New Job Decisions

It didn't take long. We'd been back in New Mexico for three days when I got a lead on a possible storyboard job for a movie being made here, the new Kevin Costner comedy "Swing Vote". I got the job, and start today. The job should last through next week, with the day off for the Fourth, of course.

I've done loads of presentation storyboards for commercials, and a few production boards for films, but no matter how many I do, starting a new one is always a little scary. Everyone has a different approach to storyboarding -- some directors want you on site, reporting to them often, and some prefer you work at your own office, emailing or faxing the work as you do it. Some don't really care.

I prefer working in my office at home. Maybe because I'm such a homebody, and maybe because I like the freedom of not having someone looking over my shoulder. I've never had a problem with a director not liking my work -- I may have to make revisions or redraw some panels, but not often, and I've never had a director or client think my work isn't good -- but I still get anxious that someone will look over my should and tell me I'm doing it all wrong. I'd rather get that kind of news over the phone, or better yet, by email.

But maybe I'd enjoy being in the film production offices for this job. I don't know yet what they're going to want me to do, but if they want me to stay on-site and work, I'll give it a try. Maybe I'll split my time between the two, based on the availability of the director, or director of photography or whomever I'm going to be reporting to. It might be fun working in the offices with the film's art department, and would certainly give more networking opportunities than if I stayed hidden away at home.

The other consideration when I get a job, especially a storyboarding job like this one, where I'm hired for the day and am supposed to devote my time exclusively to it, is dealing with the other work that I have. Even times such as now, when I don't have any other freelance gigs going on, I still have Annie to work on every week. (Luckily, Jazz Age is on a hiatus right now, so there isn't that to worry about.) Fortunately, there will be plenty of time this weekend and next week in the evenings to keep up with the little orphan child.

I always remind myself, even if I have a week to get a job done -- like Annie -- and even if there are no other jobs looming, to get the work done as quickly as possible, while still pacing myself and not stressing out about it. You never know when another job will pop up, and if your other work is done, or at least well underway, it'll be a lot easier to take on the new stuff.

I won't be posting any images from the storyboard job here, until after the movie comes out. But I will post updates on how the work is going, and what it's like there. Wish me luck!

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Monday Morning Marty

Today begins a regular weekly feature on ShopTalk, Monday Morning Marty. A new sketch of my beautiful puppy Marty every week.

This week I worked from a photo. We just moved back to New Mexico from Philadelphia, and Marty -- who's from New Mexico and who can tell when we're entering the state by the scents coming in the car's vents, and who really didn't like most of Philly -- is having too much fun and is too excited to sit still and pose for me. The photo was taken last winter, during one of the few snowstorms Philly had. You see Marty's tail is down -- I told you he didn't like Philly. It hasn't been down since we got here.

I decided to try a limited palette coloring effect, recreating the spot-color look of old magazine illustrations. The picture needed a little punch. I thought blue was a natural choice, conveying the cold of the scene. I was originally going to just use the one color, but when I tried giving Marty a simplified version of his own hazel coloring, it worked.

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Frank E. Schoonover

Yet another link to Golden Age Comics Book Stories. But this one is a good'n. It's a look at the beautiful work of Frank E. Schoonover. Notice how his paintings look so polished and refined from a distance, but when you click on the image and get up close, you see the individual brush strokes and Impressionistic approach. Really nice.

We're in the midst of our big move to New Mexico, so there's been no time to sketch or anything. I want to make sketching Marty a regular feature here -- after we settle in.

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Red Panda

I drew this red panda for my Daily Mammal blog, but I like it so much I'm previewing it here. Choose to snooze!

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Multi-Tasking Hand

This is an odd thing to confess, and I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but -- I think my hand doesn't write as well when it's been drawing.

Let me explain.

On the best of days, my handwriting is pretty bad, as anyone who's seen it can confirm. My writing is usually a block lettering anyway -- yes, like the kind used in comics -- because my cursive, and even my upper-and-lower-case print writing, are rather -- unsophisticated, shall we say.

But when I'm in the middle of drawing, it's a lot worse.

I just came upon this thought now, as I'm drawing up the layouts for another week's worth of Annie strips. I have these pre-printed blanks I made up, with a rectangle representing the strip, some guidelines marking the 1/2, 1/3 and 2/3 spots, and lots of room on the sides for notations about the sketches, which aren't very elaborate. Jennifer has commented occasionally about how I never use those notes areas, and just now, as I was writing a little comment about what one of the characters was doing, I realized why.

I can't write worth crap while I'm sketching.

Maybe writing and drawing use different parts of the brain. That makes sense, since they're very different ways of seeing, and different ways of thinking. And since creating images and putting down letterforms are very different ways of using the same hand muscles, maybe transitioning quickly from the one to the other causes some stumbling -- like shifting gears in a car without properly using the clutch or something.

