Results tagged “art”

When I was 10 years old, I spent a great deal of time with my friends drawing.

Three or four of us would lay out on the carpet with pages of white paper and sharpened pencils, bringing to life anything our imaginations could produce. We had DC and Marvel Comics spread out before us. It was great fun seeing who could create the best work, and ironically one of us went on to become a world-renowned artist.

My favorite character to draw had to have been Wolverine.

Chris Hart, the author and artist of Superheroes and Beyond: How to Draw the Leading and Supporting Characters of Today’s Comics, has spent the last decade helping people draw better. He has stopped by Suvudu to talk about his new book and drawing superheroes!

Suvudu: Hi Chris. Welcome to Suvudu! How are you?

Chris Hart: Very well, thanks.

S: Superheroes and Beyond: How to Draw the Leading and Supporting Characters of Today’s Comics, your new book, is published today. Tell us a bit about it?

CH: Superheroes are the thread that runs through all the great comic book adventures series. Superheroes. Even the word conjures up excitement and great visuals. So I decided to do a book that focused on creating original superheroes and their supporting cast members. These types of characters have inspired legions of aspiring artists. So, with Hollywood in full panic to transfer every superhero from the page to the screen, I felt the time was right to do a book that unlocked the secrets of the pros, and showed exactly how to draw those great comic book characters.

S: What is it about drawing superheroes that appeals to you?

“Up, up, and away!”

“To infinity and beyond!”

“Spoon!”

When it comes to superheroes, there’s no shortage of catchphrases. They’re nearly as iconic as the costume that the character wears…but not quite. That’s why we’re not going to help you come up with a catchphrase for your character, but we will help you draw them!

Here’s the deal, Christopher Hart has published his latest incredible drawing guide: Superheroes and Beyond: How to Draw the Leading and Supporting Characters of Today’s Comics (view the book here). It’s a book that gives even me hope that I could draw a superhero, and I struggle to create stick figures that don’t look oddly afflicted.

To celebrate this, we’re giving away five signed copies of Superheroes and Beyond. Here’s how you enter: draw us a picture containing at least one superhero and/or supervillian and send it, along with your name and address to sometime between now and November 24, 2009. We’ll collect the entries and send them off to Christopher Hart, who will then judge them and pick our winners.

Be sure to check out our legal page for more details: Superheroes and Beyond legal.

Pretty cool, eh? So break out the pencils and paper (or warm up Illustrator, Photoshop, Inkscape, whatever you use to draw) and have a go at it! Good luck!

Here is the Todd Lockwood cover art for The Bear, the last book in the Saga of the First King series by R.A. Salvatore!

While visiting Todd a few weeks ago at his Seattle home, he showed me some of the things he has been working on in his studio. The Bear was one of them. As you can see it follows the same motif as the rest of the series—a character in the middle bearing a weapon. This one does differ though, in that a weapon does not split the painting in half like its predecessors but instead the background castle tower breaks up the image.

You can see closer detail at Todd’s website by clicking The Bear!

The cover artist has also updated his website with new art, so check it out, including a very cool 2010 calendar! Need a fantasy-oriented calendar for next year? Or collect Todd’s artwork with a remarque? Click here!

I also happened to give Todd a great idea for the cover of Shadowheart, the last book in the current Shadow series by Tad Williams. I have no idea if it is feasible. If the idea goes through, I’ll be quite happy to take 10% from DAW books for my contribution, thank you very much.

By the way, that was my lame attempt at internet(s) humor!

More where that came from…!

Dave Roman

Dave is a co-collaborator, along with his wife Raina Telgemeier, on X-Men: Misfits, a new graphic novel series for Del Rey. Dave’s day job finds him working as an associate editor over at Nickelodeon Magazine. He is also a Harvey Award nominee, and an Ignatz and Web Cartoonists’ Choice award winner.

Wanna know more about Dave, his art, stories, and otherwise? Of course you do (that’s why you’re signing up for a chat reminder, yes?), so while you’re waiting for the live chat, why don’t you hop on over to his website: it’s yaytime!

Raina Telgemeier

Raina Telgemeier is a the co-collaborator, along with her husband Dave Roman, on X-Men: Misfits, a new graphic novel series for Del Rey. She’s also a writer and artist in her own right. Her work is frequently recognized as tops in it’s field. If you don’t believe us, just check out her awards rap sheet: Raina has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Eisner, Ignatz, Cybil, and Web Cartoonists’ Choice awards. To see her illustrations and learn other cool facts about Raina (except how she ended up with one of the coolest names in comics), check out her website: GoRaina.com!

