Tuesday, August 31, 2010

tree tea

I decided to blog every day this week rather than just my regular M/W/F. I just feel like it.

Here is an in-progress, incomplete new version of an old idea I did a while back.


I've since finished it and I'm working with my buddy Matt to print these on some tote bags (Erin's idea) for the upcoming extravaganza Indie Craft Parade (co-organized by my lovely and talented wife Erin, 17DoveStreet)

It's going to be pretty great and I hope to see you there -- I'll most likely be hanging out in a booth in some corner talking about Zelda II with my main musician man Henry Benjamin Kammer.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Alice, peek at final work

I am closing in on these final Alice pieces, I've got half completely done. That's crazy you may say, your first show opens in less than a month. Don't I know it, I might respond to you.

All the same, here's a peek at one of the finals. If you came by our booth at SDCC you'll have seen a couple of the finished pieces but I haven't shown any on my blog yet.

Here is a glimpse of the finished Cheshire Cat, otherwise known as the Cheshire James.


Previously, 7/14 underdrawing
Previously, 7/14 final drawing

I'll be posting infrequent Alice updates leading to the first opening (September 17) I hope at least to keep everyone interested in all this until the show actually opens -- I know it's been a long time coming, I've been posting the creation of all this Alice stuff for months now. I know I enjoy seeing development work but at some point you just want to see something complete. It won't be long now.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

kitty


Last night our cat Kitty was killed by four dogs. At about 2AM we heard scuffling and barking outside our kitchen door. By the time we got there they had dragged her into the street. Just four random dogs loose in our neighborhood.

Kitty was the best. She was there every time I went outside. She never left the porch, she was always there. She followed me around whenever I worked in my garden. She would literally walk me across the street like a seeing-eye-cat over to my friend's house and she'd wait there for me and walk me back.


I don't mean to bring down the tone of your day, I just miss Kitty. She was the best.


Wednesday, August 25, 2010

sketchbook 2008 - 2010

Last night I finished my sketchbook. It had a good run. I began it in July 2008 at Comic-Con. I've planned every major thing I've done for the last two years in this book. My Flight stories, Walters, Onere and Piccola, the Grimm show, Terrible Yellow Eyes, my upcoming Alice shows. Everything.

I took some pictures of a few of the pages. Enjoy.



Notice in the picture above, left; it's a little smudge. It's a little smudge of paint from Greg Manchess' HellBoy painting demo form SDCC 2008. I got it off a brush he laid down. I'm not ashamed. I think it blessed this book. I've never completed (or really used) a sketchbook before I began this one.


Here is an example of my pre-thumbnails, written thumbnails. I scrawl my stories all over before actually drawing them.


Some early Grimm and Other Folk Tales thumbnails.


The first Wild Thing I did while planning TYE.





A while back I had some Hobbit work planned but I felt dumb following my buddy Justin's awesome series.



The beginning stages of my Alice series.


This page I'm proud of because I had no idea what to do with Chapter 11 : Who Stole the Tarts? This is where I figured it out. See here what I did with it.



I've planned a few of my "bit and run" comics in here but not many.
Above is a page of Links.




It's dangerous to go alone.
Take your sketchbook.


The end.

Monday, August 23, 2010

blog, 5 year anniversary

This is one that's hard to believe, my blog is now 5 years old. It turned 5 yesterday.

I think this calls for a give-away.

All the same, I'm a little behind these days catching up with several personal and client projects all running at once so we might have to be celebrating this 5 year mark in the couple weeks. I want to do this give-away right like the one I last did in January so I need a little time to plan it.

I've also got a few pretty big, exciting things in store for this old blog.

Here's a piece I made while working on these few pretty big, exciting things :


Enjoy.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

watercolor for Silver, the universe

My main man (and rep) Matt Silver and his wife Heather are having a baby girl soon.

I wanted to give them something for their baby's room and so I recently spent 40 days and 40 nights concentrating on a pinprick of light on the edge of the Milky Way. Then in one swift motion I summoned all my powers from the far reaching corners of the universe to create this painting for them.

Behold, here follows a photographic account of this historic, galactic event.

* * *


Not all my powers were back yet so I scrapped the above piece after the first wash.



New drawing.


First wash.


Done!


Complete, ready for a wall.

And now we are all eagerly awaiting the arrival of little Sharlarla Moon Coke Zero Silver* sometime in September.

*Not her real name.