And maybe, since I'm an illustrator through and through, and since that's what I've always been, maybe that's why my handwriting has always been so bad. Maybe, as soon as I pick up the pencil or pen, my drawing instincts take over, and don't want to surrender control to the writing part of my brain.

I know this is an odd theory. I don't even know if it's true that I screw up my writing more often when I'm in the middle of sketching or not. It seems to be, but who knows? And I don't know what possible practical application this could have, other than to try pausing a moment when switching from one to the other -- like waiting for the clutch to engage in the car. Maybe just being aware of this brain change will be enough to improve the situation. I'll let you know what progress, if any, I see.

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Drawing of My Dog, Part 1

My wife Jennifer believes in drawing for fun.

Wow. What a concept.

She's started her own blog, The Daily Mammal, wherein she will draw a new mammal every day. If she keeps it up, she can draw every named mammal in just 14 years! Wow! But whether she does or not, she's having fun. And she's always telling me I should draw for fun. Not for an assignment, or for a deadline. But for fun.

Fun.

Fun?

Well, tonight I gave it a try, sketching our dog Marty. Here's the result.

Not bad for my first attempt at drawing him. And not bad for my first sketch from life in a long time. It even kind of looks like him. Okay, it looks a lot like him. Not perfect, but pretty good. I'm sure this won't be the last time I draw Marty, and I'm sure my next one will be even better.

But you know what? I had fun.

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Why "Storyteller's Workshop?"

A couple times a year, it seems, I get a call, or an email, from someone who wants to hire me for a children's party, or some Native American event. They think from my business name that I'm a storyteller -- that I sit around and tell people stories.

Well, I'll admit it may not be the best name for a freelance illustration business, but there's a reason why I chose Storyteller's Workshop.

The name was originally for a self-publishing business I had in mind. I was going to publish my own comics, the way so many others at the time were doing -- this was the mid-90s. But as I became more serious with my freelance illustration business, I realized it would be a perfect name for it.

You see, illustrators are, above and beyond all else, storytellers. It's our job to tell the story. The story of the client's business. The story of the magazine article. The story of the comic strip. It's great if the artwork looks good -- in fact, it's very important. But if the illustration doesn't convey what it needs to convey -- in other words, if it doesn't tell the story -- it's a failure.

The dictionary defines illustrate as "explain or make something clear by using examples, charts, pictures, etc." That's the job of the illustrator. To get the point across. To present a viewpoint. to be a storyteller.

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ANOTHER Great Vintage Illustration -- and One of Mine

I know, I know -- another link to Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog. Maybe you should all just subscribe to them instead. (Or better yet, subscribe to us both!) But I can't get enough of these beautiful illustrations. And this first picture -- by Mead Schaeffer for The Black Buccaneer (1920) was just too gorgeous for me not to pass along. And it's by no means the only amazing painting that Door Tree (what can I do -- that's what he calls himself) just posted tonight.

I'm going to have to try and recreate this style digitally. I've done some acrylic painting in this vein, though nothing close to this kind of quality. But I've done some digital work for a real estate developer where I took photographs and altered them in Photoshop to look like paintings around this vintage. (See second picture.) I think I could push that style further and maybe do something in this spirit.

Of course, even if I could recreate the brushwork and the texture of these classic illustrations, that'll still leave the composition, lighting, pace, mood, period detail -- there will be loads of challenges in trying to match the impact and the flavor of these amazing paintings.

Sounds like fun, huh?

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Baldo Artist Draws on YouTube -- and I Open My Big Mouth!

The Daily Blogger has a link to a YouTube video of Baldo artist Carlos Castellanos drawing his character. Well, when I say drawing... He's really just doing the inking, which he does digitally. It's a nice video, but ever since I was a kid, whenever I hear about someone showing how they draw something, I want them to reveal everything. I want to discern all the secrets of cartooning and storytelling and illustration, and all I get is to see someone drawing a picture.

It's a standard no one could live up to. And this wasn't supposed to be a tutorial -- which Carlos himself tells me in his response to my curmudgeonly post. Me and my big mouth, I had to say that I wanted to see the whole creative process in this quick little video.

So now that I've said that, and Carlos so graciously turned the tables on me, now it's on me to produce a video of my own -- one that shows the entire creative process. Are you kidding me? I have to live up to my own standards? What have I gotten myself into?

Well, it's going to be a while, since I don't even have a video camera, and I'm going to be moving cross-country in two weeks, but once we get settled in, and I find a camera, and I figure out how to do this...

...I'll have that video.

In the meantime, some really great stuff happened from all this. I got to communicate with Carlos, who said he liked my work -- cool! This whole blogging thing is already paying off!

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Little Orphan Annie ALSO Back In New Mexico

Art, indeed, imitates life -- or vice versa.

The current Annie storyline takes our heroine back to New Mexico, where she visited three years ago and met the Broadcast Ranch boys and confronted a cross-dressing Satanist and his iguanas from Mars. No, really.

