Every Little Thing You Do Is Magic

Ok... I like drawing Thor, Daredevil, Moon Knight AND The Thing.

Here's ol' Blue eyes, himself.

What else is going on, you ask.... ? I'm inking the UFO pages and getting ready to fly to Charlotte for Heroes Con! The con is going to be a great time. I get to hang with Braids of the Gorgon writer/co-creator Ken Faggio for the whole show, which is really cool since we've been working together for 9 years and this is our first face to face meeting! I also get to see the Perhapanauts crew (Todd, Craig and Rico), which is great timing as I just got the full issue Perhapanauts script from Todd Dezago and Scott Weinstein. We're going to go over it and make sure the Molly story is handled just right. Once I get back from the con and finish off the inks for the UFO story, I'll be digging into the Perhapanauts script. It's going to be so kick ass!

Something's Coming

if you click the image, it will get bigger, you know?

Something new in the works....? Time will tell.
Lines and colours by moi.

Oh yeah, the Braids of the Gorgon pitch just went out to its first potential publisher. The waiting begins.

Fear of Pop

And here it is, the last page of the Braids of the Gorgon pitch. My thanks go out to Rico Renzi, colourist of the Perhapanauts, for his guidance and time. He shared a few tricks of the colouring trade with me and really helped me make this last page sing. Thanks, Rico!

Some Heads Are Gonna Roll

Here's the next page of the Braids of the Gorgon pitch. Nothing like a little decapitation to start the day!

Wonderful Tonight

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Here is the next page of Braids of the Gorgon. The response to the Braids pages has been excellent. Thank you for all the wonderful comments, folks! The pitch still hasn't gone out. We are tweaking it, a bit, to make it that much stronger.

Country Feedback

Page 3 of the Braids of the Gorgon pitch. We've been getting some very positive feedback from people who have seen the pitch. Exciting times!

Why Worry

Here's the next Braids of the Gorgon page, all nicely lettered and ready to go. The pitch is going out next week to a few select publishers. Then the nervous worrying begins.

Have a great long weekend!

Flight Of The Snow Goose

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I'm hard at work on Thor stuff but I thought I'd share a fully complete page of Braids of the Gorgon. We just got back the lettered pages from Kel Nuttall and they look AWESOME! This pitch is looking so good!

Oh, yeah. I just booked my flight and hotel for my trip to Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC. Looking forward to hanging with Braids writer Ken Faggio. I've know Ken for about 8 years but this will be the first time meeting him in person!

Beat The Time

Here are a couple of rough panels from the Thor sample pages I'm putting together for the upcoming Emerald City Comic Con. They still need a bit of work but the pages are shaping up nicely.

Besides the Thor pages, I still have to work on some Braids of the Gorgon stuff, also for showing around at ECCC. Seems, time is my enemy at this point.

Unfinished Sweet

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I've begun to work on some portfolio pages to show around when I'm down at the Emerald City Comic Con in April. These drawings are me working out a few panels for one of the pages. Normally, I would consider these my finished "pencils", meaning I would ink from these, but I think I'll have to tighten them up more for the sake of showing them to editors. Or should I? I'm planning on inking the portfolio pages, too. Maybe I should be showing editors exactly how I work, even if it is from pencils as loose as these? I'm new to this showing a portfolio around thing so any thoughts from people would be helpful.

Here's a quick sketch of Eury, from Braids of the Gorgon. It seems that even when I'm done drawing a project (for now), I still end up drawing characters from it when I should be drawing other things.

Trouble With The Sweet Stuff

Sketching stuff.

After finishing up the Braids of the Gorgon art, I began to wonder what I should focus my attention on. I'm in a weird spot, project wise. I should have a Perhapanauts story coming to me to draw in the near future, and it might be a long one, so I want to make sure I have the time and energy to make that kick ass. And, if either Kill All Monsters! or Braids find a home, I'll need to be able too give them the time they will demand. So starting something big just doesn't make sense. Then it hit me, I should put together some portfolio pages for my upcoming trip to the Emerald City Comic Con. And that's just what I'm going to do.

More drawings on Friday.

