ONE OF THE POSSIBLE APPROACHES, more or less

REMEMBER THE OLD question that goes something like: "But how do you get them ideas for your drawings/poems/scripts/stories/novels/music/whatever?"..?

I haven't been honoured with such a curiosity by anyone but thought it would be interesting to share with you one of the secrets how things might happen when creative process is shared, let's say. In this case, it's the team-up of Jovial John Gallagher and Yours Truly, Bashful Boyann M. Johnny was kind enough to share with me one assignment, giving me a chance to do some kinky illustrations for a special kind of adult publication, a picture-book of sorts for... y'know... stuff that I love to draw. I never saw the script or the final text version - Mr. Gallagher did the 'chewing' for me in the form of prepared roughs which I was supposed to turn into a more or less finished version[s] for publication. So, first here's Johnny:


As you can see, he drew what used to be called 'a scribble' - rough sketch that sometimes editors provided an artist with, to avoid misunderstanding and go straight to the point, like "This is The Way I Want It".


With practically everything sorted-out for me in advance, I've sharpened my trusty F 2mm lead in the leadholder klutch pencil and doodled away the following:

Of course, I wouldn't be what I am if I didn't use the wood-clinched light blue pencil for rough underdrawing, for backgrounds first and then adding figures, tightening them a wee later with graphite lead. Small JpegS were shared with John via the magic of Internet and, with his blessings, I've proceeded with... INKING..!

For years I had this bottle of FW acryllic black ink that I've been saving for... what..? Eternity..? 'Till it dries and turns into a goo..? Realizing that a good ink is left in vain unused, I took my beloved Hunt 22 nib [with a touch or two by the incredible Gillott 290] plus Winsor-Newton series 33 brush No. 5 [yeah, I've been careful to save my best, series 7 WN sables for non-acryllic ink!] and did this homage to the mixture of horror and superhero illustrations with lots and lots AND LOTS of cross-hatching. So there: an evil Mistress Of Pain takes the lovable, innocent Heroinella into the Dungeon Of Endless Sufferings which I've made a suggestion of with a hint of the great Wally Wood machinery quite in place for some Mad Scientist's secret lab. But... did you think that I've forgotten to show the inks of the next pic with our tied but still defiant Heroinella..? More on that just a wee later, folks.





















There's the thing: I've PhotoShopped the colouring on the inked FIRST drawing and -- the very same second drawing as it is - left in penciled stage, only tweaked in PS to appear darker, 'blackier'... just to give it a whirl like in modern comics where many pencils are left uninked, just coloured for the viewing pleasure.

I remain by all means the supporter of inking - the real 'wetworks', not digital fiddling to ape the real thing. Whether it's a brush, nibs, markers or even rapidographs -- I don't care, as long as the inking is applied the way it's supposed to be done.

---

Now, if you check out www.twomorrows.com site, amongst many things there you'll notice that the latest issue of DRAW! magazine is out, where the interview with the incomparable RM Guera - artist on many European comics and DC's Vertigo title 'Scalped' - is done by Yours Truly, using his nom de plum Brian 'Duke' Boyanski. Guera is my childhood friend now living in gorgeous Barcelona - the most beautiful city in the world situated on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. He is one of the best comics artists in the world.

So c'mon -- order the mag this instant [or at least the cheaper PDF version for upload] and enjoy the best magazine on the planet devoted to the art of drawing and making better comics.

Even better - apart from making the editor Mike Manley and me richer, check out other phenomenal TwoMorrows publications and make yourselves richer with knowledge, insight how things are and were done in comics and for comics. Above all - have fun.

Salut.

The MASTER At Work, no less..!

FOLLOWING OTHER BLOGS when I have the time can be enchanting, making me simply fotget that I also have a blog to run and, at least, throw-in an update or two every now and then.

Yup, there are pages and pages of the stuff I have been involved with these past several months, but not all of them are appropriate to be shown here.

