How I spent my April 2009.

I've kept the pedal to the metal/ax to the grind/brush to the bristol this past month:




It's awesome that the work I'm doing now finally feels closer to the book's completion than its beginning.

So I remember how I did this when I'm old and feeble minded:

1. Thumbnails: story outline that only I can make any sense of, half existing as scribbles in boxes and half as scenes and actions in my mind. These sketches are on 11" x 8.5" paper.



2. Roughs: more detailed drawings with dialog so my editor can read/review from beginning to end. Drawn at print size, these double page spreads measure 14" x 9.25".



3. After editor's approval, blue pencils at original art size. (For VIETNAMERICA, that's about 13" x 17" pages) These are drawn by lightboxing the enlarged roughs but are even less legible as visuals get a little messy.



The next step is inking, the final buff and polish before scanning and coloring--coming soon to a blog near you! To minimize rewriting and redrawing, I complete each step for the entire book before moving on to the next.

"Taking a break from all your worries..."

"... sure would help a lot." More pages from SVA's figure drawing sessions--i.e. sanity breaks from the snowballing neurosis of working on VIETNAMERICA.

Mornin' Illos Part 3: Revenge of the Craptacular

Another round of morning email gag illustrations--don't say I didn't warn you:

The Odd Couple:

While filling out my 2008 taxes, I had a couple of "firsts":



It was a spectacular year.