Friday, August 31, 2007

Battle Angel


(click image to enlarge)

Another recent speedpaint based (very loosely) on the Battle Angel Alita Manga. I threw in the U.S. Army star as a design element. Incidentally, IMDB reports that James Cameron is slated to direct a Battle Angel movie scheduled for a 2009 release. Check it for yourself here, and a 2005 interview with Cameron about it here.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Mighty Avengers


(click image to enlarge)

Here's a painting I did of the Mighty Avengers that was used as a background element for Tony (Iron Man) Stark's press conference in Captain America #27. I tried to keep it sort of simplified and muted so it would not compete with the foreground elements of the page, which were done as traditional line art. After it was pasted in, our colorist Frank D'Armata lightened it and softened the focus a bit more to integrate it into the colored page.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Lonnie & the Lady Killers

Since today's my birthday, I thought I'd post a picture that pretty much sums up my thirty-two years of existence on this earth.

Women's Studies

Damn Lady Killers . . . always out to get me.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Centurion

(click images to enlarge)




I've decided to post a few recent speedpaints that I've previously shown anonymously on another digital art site. While trying to teach myself digital painting, I wanted critiques that wouldn't be colored by the fact that I'm an employed artist. First up is a Roman Centurion, with and without background.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Captain America 32 Cover

Marvel has released their Nov.2007 solicitations which includes Captain America 32. Here's how Marvel describes the issue -

CAPTAIN AMERICA #32
Written by Ed Brubaker
Pencils & Cover by Steve Epting
THE EPIC DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA STORY CONTINUES!
The Falcon and Black Widow hunt together! Can they save the Winter Soldier from becoming a tool of the Red Skull again? And if they do, will he just go kill Tony Stark? And what of Agent 13, Sharon Carter, who shot the final bullets into her true love, Steve Rogers, and has seen her life fall apart since then? Those answers, much action, and more! From the Eisner Award-Winning Best Writer Ed Brubaker and Fan-Favorite Artist Steve Epting, who brought you the biggest selling comic of the year!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99

The entire list can be seen here.

This is my tenth cover painting (!) and I'm still experimenting with the process I'm using to produce these. This one (like the last 2) started with a pencil and ink wash drawing that was then scanned for painting in Photoshop.

(click images to enlarge)

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

The Hump at Dead Ebb

We're at Dead Ebb . . . and The Hump is chasing me.

We've got another big Women's Studies shoot this weekend. Lately they've all felt like big shoots. For weeks, I've been telling the cast and crew (and myself) "This next shoot gets us over the hump. Once we're done here, it's smooth sailing."

Yet somehow, each subsequent shoot brings it's own difficulties. We're all exhausted. Nerves are frayed. The money is getting tapped. The Ningen Manga technical gremlins have returned for an encore. Dead Ebb, man; the darkest part of the night where the tide comes right up to the edge of the dunes.

All I really want to do is just sit back and watch old Twilight Zone episodes. And why not? We're into our third month of shooting, and will definitely have a fourth. I'd say at this point that we've got a little over two-thirds of the film in the can. The light at the end of the tunnel is visible, but there's still dark chasms to cross in order to get there.

No time for rest though. There's still lots of movie to make. The tide hasn't gone out yet, nor has the sun risen . . . and the hump is hungry.

Below are various shots form various shoots over the past few weeks. Some of these pics could easily be considered "spoilers" so consider yourself warned.

# # #

Women's Studies
Tara Garwood (Judith) and Kelley Slagle (Diane) share a tender moment.



Women's Studies
Shooting a scene at Ross-Prentiss Women's Academy.



Women's Studies
L to R: Tiffany James (Melissa), Art Director Stephanie Petagno, Cindy Marie Martin (Mary) in the green room during the "Initiation Scene."



Women's Studies
The Ross-Prentiss Altar.



Women's Studies
Kelley Slagle (Diane) does her best Michael Myers impression.



Women's Studies
Extras look on in disbelief that Kelley Slagle (Diane) might actually have maternal instincts.



Women's Studies
Tattoo You.



Women's Studies
Tara Garwood (Judith) and extras prepare for an intense scene.



Women's Studies
Cindy Marie Martin (Mary) touches up her hair before a shot.



Women's Studies
The Lady Killers from L to R: Cindy Marie Martin (Mary), Tara Garwood (Judith), Kelley Slagle (Diane), Laura Bloechl (Iris), Tiffany James (Melissa)



Women's Studies
Cindy Marie Martin (Mary), Santa Fe Writer's Project Director Andrew Gifford, and Tara Garwood (Judith) pose by the Ningen Manga Productions booth at Horrorfind Weekend 8.



Women's Studies
Melisa Breiner-Sanders skips directly to the end of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."



Women's Studies
Don't ask.



Women's Studies
Again, just don't ask.



Women's Studies
"Lady of the Moon, Lord of the Sun, protect me and mine now day is done. Allow me to live each day in the light, and give me the strength to do what is right."

Hellboy!

Yeah, I know...just what the world needs - another blog. Well, needed or not, here it is. I'll be using this blog to post sketches, paintings, experiments, thumbnails, layouts, unpublished art and anything else I feel compelled to inflict upon anyone unlucky enough to stumble onto this page. I'll try to update it fairly often with whatever I happen to be working on, and you can relax - my rambling comments probably won't be nearly as long as they are in this first post.

To kick it off, here's a little Hellboy sketch I did sometime last year and recently decided to paint. It was done with markers and inkwash and then scanned into Photoshop to be subjected to my "coloring". Despite the fact that the good folks at Marvel actually allow me to do painted covers for Captain America, I'm a real novice at painting. Plus, I've only been doing color work in Photoshop for a little over a year, so I consider myself a beginner not only as a painter, but as a digital artist. These little speedpaints (which I define as 2 hours or less) are a good way to experiment and learn - and hopefully eventually bring something new to the published work.

