Heady Mental Cover - Second Issue - The Full Reveal!

With the second issue of the Heady Mental series comic about to be released, Sam Noir (the creator of this and other fun-filled series) has given me the green light to share the full cover and the steps I took to get to the finished piece. As with most of my artwork, I began with some rough thumbnails, and then drafted the perspective out on paper. Once satisfied with the overall layout, I scanned the image into Photoshop for inking and painting. For this piece, I outlined the woman in ink to make her stand out and to give it that comic book feel.

If you happen to find yourself at the Toronto ComicCon (Mar 7 - 9th) don't be shy and stop by to say hi to Sam and I at booth A245. For those interested, I will have some prints of the cover and other goodies available for sale.

The print can also be purchased through my Society6 store.

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The Body of Nadia Shakir - the completed cover!

I finished the cover for my friend, Devon Wong. His story and first web comic is called The Body of Nadia Shakir. He created it in collaboration with his father, Alfred. They are both quite talented so I recommend checking it out. You can find the full comic at either vignetteproject.com or nadiashakir.smackjeeves.com. Initially, I was going to paint it in a cell-shading style but Devon asked to go for a more 50's poster style and here is the result. This is my first painted portrait in years and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. Thanks for looking.

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Toronto Cartoonists Workshop: Comics Lab - Cerebus 'Low Society' project

In mid-January, I joined up with other freelance artists and writers to create a comic anthology based on the established characters from Dave Sim’s Cerebus under the guidance and tutelage of series editor Rob Walton at the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop (TCW). I hadn't read the series before joining the project but upon mentioning it to the hubby I found out that we actually had the entire collection of Cerebus 'phone books' in our basement. What luck! I greedily devoured the first two phone books. They were hilarious! Why hadn't I heard of this gruff-but-lovable Cerebus character and his motley gang of friends?

I got to pencil, ink and tone a short story written by Sam Noir and was fortunate to have an old pro like Ron Kasman beautifully letter our pages. Unfortunately, I can't show any of my artwork—yet—but I was happy to hear that it has been picked up for distribution by Diamond and will be out in North American comic stores sometime in September. Yay! This is a big deal for me because it's the first comic I've ever worked on and it will also be my first published work.

In the meantime, below is a small snapshot of the beautifully-finished cover collaboration with Gerhard, Dave Sim and the artists on the project. My contribution is the little Cerebus running with the money bags. You can see the full glorious cover page at Gerhard's blog.

I am happy that I got a chance to work on this and team up with such a talented group of people. It's been a wonderful learning experience. Thanks to Dave and Rob, and everyone who made this happen.

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The Evolution of Iron Man

I just submitted my first-ever entry to Threadless.com because of their recent contest to design a t-shirt inspired by Marvel's Iron Man. I simply couldn't resist trying my hand at it. I mean, who doesn't think Iron Man is one cool cat? Since idea is key, the hubby and I brainstormed over ideas and I thought his idea was great so I set about making rough thumbnails stick-man style (not Gangnam style :D) before fleshing out the final design and characters. As he followed the comics growing up, I followed his guidance to use the old-school Iron Man. I myself tended to favour the X-Men, X-Factor and Thor titles in my brother's comic collection. One of the stipulations of the contest was that it should be inspired by the comic not the movies so fortunately our idea wasn't inhibited by that.

If you have time, please feel free to check out the contest page and vote. There are some pretty amazing designs on there.

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A trip down memory lane

About a month ago, a friend asked me to paint a portrait of his beloved childhood family dog—who has since passed on—to give as a birthday gift to his dad. There were a few challenges to overcome: a short time frame in which to complete and few useful reference photos to work from. In fact, some of the source material were screenshots taken from videotape. Despite that, I think I managed to capture the likeness, and my friend and his dad happily agree.

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Midnight Madness skeleton

As anyone who has ever attended the Toronto International Film Festival will attest, you end up spending a lot of time waiting in lines (at least if you want decent seats). Some people read, some chat, smoke, etc.; I draw. Since I had time to kill (no pun intended) I thought, what better time than while waiting in line for a screening at TIFF's Midnight Madness? There's a nice long, concrete bench-like wall that rings the property to sit on while you wait outside the theatre. This is where I began finger-painting this dapper-looking skeleton below—appropriate subject matter for the genre of movies shown although I think it may be missing some blood and a hatchet. For this painting I used Sketchbook Pro for the iPad which I had almost given up. I would be stymied by different physical hurdles that would come up while trying to paint: accidentally laying my palm on the touch screen, inaccurate control even thought I tried various styluses, and occasional lag drove me a little nuts. Luckily, time and practice tend to bring about improvement. While it won't win over paper and pencil for me, it's certainly a good starting point for roughing out ideas. Maybe.

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Sabrina, meet Sabrina

Yesterday, my friend forwarded me this photo of her cat, Sabrina, posing in front of the portrait I painted and I just had to share. The expression is so comical! I hope you enjoy. :)

And here is the final digital painting printed on canvas wrap. I'll soon be posting photos of a new commission I'm working on of a Samoyed-collie mix.

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Sabrina commission complete

Well, this one took a little longer than expected, circumstances not withstanding but she's finally finished. The client is happy and I'm looking forward to my next project.

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