Spiderman has always been one of my favorite superheroes. Just completed a mixed media sketch card that’s up on ebay now for sale. Check it out!!!
Spiderman Sketch Card on ebay!

More goodies to come this week yet too!

Great review up from the guys over at The Pullbox on Heroestv.com,

http://heroestv.com/blog/strongbadwi/2008/01/23/hero-by-night-1-new-on-going-series/

“I suggest that fanboys cut the fat they’ve been choking down out of their comic budgets (*cough* Spider-Man *cough-cough* Superman) and add in some nutrition in the form of Hero by Night.”

this morning I took in a copy of the new Hero By Night hardcover trade, a new issue 1 of the ongoing HBN series, and a KISS 4K Kissmas special book into my local retailer. The guys there were impressed with the hardcover for sure. They were also super surprised to find out there was so much more HBN content online for FREE to go check out. So as I’m browsing through the racks I see that the ongoing HBN series has a NEW shelftag on it like many of the DC and Marvel books surrounding it, and I also see they only have 1 left. VERY cool. I continued my browsing, ended up just getting 4 books, stuff I think is fun, stuff that I thought looked good for one reason or another, but mostly, there is a lot of fluff and a lot of just plain crap on the shelf.

2 of my books were all ages books, Batman Strikes (which I first started buying when Jai Nitz wrote an issue for them-because Jai is a cool guy and gave me my very FIRST coloring gig) Spiderman: Back in Black (All Ages-which is like a big GN of Marvel Adventures stuff, and has Fred Van Lente-whose work I really dig-as one of the writers), Superman/Batman #44 (which after READING it, is a good read, and the art kind of grows on you, so I’ll be adding it to the list of must buys for now) and an X-Men book, Emperor Vulcan or something (because again, I really like what Brian Reber and Raul Trevino did with the colors on this book) I’ll likely get a chance to read through them in the next week or two here. But geez…..300 books or something on the shelf, and only 4 caught my eye? I’m sure there are many more I would enjoy, but for me a comic is a complete package, if I’m not digging the ART, STORY, COLORS and the entire package, I’m not wasting my money on it. Maybe I’m too jaded in my older age of comic reading, or just too picky. Either way, I’m finding that getting singles every month is a harder thing to do for me as a comic book fan, than just buying trade collections of the stuff that is GOOD.

So I need to get myself in GEAR today, go shave, get a little work done before I have to go pick the kids up from school and then JUMP on work when I get home here. Lots of good coloring to go do the rest of the week (although I might skate off on Friday for a bit with the wife in the morning to go grocery shopping and whatnot before the holidays set in for real next week) Rule number 13 in life should be, “Only read GOOD comics”. that is all.

I did.  I was hiding out, mostly.  wrapped up colors on Hero By Night #3 last night.  whew…what a blur of a week.  the next two days are kind of packed to, but nothing quite as pressing.  I’ve got a really, REALLY, REALLY cool cover to color for Todd over at New Dimension comics.  It’s this amazing Ron Frenz Spiderman cover that Todd had done for him that is a recreation of Amazing Spiderman 252 (the first appearance of the black outfit Spidey in AMS) where Spidey is holding onto two guys (one which happens to be Todd himself) So I’m doing a traditional version, to match as close as possible the original AMS 252 cover, and one where I’m going to tweak it out and do my own thing with a full on rendered up modern version.  Then, I’ve got some other pages from another project to get started on.  Then a pirate themed bedroom that the wife and I are painting for my son this weekend, then need to get started on pages for KISS 4K issue #2 next Monday.  Not that I’m abandoning my poor little blog, just that I’m finding the time to spill my thoughts is evaporating slowly as I move into a very busy summer full of work.  Stay tuned true believers, because I WILL be sharing both versions of this Frenz cover when I’m done though, and we all know that you absolutely cannot miss anything related to Spiderman in his black costume (easily MY favorite Spidey outfit)

nothing like some Radiohead to get you eased into the work week on a Monday morning.  Not much on words today, but what a productive last few days I’ve had.  I really think that my painting and comic coloring has gotten SO much better since I started taking pictures of my own for reference, creating my own brushes etc…….  Here’s a pic I took last week when it was like 70 degrees out here (now it’s back down to 30 or something crappy like that)  I love the open skies out here.  I think I missed those when we were living in the “city”  This if from standing in the middle of my back yard taken around sunset.  There is a certain feeling of inspiration when you’re standing there looking at such a beautiful skyline (the STARS are also absolutely amazing when there is no light pollution to get in the way )

and also, just ONE of the things I’ve been working on the last few days.  Boy, do I ever love coloring Spidey Pencils by David Finch, Inks by Dave Newbold (thanks Newby) and colors by me

now, more coffee and to get started on the FOUR pages of colors that I’m going to get done today! yeah, 4 pages.  to the exclusion of just about all else except for kids, wife, food and the occasional bathroom break

this is another one of the Ultimate Spiderman 100 covers I did up way back on Monday of this week.  only about 10 minutes in this one, but I like how it came out nonetheless.  The pose and values were so SPOT ON from the artwork it was easy to slap some color on it. waiting for some files to download so thought I’d throw this up here real quick.

I was so impressed with the concept and the cause behind the cool 100 covers of US 100 that was put together by Jim McLauchlin at the Hero Initiative, and Marvel, that I grabbed a few of my favorite low rez versions from the Marvel site, and have been using those to sort of warm up my wrist and stuff on the old Wacom in the mornings before I dive into a day of coloring. Just for fun. So over the last week, I’ve gotten 2 of them done, my LIMIT sadly, is no more than 5 minutes at a time on these….but MAN would it be fun to spend a little time coloring Spidey each day So I started with one of MY personal favorite artists growing up, from his run on Amazing, to the launch and almost year and a half run on his OWN Spidey title, Todd McFarlane. enjoy.