Exactly!.. They're even more hard-core than those I've shared with you previously, with gratuitous nudity and whatnot. It's true artists have to draw certain things if others aren't available -- and some like me even love drawing such stuff for money AND pleasure, so...

But today I am sharing with you a video of somebody else doing the creative magic before the camera... And NOT 'just anybody' but The Somebody of the legendary status amongst the comics giants - Mr. Neal Adams, boys and girls.

The Man draws... pencils... inks... attempts to turn on the light-box which happens to be unplugged... talks to his daughter [and studio manager, off-screen] Chriss... and has oodles of fun before our very eyes.

We see how he does it; the size of the original he is embellishing or transferring via light-box from the rough sketch underneath; the brush dipped in ink [and the brand is even readable!]; the pencil - ordinary wooden yellow school pencil, not some fancy-shmantzy special mechanical micro-lead wonder we imagine 'big guys' are using to create graphic[al] magic..!

Come to think of it -- the greatest amongst the great always showed modesty concerning their tools, never going for gadgetry or drawing gizmos - just the basic equipment and that's it. See, Neal Adams' brush even has split hairs, not 'the perfect' point 'good brand brushes' are supposed to keep always.

I want you to enjoy this and hunt down other YouTube videos of masters at work. It can be the next best thing to actually sitting next to the creator knocking out stuff that makes us love this wonderful medium and wish we can also do it, like them.

----

Now, instead of P.S. --- if you check out YouTube links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOT5NgKt9N8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1JhcJl82gk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55qji6QMRLg

... you can see my band and me in action. PLAYING MUSIC, not drawing.

What does it have anything to do with comics..? Well, IT HAS, since the gig was shot on Sept. 24th 2009 at the Grand Opening of the Seventh Comics Salon in Belgrade, Serbia. FATAL CELLULITE OBSESSION performance was my personal gift to the Salon, its organizers, colleagues, friends and relatives who've bothered to pop-in and have some R'n'R fun in the comicdom assembled there and then.

Salut.

...AND NOW I'VE INKED SOMEONE ELSE..!

THERE USED TO be a time when I've discovered in my mis-spent youth that specialists of sorts called inkers treat the drawings of pencil pushers with embellishment. Yeah, we know CHASING AMY movie sequence with fistcuffs resulting from the discussion whether an inker just traces what penciller draws or contributes something more than enhancement for the printing process.

God bless Kevin Smith...

Anyway, I've learned that 'even an inker' has to know at least basics of drawing. Plus, I've grown in [then] Yugoslavia where the very concept of team-work in comics was non-existent at the time.

Years have passed. I've gone through experiences with begging talented friends to allow me to demolish their pencilled drawings with my inking attempts, then I started to learn how to draw [and continue to this day]; tried my hand in coloring and inking AND animating [of course, first I have cleaned thousands of previously used cells for new films to be made], then I drew tons of comics, inked my own pencils and spent 18 years in England going through many jobs, animation and comics drawing included.

Now, in my autumn years I've got a chance to try my hand in professional inking of somebody else's pencil drawings. That 'somebody else' is the gem of Macedonian comics art, Aleksandar Sotirovski [ http://aleksandar-sotirovski.blogspot.com ] who's got a chance to do an urgent job for a comicbook series CARRIE NATION [Dabel Brothers Production, written by C.E. Murphy] since the original artist [whose name simply escapes me at the moment] decided to bow out. Aleksandar's first choice for the inker took his time gentlemanly whilst the deadline turned into a merciless monster...

... so, who do you call in urgent times like these..?
WHY, ME - OF COURSE!

Suffice to say, I've managed to help Aleksandar to make the deadline, pages were colored, probably even lettered [ God, how I passionatelly HATE modern comics with 'mute' pages instead of dialogue balloons and captions as the organic part of images..! ] .

