Cool guys don't look at explosions

I thought I'd end the year with a measure of style and something I wish I could work on more often. I'm constantly thinking of Jonah, but never have the time to properly devote time to the comic because of other obligations.

For me, 2011 has been one of my most frantic years in recent memory. Moving twice to two different cities, once from the horrendously cold/windy, but vibrant city of Chicago, to the rainy, contemplative city of Seattle and then on to California... lots of driving, sigh, but hey the weather is great!

It hasn't been the easiest of years but there were some bright spots. I got to see my little sister graduate from college and for the first time in 6 years I'm currently spending Christmas with my parents. I started working in San Diego and its quite nice so far. I got to go to the San Diego Comic con and met some artists I respect quite a bit, and saw some things in retrospect as a videogame/comic nerd growing up in Nigeria, I never thought I'd see in my lifetime. I read some influential graphic novels this year, like Asterios Polyp, Daytripper, Petrograd, as well as novels this year that strengthened my resolve for the vision of Jupiter Jonah. One of them was Herge's biography. I've always loved Tintin and my brother and I often talk about how we'd like to develop Jonah in that iconic vein. I think it's easier to do something when you know its been done with some measure of laudable success before. Reading about Herge's life, his successes and failures reading about his personal life and work ethic was a small revelation. All in all I'd say it was a decent year.

Light, Sweet Crude

Over the last year I've been working on a comic project with Shobo and Chris Feliciano Arnold. All info about the comic is located here. You can also see the first 8 pages of the comic. The comic is an adaptation of a short story published in playboy in 2009, written by Chris. It's a political thriller that takes place in Texas and the Niger Delta, told through several narrative points of view.We sort of unveiled this short segment at Comic-con last week and got favorable responses from some of the independent publishers we showed it to. Now let's see about getting this finished, shall we.

Light Sweet Crude

MAGNA CUM RIVETER

My lovely sis, Funlola, graduated from the Memphis College of Art last weekend. She majored in sculpture (metals) and finished with a magna cum laude. I'm super proud of her. IYAAAABOBOOOOO!

Here's looking at you kid ;)

You look so familiar

Have you ever tried to draw a face based on an impression of a person's expression? I find you always  come up with interesting results, so I tried it on this sculpt. Of course everyone unconsciously does this with whatever creative process they work on (implementing the familiar that is), but consciously applying this technique is quite fun. Five naira to the person who guesses who this sculpt's expression is based on.

There is a turn around image of the sculpt here.

Ace McD

Did this quick drawing when I first got my hands on the cintiq at work. I wanted to see how repsonsive it was with line work as opposed to a wacom tablet. It didn't disappoint.

Ho Fafhrd!! Hist, Gray Mouser!!

I recently read Mike Mignola, Al Williamson and Howard Chaykin's graphic novel adaptation of Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser on a trip to Seattle and loved it! The titular characters' relationship with each other and adventures were quite the swashbuckling ride. The storytelling and art were great and the book jarred my early memories of fantasy adventure comic stories of that nature, like Conan and Thud the Barbarian (having strayed from them recently in my comic reading). Anyway, the images above were for a job test I did late last year and had I read Fafhrd at that time it might have helped visually inspire these images, but I think I did a decent job considering I've never drawn Western fantasy before.