Panel that I’ve had done for a bit, from that Mech thing I’ve had going on. Later on, there’s going to be all sorts of crazy HUD Holograms glowing white & floating around the whole cockpit to really give it that sensory overload sensation. Show there’s more data being thrown at her than a modern human can handle, what with this being the future & all.

Originally, those big dial looking things were actually mist emitters that spray a cloud of water vapor molecules to give the holographic light something to bounce off of. But then I started questioning how all that would all work in the zero gravity of this mech she’s piloting. Then I started wondering if I should just make all the holograms she’s seeing projections from mental augmenting implants, because there’s going to be one that follows her around most of the story, even outside the mech anyway. Then, I started wondering why the fuck I read so much goddamn Shirow as a little kid & care that much about all this shit that would kind of all just be a given in other people’s stuff. But whatever. Those are where the holograms are getting projected from in the robot.

One of those situations where I started doing a warm up sketch & it got crazy & I went overboard. Bowie the Poison Thrower (and Zazu) from James Stokoe‘s Orc Stain. It’s really the one comic coming out regularly enough these days I really give a shit about. The book always looked good, but Issue 6 ends on a beat that made me actually g0 “oh shit” audibly out of visceral reaction. First thing in a long while to get me to do that.

I started this as a warm up yesterday on a whim that she seemed like a neat character to draw. I had half of Zazu filled in (& probably went too poofy) before cursing ligne claire on twitter & realizing I hadn’t even started on the stuff I was intending to do at that point. So I got to work, but went back to it a couple of times between panels & finished it just now, while still being able to pencil a page & a half more of TransModo. More of that soonish.

And not that it really means anything to the story so far, I started writing ahead & got so wrapped up in shit I made a goddamn glossary. I blame reading so much Shirow as a kid, with his damn appendices & such.

More on this soon.

Right. I know. I kick off this daily sketch thing, miss a day right off the bat, post for like a second, & then it’s radio silence. Well here. I have been drawing but I’ve been really slow to get them scanned. Anywhere here’s the last couple days, as well as a quicky I’m going to count for today.

Firstly, Yoon Tae-Goo, the eponymous Weird from the Korean Western “The Good, The Bad, & The Weird.” Guy’s a badass & one of the most underrated characters in cinema within the past decade, if not longer. Can’t translate what he’s saying but I’m sure it’s akin to “freeze” or “get down” or something as such. I took a screencap & figured I’d throw that in as well for shits & giggles.

Secondly, I found this pretty cool picture of Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz riding a drum out into the crowd of one of his shows. The image was so cool I decided to sketch it up. Kind of stopped caring by the time I got to the hands but I like how it turned out. I don’t usually sketch too many musicians. I really dig Gogol Bordello, but they’re not among my all-time favorites. Just such a cool image mostly.

Thirdly, this is a rough I did of a possible character idea I’ve been kicking around for Entervoid.com. Basically, A-ko meets Whitey Action; the superpowered daughter of two world renowned superheroes, who instead of following in their footsteps would rather just be a raucous party girl. But on account of her powers & shitty disposition, she breaks a lot of stuff. I’m thinking I might call her Alina. Drew up some thumbs & started developing back story & a supporting cast but it started getting a little nuts. Now I don’t know if I want to use her for Void, or just do something a little more grandiose with her. But I figured I’d do a quick look of her.

And Lastly, this was a ten minute sketch I did of a very generic man from a very generic eastern european country who just happens to be a part of a very generic gentlemen’s organization. I was mostly just trying to draw something a little cartoony, in a looser, quicker style than the stuff I normally do. The Kano-esque facial hair configuration given to him on a whim lead me to an occupation that just seemed to fit. He might show up in something again at some point, but don’t hold your breath.

While I have you, I just wanted to thank David Brothers for the link & kind words about the Tetsuo sketch this past week. Sorry I didn’t get to thank you until now, but I really appreciate it!

Ok. Going to go back to work on my comic pages a little more before going to bed. Later.

Firstly, I know every time I start this up I’ve got to draw some sort of Tetsuo, so that obligation’s met. Here I was aiming for towards the end, just before the final blobby freak out sequence where he gets all nuts & giant baby like. Really liked the look of the white spikes & the random tactical vest he pulled off some dead soldier. I was entertaining the thought of drawing some fighter jets going down in the background but it was getting late. I know the proportions are a little fucked. But whatever I was happy with it for how fast I did it. And speeding up’s part of the plan here.

