212 - it's to quiet...

It has been far to quiet around this blog for far to long! And I have no one to blame but myself. Prepare yourself for a deluge of pics and stuff.

If you have a minute go give this a listen and it explains a lot of where I've been and what I've been doing - CLICK HERE! 

200 - here comes 2013! Everyone run!

Just a quick little hello to start the year. Noodle, the noodle armed boy says hi! Hope you like his hat.

2012 was really great for me.

I started a pod cast - The Next Element Podcast - and put up over 20 episodes on podbean and iTunes which has gotten some great feedback and very few death threats. Colin Addington and I had some great fun and the pod continues on in earnest. Sharing and chatting on the twitters about and with other podacsts made me a huge fan of An Elegant Weapon which lead to some great episodes, meeting a ton of other podcasters and becoming part of the super cool and all powerful Junk Food Podcast Network.

I showed much interest in an amazing Kickstarter called G.E.E.K. by the man himself Matt Cohen of Bagged and Boarded fame. This unbelievably lead to me getting the coloring job on that book, which I will go back to once I'm done typing this. The story is great, the art is epic, and I can only hope to get the colors up to the standards of the amazing guys I am working with on the book. Matt Cohen, Shawn DePasquale and Axel Ortiz are now some of my favorite people in the world. To stay updated check out this sexy little website: www.geekcomicbook.com.

Plenty of other happenings but I'm not going to get into all of them. The only real goals I set for myself last year were to make more art and by way of that post up more blog posts. According to my little tracker here I put up 59 posts in 2011 and upped that to a nice 71 in 2012. Other than 2009 I have increased blog posts each year since I started this thing in 2008. As far as I am concerned this is a trend I am proud of and plan on continuing. So for 2013 I will have 2 goals, increase the number of posts to this blog - aiming for 80 plus with almost all of them having art if possible, and finish coloring GEEK. That is all. 2 things to focus on and now it is time to start. If you are one of the people reading these things each and everytime they go up I just want to say thank you and you are awesome. We will continue to be awesome together.

Have a great year peoples!

194 - the last photo

Here it is. The last picture of me with all the months growth of hair and beard in preparation for Halloween tomorrow. Right now I look a lot different, and tomorrow it will be more so. It's going to be a fun day.

The Next Element Podcast is rocking along and kicking down doors, give it a listen.

Coloring different pieces and I keep having opportunities thrown at me and I keep doing everything that I can fit into my schedule. I'm learning and I keep getting these great opportunities and I will happily share them with you guys once I am able to. Really great news coming in the next couple of weeks.

186 - Simple shapes = simple characters

Just a fun simple sketch. During tonight's recording of The Next Element Podcast I talked about starting some character design work for a character in a short story I wrote which Colin is turning into a script for a 4/5 page comic. The character is a little bad ass barbarian girl named Camilla the Hun. I think she is going to be a blast to work with but what I don't have yet is the design of the character. So in comes Creating Characters with Personality by Tom Bancroft.

So after we were done with the podcast I started flipping through the book and after a couple of minutes had the very simple urge to sketch something. One of the best feelings in the world for me is having that feeling of wanting, almost needing to draw something and being able to feed that need. Lucky for me I was sitting in front of my computer with a nice Intous tablet and a book. One of the first sections in the book goes over simple shapes and has the great line that simple shapes make simple characters, hence the sketches above. Simple shapes make simple characters, more varied shapes create more varied characters. Sketching in Sketchbook Pro is getting to be more fun every time I use it.

180 - turn that shit around! Ha! Pod and Rats for ya!

The podcast and the ideas and sketches for the comic are rolling along. This is the almost finished version of the base for the rats I will be drawing in the book. If you'd like to take a look at more of the prelim sketches and or give the podcast a listen just click HERE!

178 - Happy Friday the 13th!

HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13TH!

That is all. 

175 - a sheepish good time

This here is the first sketch of an anthropomorphic character contest that I started on my podcast The Next Element. This character was designed after listening to the wonderful An Elegant Weapon podcast and hearing what they had to say about out contest.  Both of these fine pieces of auditory inspiration are filled with hours of fun, give em a listen.

153 - The Pod has begun!

Have to do a little self promotion here peoples. Got together with a friend of mine, Colin Addington, that I am trying to make a comic with and we decided to do a podcast along the way about the process from inspiration to publication. If you have a moment check it out and leave some comments to let us know what you think.

You cane find it here - Episode #1 is up! http://thenextelementpodcast.podbean.com/

149 - what's in a podcast?

Still messing around with the podcast logo. Trying to get the look down for The Next Element Podcast, it's got to be somewhat stylish. Tried some orange, tried some blue. I personally like the orange one.

Today was a very note worthy day for the podcast. Colin and I had everything set up. Went over the list of things we wanted to cover and then went at it with some gusto. And as life is cruel some times we ended up with absolutely nothing to show after a great hour long discussion. So we have joined the ranks of some of the greatest podcasters out there knowing that we had a great discussion and it was lost to the ether.

So now we have to re-do the first podcast so we can get something up at thenextelementpodcast.podbean.com  
besides our 2nd test pod. Ah life she is a work in progress.

148 - The Next Element Podcast! We have a name!

After about an hour of discussion today on Skype with my boy Colin some decisions have been made. If you are really blind you might not have noticed the to colorful boxes above. We have a name for our podcast. Colin and I will be doing a podcast called "The Next Element Podcast" as we work toward making our own comic book! I have found a couple of podcasts about making comics and about the comic book industry, most are fairly informative and almost all of them are entertaining. The thing that they all to to have in common is that they are filled with people that have published books, that have worked for the industry, that have great experiences to share and knowledge to pass along. What I haven't been able to find though is a podcast of a couple of people talking about the experience as it is happening. Colin and I are total amateurs. We have no idea what we are doing other than what we have heard and read, no real world experience trying to create a book and get it published. Will it work? Will we create an amazing award winning book right out the gate? Will we make something so bad we don't want it to see print? No one knows. The only thing I know right now is that it should at least be entertaining.

So if you want to come along for the ride you can find us @NextElementPodcast over on the twitters. Any questions, comments, suggestions can go to TheNextElementPodcast@gmail.com. This is gonna be fun!