So I was gonna just throw up some pages from OPP and SK but then I thought it might be fun to talk about process a little bit in addition to just showing the pages. Don’t forget, you can click all the images to see a larger view.

First, obviously, is the penciling phase. This is page 1 and the pages 2 & 3 double page spread of Operation Pajama Pants:

This is all pretty self-explanatory. First things first I pencil everything out. For OPP I like to to pencil pretty tightly. Since OPP is inked with brush I like to have a pretty clear idea of the lines. And speaking of inks…

So these are the raw inked pages. These pages are inked with mostly brush, with a few Micron lines sprinkled in. You’ll notice on both pages there are a few big white areas with X’s in them. these are areas that I plan to be all black, but didn’t want to spend the time or ink brushing it in on the paper.There’s also a couple of things to notice that have changed from pencil to ink on both these pages. In page one, you’ll notice I didn’t ink the background that was drawn into it. The reason is I wanted to add a little more motion to the tiger jumping so I decided to go with speed lines (to be added later) instead of the background. In pages 2 & 3, I screwed up in the pencils and gave Chet rolled up sleeves on his shirt. Luckily I realized the mistake and was able to fix them when inking. (For the record, Chet does have rolled up sleeves in OPP #1 and then short sleeves in issue 2. But I declare this not a mistake, rather Chet used his new magic Pants Power to change his sleeves from long to short between issues. Go ahead, prove me wrong.)

The final step is the computer work. Here, first and foremost, I fill in those big black areas. Then I do any additional line work that I didn’t on the paper, in this case the speed lines on page 1. Then I add in the gray tones. For OPP I like to keep the grays very simple. I generally only use 3 levels of gray, 10%, 30% and 50%. Also I don’t do and extensive rendering or shading with it. I want to give the effect of using the old Zip-A-Tone. I even go in and transform the flat grays to a dot pattern, as shown in this detail:

There you have it. There’s a first look at pages 1-3 of the upcoming Operation Pajama Pants #3, debuting August 28 at the Baltimore Comicon. And just to round things out, here are the first 3 pages of the flip-side, Sidekicked! #4:

This is a little 2-pager I did with Jeffrey Burandt for the 2nd volume of an anthology called The Gathering. This was a lot of fun, and also one of the first things I’ve done all digitally.

MORE COVER GOODNESS!!!

As I did with the cover to Sidekicked! #4, I’m presenting to you here the cover to the comic’s flip-side, Operation Pajama Pants #3. Now with even more punched babies!

So Sidekicked#4/Operation Pajama Pants #3 debuts in just over a month at the Baltimore Comicon. As a preview, here’s the SK #4 cover. Enjoy.

If you missed free comic day, here is Action Figure Kingdom, in full.

Here’s a drawing I did recently of the current Robin, Damien Wayne (son of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al Ghul). I think it came out pretty well. Wasn’t sure if I was gonna ink it at first, but now that I have a high-res scan of it I figure why not. Don’t know when that’ll be, but as soon as I do I’ll post it up here for a little side-by-side.

So I had a great time this past weekend at the Pittsburgh Comic-Con. Saw a bunch of friends and sold a bunch of stuff. I also went on a T-shirt buying frenzy but that’s neither here nor there. Got some stuff to share with you guys. Some artwork, some just picks from the show. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so I have no pictures from the fun had after hours with friends new and old, just what was taken at the show itself with my brother’s camera.

I had all my books… Sidekicked! and Operation Pajama Pants, Secret Jew and Cornerkicked. I had a few occasions of people who bought the books 2 years ago when I did the Pitts show last come back to get the most recent issue. That’s always a nice feeling. Also a couple of cases of someone who just picked up issue 1 of OPP or SK coming back later in the show to get more. Sold a few prints too, Blood Pickle being the popular pick this year. Of course, let’s not forget the most important thing on the table…

It may be a cheap sales technique, but there’s no denying it works. Plus it’s a fun gimmick.

Now it’s time for…

Did a bunch of sketches. Some sold, some went unsold. Here are some of my favorites:

Aside from that stuff it was a cool show overall. Like I said before all sorts of great T-shirts. Plus, check out these life size Lego statues:

And the greatest thing I’ve ever seen anywhere…

And finally, it’s not a comic convention if there isn’t a fat guy in a costume!

This was a commission I did of the ’80s Justice League International. I was very happy when I was approached for this as the JLI was one of, if not my most, favorite eras of the Justice League. I was very pleased with how this came out. I only wish I had gotten a better scan of it before having to ship it out. I’d live to have a nice hi-res version of it for coloring. But alas…

I also included my initial sketch that I did for it. You’ll notice Batman wasn’t originally in it. Once I did my final pencils I felt there was a littler too much empty space so I added Batman to fill in some gaps.

I found all my projects from the animation class I took in college. So I decided to throw them up on the web. I figure why not start with the best, so here’s what was my final project for the class. It’s an animation of Brian Regan’s strongman bit.

This is completely hand drawn, frame by frame, with pencil. It is computer non grata.

I’ll put other projects up soon.

(The video freezes for about 4 seconds at the beginning, so don’t get confused. It’s playing.)

Since there’s gonna be a new Blood Pickle book, I thought I’d toss up some old BP pics i had on my computer.