Tim Vigil

Here is another attempt to do some justice to ever great and powerful Tim Vigil. Now the pencils were not meant to be inked so I had make some decisions on how to interpret them. Hope I made the right choices. I feel pretty good about this one. I inked this with a 102 crowquill and a brush just to fill in blacks.

Jim Cheung

Here is another piece I did for the submission packet. I figured a double page spread would impressive and a double page spread by Jim Cheung would be twice as impressive. I got a few "wow that looks cool!" but no serious feeback. Still, I'm really happy with the way this turned out and it was tons of fun to ink.

David Finch

Here is a David Finch page I did for my portfolio a little while back. I was fortunate enought to get som feedback on this page from Norm Rapmund and alot of what he said I have to take with a grain of salt. For the most part everything looks crisp and clean and well done but...I did not convaey the intended feeling of the page. See, this pages is about loss and war and dirt and rubble and everything being broken. I cleaned it up and made pretty lines. He said war is not pretty. He wasn't telling me to be a "gritty" inker, just saying it's ok for thing to be not so peerfect all time. Do what's right for the page.

This was all very good feedback and it was something I had never really put any thought into. Wow. I think Ijust grew as an artist. How about that?

Ivan Reis

Arthur Adams

Here is another Art Adams page. I love working on his stuff not only because he is my hero and a god among men in the comic book world but I learn something about drawing with every page of his that I ink. Texture, form, composition and pacing are a few of the thing touched on in the lesson from this page.

Ivan Reis

Here are couple of amazing pages from Ivan Reis. I purposely picked these pages to round out the portfolio I am putting together to be reviewed at the Wonder Con coming up. It's been about fifteen years since I've had a portfolio review in person. So this is gonna be a sort of new experience. I'm hoping my work will speak for itself so that I will not have to speak much. I think these pages shout out for themselves.

I tried out a thinner line when attacking these pages. I figured it would help me capture the subtle nuances that Ivan put into the faces. Capture the facial gestures in "quiet" pages like these can make or break the page. I love the way it turned out. I also swithced from Micron Pigma markers to the Copic Multiliners and there was a huge difference in line quality. I think I found my new weapon of choice.

Ivan Reis - Aquaman

Convention season is around the corner so it is time to start gearing up my portfolio. I plan on having a few pages in there from Ivan Reis. His pencils are just so strong and dynamic and he plays with texture quite a bit which I think is one of my strong suits. So I feel this is a good match. I am rather pleased with the way this page turned out. I was able to play with wood, water, scales, hair and slimey water monsters. What more can an inker ask for?

Ivan Reis

I have been a huge fan of Ivan Reis since I first saw his work on Lady Death. His work has only grown more dynamic in the years that followed. So when I saw the pencils to this page from The Blackest Night from DC, I had to try my hand at them.

This particular page was going to based on mood rather than dynamic action. So I really let the heavy blacks just cross each other when I would normal make a clear separation of masses. I also had alot of fun with the cross hatching on the sky creating a heavy type gradient. For the trees I would normaly draw every leaf with the pen but opted to go with a whimsical blotting technique with the brush. It just seemed to add more life to the trees and foliage.

This was a fun page too work on and it will surely lead to me inking over more Ivan Reis in the future.

Tim Vigil

Can it get more intimdating than this. Tim Vigil, the single greatest influence on me artisticly paying homage to Frank Frazetta who is arguably one of the greatest fantasy artist of all time with hi rendition of Frazettas most iconic character, The Death Dealer. Hmmmm. No I don't think so.

But this is the year where I am going to push myself to the limit of my inking ability and beyond. I am very pleased with the way this came out. I sat down fully intending to use brush because, well, because that's what Tim would do, but I decided to make it mine and use my usual tools of Micron Pigma markers. I figured it would give it a feel that is not just trying to mimic Tims inking style. I stayed away from the usual crosshatching that I love to use because I figured it would make the imahe stati. So to keep the fluidity of the peice I tried to maintain a left to right and right to left movement while throwing my lines.

Maybe someday Tim will see this and give some feedback on how he feels it turned out. Until then, I will seek out more of his pencils and give them my all.

Joe Mad II

I wanted to kick off the new year with a bang. So here is a tri-fold cover from The Ultimates 3 penciled by Joe Mad. Honestly, This one flew out of me pretty easily. Granted, some folks do not like my approach to inking Joe Mad, using thinner line work and crosshatching instead of the big fat outline people are used to seeing with his stuff, but I still feel I was true to the pencils and kept a very Mad! feel.

Happy 2012!