Unfortunately I didn’t get much of a chance to work on my comic last night, but that was more from the fact I was visiting with my dad earlier in the evening & he’s moving to Atlanta. I could kind of do this in the background & not actively think about what I was doing, while still bonding over some of those horrible pawn-themed reality shows that have seemed to sweep cable before he leaves. When I got home I figured I’d just do another sketch to get today’s out the way. And while I usually get super slow at likenesses, this one just seemed to fly, taking only about a half hour.

Okay, so it’s not perfect, but it was fast. Parks & Rec’s Ron Swanson. And yes, if you are familiar with the show, he is wearing his Tiger Woods reds. I almost went with the Bobby Knight ensemble from the recent episode where he coaches a youth basketball league or even the Duke Silver get-up. But the Tiger Woods is like Ron Swanson Classic. I tried drawing him before, on account of both his greatness & how weirdly intense his face is. This ended up turning out much better, I think. If you’re not familiar, just let this helpful diagram give you a pretty thorough introduction, or even better, a handy explanation of this diagram.

Also, I know I said I was going to try it out & give it a week in the last post, but I took my ugly mug down off the header, because really, who the fuck needs that looking back at them? You poor souls. I’m sorry for even entertaining the idea. Today I have to do some work related stuff & then make some calls, but hopefully before this afternoon I can sit back at the drawing table & get some more work done on my main project.

There’s some beard embellishment going on. And I may look too Asian rather than Squinty Mick but whatever. All I can do is assure you that I’m not in a Japanese Doomsday Cult & let’s all just  move on. Might add this to the banner up top, as I always thought that left side of the header looked too empty. Going to try it for the week, see what I think. Now back to drawing mech pilots.

In all seriousness, I’m vowing not to kill myself over it if I miss days like I used to. And generally, I’m not looking to put the same time into them like I did some of the other sketches before, which ended up taking a while sometimes. I need to speed up, but mostly I need to discipline myself more. So that’s what this is going to be about this time. And even though I say this every time I set out to do this, this time I SWEAR IT.

Ok, let’s get to this particular sketch. In theory, I’m not officially counting this, but I feel weird sometimes posting on what’s supposed to be a “sketchblog” without some kind of art. This wasn’t today. It’s old. From months ago, actually. A concept from a webcomic idea Sean Witzke & I were kicking around about a team of science students. Instead of the type of team leader you usually find in regular comics, we were opting for more of a short plucky lesbian that knew karate. When you first see her, she’s dressed like this, but then she picks out some patriotic lab attire & the science stuff was to happen. Anyway, we’re both working on other things now, so who knows if we’ll come back to it, but it was a fun little idea.

While mulling the daily sketch thing, I actually have been working on a comic that I’ve been threatening to work on forever. Basicially, I stopped procrastinating & just forced myself to sit down & just fucking do it already. And it’s been ok. Things are finally clicking, & despite a few external setbacks, I’m making progress. Hopefully, I’ll have some sneak peeks of that to show soon. But yeah, people. I miss the sketch thing. I usually do a little something each day, but whenever I aim to do a full, postable thing each day, I feel like I start to get into a zone. Hopefully if I can manage it right & make time for both, I’ll be able to be in that zone while finally getting shit done. Fingers crossed.

On her sketch Tumblr, she’s been having this character duo pop up lately. The girl’s named Salatis, but the fluffy, multi-eyed parasite scarf thing’s called Manus. I thought it was an awesome idea & wanted to take  a shot drawing the two characters. So here they are. I realized I kind of glazed over the hands. Otherwise, I think it’s ok-ish.

And yeah, after that General Treister picture I did a little bit ago, I wanted to try more Kirby dots for space. This time I tried it digitally. Didn’t like the result as much so I guess I have to practice with it more.

In other news, the series of articles Sean Witzke & I are doing rolls on. This time, we talked about one of my artist picks with Seth Fisher. You can read it at his site, which you can get to by clicking this link. Fisher’s one of those artists that has a small, but crazy influential body of work. I’ve always really liked his art. Unfortunately though, if you do a search for his name, most of what you find are dated news articles on his untimely passing, rather than people appreciating his stuff. When Sean proposed this whole exchange, talking about artists who don’t get talked about enough, Fisher popped right out at me. So go check it out, won’tcha?