Now Annie, Santiago and boy inventor Tom Short take on the border security issue head-on—or perhaps sideways—as well as a crooked lawyer exploiting xenophobia.

Now, the irony is that by the time Jennifer and I get to New Mexico, Annie will probably have moved on, so I won't be able to use any firsthand reference in drawing the Land of Enchantment. Of course, I really don't need to -- wherever my memory might fail me, we have our own photos, the Internet has photos, and if needed, Jennifer's family could take photos.

When I say Annie will have moved on, I'm speaking about the strips I'm drawing. We're about five to six weeks ahead of publication, so Annie's New Mexico strips will certainly still be running when we get back.

Anyway, the storyline is good, and I'm happy with how it's going. You can check out the strip every day at www.comicspage.com!

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More Gorgeous Old Covers

Golden Age Comic Book Stories is fast becoming my favorite blog. They've got another winner posted on there -- more beautiful pulp magazine and book covers, like this cover for Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back. Not only does it use color beautifully and have a dynamic composition, but I'm a sucker for a good detective story! There's also a great cover for an issue of The Virginian, which not only sports a great Old West image, but has a beautifully slick Art Deco style logotype. Check out these gorgeous covers!

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Old Pulp Covers -- Make Your Own!

If you haven't seen my previous post about the old N.C. Wyeth pulp cover, go take a quick look at it. In this post I'll briefly show how I took an old cover of my own -- the cover to Jazz Age Chronicles #1, which came out back in 1990 -- making it rather vintage in its own right.

What I wanted to do was make the cover look like it's 100 years old. I wanted it to look like a beat-up old book cover, so to do that I found a beat-up old book cover. (Specifically, it's an old book of Jennifer's about the Beatles. She wanted to make sure I included that.) It has a blank cover, which is essential here, so the only features on the cover are the wear and the tear:

Now, ideally an old pulp magazine cover would be best -- the wrinkles and tears in an old magazine cover are different from the ones in this hardback book -- but I couldn't find such an item, and pulp magazines with blank covers are a little hard to scare up. So this cover would have to do. And it did.

I sized the cover to fit the original cover perfectly. Then I started with the Photoshop hokus-pokus! My first step was put white in the foreground color palette and go to Select>Color Range, and make a selection of the white tears and peels in the surface of the cover. I played with the value until I was getting most of the white and none of the blue. Then I made a new layer and using Option-Delete, I filled in the selection with the white, making a nice opaque white layer of the tears and scraps over the cover art.

Then, going back to the layer with the book cover, I went to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation (or Apple-U -- get it? U? Hugh? Oh, that one cracks me up every time!) and played with the hugh, and the saturation, and the lightness, until the blue of the cover became a nice yellow-ochre of old, faded pulp paper:

This example shows the cover before I went into Image>Adjustments>Curves and played with the contrast until the outside edges were dark again. I don't have a picture of that, but you're visual people -- I'm sure you can see it in your mind.

Then I set that layer on Multiply, so the original cover art shows through underneath. I added a new layer over all of these others and filled it with more yellow-ochre color, and set it to multiply also. Then I just played with the opacity of all these layers, until I got the final look I wanted:

Ta-daah! Not bad, huh? Now, there are other effects I could have used on this, and have in previous work, such as adjusting the color saturation of the artwork, adding some noise texture to the top layer, "tearing" one of the corners by using the lasso to select it and turning it slightly, or even pushing one of the color layers -- cyan or magenta works best -- just a tad, to make it look like slightly out-of-register old-style printing. I never do the exact same effects every time, and that's the fun part -- improvising and finding different ways to make different effects. But these are some basic steps, one basic approach, and if nothing else, they should help you find your own way to go about it.

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Old Pulp Covers -- Look At These!

Another blog we recently subscribed to is Golden Age Comic Book Stories, which actually covers a lot more than just Golden Age comic book stories. For example, see this beautiful old N.C. Wyeth pulp cover from a 1912 issue of The Popular Magazine.

I love this old style -- if you haven't already noticed. I always have. It's hard for me, really, not to make my work lean towards an old-school flavor. So I've stopped trying.

In fact, I've been inspired by the tattered old look of this cover to take one of my own covers and give it a worn, distressed look. And I'll show you that in my next post!

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Leif Peng's Daily Inspiration

Storyteller's Workshop recently subscribed to Leif Peng's Daily Inspiration e-mails. Every weekday, he sends us illustrations from (roughly) the 1940s and 1950s. They're so beautiful! Lots of different styles, and they really are inspiring, especially since we have such a vintage focus here. Check out this nice gestural spaceman from Al Parker. I'm going to play around with drawing my birds in this kind of style for a change of pace. Even though loose drawings like this look so tossed-off, they're actually so much more difficult to do.

If you're interested in old-style illustrations, give the Daily Inspiration a perusal.

Link

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