New Life Drawing – Session #1

Posted by on May 23, 2006 No comments

Well, as I promised myself (and all of you reading this LJ), I went to a Figure Drawing session this week. It will not be the last.

Checking my old files, the last time I went was April 14, 2005. Considering it’s been 13 plus months, tonight went okay. The initial gestures were tough as I tried to get back into it but once we hit some medium length poses I started to see some okay stuff emerging. The figure drawing headspace is raw and rusty, but hopefully over the next few weeks I can build up my confidence and then push further.

Click here to see my two best drawings of the evening.

Sky Experiment

Posted by on May 23, 2006 No comments

This time out I didn’t do any line art, instead heading straight to the canvas digitally.

All the sketch stuff so far has been character driven, so I went for a quick environmental one instead. I think it turned out atmospheric, if a bit indistinct.

Posted by on May 21, 2006 No comments

A mini painting of a cartoony Spider-Man. When I was a kid I thought Spidey’s black suit was extra-super-duper cool. It’s iconic, sleek and presents a challenge in terms of highlights and shadows. The suit just seemed way more appropriate for a character out in the night kicking butt.

I’ve done very few fan art images over the years. I think I worry that I’ll do a terrible job depicting characters I like so much. Hopefully this Spidey pic will spur me on to try some others.

Oh yeah, and an amusing dialogue snippet from Friday night:

Zub: …You know, like each hero’s Rogue’s Gallery. Spider-Man villains, Avengers villains, Iron Man villains, whatever.

Ray: Does Iron Man even have any specific villains?

Zub: Uh… the Mandarin.

Ray: That guy with the rings?

Zub: Yeah, him. I’m having trouble thinking of any more than that. Oh yeah, Crimson Dynamo. Hmm, any others?

Ray: Don’t forget his arch-nemesis – Johnnie Walker.

Zub: You win.

Posted by on May 20, 2006 No comments

The piece just felt like it needed a word balloon even though it was all by itself and isn’t part of a comic page.

Posted by on May 19, 2006 No comments


Thanks to everyone who posted birthday congrats and well wishes. It’s greatly appreciated and helps motivate me. There’s some talk of heading out tomorrow night for a bit of birthday cheer, which would be quite kick ass indeed.

Another sketch experiment to the left. It feels good to just draw and color for the heck of it and not worry about what a client or art director will think. I’m starting small with these sketches, getting some confidence back and experimenting with the ol’ digital paint again. Random tiny paintings like this can be fun and don’t require much of a time commitment.

I’m happy to have something to post two days in a row. It’s kind of sad that I have to look at that as an accomplishment after such a long stretch without art. I’m not expecting to have new stuff 7 days a week, but just getting more down and shifting my head space towards creating for myself is a good thing.

Birthday

Posted by on May 18, 2006 No comments


Today’s the day where the tens column of my life flips over another digit.

Today’s the day I turn 30.

I’ve put off being creative too long and it’s been driving me batty. I’m missing a crucial part of who I am when I’m not creating things for myself. The work is fine and dandy, but I’ve got to reorient myself and tap into the stories and fudamentals of my own desires just as much as the commercial end of things or the expectations of others.

This livejournal is going to be part of that. I’m going to post more sketches, experiments and progress on my pet projects instead of just squirreling things away and never letting it see the light of day. When I was working on Makeshift Miracle I had a real sense of commitment to finishing those pages week in and week out, good or bad. After it ended I felt some relief, but the momentum it built was lost at the same time.

It’s time to rebuild that desire and make it happen. This isn’t a mid-life crisis or a depression-laced post lamenting “Woe is me.”. It’s not a woeful situation. I’ve always had the ability to do it. I’ve denied it out of fear, laziness and distraction.

Starting next week I’m going to start doing Life Drawing again at the school at least one evening per week as consistently as possible. I’m also going to begin a new web comic. Something simple. I’ve been letting myself get intimidated and it’s stalled the process. Each month that rolled by after Makeshift ended I would worry about living up to it and doing something that much better, both in art and story. Even when I knew in my head that the act of creating was the most important thing, I still psyched myself out. No more.

This is a little contract to myself made public to help make it stick.

More art, more stories, more arms stretched out to feel the air whirl around me.

Welcome to 30, Zub. Don’t waste it.

Posted by on May 16, 2006 No comments

For the first time in over a year and a half I updated my personal website. I’m going to try and update each section bit-by-bit over the next week. I figured I’d start with one of the easier sections first and build momentum before I did the gallery stuff.

Here’s the updated Writing Section of the site with links to past writing projects and articles I’ve written. It was kind of nice reorganizing it and being able to see them all there. I have other writing bits I’ll have to dig through. My hard drive has creative files all the way back to high school. I’m a digital pack rat.

Posted by on May 15, 2006 No comments

The latest comic portfolio column is now up – One Step 10: Social Graces.

Corresponding with a ton of contacts today to get things back under control. Lots of e-mailing and phoning to be done. I have a stack of business cards to add to the ol’ contact database. Blar. Currently I’d rather be sleeping.

Grocery Night

Posted by on May 15, 2006 No comments

Grocery shopping for me always feels sort of odd. It’s like some sort of strange adult responsibility I’ve been given to choose my own raw food stuffs and figure out what I’m going to do with them. I enjoy cooking nowadays (though I rarely get a chance to) I just feel weird about the act of buying all the actual items and rationing them for one person so it doesn’t all go bad before I use stuff up.

Couple that with shopping for food at 4am and it’s downright surreal. Empty streets, empty parking lot, empty aisles… it feels like it’s frozen in time. The only sound is the occasional sweeping of a broom or squeak of the dolly wheels as someone restocks a shelf on the other side of the store.

I got in touch with an old friend from college. His long running relationship crumbled in the Fall, which I could relate to. He sounded drained, tired, hollow… even though it had been over 8 months, not that I could blame him. That feeling of having a plan for the future getting sideswiped is not easy to recover from.

I busted his balls a bit and tried to pry him from his shell, to mixed success. The irony of course being that almost all the advice and ball busting I gave him should have been equally reflected back upon myself. It’s always easier to see someone else’s problems and offer corrections on their form than to put oneself under the same analysis. After the conversation was over though, I reread it and spun it around more clearly to help myself. I was surpised how much it clarified a few things for me.

Okay, the fridge is no longer empty. Toothpaste is restocked. Time to sleep.

PS: Who decided to make all these different kinds of toothpaste? Where the Hell is just “Crest”? What is the difference between “Ultra-Whitening”, “Total Whitening” and “Complete Whitening” toothpaste? Does anyone give a shit if they buy “Cool Mint”, “Mint Breeze” or “Lemon Mint”?

E3 – Interview

Posted by on May 13, 2006 No comments

Shawn Sines, a friend and one of the excellents gents I saw at E3 has got a pile of podcasts and interviews from the show up at this link:
Game On! Podcasts

In addition to that, I was interviewed by him midway through his E3 Special Report #4. I sound far more informed than I really am. 😛