Hey People!!! Come to the Puck Building on Lafayette St. this weekend and check out all the comic goodness. This thing is always a blast, seeing all the great artwork and stories, and meeting all the other partners in comic crime. OOP will be there, plugging our new book with RANDOM HOUSE.

Bob Mackenzie did this beautiful art for the poster for the first OOP book. Our editor (and illustrator extrordinaire) Mike Knapp did the snappy poster design.

OK, I figured I'd post a layout drawing from the upcoming book. We are heading towards our delivery date in August at breakneck speed, so I will probably post some more very soon. I'm excited about the new story, and like the style of the final renders that I'm attempting to do. This page happens towards the end of the story, so I don't want to spoil it... let's just say there is a poor gargoyle that is getting the business end of an annoying bunch of pigeons that have flocked around him.

This approach to my composition and drawing is typical to how I handle design problems and layout assignments at work. I've done a variey of tasks in both TV and feature, but they almost always revolve around staging and environments. I'll usually do many thumbnails, and only settle on one after I'm sure it hits the right beats for that particular moment in a story. The angle (whether its dramatic or static), should support the moment, so seeing the pigeons in an upshot above the gargoyle conveys that he is in a less than desirable situation. I tried two different downshots from different angles, but they didn't feel right. This rough is one or two steps away from being final. (I'll post the whole process when I'm finished.)

Ever have one of those late night doodle sessions that won't end until you've exhausted the sketch you are working on?
It starts out harmless enough, but then it becomes a challenge that won't let you stand down until you've finished it (even when you have other stuff to sketch?@#!) Well, here's one that wouldn't leave me alone.

I don't know who it is in the sketch, but I couldn't stop 'till I had something on paper.

This past saturday I was extrememly lucky to get to paint with Master Jie, Tom Cardone, Sang Jun, and Mike Defeo, all Blue Sky coworkers and friends. What an amazing bunch of artists. We decided to tackle the view of the Brooklyn Bridge from Washington St. (For all you non-locals and the West Coast, this area is called "DUMBO" or down under the Manhattan Bridge.)This is what I came up with by 11:30 that morning. It was a tough morning because the light and atmosphere changed pretty quickly. After packing up, we all had a few slices at Grimaldi's brick oven pizza, which was right around the corner. Man, was it goooood...

This was a not so recent color study that I did last year (?) with Dice, Vince, and some others from the Blue Sky gang. I liked the palette so I wanted to share it. It was a cool morning around 9:30 am.