The story’s pretty basic. To the point of just being really silly actually. Really the only thing I wanted to focus on with this was the storytelling itself. I practiced a lot with trying to lead the eye about the page. Some pages might be a little busy for it but whatever.  Oh & since this was originally formatted for print, some of the pages are double page spreads, while most are just facing pages. It just seemed cleaner to post it like this. The double pagers were done on 11×14 sheets of bristol, while the single pages are obviously half that. It’s small, sure but the anthology was originally at 5.5×7.5. And yes, it’s ridiculous.

EDIT – So Photobucket decided to be an Asshole & just randomly delete one of my images without any sort of notification as it somehow violated their terms or some bullshit. Anyway, I’ve reloaded the image & thus, the “update.” Sorry.

See? I actually do comics. Sometimes.

I did recently try my hand at talking about them with Sean Witzke, in a series we’re doing about artists we don’t think are getting the credit they’re due much online. We started off with Art Adams here. Check it out, will ya?

Not only is he among the highest paid actors in Asia, Ghalib Freshness, 67, found he’s not quite like other bollywood actors. This is because Ghalib’s singing voice can effect the resonance of the very strings that control subatomic particles. What does that mean? Well, whenever Ghalib sings, he can change reality to bend to his whim. Whatever Ghalib wants, Ghalib gets. That is at least until the song ends. Then things very abruptly revert back to the way they were.

To some of my friends, this guy was their favorite of my 30. Probably on name alone, which admittedly, I am fond of. At the time, I had started watching an Indian entertainment magazine at my girlfriend’s & the sheer infectious enthusiasm of Bollywood musicals inspired this guy. Also, God bless any film industry where superstar actors get their own pre-movie title cards like production houses. Next up…

Inspired by Rhino Jockey by Amon Tobin, I’ve always liked the idea that the title of that song gave me. So here’s a girl that rides the vast plains on the back of a huge rhino.

Why a rhino?

Because no one messes with a rhino.

Probably on account of it being a friggin’ rhino.

This one ended up being one of my favorites of the 30 personally. And though I vowed I wouldn’t do them, I still might go back & color this one at some point just cause.

I do overuse the static shots a lot, I know. And I was really happy with how the charge ended up looking, especially since I’ve never really attempted to draw a rhino before ever. I don’t know how clear it is, but the thing on either side is a bundle of javelins strapped to the rhino’s back. Now, the next two are kind of part of the same kernel of a story.

Every group needs a funny guy. And that was Hideo when it came to the rest of the gang. After years & years of service, he’s only officially reached the rank of big brother. And only because he’s funny. In fact, in every other regard, Hideo was pretty much a screw up. He’s lucky to have lasted as long as he have among the ranks, with as many fingers as he still has. But luckily, he’s laid low enough to keep the blade away from his belly. Funny & lucky. That was Hideo. At least until one day, when that luck seemingly ran out.

There was a raid. Tokyo police clamped down & arrested every high ranking member of the family. In the commotion, Hideo started to run. He made his way to an alley, only to lead police on a back street chase. For his trouble, he received two gunshot wounds: one to the gut & one to the side of the head. He died. He remembered it happening.

So imagine his surprise when he woke up, with gaping wounds & permanently red eyes (like his retinas detached). He should be dead, but he’s not & he doesn’t know how or why. And while he’s not the head of the family, his standing among the remaining family is now substantially higher. And they’re looking to hold down their remaining territory from their violent rivals & possibly spring their captive comrades. If that wasn’t stressful enough, some mysterious young girl is after him. Every time he turns around, there she is. Worst yet, despite her innocuous appearance, she’s apparently an unstoppable killing machine. And he’s her main target. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he’s received this second chance & he’s not going to give it up without a fight.

This one, I fucked up on. It was bad. I did some photoshop work to get legs semi passable, but the missing pinky is intentional. Still, let’s just move on to the aforementioned unstoppable killing machine, if that’s cool.