Diary Of A Madman

I thought I'd do a post about my process for coming up with the new cover for our Braids Of The Gorgon pitch. A visual diary, of sorts. I know I dig these kinds of things when I see them on other artists' blogs. Are you seated comfortably? Then we shall begin... Step 1.
This is the first ink sketch I did as I started to get a sense of what I wanted on the cover. I did a loose drawing in pencil and then just let the pen and brush do the rest of the drawing. I was pretty happy with this, hand/temple roof tangents aside. I did up some simple colours for it and shipped it off to James and Ken for their reactions.Step 2.
One of the things that James suggested I change was the placement of our resident Gorgon and place her behind the temple. I did a few quick sketches to see how that would look and thought it was an interesting idea. Step 3.
I felt the emphasis was too much on the architecture (something I love to draw) and made it smaller and had the Gorgon more prominent and more "gorgon-like". I decided that a logo placed on the bottom of the cover was probably not the best place to have it. Instead, I pushed the whole image down and left more room at the top for the logo. I was also flirting with the idea of adding some figures, like Damara and Perseus, in the foreground but decided that it was looking forced and taking away from the narrative of the image.Step 4.
I then picked up my brush, grabbed my cup of ink and did this. No pencil drawing, just ink and all the happy mistakes that can happen. I dug this drawing and sent it off to the Braids crew (Ken and James). I waited breathlessly to hear their reaction. Well, maybe not breathlessly...Step 5.
It was suggested that I try and open the Gorgon up for a tad more detail and to maybe put a hand coming forward to give it more tension. All great suggestions, so off I went to my drawing table and redrew the image. Again, no pencil drawing first. All ink, baby! I was jazzed with this and decided to throw some colour over it.Step 6.
With colour applied and the Braids logo (designed by Avi Goldberg) in place, I sent this off to Ken and James. And, what do you know? They liked it as it was! Cover complete!

Hope you dug that! See you on Friday!

Push Th' Little Daisies

Work on a new Braids of the Gorgon cover has begun. I don't have anything "finished" so I'll just give you some warm up/development sketches. These drawings are just me putting down some lines to react to. I do a lot of my thinking right on the page. Most of the time all I get are a bunch of lines doing nothing but covering paper. There are a few times, however, when things come together and push me in a particular direction. Sometimes that direction isn't the right direction, but at least I'm moving somewhere!

Hopefully, I'll have something closer to a finished stage for my Wednesday update.

Tales of Brave Ulysses

Every Greek epic should have a narrator character. Someone who brings you up to speed on the story and interjects relevant information, from time to time. This is our Narrator. Who is this mysterious orator and what is his/her connection to the tale he/she tells? I can't say! The identity will be kept secret until the last page of the mini series!

This is the last Braids character sketch. At least for now. We've got more than enough material for the pitch, so I'm changing my focus to working on a new cover. I find covers hard to do but it's a good challenge. I'll start posting some of my work of that next week.

My (new) computer is acting up so I'm hoping this will actually post...

Divine Intervention

This is the Pallus Athena, patron goddess of Athens. She is another one of our major characters, as her presence is woven throughout Braids.

One of the things I love about Braids of the Gorgon is that it deals with the mythology of the ancient Greeks. As much as I love Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze (and I really do love that book), I can't help wishing it had some Greek Gods in it, meddling in human affairs. That's just where my heart felt interests lay. Heck, they don't even have to be almighty Gods erupting with cosmic power. They just have to walk among the masses and exude their divine influence.

All the Braids character sketches have now been coloured and are ready for inclusion in the pitch packages that Ken, James and I will be sending out soon! Actually, the pitch should be ready to go for the Emerald City Comic Con, which is at the beginning of April in Seattle. There will be a few excellent publishers at the show that would make a great home for Braids. Once we know that the pitch is ready, we'll try to set up some meetings with them. Ken showed some of the Braids material around at the New York City Con and got some genuine interest in the book, so hopefully showing the whole pitch will get us picked up for publication.

Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'

Another shot of Damara, the tough as nails, no messin' around, straight to the point captain of the King's Guard.

The Braids pages have been sent to Jason Hanley, letterer extraordinaire! He's a busy guy but he's going to squeeze us in as soon as he can.