It needs to be stressed that my hands never ever touched Alex's originals; he's emailed me TIFFs [300 dpi] of his pencilled pages, I've loaded them on my trusty Flash memory stick, used the 0-24 photocopy/printing shop in the neighborhood to print the pages on 300 g. smooth cardstock in the lightest imaginable cyan and slosh the black lines and shapes over it. My chosen tools of the trade were Faber Castell PITT markers and also other Faber Castell pens, Ecco pigment. They worked the best. Rapidographs, brush and nib haven't been taken nicelly by the cardstock provided by the shop since they didn't want to accept my own paper. My job was to deliver 5 inked pages in two days - and we've done it on time.

Salut.

My Humble Contribution To The SOON TO BE LOST ART OF INKING - pt.1

HEY-HEY-HEY..! How's things, my fellow komikeros..? I've been -- well, really idle and I mean it. Only some storyboards here'n'there plus a few pages to be inked for an American comicbook publisher.

Strange story, indeed... when the time's ripe it'll be told in full. For now let's scratch the surface: a bloke called Adrian withdrew himself from a project that needed to be finished urgently so my mate Aleksandar Sotirovski [check out his blog!!!] gets the penciling gig by a twist of destiny and also a friend [who'll remain nameless] inker who took his time making the deadline even more lethal. To make a long story short -- Yours Truly is invited to save the day so here's the baby in it's full penciled and inked glory... colours by Jason Embury just make the art shine better in its glory..!

Suffice to say -- the day was saved, deadline met and things almost looked cozy...

Cartoony Madness Doesn't Live Here Anymore...

AND THIS, CHILDREN, is how things should be done.



Now, try to make me believe SQUAREDIAPERS BOOMBO or any 'modern' cartoon has even a tinniest spec of credibility, style, integrity, beauty, lovability, kookiness... you name it.

Damn -- I am over-using the word lately, ain't I..?

Now, find John K.'s blog and enlighten yourselves.

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com

Salut,
[ b ]

Broads, Blasts and Big Guns

WHEN A FRIEND asks for help I usually never ever ask back for understanding - that I might be busy with something else or that there are 'other priorities'. I simply help and that's it.

In this case, a short comic drawn for someone as a present [by that friend of mine] needed my penciled input on a couple of pages plus cover. I did the best job I could do at the moment, providing the geezer with enough material to work on and add his inks.

The cover was a special case - we wanted to try the uninked drawing treated with PhotoShop. So I got an idea after I was told what should be on the cover [a nuclear explosion, sexy voluptuous dominatrix kind of a girl with nasty gun leaning on the head of a Humpty Dumpty shaped boyfriend], grabbed a plate from the kitchen shelf and made a circular panel inside which I penciled-in the scene with a 2B soft lead inside Caran D'Ache mechanical lead holder.

My friend Gotze B. did a TERRIFIC colouring job that I don't have saved - yet. I hope I'll manage to post it soon-ish.

Salut,

[ b ]

PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY!

SHANE GLINES HAS one of the best blogs in the Universe -- along the others I love to follow and read regularly. Plus he draws like Hell!!!

One of his sites is his blogspot:

http://cartoonretro.blogspot.com/2009/04/caricature-tutorials-by-mads-tom.html

The additional fershlugginer 2009/04/caricature-tutorials-by-mads-tom.html written after the basic URL thingamajig serves the purpose to take you to Tom Richmond's absolutelly unavoidable Portrait Drawing Adventure. It needs to be seen to be believed..!

And trust me - I know what I'm talking about: I earn my everyday bread by drawing a regular Sunday strip page for Serbian PRESS in the vein of MAD parodies [the old school of Mort Drucker, Angelo Torres, George Woodbridge, Jack Davis...] and attempting to draw political 'celebrities' [yup, I'm NOT dabblin' with the good ol' showbiz...] and make my scrawled images look like the persons they're supposed to represent -- oboy, it's teeth pulling.

Even worse...

Tom has his own site http://www.tomrichmond.com/home.php and it's chock-full of the whole caboodle of goodies - drawing tutorials included.

Be good to yourselves, bookmark the links I've just shared with you and be happy to have me to share this knowledge with you.

Damn -- some people draw too good for their own good ...

Salut,

[ b ]