This Joke's on me Club Batman!!!

HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-!!!!

My friends in Malaga Spain (Club Batman) are having yet another event on July 16th and once again I'm donating some work because I just love these guys!

Guns of Shadow Valley

and 11"x 17" watercolour of Frank "Breakneck" Kelly from Dave Wachter's Guns of Shadow Valley.
I played with a couple of different colour techniques digitally, but still prefer the original black & white.

COVERTIPS!

Aspiring Comic artists, if you are not following CBCebulski , you really should be. I wanted to share this particular twitter thread today because he and various comic professionals are putting out some invaluable advice.
(read from bottom to top)

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RT @skottieyoung: Negative space's your friend on covers. I find the golden ration to be 70/30. 70 filled/30open, 70open/30filled #covertips

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RT @skottieyoung: Everything in life needs air to breathe, so does the image on your cover. Focal point SHOULDNT touch every edge #covertips

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RT @EricCanete: Leave room for THE LOGO; which will sometimes significantly change composition/intent/mood of art. #covertips

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RT @nwoodard: Consider color when designing. Color should enhance a design that already works, not save a design that doesn't. #covertips

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RT @LeeGarbett: Give the design a point of focus. If the eye doesn't know where to 'rest' it's a bad composition. #covertips

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RT @davaja: Logo, upc, Marvel logo, credits... everything, is part of the cover. Exploit them as an element of your composition. #covertips

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RT @davaja: Look what dominate the shelves, do something different. -Go away 5 meters away of your cover see if it still works. #covertips

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RT @philhester: Concept first. #covertips

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RT @jock4twenty: be aware of negative space as shapes that attract the eye. position figures/elements within the shapes! be bold. #covertips

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RT @ChrisEliopoulos: I always try to use white backgrounds and simple figures. Go very graphic. #covertips

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RT @shawncrystal: Design comes first, then drawing. #covertips

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RT @RyanStegman: Less is more! #covertips

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RT @ollymoss: Think about your concept for at least as long as it will take you to execute it. #covertips

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Some great cover design advice coming in. I'll be retweeting some of it under the hashtag #covertips. Be sure to follow the artists too!

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A number of replies have asked for tips on creating eye-catching and inspired covers. Any suggestions to offer, all you artists out there?

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Caught last week's Iron Chef America: Battle Mussels. Wow. @bflay really outdid himself! So want a tasting menu of those dishes he rocked!

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A mouth-watering pic that @ronxo, and I believe @Agent_M, foodhazed me with from Louisville last week... www.eataku.com

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Totally love sriracha! And @bonappetit runs a cool article on 25 different ways to use it, now online: http://bit.ly/mmrcMc

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If I saw just the covers at a con or in a shop, I would never have picked up the books. The cover is your first impression. Make it count!

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I just got sent a few comics from up-n-comers and was instantly turned off by the covers. Uggh! But upon opening, the interior art was nice

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Never underestimate the power of a cover on your comic. Especially you indy/small press guys. It can make or break your book. Really.

The Last Supper ...At Furors Bar?

This was an exciting commission! Fallen Angel characters in DaVinci's Last Supper!
Not only was it a fun challenge to recreate my own version of the Last Supper, but it was a thrill to finally see all these characters together in one place at the same time.
These are all characters from Peter David's Fallen Angel. Some are living some are dead and they span the whole run all the way back to the DC days.

Wizard World Philadelphia Commissions

Philadelphia Comic Con 2011
I will be signing and drawing at
Wizard World Convention
JUNE 17-18-19, 2011
FRI-SAT-SUN
http://www.wizardworld.com/philadelphia.html

Preordering your sketches are the best way to guarantee getting one.
if you would like to preorder sketches please send an email with a description and "Wizard World Philly sketch" in the subject line to jkwoodward@hotmail.com.

Sketches are $30
for 3 or less character scenes($10 each additional character)
Headshots are $10

samples of sketches from CGSSS and NYCC here, here and here

The Camelot Papers

"In April 2011, David announced that, in addition to another Fable novel, he and a number of other writers, including Glenn Hauman, Mike Friedman and Bob Greenberger, were assembling an electronic publishing endeavor called Crazy Eight Press, which would allow them to publish e-books directly to fans, the first of which would be David's Arthurian story, The Camelot Papers. David explained that the second book in his "Hidden Earth" trilogy would also be published through Crazy Eight." -Wikipedia

Peter describes the novel as:
"Arthurian times told through the point of view of a young female slave named Vivianna who is able to read and write and thus keeps a diary of what she sees in her time at Camelot. Envision a Camelot where Arthur is basically George W. Bush, Guinevere and Lancelot are Hillary and Bill Clinton, Merlin is Karl Rove, and Galahad is Barack Obama. It's not a laugh-riot, though; more of a acknowledgment that what we see in terms of our modern day leaders' actions is simply the latest iteration of behaviors that go back centuries."