Any Major Dude Will Tell You

Another major character in the first arc of Braids is this dude. Friend or foe? I'm not telling! You'll just have to wait to find out...

You're So Close

These are a few shots of another major player in our tale that is Braids of the Gorgon. This is Perseus, slayer of Gorgons. I wonder what part he'll play in all this... (add maniacal laughter here)

The pitch pages are sooooo close to being ready. The lettering and the actual design of the pitch are the next steps. I'll even try my hand at another cover for the book. I have one from years ago, which I really like, but I'm interested in seeing if I can come up with something better.

Kinda Kute

The previous post was of Euryale in her Gorgon form. This is Euryale in her human form. Kinda cute for a Gorgon...

More Braids character sketches on Wednesday!

Turn To Stone

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This is Euryale, one of the main characters of Braids. Eury is the half human half Gorgon daughter of Medusa and the last of her kind. She has the snakes, the leathery wings and the ability to turn you to stone with a glance. Sounds like my kind of woman!

I'll have some more character sketch stuff to show on Monday!

What God Wants, Part 1

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Here's another Braids character sketch. This one is Hercules, my favorite Greek God (or demi-god, in Herc's case). The colours aren't "final", as I haven't run it past Ken and James, but I think it's pretty much what Herc will look like for the book.

On Friday I'll post another colour Braids character sketch.

One More Time

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Here's another character sketch of Damara. I'll have a Hercules character sketch for you all on Wednesday. Maybe more...

Mother Stands For Comfort

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This is Lorelei, mother of Dacius and Damara, and the high priestess of Athena’s cult. She is gifted with many strange esoteric powers. She may have been responsible for the dead of her husband...

Another Braids character sketch, as promised.
Now I'm going to lay down and continue to be sick.

The King Of Bedside Manor

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Still sick. Still trying to work on Braids character sketches.

Here's one of Damara's brother, Dacius. Dacius is the King of Athens and son of the city’s high priestess, Lorelei.

All Summer Single

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No single panel post this time! Here's a fully coloured page from Braids of the Gorgon, for your perusal. Hope you dig it.

Now I'm off to ink the character sketches for the Braids pitch.

Easy

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I've finished the colours for the Braids pages. Well, they might need a tweek here and there, but they are 98% finished. I've moved to drawing up some more character sketches for the pitch. They'll need to be inked and then coloured, but that colouring will be super easy.

Oh yeah... with the release of Perhapanauts #5 and the reading of the whole Bone collection, I have already accomplished 2 of my New Year resolutions! And the new year is only 3 weeks old. Sweet!

Closer

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Getting close, now. I have the first 5 pages of the Braids of the Gorgon pitch completely coloured and ready for the lettering! The last page is a splash page of the Gorgon unleashing some serious power and it has me a little perplexed on how to handle the colouring of it. I have a feeling it will all come together but, since I'm new to the colouring game, it's still a little worrisome. I guess we'll see in the next few days if I can pull it off.

Thanks to all the people who have supported me on my Resolutions (see previous post)! It even helped inspire writer and friend Elton Pruitt to do his own set of resolutions! Great stuff, Elton!

Confidence Man

New Year's resolutions aren't something I normally make. Come December 31st, they tend to be reminders of the things that you failed to do that year. But, after reading David Hopkins' and Jason Rodriguez's resolution posts, I felt like it's something that needs to be done this time around. So without further ado, Jason Copland's 2009 New Year Resolutions!

1. Get more comic work published than 2008.
This one is not going to be hard to achieve, actually. 2008 was pretty dismal in the work published category and I already have 2 things I did art for that should see publication. I'd love for one of my co-created projects (Kill All Monsters! and Braids of the Gorgon) to get a green light but the comic book industry doesn't seem to be taking many chances these days. I'm just a little fish in a huge sea of pros looking to land a creator owned gig. Which brings me to resolution #2...

2. More exposure.
This one goes hand in hand with #1. The publication of more of my work will increase my exposure to new comic people. I'm looking to also increase my exposure on the web, too. I've been trying hard to make sure I have new content for this blog 3 times a week. I've been doing that for just over 3 months and I think it is working. I plan on posting more "work in progress" type stuff here and on sites like Digital Webbing, too.

