen them.  These are the character study concepts for the new Shanghai series I'm working on.

Random Thoughts for November

I worked a lot on the outside of the house this month.  We put the kids to work and cleared out a bunch of the brush and cleaned it up a lot, so maybe grass can grow there now and we can have a normal yard.  It’s turning out nice and really opened up a lot of space.

I’ve been setting up the laptop in the back room after work in the evenings, and getting some work done there.  My work ethic has slipped in the past few months, and I need to get it back.  I don’t really have a living room at the moment, so I’m enjoying a quiet place I can slip away and put my music on and just focus on my work.  This particular day has started out much better than yesterday, so I’m going to try and write some this morning, and then maybe knock some artwork out later in the evening if I can.  Tomorrow is going to be filled with family and chaos, so I doubt I’ll get anything done then.  Hopefully I can keep the vibe going over the weekend.

I’ve been talking with quite a few people I knew from my time in the comics industry recently, and it’s starting to really make me want to get back into it.  Carreer-wise, my days at Malibu Comics were the best time of my life.  I loved working with such creative people and getting to go to conventions and just being a part of all that was a blast.  I’ve always maintained my hand in doing artwork, and have my own brand of comics down to a science now, but it’s not the same on the web as it was in print.

My art has progressed a lot over the years.  I started playing with 3D software back in 1995 with Poser 1 and Bryce.  I pushed it through several versions and caught the attention of Steve Cooper at MetaCreations, who was very supportive of my efforts to publish a comic using the software, and they purchased an ad in the book and sent me some new versions.  I self-published Shanghai- Big Machine (which was a follow up to a full color hand drawn comic I published a year earlier) in 1998.  Looking back at the art now, it looks very primitive.  Both the software and the models it uses have advanced so much, and they allow me to choose the kind of look I want.  Some of my art now is almost hyper-realism, while other pieces are “tooned” in Photoshop and make them appear hand drawn.  I’ve actually posted a few pieces on my DeviantART account and gotten compliments on my line work.  I still dabble in traditional art, but my specialty is the 3D work.

I have a few websites in the works which pay for the software and models, but I would love to try and self-publish another book again.  I doubt I would find a publisher to do the project for me, but I’m keeping my eyes open.  I look back at the last book I did and I don’t want that to be my last entry in the printed world.  The biggest cost is printing.  I’m hoping to launch a web-comic that I can generate some interest, and then be able to spin off a printed version and at least have it pay for itself.  All my digital work is gone as soon as I turn the computer off, so another actual book I could hold in my hands has become kind of an upspoken goal of mine (until now).  Maybe actually declaring the goal here will be what I need to spark the fire in me.

I’d love to work with other people again, but the 3D world is very different.  It’s a lot like movie making.  If you write a scene, you have to have models, props and sets.  If you don’t have it in stock, you either have to buy it from one of the online vendors or make it yourself, which is time and money.  So I tend to write based on what I have in my library (which is huge after 10 years).   It’s very hard to render artwork based on things other people write.

So, just off the top of my head, that’s it.  I’m going to go and make some pictures now. J

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Jeff Whiting
November 2008