I was fortunate enough to be called upon by Peter himself to do this cover. It was Peter's idea to do this design. I had an exact feeling that I wanted from the cover based on the preview of Peter's book I had read. It was precise, perfect for this project and I had no idea what it was.(I was doing that annoying editor, "I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it" thing to myself) We bounced around a few ideas some were really close to this as of yet hypothetical unattainable perfect cover, but none that really pleased Peter or myself until he sent this in an email:

" What would you think of designing a cover that looked like the front page of a supermarket shopper or 'People' magazine. Something with headlines and accompanying illustrations such as...

Royal Wedding Scandal!

Prince wanted to marry sister!

Court insider tells all in book! "

BINGO!

I went all out. Particularly on a the king's tunic, forgetting that I would just be covering it all up with text anyway.

According to Peter, " the release date is July 8th, and people can go to www.crazy8press.com where they'll be guided to whatever platform they want to buy it on."

I, myself have read about half of the new novel so far and I have to say, it is Peter at his best!

Galaxy's Finest:Johnny Recon/Nexus

The Ultimate Team-Up!

If you've ever read this blog before than you know I'm a fan of Scott Dillon and Mitch Gerad's Johnny Recon. In fact this is not the first time I painted him.
(other Johnny Recon Posts: 1 , 2 , 3 )

I did this peice as almost a companion piece or mirror image to another painting I call, "ElseWorld's Finest", which featured Batman Beyond and Space Ghost. Johnny Recon would take the place of Batman and since both Mitch and I are fans of Rude, specifically Nexus, I thought who better to take over the Space Ghost position.

Too Cool to be the Stalker...

I started an unhealthy obsession of collecting other artists interpretations of Fallen Angel with Alex Robinson who did this magnificent piece.

As payment, Alex was gracious enough to accept a trade and commissioned me to do a painting of one of his characters. This is what I came up with.

The Nightstalker movie set! The Nightstalker is a fictional character within a fictional world. That is to say the fictional characters in Box Office Poison view him as a comic book character. So when I decided to paint this character, I wanted to reflect that "fictional" view of him and so I put him on the set of the Nightstalker movie which I call, "Nightstalker Stalks Again". I thought it would be nice if he were reading Alex's latest book as well.

COMING SOON:
Johnny Recon
Guns of Shadow Valley
Athena Voltaire

Leftovers.

There were a few of sketches that were requested at Comic Geek Speak Supershow that either I didn't get to in time or the person couldn't make it there to pick up. They have been mailed out and these are them(these are they? - whatever.)

Also I'd like to announce 2 new con appearances:

Philadelphia Comic Con 2011
Wizard World Convention
JUNE 17-18-19, 2011
FRI-SAT-SUN
http://www.wizardworld.com/philadelphia.html

if you would like to preorder sketches to this please send an email with a description and "Wizard World Philly sketch" in the subject line to jkwoodward@hotmail.com.
Sketches are $30 for 3 or less character scenes($10 each additional character) and $10 for headshots.


New England Comic Con 2011
Wizard World Convention
SEPTEMBER 17-18, 2011
SAT-SUN
http://www.wizardworld.com/newengland.html

if you would like to preorder sketches to this please send an email with a description and "Wizard World Boston sketch" in the subject line to jkwoodward@hotmail.com.
Sketches are $30 for 3 or less character scenes($10 each additional character) and $10 for headshots.

Fallen Angel Gallery

In honour of Fallen Angel:Return of the Son #4 which is in stores today, I thought I'd release a sneak peek at some of the extras the that will be featured in the Fallen Angel:Return of the Son collected trade paperback. I ask several different artists if they would mind taking a stab at the Fallen Angel characters and got back some incredible stuff!

In order of appearance.

Alex Robinson
Andy Jewett
Dave Wachter
Steve Bryant with colours by Jason Millet

EVIL ERNIE!!!!

I've been a huge fan of Evil Ernie since back in the day, so when I bumped into Jesse Blaze Snider at C2E2 I was ecstatic to hear that he was handling the script for Evil Ernie's return!(to be published by Dynamite) I had read his Hulk one-shot he did for Marvel and remembered enjoying it alot, so I was confident he could handle this just fine. Later he was showing a select few his script for issue 1 to get some feedback. Because I was an Ernie super fan I was one of the lucky few that got a sneak peek and to say I was thrilled with it would be a massive understatement. I was immediately inspired and painted the watercolour rendition you see here today!