3. Produce more work.
As a few of my friends will attest to, I am very hard on my self, especially when it comes to my comic work. They say every artist is their worst critic. For me, that holds 100% true. I do believe that that critical voice has made me a better artist but I do feel that it has also kept me from producing work at a faster pace. I tend to worry too much about little things that no one else will ever pick up on. At a certain point, I need to let stuff go and just move on to the next panel/page/whatever.

4. Have more confidence in my work.
Confidence in my work is something that I lack, generally. It is always a surprise when I get someone asking to work with me or wanting to buy art. I can't believe that someone actually thinks I do somewhat notable work. I'm naturally self deprecating so it's hard to know when to be proud of something I've done.

5. Finish reading BONE.
I've tried twice to read the huge Bone book that my wife gave me for Christmas last year. I'm currently working through it. I'm just over half way. It's good but I find myself going off and reading other books when I should be hunkering down and finishing it. I guess it's just a little to "light" for my reading tastes. It's wonderfully written and drawn but it has a little too much... cuteness...? I intend on finishing it, though.

6. Lose weight and maintain it.
Yeah, you knew this one was coming. I've lost about 10lbs since the summer and I have about 5lbs more I'd like to shed. Playing more hockey is helping but it all comes down to the snacking. Jackie and I fell off the snacking wagon a few months ago. Time to get back on it, me thinks.

Well, that's about it. Only time will tell if I can achieve one, some or all of these resolutions but getting them down on paper is one step closer, I guess.

Only Time Will Tell

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Well, that was a nice break! I had a great week away from drawing/inking/colouring comic pages. Lots of quality time with family was had. Much food and drink was consumed. Many pages of comic books were read. Jackie and I even got in a few games of Rock Band, me on the bass and Jack on the guitar (ask us how we kick out the jams on the NIN tune "The Hand That Feeds")! Good times, indeed!

But, now that the New Year is here, it's time to start putting the axe to the grindstone (or mouse to the mouse pad), again. The Braids of the Gorgon pages are slowly making their way towards completion. I have 2 more pages to colour and then it's off to the letterer. Then it's just putting the finishing touches on the pitch package illustrations and off it goes. And after that? Time will tell...

Hope you all had a great Holiday Season!

Any Colour You Like

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Still trying to get my head around the whole colouring comics thing. There are so many hues to choose from that it can be hard coming up with final colour choices.

One such example of my inability to come up with a definitive color scheme is that of the Gorgon, Euryale, one of the main characters of Braids. Right from day 1, way back in 2001 when Ken and I had our first start working on Braids, I've always visualized her as green. In my brain, Euryale was green. Well, she was until I started colouring the first panel she showed up on. Suddenly, green didn't seem to fit her, it was too obvious. She needed to stand out, be different from the majority of "monsters". But not too different. She also had to be visually interesting when interacting with the other main characters. Sigh.

The above image is part of my attempt to find the right colour for her. I've narrowed it down to more of the blue/purple range, as red, yellow and orange don't really work when she is with certain other characters. Ken and I think we know the one we want. We still have to hear from James to see if we are all in agreement.

In the meantime, I'd love to know which one of the 4 hues shown above would you good people choose for our Gorgon. No answer is wrong so please leave a comment below, if you are so inclined.

Ritual (Nous Sommes Du Soleil)

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Here is a fully coloured Braids of the Gorgon page! This is the first page of the pitch Ken, James and I are putting together.

Colouring my comic art is relatively new to me, the only other colouring I've done was on my 5 page Dear Santa story, "Whatever It Takes" and the 14 page Trickster tale I drew. So, yeah, colouring is still pretty much a "learn as I go" experience. I posted an earlier version of the colours for this page up at Digital Webbing and got a few great critiques, especially the amazing post from pro colorist Nick Filardi, which helped me improve the page. I think it's "done" now, but I never can really tell when something is done.

I'm now almost finished colouring the third page of the pitch. The colouring is getting a little faster, but not any easier.

