Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics, illustrations

This one came from a question i got on Panel and Pixel from Kevin Mellon & Jason Copland. I'm thinking this is fun stuff, so I'm probably going to start making vodcasts part of the regular CH 0 feed.

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, av, design, ideas, layouts, media, podcasts, tools and trade, video

Been a slow month; with all the spring cleaning, recovering from con flu, and finding a roommate i've not got a lot done on dream life - grumble - nice chunk of the layouts but wanted to have more of the art done by now too. Any who, starting to get going, here's some stuff from the last few nights whittling.

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, tools and trade

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics, layouts, tools and trade

And another inch closer....

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics

finally got a bit of coloring done on dream life today. been so crazy busy, so many emails to get back to, stuff to mail out....ack....

Labels: "Dream Life", ack, Art

Labels: "Dream Life", Art

Taking a few days to ink, then back to Top Secret project.

Blocky thing takes forever to ink, I'm telling you, Boyo.

Having some interesting conversations with a few writers right now, considering illustration a sort of philosophical picture book, been approached about a couple of comic book ideas that if not too big I might end up doing, and maybe even seeing if I cant think of an interesting animation idea - had a studio contact me about the possibility of talking about developing an idea with them, pretty exciting the more I think about it. Pondering what concepts i've been kicking around might make the leap well, or if I have any new notions that might be worth pitching....hmmm.

Also making small steps towards writing a new Sea of Red project, that i've pretty much decided I'd like to do sooner than I can draw it, so looking into other artists for that maybe.

Been making plans

to tour for Therefore Repent!

It's looking very good for me going to the NYCC, and Paradise, and by hock or crook my first visit to the San Diego Comic Con. Also Windsor/Detroit as well in the next 6 months! Maybe more yet, haven't got a confirmation but might be giving a presentation here in Montreal at the end of the month as well in NDG, hosted by geekmontreal.com

Jim's going to hit the road as well a little bit, stay tuned and i'll have dates and places for all that.

Labels: "Dream Life", "finger string", Art, events, News, Sea of Red, Therefore Repent

Well, i had wanted to be further along with the book than this by now, but a cool 7 page story came across my desk that i could not pass up - it will be in a very very big, high profile book this summer, just had to do it. But just the same, progress on Dream Life, while slowed a bit the last two weeks, has been very gratifying.

This character and the giant woman who appeared in Charlie's dream just before were inspired by some reading about Pablo Picasso i did a while back, and some of the interpretations of his use of the Minotaur and the Maiden motif in his work.

When John and i first worked on this story together years ago [at the time called 'Nuts'] he came up with the idea of a 'blocky thing' that would torment Charlie at different points though the story, play tricks on him and challenge his assumptions. At the time it was a great but unspecific creature, with no described form. I loved the idea of it, but it was always a shady non specific idea at the time for me.

Later when i dusted off those old bits of story we had worked on together and started re-working it into Dream Life, the blocky thing - while a very cool abstract literary idea, was really hard to give form to as a character for the comic.

I tried a lot of different approaches but none of them ever resonated for me that strongly.

It wasn't till reading about Picasso's minotaurs that I worked it out. I forget who it was who wrote the notes that cinched it for me, but their descriptions of what it stood for was exactly dead on for my interpretation of the Blocky Thing.

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, design

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics

Was out for lots of walking today, brunch at a diner then off to exchange the scanner.

After that spent a few hours working on a short story gig that's popped up. It's top secret but very cool! Made a lot of progress visualizing the story and imagining the characters. Going to be a pretty one i think, like what i came up with.

Scanned a few inked pages later when i got the replacement scanner hooked up, posted those are on Flickr.

The hits have slowed a bit, but I'm happy to welcome a bunch of new regular readers to my new Solo project, Dream Life. about 700 of you have visited this site in the last few days, 3800 of you at flickr, and i have a lot of new friends on live journal and flickr.

Thanks to you all! The feed backs has been really positive, very encouraging.

I've found the rss feed for that as well not so you can add the comic to your reader. The XML live journal feed is here , and the flickr page is hear.

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics

Tracked it back to the guys at Drawn!, posted about the new project - thanks Johnny!

Hopefully it doesn't present any server problems, never had one before so reason to hope. But there's been 100+ of you since 7pm! :)

Wow, well, hey there, hi to you all visiting from Drawn!,

Have a look see around. As well as the new project, Dream Life, maybe take a peek at my most recent book, Therefore Repent! - it's just come out in the US and has been available for a while now in Canada - you can take a 60 page tour of the book here to see what that's about.

And I love feed back so please do feel free to drop me a line, say hi, all that.

Ok, got pages to draw and a short trip to pack for, talk soon?

cheers

Labels: "Dream Life", News, press

I've had a fallow blog on Live Journal for a few years, but i never found a good use for it, other than cross posting from my home page here.

That's not so great so really i just didn't use it. But as i considered how to distribute my new book online, i thought about how groups i've been admiring such as Act-i-vate and Transmission X have been doing things and hit on making use of the old LJ blog.

So I've cleaned out the old crap and started posting it there. I'll continue to post work in progress for the book on flickr, and the book will have a page on Comic Space too. But LJ will be it's full time residence from now on. The XML feed is here!

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics, News

So, started posting the new story over here on ComicSpace.

Also, if all went as planed, then the IDW edition of Therefore Repent! hit the stands today! Officially yesterday, but most places get new books Wednesdays. But in any case, go check it out! and if they don't have the coolest book of the new year in yet, ask them why the hell not!

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics, News

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics

Some art without the wash work, I'm feeling like a really good stride if being hit right now with this. Nothing against the last project at all, but it's so nice to be doing something i wrote myself right now. Primarily because of things like this: this was NOT in the script for these two pages, was just going to have a big panorama of the landscape. But the idea hit and i ran with it. No one to check with, i could strike while the irons were hot and it came out lovely, and will add a nice bit of layering to the story with this figure showing up in Charlie's dream here.

More to come when i get back from the holidays.

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics, design

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics

Working out how this guy will look still, I'm liking this version right now...maybe....

Labels: "Dream Life", "finger string", Art, Comics, ideas

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics, News

Think this is working, the 'blocky thing' was giving me some trouble but i think he's starting to shape up well...

I was ranting about methodology today in between fits of working on this, kind of messy, but that's what i was talking about.

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics

Picasso's minotaur as the blocky thing.

Labels: "Dream Life", "finger string", ideas, tools and trade, writing