Now, as you can tell by the short bios I have provided here, these two aren’t just collaborators, they’re married. And, according to our own inside sources, they have a reputation for being one of the cutest couples working in the industry. Why? Well, there’s no scientific evidence to prove this, but it might have something to do with the innovated way in which Dave asked Raina to marry him.

Want to know how he did it? He crafted a sneaky comic and asked Raina to illustrate it, and contained in that comic was his proposal. Sounds cool, eh? What’s cooler is that you can check out the comic, complete with a change in perspective (as it shifts from Dave’s art to Raina’s after the proposal) by clicking here: “How We Got Engaged!”

Okay, so to recap:

• What: Author Chat: X-Men: Misfits authors, Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier
• When: Monday, August 24
• Where: Suvudu.com
• Why: Because Dave and Raina are awesome. Why else?
• Can’t Attend? Send your questions to Del Rey Manga @ Random House

We’ll see you in the chat!

You know me. I always love a great looking cover.

And here is such a one! I’m happy to see Tor, who I feel has not done a very good job taking Todd Lockwood’s amazing art and incorporating it cover art, just taking the UK artwork and layouts for Steven Erikson’s Malazan series and using it in the US!

While Tor is spot on with its covers and I really enjoy what Irene Gallo does because she’s great at it, for some reason they just couldn’t capture Erikson’s work as a presentation. Odd, really.

What do you think? Like the cover art for Dust of Dreams?

I love it!

This cover image was released while I was away at Comic Con, but I thought I’d better post it despite it being on several blogs already.

I always enjoy a good cover. This one is almost there for me. Usually Robin Hobb’s UK covers kick the US covers butt, the UK done by artist John Howe. This year the UK took a different route though and it is easy for me to post that I prefer the US cover for Dragon Keeper.

That said, it still needs a bit of work. The artwork is okay but the fonts and the colors used in those fonts should be revisited. I know, I know, they match what has come before but that is not always a good thing.

The yellow used in that cover deadens what could be a very good presentation.

For me.

What do you think?

As I showcased yesterday, Todd Lockwood is an artist.

He spends his time in the Pacific Northwest doing exactly what he loves—bringing the fantastical to visual light. When he isn’t sketching at Comic Cons, Todd has a moderate office in his home where he spends his time painting book cover art for authors, Magic: The Gathering cards, magazine covers and many other similar fantasy and science fiction graphic designs.

He does leave his home several times a year to take part in conventions all over the world. He spends a lot of his time looking over portfolios of burgeoning artists, giving his advice where appropriate, but he also takes his art to sell to his fans as well as talk about each piece he hangs on his booth.

Despite it being late in the afternoon Comic Con Saturday and both of us being reduced to wilted shadows of our true selves, I decided to put Todd on camera so he could talk about the Comic Con and highlight some of his new artwork.

Here you go:

If you love Todd’s artwork and you want it to hang it in your own home or office space, visit him at his website and order a giclee of anything you see!

More soon, including interviews with Patrick Rothfuss and Terry Brooks!

Anon!

I have returned to Seattle from the 2009 San Diego Comic Con.

I am tired. Wiped out. Done in. A stiff breeze would push me over (or destroy me like the Magic: The Gathering Path To Exile card above). And yet I also feel great gratitude for the time I was able to spend at the convention, the work I accomplished, and all of the friends I got to see and make. It was four days of high stress, high takes and high octane.

As Lev Grossman said in his recent Time article, “I don’t think humans were meant to go to all four days of Comic-Con.”

I don’t know about Lev, but I attended all four days and normalcy is at least a week away from happening for me.

Anyway, I have a lot of great posts to write about this week. I thought it would be fun to start with the original essence of Comic Con—penciled and sketched artwork. I stopped by to see my friend Todd Lockwood at his San Diego Comic Con booth. Todd is a super nice guy, extremely talented—to the point I actually do hate him at times for his genius—and I thought it would be fun to interview him and put him on the internet(s) for all of those artists either wanting to break into the field or those who are fans of Todd’s work.

Turns out as soon as I walked up two fans were requiring Todd’s attention, one of whom wanted a sketch done. I snuck into Todd’s booth on cat’s paws, his wife Rita grinning in amusement at me, and I turned on my cam without Todd knowing.

This is the sketch he produced:

It was very cool to see that pen dance over an empty white page.