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

Coloring on the Braids of the Gorgon pages has begun. Ken, James and I decided that I should give the coloring a try, so I've been doing that, mostly. I'll post a finished page once I get the thumbs up from the crew.

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In the meantime, I did manage to do a few more sketchbook sketches. I'm almost all caught up on them, now! Here's one I did for my friend, Dino. Thanks for your patience, it's in the mail!

Fully Completely

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The inking of the Braids of the Gorgon pitch pages is almost complete! Only one more page to go! Here's a panel from one of those inked pages.

Also, I have some Perhapanauts news that I may be able to share with you tomorrow, so don't forget to check on back here for that, ya hear!

Leave That Thing Alone

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The inking of the Braids of the Gorgon pages is going well. I'm trying to find a good balance of loose and tight inking. I think I could get a little looser but it's difficult for me to leave things alone, sometimes. Anyway, here's that panel I showed in a previous post, this time in its inked form.

Bless This House

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Here's a penciled panel from the Braids of the Gorgon pages I'm working on. I'm just finishing up the last edits to the pencils and will starting inking later today.

Finest Worksong

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I've been drawing a lot lately. Work on the Braids of the Gorgon layouts has begun! Looks like Ken, James and I are going to do 6 pages for the pitch, most of which are action packed! This is a panel from one of the pages of rough layouts. I'm having a blast on these!

In addition to the Braids stuff, I've been working on the sketches for all the Convention Sketchbooks that I've sold (they're still available. see this post for details!). I've been pretty happy with them. Hope the recipients are too!

Lorelei

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James Powell, editor of Braids of The Gorgon, has just written about how he got involved Braids and where we are, in terms of progress in the project. He even shared a couple of my character sketches I've recently done (different drawings from the one I'm sharing!). He's a valued member of the BotG team and a great guy. Go check out his site by clicking here.

I'll be out in Minnesota this weekend for FallCon 2008! Looking forward to hanging with good friends, talking to comic fans and making flight connections in Chicago (well, not that last one)! I'll have my brand new convention sketchbook, Marks On Paper, for sale so please drop by and give it a looky. Talk too you soon!

Cold Wind To Valhalla

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For the past week or so I've been working on character sketches for Braids of the Gorgon, the Greek mythology book writer Ken Faggio and I are doing. Amongst the hours spent doing those, I took a bit of time to work on drawing one of my other mythological interests, Thor. Marvel's Daredevil and Thor are the only "Big 2" comic book characters I'd have much enthusiasm doing long term. I think I'd do alright if I was given a stint on Thor.

Seaside Rendezvous

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Started working on character sketches for Braids of the Gorgon. Seems like I've got to relearn how to draw attractive women. I guess drawing giant robots and giant monsters for a few months has deadened my eye for the ladies, artistically speaking. More soon.

Scream Like A Baby

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As my time on the Kill All Monsters! pitch is coming to a close, I'm starting to work out some bugs in the new style I hope to utilize on the next project, Braids of the Gorgon. It's going to be messier, for sure. But just how much more messier.... that's what I have to figure out. Here's a drawing that is just me trying to find that level of messiness.

Achilles' Last Stand

I've been doing tons of character sketches and designs for a couple of projects that are currently undergoing some script tweaks. Most of them I'm going to keep out of the public spotlight, for now. But, I'm willing to share one or two... from time to time.

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This one is a character from a "new" project called, Braids of the Gorgon. Actually, this book has been in the making for many years, about 8 years to be more accurate. Writer Ken Faggio and I started working on Braids way back in 2000 and we managed to get 2 full issues done before it was put on hold. Truthfully, it was all my fault that it got "put on hold". I was offered a short story in A. David Lewis's Mortal Coils book. That then turned into another which then turned into 5 years of continuous projects with various writers, all of which kept me from being able to go back to Braids. The project was never far from my thoughts, though.

Recently, when I found I had a gap in my schedule, I went about contacting Ken and seeing if he was still game to work on Braids. Luckily, he was! We called in editor James Powell and we're in the process of knocking off the rust and getting Braids up and going. So, while Ken and James do their magic, I'm sharping up my Greek Mythology art game.