Monday, August 16, 2010

odysseus and the sea monster


This past weekend I had the privilege of going to the first kid show at White Whale, organized by Annie Koelle, my lovely and talented sister-in-law.

For a complete photographic account of the show involving children, monsters, and paint see her post here.

I came away with this painting by Henry Greene, age 8. Odysseus and the Sea Monster.

I imagine the sea monster is Charybdis because in the Odyssey there are two sea monsters, Charybdis and Scylla. Scylla has six heads so I think this is Charybdis.

I know I look a little tired. It is because for the 2 or 3 hours I was there I ran around with Henry and his brother Jude, all the while trying to keep my 3 year old nephew Marshall from punching other kids.

Henry and Jude are both very cool. They recently beat Super Mario Galaxy and told me all about it. I am proud of them.

UPDATE

here's a video of the show put together by Chris Koelle, my lovely and talented brother-in-law. Enjoy.

KID ART SHOW @ White Whale Studios & Gallery from Chris Koelle on Vimeo.

Friday, August 13, 2010

"bit and run" Vol. 2 #2



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Hey everyone, it's good to be back with bit and run! As I said just about every week during the first run of comics, it's a pleasure to make these. I get a ton of enjoyment out it and I'm very glad if you guys are able to enjoy them as well. I wanted to give you a little bonus for this week, but first a little background on this "bit and run" project -- some of you may remember back in January of this year why I started making these comics. I was in the midst of large client project in the fall/winter of 2009 and I was doing something like 15, 17 hours a day, 7 days a week for 3 months. I found that I couldn't sleep after working that long, my mind buzzing with everything I wasn't done with, so to help keep my sanity I'd play a little Mario before I crashed for the night. Mario 2, Mario 3 mostly. I found it absolutely decompressed me. From there, in the early hours of the morning I began to think up comics and started jotting them down while playing. I have no idea why. I don't know where they came from. After a few nights of this I amassed a folder full of quickly scrawled comics and doodles. To contrast making a comic in say an hour or two with a months long project that never seemed complete brought me the satisfaction I was missing. From there we've got bit and run Volume One. So all that to say I wrote all of these comics (Vol. 1 and 2) many months ago.

Now with Volume Two I'm going back to that folder but I'm trying a few new things; spending a little more time on the drawing, pushing the 8-bit palette some, rewriting and adding new comics, and like with today's for example, I made a bonus. Below you'll find an "extended" cut, so to speak. I went ahead with the original version (above) but I decided to do a little extra with the same idea. Certainly the original is my preferred version but after Mario's sentence in the third panel of the extended comic below came to me and struck me so dang funny I had to finish the whole thing. And I like the way the Thwomp looks in panel 2. So, long story short, in the end I wanted to give you guys both. I hope you enjoy.

And one last thing, in case it hasn't been clearly stated yet -- we're back for another three months of Fridays with these comics. August 6th - October 29th. Enjoy!

Cory


Previous,

bit and run Volume Two, 1
bit and run Volume One

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Monday, August 09, 2010

the last San Digeo / SDCC 2010 post

Hey who's sick of hearing about Comic-Con? Maybe you are, and I'm sorry. I'm still trying to catch up and get things back in order since getting back from the show so my blog posts are going to be a little unorganized until I get myself together.

Erin and I went out a week early to San Diego to take a little time off. We've both constantly got any number of huge projects going (her current big one is co-organizing Indie Craft Parade)

We hit a lot of museums, a lot of great places to eat, the SD Zoo, and I finally touched the Pacific.



One more post of pictures here -- Kitty Mach, our best Comic-Con friend shows up year after year to help us sell our work and generally be awesome.

Kitty, SDCC 2008.
Kitty, SDCC 2009.

This year she took several pictures of us being publicly superior.
Behold,


Talking / shaking hands with the incomparable Tony DiTerlizzi.


Me, Justin, Kitty Mach, SDCC 2010.


Can't be bothered with more SDCC posts.

Alright, I'll see if I can get myself more organized and return to posting the Alice project and more new work. See you then!

Cory

Friday, August 06, 2010

"bit and run" Vol. 2 #1




You can bit and run but you can't hide. "bit and run" has returned!

Every Friday for the next 3 months I'll be posting a new Nintendo themed comic.

If you'd like to catch up to speed you can read my initial post way back in January explaining the inception of "bit and run" and where it all came from.

Here's to another volume of comics!


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Check out all 13 Volume One comics below!