Mikan-chan was always a bright & chipper girl. She had good grades, came from a good family & everything was great. But that was until she was dumped by the boy of her dreams. Broken hearted, the girl with the sunny disposition didn’t know how to cope. She ran away from home. Her destination? Aokigahara, the sea of trees, also known as the Suicide Forest.

Her family tracked her down. A week had passed since she had left & they feared the worst. But she was sitting there, at the edge of the parking lot, seemingly safe & sound, but not quite herself. She’s colder, emotionless, much more robotic. And lately, she’s been coming & going at all hours. Her family has no idea what to make of it.

That’s because she’s been on the prowl. Watching the movements of Yakuza in the nastier part of town. Definitely an environment much rougher than she’s used to. But she’s unphased. Her motives are unclear. But her objective’s pretty apparent: collecting the head of Ikegami Hideo.

Like I mentioned there too after, I probably drew her a little too stout & emotive. Also she doesn’t look very Japanese, but I like how the rest of it turned out. She basically is just trying to murder this random yakuza guy because they’re both possessed, & she has this huge arsenal of traditional Japanese weapons.

Yeah. Ok. Enough with Japan already. Here’s another duo.

Milo used to be scared of the monsters in his closet & under his bed. But Milo was a smart kid with resources. He knows a little thing or two about computers & cameras & surveillance methods. That’s how he came across the dirt he came across. You see, a monster by the name of Saul the Goronge used to mortify young Milo. Then one night, after their typical interaction, Milo used his computer to follow Saul’s movements, which were into Milo’s Mom’s closet & into her underwear drawer. Apparently Saul likes to play dress up.

Now, holding a manila envelope labeled “compromising images,” Milo’s reluctantly come to an understanding with Saul. Saul’s now gone rogue. He wards off other monsters in Milo & sometimes even other kids’ closets too. He even got Saul to start taking care of the day to day issues he runs into, like bullies & math homework. Yeah, everything is coming up Milo, for now.

Now I’ll be honest. I never saw Monster’s Inc. And while all the Pixar fanboys & animation lovers gasp, I really believe it’s my hatred of Billy Crystal that overrid my need to see it. But shortly after creating these guys, I was a little concerned I might but ripping them off if even covering similar territory (like Dreamworks for the longest time). Ideally though, I wanted to do something that was close to that all ages level, but not treat it so squeaky clean. I hated when things tried to do that with me as a kid. Chances are that this might still be just a little too much. But anyway, on to the monster.

A monster’s no better than a man. Sometimes, a monster has needs. And Saul’s no different.

Sometimes, Saul likes to dress up. That’s not a crime. But he’s worried about what other people might think. Now there’s some jerkweed kid that’s got some “Compromising Images” of Saul. For now, the brat’s trying his patience, extorting him into doing menial tasks for him. Meanwhile, he’s trying his best to snag the incriminating material & get on with his life. Or maybe he could just come to terms with being exposed for what he is. It might be a weight off his shoulders. But until that day, it’s beating up bullies & monsters, & doing math homework (poorly).

He might be a little too Slaughterface-y, but he’s based on a monster I had in a pretty vivid nightmare once as a little kid. Only that one had more chains & no vestigal looking bat wings. And wasn’t much of a crossdresser, but it did bite off my left foot in that dream. Yeah. Next!

Yeah. I went there.

Parker Peters is a teenage wunderkind. At age 16, he was on his way to MIT. But thanks to a paperwork foul up, he’s going to have to spend his first semester at a crappy nearby community college in the interim. The only thing on his schedule that looked remotely interesting was Theoretical Sciences. And little does he know how much that class will change his life.

From science story I was working on with Sean Witzke around the time of the 30characters. Basically college aged Challengers of the Unknown. But we were both also pretty big proponents for the “Donald Glover as the Next Spider-man” Campaign, & it was pretty much a no-brainer to make him the “nerdy guy”. That & he was just pretty easy to crank out quickly.

In the future, robots do most of the menial tasks humans used to do. And as time goes on, robots replace more obsolete models. Their indentured servitude over, the robots are free to do what they want. Most end up in robotic ghettos, isolated from humanity, but gathered amongst themselves & watching each others’ backs.

EPOX 1.7.2 is one such robot. That was until one day, when a gang of young humans came & started to beat the robots to the point of deactivation. After destroying some more helpless models, they turned their bats on EPOX. At one point, a hit in the right spot, caused EPOX to override the program that kept him from harming organic beings. And so he fought back, & when the dust settled, EPOX had survived.

