I really need to update this site more often! 🙂

One other thing I’ve needed to do for months is add the new comic Thrilling Tales of Vistas Unknown to the store. I’ve had a number of people ask how to buy it now that the Kickstarter is over and fulfilled. I’ve been either too distracted or working on other things. Soon!

Anyway.

Prior to going on vacation in October I drew a Variant cover for a friends comic series, coming to Kickstarter soon (but I don’t know when)! I’ll show it as soon as the Kickstarter launches.

I’ve also been working on getting the Kickstarter page built for the upcoming Sîan campaign, coming in January! I’ve been saying that it would launch this fall, but fall is almost over and I didn’t quite get things done in time, and I’m not quite done yet!

One thing that slowed me down is that I wanted a subtitle for the logo: like Conan “the Barbarian” or Xena “warrior princess”, or, you get the idea.

The first thing that popped into my head was Sîan: Queen of Thieves… but, there is a semi-current fantasy comic by someone I know with the same subtitle so that gave me pause. Also, at this point in time in her career, Sîan is a young woman who grew up on the streets in an organized pack of child pickpockets and beggars, and as she aged out, she graduated to more mature forms of thieving and is in the beginnings of her career as a cat burglar and thief for hire. So “Queen of Thieves” doesn’t feel right, and I can’t say that thief will always be her vocation as her adventures continue.

I figured “Thief of… (enter city/country name here)” and that is where I got stuck. I made up a random name I liked, added it to the logo, made cover mockups and put them on the Kickstarter page, then my wife came home and told me she absolutely hated the name, and there I got stuck. We left on vacation shortly after, but even once we got home I was completely paralyzed.

Monday I got semi-unstuck and came up with a few options, and while my wife didn’t love the one I’ve picked, she hated it less than the others! LOL!

This is such an inconsequential detail, so it’s ridiculous that it has taken up so much of my thought and time. It’s not like I can’t change the subtitle every story arc.

Anyhoo…

Here’s the three covers with the current trade dress. Let me know what you think!

The Kickstarter closed on June 20th and it was a rousing success!

I had modest hopes going in as I haven’t run one in quite a while, but the campaign had an amazing 277 backers and overfunded by 1100%!

Wow!

If you missed it, it’s not too late. Kickstarter now allows late pledges and the basic pledge levels are still open and accepting pledges.

We passed all the stretch goals I set, so as well as the Comic Book and Artbook, backers who pledged for either version of the comic will also get 4 6×9 art prints.

There was also a Variant Cover unlocked halfway through, but it is now gone. I may have a few left over once the campaign is fulfilled, but it was a limited edition for the campaign only.

I’ve got a lot of work to do this week to get the comic and bonus posters ready for the printer. I’ll post again once the comic has been printed and added to the on-line store!

It’s been an all-consuming thing for the last few weeks, and I’m kind of exhausted, but I’m excited about the possibilities and I’m already starting to think about the next comic release/kickstarter campaign coming this fall!

The Kickstarter went live yesterday for the campaign to print THRILLING TALES OF VISTAS UNKNOWN!

So far it is doing better than I could have hoped! Well, I hoped, but, you never can tell. As of noon today, the campaign has been live for 26 hours and I’m at 45 backers and 232% funded! I set the funding goal at a modest $800 Canadian, so I expected to fund easily enough, but not quite so fast! By comparison, the Wahoo Morris campaign had 15 backers on day one and took several days to hit 45 backers. It had a much higher goal, and I think a more niche market than my new comic.

Oh, I also got a “Project We Love” badge, which is nice in an ego affirming way, but it also places the project higher on the Kickstarter homepage which dramatically improves visibility from random people scrolling the comics category.

It is fun running a campaign, but it can be stressful and draining. I’m kind of exhausted and it’s only day two!

Like the headline says, the Prelaunch Page for my next Kickstarter for Thrilling Tales of Vistas Unknown is now live. Give it a follow to be notified when the campaign goes live!

New Pin-up finished.

I used some direct figure reference for this one which is something I don’t usually do.

I wanted one more new pin-up for the upcoming anthology and was drawing a blank for ideas or inspiration. I went to twitter and scrolled the Fantasy Art Pose reference feed and found a few poses I liked and incorporated two into a scene. The seated figure I drew from scratch.

I feel a little weird about using photo reference this blatantly. It wouldn’t be hard to find the source photos if you went looking for them.

In the handful of instances I’ve used direct reference in a published piece, I’ve either shot it myself, or transformed it dramatically from the source. I feel no guilt about grabbing a photo of a gun or guitar or car and dropping it into a page for a quick trace-off, but usually I’m looking at photos of environments, props, or people to figure out “how they work and look” and not copying them directly.

I had originally sketched out a background behind the figures, column with drapery etc., but decided to leave it here as this took a ridiculously long time as it is and don’t want to add another days work to something I feel vaguely like it’s plagiarism!
It was still a fun experiment in inking, lighting, shading and modelling with brush line work, more so than I usually do.

I’d be curious to hear how other artists use reference if the reference is what sparked the composition in the first place.