Commisions

3/4/19
Alright, this is going to be a very long post, so grab yer popcorn!

Hard to recall when I first started using computers regularly. I was obviously still a novice with Photoshop. The file size is a mere 2mb because it's at 72 DPI. I doubt I knew better than to work at higher resolution; however, storage of large files was problematic. I believe I was using a zip drive at the time, but space was expensive. This character's name is Terenth, the character of a guy I met in Dragonrealms. According to my DR logs I haven't played in 10 years.

This was my character in the game Kepr SevenKeys (after the Helloween Album Keeper of the Seven Keys of which I was a huge fan at the time). This is the rough for what was to be a fully Photoshop rendered piece. It took me a long time to get the pieces of the outfit in the game to look as garish and clashing as possible. You'll note that both of my hands have been amputated here because it seemed to happen very often, and at the time I was still able to keep picking the chest (perhaps with one hand, but if memory serves I was able to do it with no hands. At least until I bleed to death).

Here is the uncompleted Photoshop rendering.

Dragonrealms was holding a contest for illustrating certain characters or Guilds in the game. This was my attempt at the thieves guild and the Guild leader (I forget his name). Needless to say I didn't win. I should have stuck with traditional materials as many of the pieces they ended up using for the "front end" were in graphite or ink. 

Preliminary design for one of the Dragonrealms races, the Skr-Mur.

Finally, my digital signature. This was going to be used only for D&D type stuff, hence the sword and shield as my initials.

3/5/19

So, I just realized the above are not commissions per say, but that's the folder I have them in on my computer, so here they stay.  Onward....

A huge banner (twin sized bed sheet) for my nephews 5th (I think) birthday. Took me way too long and reminded me why I really don't enjoy using the airbrush. Even with a new Airbrush and compressor that doggone thing kept clogging no matter how much I thinned the paint. I really only ever had success on paper using the thinner but less archival Dr Martins watercolor dyes . Kind of pointless to work that way nowadays with the advent of Photoshop.

3/5/19

Lot of posts these last couple of days as I am using Photoshop  to fix the perspective in a piece I inked for pal Tim Tyler. The file is so large it takes a few minutes for changes to be made and/or saved, so I pop over here while I am waiting.

The above photos were for Bowlers Universe. Again, a huge pain as the airbrush kept clogging. I think it ended up taking me about twice as long as planned. The good thing is I got to hang out with my brother Tony for a bit. Sadly it would be last time I would see him.

These are the Photoshop designed comps. The top is the daytime version and the bottom is how it should have looked with the black light painted stars. Later Tony had someone go back in and paint the background black as I should have done originally.

3/5/19

The following are commissions for Damon Owens who was one of my patrons at the comic shop. Damon brought me a lot of choice stuff to ink and I was bit nervous but it was great to knwo he had that confidence in me to ink these. I have more somewhere, probably in other folders based upon content.

 Samuree, Pencils by Philip Moy, Inks by me. These are some large files, but its so different to see them at original size.

Another one with pencils by Philip Moy and inks by me; Hawkman vs. The Red Raven

The Twilight Avengers, Pencils by Mike Grell, inks by me. This one has a long story but I will try to keep it as succinct as possible. As I recall Damon had commissioned this through Mike's agent and even attached reference to the email. Damon wanted the (at the time) recent Twilight Avenger, but somehow the attachments weren't forward or weren't read. That was great for Damon who got to keep this piece AND received the correct commission eventually. I was wreck trying to figure out what to do with this piece. I was  a fan of Mike's old stuff, but his recent work is quite different and to my understanding he uses some type of fountain pen for inking. I have always preferred brush to nib, but Mike's work is usually crisper than what a brush can achieve, so I decided to use a combination. Overall there is some nice stuff here but that cast shadow on the wall if very wonky, I absolutely hate the "brick" texture I tried to achieve, the flash of the pistol, or rather the reflected light from it on his jacket breast is all wrong. Some of the sweeping brush lines are uneven and I tried to fix some of that by using dry brush, but if I recall this was on a toothy (rough textured) paper, which made it difficult to ink smooth lines without some dry brush. Plus they were incredibly long lines. I recall showing it to Glenn Kessler who had owned the comic shop before me and he couldn't believe I signed over his name. Not only did Grell pencils over his own signature making it almost impossible to see after inking (and an abrupt stop of the lines or a box around the name would just look obtrusive), but if this had been a printed piece either the penciler should have signed in ink,  the letterer will sign both artists names legibly, or in some cases the inker inks both names. Glenn kept repeating, "you signed over his name" like it was a mortal sin. I'll never forget that.