His programming parameters do not give EPOX emotion, so revenge didn’t figure into the equation. But now as a robot capable of fighting back, EPOX is now the hero to the helpless robots. At least as long as he can keep himself going.

Shortly after posting this, I plugged it on twitter. The ever-awesome David Brothers responded with something that totally made this guy easily 30,000 times more interesting.

@hermanos: @kurohux “Keep himself going”–does he cannibalize deactivated bots for parts or is he just worn down?

Savior & predator wrapped up in one. That’s brilliant. Anyway, thanks David, for going above & beyond & totally outdoing me with two seconds of your time. With style.

You know. It’s cool.

(It actually is very though, right?! Okay, though, let’s keep this thing a-movin’, this time with a trio. Probably the most lackluster of the 30 in my opinion.)

So I kept having this idea for a comic that was inspired by real life events. You see, I donated blood to the local blood bank. So my number was on their mailing list. But then, every couple of months, I’d get this call telling me there was going to be a blood drive at such & such place. Problem was, no one would ever introduce them self or say where they were from. So I’d have these strangers calling up & wanting my blood. The premise for this comic morphed into something where there was this extremely unsuccessful blood drive & the nurses go crazy, deciding to go out & take blood rather than wait for those to give. Because who in a mall on a Wednesday afternoon really needs their blood that badly? But it was never much more than a premise. So now I’m trying to flesh out the characters for real, so I can do this story at some point.

So this is the first of three in a series of nurses out for blood. This is Gwen. Of the three, she is the reluctant one. So instead of carting around weapons like the other two, she follows them around with a shop vac. A shop vac for all the blood. Was trying to make her look a little short & rounder to have more variety in the shapes I’ve been drawing. Although she starts out going along with the other two, she’s probably the ultimate hero of the story.

It’s a silly idea. The quality of these isn’t so hot because I was rushing. Yeah I’m not thrilled with these. Though “ShopVac for Blood” got some good reaction from friends.

Another Blood Bank Nurse. An exchange nurse from “the old country.” She is over her on a blood bank nurse culture exchange program. There, if they can’t make their blood quota, they take it. She mentions this & plants the seed of the idea. This of course was embellishment. But she’s too cold & aloof to stop her gung ho comrade. Still her aim is quite impressive from her mandated time in the military. This is also where it is said she lost an eye. But she is also the most well versed in military weaponry, & knows how to get a hold of a vast array.

Only one more of these.

If you could sum up Anna Boydkin (or Boyhair to her friends for obvious reasons) in one word, it would be Emphatic.

Vegan. Feminist. Environmentalist. Pro-Choice. These are all causes Boyhair’s willing to die for. But her day job is a nurse at a blood bank. And the apathy of the people she deals with on a daily basis is really starting to urk her. When her fellow nurse made an offhanded remark about taking blood, Boyhair’s wheels started turning. They left the mall blood drive only to come back with heavy artillery & a shop vac. They’re out for blood.

Yeah I don’t know. Ultimately, I was mostly happy with all of my entries except these three. They’re really subpar for me. Not up to the level of everything else. Anyway, let’s move on, shall we?

Being stricken by illness has never stood in his way. The Infirm is mysterious & not widely known out of the circles of his business, but he is a gentleman assassin. For someone on the verge of it himself, he knows death well.

However, given his own condition, who is he to say who should live or who should die? It seems cruel to him in theory. Having your life snuffed out by a man so close to death himself. So instead of just murdering his target like every other assassin, he challenges them to a duel. A fighting chance.

He is, of course, undefeated though.

Basically, with this thing coming to an end, I wanted to cover all the bases & the only category I’ve been missing out on is Steampunk. This wasn’t the first steampunk character I started, however he’s the first one I ended up finishing.

Just wanted an imposing steampunk kind of character that would make for a good villain in a story. Not that I really have one in mind for him yet.

Everyone always portrays demure & peaceful dryads, as they’re supposed to be serene & peaceful like the trees they’re apart of/represent. But what if one gets mean? This is Meliai. She hates any living thing that isn’t vegetation. Instead of making her weapon out of sticks, she’s used bones. I always wanted to draw a dryad but never did. And for some reason, while people usually give the hair a leafy feel, I wondered how a root structure would look.