I will post the interview with Todd tomorrow. By the time the interview was conducted, he and I were both dreadfully tired, it being late in the day on Saturday and our life force slowly bled away by the pumped in air, false light and rampant misty body odor. But you will see some of Todd’s newest art as well as what he thinks of it.

In the meantime, I need a vacation from my vacation!

Until anon!

So, I’ve covered quite a bit of ground in this little build up series giving you examples of ways in which Comic-Con has grown beyond the boundaries of just comics. Now we’re gonna reel it in a bit, because, even will all of those other amazing events taking place, Comic-Con is still largely about the comics.

Surprise!

Actually, it’s not. It’s Comic-Con, the comics convention to end them all. So let’s talk about that element that most identifiably sets comics and graphic novels apart from all other forms: the art. Comic-Con is big on art and you need look no further than Artists’ Alley to know this for a fact. In fact, some people never do manage to see further than Artists’ Alley, the place is packed! And don’t just take my word for it, Comic-Con’s own website bills Artists’ Alley as “one of the world’s largest gatherings of artists.” But this isn’t some exclusive gathering behind closed doors. Nope, they’re out and socializing (some more than others, but hey). There’s a good chance you’ll be able to get an autograph from just about anyone there, while others also sweeten the pot by offering to sell some of their art.

The people at Weta are geniuses.

What is Weta?

Quite simply, Weta has become synonymous with science fiction and fantasy greatness. It has two branches: Weta Workshop is a five time Oscar winning conceptual design and physical manufacturing facility servicing the world’s entertainment and creative industries. Weta Digital is a world leading visual effects company based in Wellington, New Zealand.

So what has Weta worked on?

Little movies like:

• The Fellowship of the Ring and sequels
• King Kong remake
• The Lovely Bones (directed by Peter Jackson)
• Avatar (directed by James Cameron)
• The Adventures of Tin Tin (directed by Steve Spielberg)
• The Hobbit (directed by Guillermo del Toro)

The last four of those movies are forthcoming and will be box office smashes! And when Comic Con 2009 launches in San Diego next month, Weta will be there to talk about those movies and to highlight much of the work that goes into producing such high quality character and set designs as well as digital effects.

Here are some of the things they are doing:

First, Weta Workshop is selling (5) copies of The Art of The Fellowship of The Ring and The Art of The Two Towers signed by Richard Taylor, John Howe, Alan Lee, Gino Acevedo and Daniel Falconer. These are extremely rare. First come, first served, as they say. Visit Booth #2615 for more information!

Second, Weta Workshop will be featuring at their booth (#2615) a forthcoming line of bronze Lord of the Rings sculptures based on the artwork of the talented John Howe. These are being overseen by John Howe in New Zealand as he helps the art production team begin to bring the initial designs on The Hobbit to life. Weta will be featuring the first two sculptures—both of which are yet unknown. I love bronze sculpture work, so I am very curious about what Weta and John Howe are putting together! To listen to a recent podcast about this project, click HERE!

Third, Suvudu will be video interviewing Tim Launder (General Manager for Weta Ltd.) and/or Greg Broadmore (Concept Designer at Weta) at Comic Con! Got a question you’d like asked? Post it in the comments below!

More to come, fan boys and girls!

I swear, RA Salvatore is one of the luckiest authors going.

Without a doubt.

I’ve known Bob for seven or eight years. He has created arguably one of the most well known fantasy characters ever in Drizzt Do’Urden and writes some of the best battle sequences every year.

Beyond that, Bob is just a super nice guy, easy to talk to, and after two decades of professional writing loves it as much now as when he began.

A man who works hard deserves all he receives.

No, when I say he is lucky, I mean the covers he gets!

Welcome to a very interesting category: one recognizing—a genre? A medium? A style? A distribution method? All of them?—whose extraordinary success may soon eliminate the need for the category’s existence in the future. This category recognizes comics that were first published on the web—but as web distribution becomes an increasingly important business model, as creators use web serialization to bring their stories directly to readers, and readers become ever more reliant on portable media devices, more and more comics may begin life as “webcomics.” For now, a look at the nominees, which include a rising indie comics star, a legend with a cult following, and four fascinating talents who deserve wider recognition, shows something of the extreme creative variety this format has been brewing.

Leading off our coverage of the 2009 Eisner Awards are the nominees for Best Cover Artist. Cover art differs from the internal art (in most cases) in that it allows for a richer visual experience in color, layout, and complexity. Cover art can range from shocking to cinematic, stylized to toned down, it can contain characters from the comic or it could be more of a mood piece. The one thing it had better be, though, is evocative of the story because comics, perhaps more so than any other medium, wear their souls on the outside as much as the inside.