Alright this story won;t be quite so long. Another commission for Damon Owens. Pencils by J.P. Mavinga. I loved inking this piece as it is nice and clean but there is still some room for interpretation. 

3/6/19

 Damon Owens referred someone who knew online to commission me to ink a bunch of Submariner pencils commissions he owned. At some point he also commissioned me to pencil and ink a submariner piece. The Byrne influence is still strong here.

The inked version. A lot of people stated that the (poorly rendered in hindsight) graphic background was jarring with the more realistic figure. I'm not P. Craig Russel. I should have just stuck with my pencil version.

 Pencils by Phillip Moy again, I was starting to get the hang of inking his work finally.

 Penciler unknown. This one was very tricky as it had been penciled with a very soft lead and was difficult to erase, therefore I had to go back and re-ink some areas where the ink had been lifted from erasing. The ink just kind of sits on top of that much graphite. The other challenge was redrawing sue's head. I sure wish I had a scan of the pencils as I do not recall how much I changed it, but if memory serves it was very difficult.

 

The above 2 pieces were conceived to be displayed side by side.

3 more misc Submariners from the same commissioner.  I don't recall who penciled them and the last was not even signed

3/7/19

 Here's a 5 piece set I did for kicks. Trying t get the hang of Copic markers. Each was based upon the actor who I thought would best portray them. This was circa 2006, so the only DC show (that I recall) at that time was Smallville. I'll spare you all the full size scans.

 Here are two rough comps for a band called The Hectic. The singer for The Hectic (Ronnie Tinsley) is the son of Clayton's babysitter (Sherry Rice) when he was at babysitting age. His request was for a poster to promote them at comicpalooza. This first one he thought was too super-heroish ( I guess because one of the characters is flying). Initially, he requested something in the vein of Marvel Super Special 1 (KISS).

This is the second rough (very rough). I don't recall if this one was approved. Anyway, I ran out of time. I was a full time Nurse by then and working as may hours as I could to pay off over 40K in school loans. Paid them off in about 5 years BTW.

3/7/19
Now we get to the "misc" folder. Lot of assorted Junk here

 Around 2005 of 2006 I got hooked on karaoke. Long story on that. Anyhow, the main place I would go was called the Canary Club ( and I still go there as often as possible for karaoke) where Keith Gilley (son of Mickey Gilley) was the host. Now Keith actually had his own show on the weekends and during the week he would do a couple of songs and then do some karaoke. The deal was that if you came during the week to sing he might include you in his weekend show. Also, normally each person sang one song; however, if you paid ( I think $5) you could sing 2 in a row and Keith would record them. Needless to say I have a ton of CD's laying around proving what an amateur I was. Regardless, I met a lot of great folks and finally became a sociable person. I wanted to thank Keith in my own way so I created this caricature of him ( as I've said I really suck at caricatures). I don;t know if he liked it, still has it or used it for kindling, but here are my efforts for those of you who choose to enjoy.

 Above was the pencil version, here is the final colored version.

 Here is the reference photo I used.
Hmm, Just realized this wasn't a commission

per say. Should have gone under misc. Oh well, too lazy to change it now!

3/12/19
After 12 hours on my feet I think my head aches more having never been able to make enough of a living creating. C'est La Vie.

 Someone walked into my shop one day and proceeded to ask me about doing art for an album cover. The guy was a bit trepidatious to say the least. Long story short, after many weeks his eyes grew into pancakes and he happily handed me the second half of my payment. Not a very difficult job, just time consuming. He liked this image by Tony Daniel (of Trigon). Per request I added the mic necklace and guitar ( a little tricky getting the right perspective in Photoshop. I wish I had  found a higher resolution of Trigon as he looks kind of blurry compared to the accoutrements.

 A little look into the process. Pencils, must have not scanned after inking, although I left inking minimal since it was to be a colored piece, and final colored image. This really needs a lot of work and although the client probably did not pay well, I either was not able to improve the image or decided not to for sake of time. Or perhaps I realized that if I picked at it forever I would never finish it. One in the can is better than two in the bin.

3/13/19

 Terminus, commissioned by an internet buyer. Pencils and Inks by me based upon a John Byrne illo. I didn't really try to do this in byrne's style, more like I kinda grabbed a similar pose and used his illo for reference.

My inks, pencils by Florentino (Tino) Santibanez above. I really like how this piece came out. There's a few things I might change now but overall I think Tino was satisfied with it.

Tino's brother also commissioned me to ink this piece over his pencils. Unfortunately I cannot find the scan of my inks.