Really, I’ve always really liked the dryad in Secret of Mana & the Tim Sale Poison Ivy with the lilac stalks for hair. Really I just always wanted to do something along these lines, but since I’m not really a fantasy guy, I never really had any place for it. in anything. So I figured it would a be a pretty good start for a character. Onto the next.

After leaving Earth, humanity lost its way. Some people have been spread across the universe to distant galaxies. But the call is to bring everyone back home.

Samuel’s a freighter pilot with parents big on hybrid gene splicing. He never wanted to be a rabbit the choice wasn’t his. Still he soldiers on. He’s been hired to tow back a station that’s long since lost contact with civilization. The inhabitants of the station however, were left in space with limited culture. Alice in Wonderland became a religious scripture. And while he was able to bring them back, he can’t get them to stop trying to follow him. (Sorry, I posted four at once & didn’t realize I left this one hanging)

Not a furry or anthro guy at all but I figured going this route would be good for trying to branch out & try different things, much like I was trying to hit all of the available categories.

Next one was one of my favorites.

He’s a professor & inventor of an earlier age. He’s also a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I implore you to find something more anachronistic than that. He’s also got a voice box to translate his guttural growls into audible human speech, & a puppet rig that serves as a proper set of arms. I messed up the gun. But it was supposed to be a goofy fictitious gun.

Just recently, I saw Kirkman in his Image Superhero Line had a T-Rex with prosthetic arms. I don’t know how old his was, but I don’t read his books. Besides, his wasn’t steampunk. Originally I was totally thinking it was an Altered States thing gone terribly, terribly wrong. So I’m sticking with that. Also, I love the title “Rexquire”. Ok, one more.

Arkady Sidorenko or RKD-1917  or The Red Hammer.

You can’t keep a good hero down. Arkady Sidorenko is a testiment to that. Awarded “Hero of the Soviet Union” for his valor at the Battle of Anchorage, Sidorenko was not only quick to move up the ranks, but also quick to win the hearts of his nation. He was the iconic embodiment of everything the union stood for. Too bad he was a double agent.

His secret became known amongst those in power, but not the general public. Fears were that if such a prominent figure were to be exposed, the population’s morale would suffer a terrible blow. So it was decided that the hero would be “volunteering” for a highly speculative super soldier program. His “sacrifice” appeared to the public as an inspiration selfless act. And that’s when Arkady became the Red Hammer.

With his new persona, he is basically a walking super tank. Super stong, super indestructible. He’s the Union’s new secret weapon. But he’s powered by a dangerously unstable nuclear power source. The radiation is slowly eating away at his remaining organic parts. Only a special medication administered by his handlers slows the process. This insures his loyalty. But for how long? While he may’ve been designed to withstand the full force of a nuclear warhead, the Red Hammer biggest enemies seem to be time.

Drew him on 11×17. Saved him for last because I wanted to go out on it a bit, but didn’t have the adequate time to really go nuts the way I wanted to. Still I’m happy with it & of course, with this, I’ve reached 30 characters. Hot damn.

Cool. So there! My 30Characters from the 30Characters challenge. From last November. Sorry it took me forever to post them here. Thanks for all the feedback, comments, & critiques I’ve gotten since. It was fun. Not sure if I’ll be game again this year just yet. But we shall see.

While I’ve still got you:

Do yourself a favor & go check out the work David Brothers is putting in (& will keep putting in throughout February) with his Black History Month posts this year. So far he’s highlighted some incredible, & generally not well-known creators who certainly deserve a lot more recognition than they’ve gotten. But if years’ past are any indication, David’s just warming up. So keep up!

Also Witzke’s cataloging every movie he’s seeing. Yes. I know. But there’s good stuff in there too. Check out what he saw in January. Beyond that, keep an eye on him. He’s got some stuff in store.

And if that wasn’t enough, Entervoid’s kicking off this year with a brand new Heavyweight Tournament & the winner walks away with an actual title status as Champion. Like wrestling, but in comic form. Sign-ups & details are here for Void people interested.

On & speaking of Void, you’ll never know what you’ll find there. Like this disturbing photoedit by Sheldon Vella:

Good Night.