Makes sense as the cover will also be competing for a potential reader’s eye on his or her favorite comics shop wall, right? And, of course, there is the potential for the art to become attached to a collectible item. But that’s another thing all together.

So who are being recognized as the stand-outs in their field this year? Here’s the list:

Of course, we could break down all their individual merits and describe the art too you…but that wouldn’t really be doing them justice. So come along as we take a look at what each artist is bringing to the table and view a sampling of their artwork. It’s a comics wall from the best of the best, coming up after the jump.

July 23^rd (or 22^nd, depending on when your tickets will get you in the doors), that’s when Comic-Con International kicks off in San Diego. That’s just about 14 weeks. From this side of the equation (the publishing side) those are 14 very fast weeks. But just because we’re doing a lot of planning right now, that doesn’t mean we don’t have time to delve into one of Suvudu’s favorite genres: comics!

More specifically, we’re training our eyes on the Eisner Awards for Suvudu’s first Eisner Shakedown. The nominations have been announced, the date is set, now all that’s left to do is speculate. And that’s what we’re going to do. Starting today, Suvudu will be giving you a category-by-category shakedown of this year’s Eisner nominees. We’re hoping not just to highlight those extraordinarily talented writers/artists/creators who have been nominated, but to give you a little insight into each category as best we can*.

Hey, we’re not the Eisner judges, so we can’t tell you who has the inside track to take home an award, but we can help get the discussion started. So on we go and it’s my sincere hope that you’ll use the comments section and the forums to share your thoughts on the nominees, the Eisner’s, the categories, or even comics in general.

With only 14 weeks and 26 categories, there’s no time to lose, so we’ll kick it off today (in about 30 minutes or so) with a look at the nominees for Best Cover Artist. Stay tuned…

Manga-philes, sharpen your pencils! The New York Anime Festival 2009 Official Mascot Contest is now live! Partner website theOtaku.com is now accepting designs for original mascot characters, with the winning art to be featured as the convention’s mascot throughout the show and the winning artist to be showered will honor, glory, and prizes!

Ahhhh, technology. Is there nothing it can’t do? Today’s experiment in time-wasting is to have the excellent wordle.net site take Suvudu’s Twitter feed (go follow us, if you’re not already!) and translate it into a work of art, featuring the most commonly tweeted words (the bigger the word, the more often it’s used).

I take particular pride in seeing how big the word horror is. In your face, manic.

My roommate’s little sister, who’s an art student at U Michigan, is staying on our futon for her spring break, and she was showing me some art blogs last night. There was one collection of sculptures I found particularly interesting. Artist Mari Kasurinen takes My Little Ponies and fits them with awesome ComicCon-type costumes.

These are only a few! There are a ton more at the artist’s website.

I’ve always been a big fan of fashion blogs (such as Go Fug Yourself) where they praise or critique outfits - perhaps it also comes as a surprise that I’m such a fan of fantasy books as well. I don’t think the two interests are all that different though, especially because books have their very own “outfits” - their covers.

I’m not the first nor will I be the last person to say that I judge books by their covers. I’ve also always found the differences between American and British covers fascinating - whenever I see British covers, they definitely give me a certain indescribable feeling that American covers don’t, and vice versa.

I recently read The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, Vol. 1 by Gordon Dahlquist, with the cover you see above. This is somewhat important to note because even though this book has been out for three years in hardcover with this cover:

I honestly didn’t feel the same urge to pick it up until I saw the new paperback cover. I think the new cover does a great job of calling attention to itself - I really like the new type and background. They convey a warmer feeling to me, and I think it also more accurately reflects the Victorian-esque setting. What do you guys think?

After the jump, the British covers for comparison.

Just in case you haven’t already snagged your tickets, this weekend marks the return of New York City’s oldest Comic Book, Art, Toy, and Science Fiction convention - the Big Apple Con! It’s going down at 7th and 33rd, so, you know, just south of Times Square and smack in the middle of the city.

Now if you’re like me, then you’re thinking this is the perfect event for your home and office swag! I’m thinking I’ll be on the lookout for some interesting toys figurines, posters, and checking out the cornucopia of print goods on display.

Oh, but there is one event that should not be missed - the New York Jedi Association will be putting on live Light Sabre fight simulations and schooling others in the art of Light Sabre fighting and choreography.

Oh

Yes

Indeed…