(click images to enlarge)

Monday, August 20, 2007

The Dragon Fish - Scrapblog



Feed: Frogs, Feeder Fish, Pork?
Dragon-Fish.blogspot.com

The Dragon Fish - NS. Story

There are many myths and beliefs with The Dragon Fish in this region. Many (including myself) thinks that The Dragon Fish can bring good luck and wealth to the owner. There was a story about a guy who keep a Dragon Fish for 4-years and when he was enlisted to the National Service, he left his Dragon Fish caring to his family. On day during his training, he was involve in a serious accident and was unconscious for many weeks. On day, he awake from coma and the first thing he asked his family was how his dragon fish was doing. His family assure him that the dragon fish is ok when their left home that day to visit him.

But when his parents return home, they were shocked to see that the dragon fish has die. The boy had been faithful in caring for his Dragon fish and it repaid the kindness by sacrificing its own life to exchange for its owner.

dragon-fish.blogspot.com

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Monday, August 13, 2007

Tease

You don't want to hear me babble do you? Not when you can watch the kickin' rad Women's Studies teaser trailer edited by Jim McGivney with Music by Rev 9.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

News of the screws.......

People!! We need more news! We need to know what everyone is up to all the time, how can you expect us to *actually* speak to all our friends. The interweb is there to be abused and move information around000101010101010110101010101010111 101 0111010101010101010. Babble! You get m'eh?



Well, start as you mean to go on I guess, what has ~[PizBot} been up to recently?........Unfortunately not too much. Guess the most fun episode was the weekend at the Benicassim Festival in Spain. Benicassim is a very small sleepy blue collar coastal town about an hour out of Valencia back up the coast towards Barcelona and for about a week in June the place is handed over to a whole bunch of euro-crazy types for a total festival of sun, sea, music and genera messiness. It was AWESOME!



Well, I say that but I got there a day and a half late because on the Friday that I was supposed to leave, the good old British summer 'heat' came and decided to pour one months worth of rain in 3 hours. London drowned, Heathrow floated away and 150 flights got cancelled including Air France 1871. Bang goes the weekend I thought as thousands of other travellers all fought for the next seats on any flight out of London. I quickly jumped to the front of the Air France queue got on a flight with their One World partner BA on the Saturday afternoon and then booked a room in a shockingly sleezy hotel (Jury's Inn, LHR Terminal 2 don't stay there), ate pizza and passed out. I thought better to get a flight the next day rather than have the hassle of fighting that evening for some hope of getting out.



So I got up super early on Saturday, had a full English and a coffee and made my way to the departure lounge at Terminal 1 only to be faced with a scene that one would only expect to see in Iraq. Bodies everywhere, people sleeping on the floor with only BA night sheets and each other for company, it was shocking. Again I put my lateral thinking hat on and side stepped the 500+ person queue to check in in the First Class lounge.....loving the BA gold card! All good I thought, now I can start my weekend, I was only arriving one day late and actually having a long nights sleep probably wasn't such a bad idea after all the pain of the last few weeks. I got to Barcelona and rushed for the TGV equivalent train I had booked the night before, only for the flight to arrive late and me miss the train by 2 Mins......I was starting to think that I should turn back but I had got so far it was too late to turn back, so I hailed a cab and told the driver......Benicassim please! 250K and a lot of EUROS later I made it. I was dropped off at the entrance to the campsite and put the rather annoying delay and cost behind me and headed straight for the nearest clear plot to pitch the tent and get right on it. I found a spot amongst the pitch black and set about putting the tent up. Good thing I know how it works cos after 15mins I was done and pretty desperate for some cerveza and some live music, we got going and headed to the festival.



The time was about 11PM, I thought we might have missed something but as we entered the festival site I noticed that it was actually quite quiet. In true Spanish stylee the party hadn't even properly started! Awesome, I got a really nice falafel and got drinking.....needless to say the rest of the weekend continued in much the same way and we had a riot!

Highlights were - It being hot and in Spain
- Girls in bikinis, EVERYWHERE!
- The Artic Monkeys, "I'm going back to 505.........@
- The festival ending at 6am
- Fischerspooner
- Cheap booze
- The heat
- Sleeping on the beach during the day and partying at night
- Amy Winehouse
- BRMC
- The Kings of Leon 'I'll be there, when you call, I'll be there....'
- The campsite was like darfur, only with showers and girls in bikinis EVERYWHERE

Lowlights
- Sleeping in a tent
- Waking up hot as your mam
- Sleeping 3 hours a night
- The campsite
We should hire a villa next year and go, it was wicked fun. ~[PizBot]

As usual I will remove all corporate blah and add pictures when I get a mo tonight

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Dramatis Personae

We're smack dab in the middle of a big shoot, so I only have time to offer one little goodie today: a full cast portrait of the main players of Women's Studies. (Click the picture for a larger verison.)

# # #

The Cast of Women's Studies
Left to Right: Melisa Breiner Sanders (Beth), Tara Garwood (Judith), Cindy Marie Martin (Mary), James A.Radack (Zack), Judith O'Dea (Senator Hamlin), Kelley Slagle (Diane), Mundy Spears (Sharon), Tiffany James (Melissa), Laura Bloechl (Iris)

# # #

You won't want to miss next week's blog, as you'll get first look at actual footage from the film when we feature our brand new teaser trailer which is making it's debut at this coming weekend's Horrorfind Weekend 8 in Baltimore MD.

Lastly, this blog celebrates one year of the Tuesday Women's Studies production blog. I was only late once. Not bad, eh?