Wednesday, May 26, 2010

A look at my next Iron Man covers!



Here's a look at the covers I did for the next Iron Man Children's Book that I am currently working on. It will be released on 1/11/11 and is available for pre order here!

There are two covers because it's a flip book. One side is the main story and the other side shows all of Iron Man's cool armors. I'm having a lot of fun drawing all the armors and villains from the show!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Syracuse Book Cover

I Illustrated a cover for a book by Sean Keeley, the founder of the web site Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician. The book is now available here!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Purchase My New Sketchbook "Bust It!!"

My new (and first!) sketchbook is in my grubby little hands and ready to be purchased! This book is a compilation of 24 of my favorite warm up sketches from the past year! The entire book is in full color on nice glossy paper! Each copy is signed and numbered up to 500! Also, I will personalize each copy with a marker sketch of YOUR CHOICE!




Here's an example of the marker sketch included in each copy! Be sure to let me know what character you'd like!


The books are $10 (plus $3 shipping & handling) and are available by clicking the "Buy Now" button below!





Monday, March 29, 2010

Iron Man Cover From Sketch To Final Art

I thought I'd give a looksee into how I go about doing my artwork. Here's a step by step look at how I created the art for the cover of "Iron Man: Armored Adventures: Deadly Dreadknights". I hope ya like!

First step, of course, is to rough out ideas for the cover. Many times, as is the case with this particular cover, I pretty much know what I am looking for before I even start sketching. The trick is to get it down on paper. Or, in this case, onto the computer. For this book 100% of the artwork was done on the computer. I rough out the cover in Sketchbook Pro. It's the program I am most comfortable drawing in, especially when I am doing quick sketches. It's very intuitive and I barely have to think at all about the tools involved and just concentrate on drawing. Here's my sketch.

The sketch is pretty rough. I'm not even really that concerned with how good the drawing is. The most important thing is the composition. How the piece flows. If I'm pleased with the sketch I send it off to the Editors and wait for further instructions.


So after I hear from the Editors, it's on to the next step. I'm given the go ahead to move forward, but there were a few notes that the Editors would like me to address in the next step, which is another, tighter, rough sketch.

As you can see, some changes were made. The guy getting blasted in the foreground is now just rubble. There was concern over such violence on the cover of a book that is aimed at young children. I also added another Dreadknight in the background to fill up some dead space and to add more of a threat to Iron Man. I didn't draw in Iron Man's Repulsor Ray blast because that will all be done in color. Also, in this step, I am more concerned with the actual drawing. I need to not only make sure the drawing is good, but that the characters are "on model" and look like they do on the Animated Series. After this is approved it's on to inking this thing digitally!


I "ink" digitally in Photoshop. It gives me an inked look that I can't get from Sketchbook Pro (at least I haven't been able to figure out how to achieve it on there). I work at double the print size and 400 dpi. I feel that gives me a better control of the line. I tried working at actual size and I just couldn't get the clean look I was going for. I ink each figure and/or object on it's own layer. That makes it easier for me to separate anything down the road in the coloring process. If I need to change black line to color, I can select it easily without having to separate it from the rest of the black line art. It also makes it easier to select whole figures or objects if I need to put an effect or anything behind a character or object. Once the black and white art is done and approved it's on to color!


Here's the final color cover art. All done in Photoshop. Because I drew everything on separate layers, it's easy to add in Iron Man's Repulsor Blast behind the rocks in the foreground but in front of the Dreadknight's sword. I hit the sides of the rocks with a little white airbrush so it (hopefully) looks like they are getting disintegrated by the blast. It' also quite easy to pop in the glowing symbols behind Iron Man and the Dreadknights but in front of the background. Although creating those symbols was NOT easy at all! After hours and hours of detail after detail it's finally time to send this away for final approval!


Once the cover is approved, Random House slaps on all of the titles and logos and this thing is good to go! Also, I just noticed while putting together this post that Random House also added in some extra rocks in the blast. I'd never even noticed that before!

Feel free to ask any questions you might have that I didn't cover here!

"Iron Man: Armored Adventures: Deadly Dreadknights" is available August 10th, 2010!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

My Cover to "Iron Man: Armored Adventures: Deadly Dreadknights"



Here's the cover to my next Iron Man Children's Book "Iron Man: Armored Adventures: Deadly Dreadknights" The book is due out in August 2010 and is available now for pre-order here!