Recycling FedEx boxes

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! It's been a while since I blogged. I like to post as often as I can, but when deadlines knocks, I concentrate on work to get things done. Here's a picture I took a few weeks ago which I thought was amusing.
Once a week on garbage day, I would crush and flatten all the FedEx packages I receive and place them into the recycling bin. When I was about to do that, something caught me by surprise. That's a lot of FedEx packages! More than I've ever gotten in a one week period. Each time I get one of these FedEx boxes, there are pages in to for me to ink. And looking at the amount of boxes (nine) made me realize... Man... I've been busy. Not to mention the Blue Line inks that arrived by e-mail or FTP instead of FedEx around the same time. A bunch of them were me lending a helping hand with the publishers deadlines. Which is understandable since a lot of people we're off or closed for the Holidays and pages needed to be turned in sooner. After I took this picture, I stacked up all the boxes and body slammed it like a wrestling super star! Climbed up to stand on the edge of the blue recycling bin, jumped off towards the FedEx boxes, and BOOM! Imagine that.

Credit / No Credit

In college, sometimes you'll get credit for your classes and sometimes you don't. College prepares you for life in the outside world so you won't be surprised. Which brings up my post for today. I just got my comps for working on Predator #3. I posted my inks a while back, so I won't post them again. Instead, I took a photo of the two pages I worked on from the actual comic book. The above picture also shows the cover to this book as well as the credit page from the inside front cover. I placed a bottle of ink next to the credit page. Why? Because there's no Inker credit. In fact, I didn't get credit for this issue. But that's okay, Dark Horse did send me comps and payment which means they know I worked on it. So it doesn't bother me at all.

This does happen once in a while. The credit no credid. Like the book I worked on above where I don't get any credit at all. Sometimes, another person's name gets the credit where they didn't contribute to any of the work. Or my name being listed with the incorrect pages numbers which gets confused between other inkers. I've also seen books where I didn't have involvement in and I got credit as the Inker. Another classic one would be where my name is on the cover, but someone else's name is on the credits inside of the book. And vice versa. Again, one of us wasn't a part of the book. That's a common one where a certain person is solicited as the artist on the book, but during the process, the artist changes before the book is published. My favorite is when publishers spell my name incorrectly. A popular one is when they drop the letter "E" and add a "O". As in "Waldon". Well, what can you do? Mistakes happen all the time. Ironic I got these comp copies today seeing that's it's Friday the 13th. Or is it "Fridoy"?

MARVEL ZOMBIES: EVIL EVOLUTION #1

Sometimes I get comps weeks in advance where I can blog about them a bit earlier before it's released. Other times, I'll get them months later or none at all. So I really don't know when a certain comic will be out unless I keep tabs on them. Keeping tabs on what will be coming out three months later while working on them is too much brain work. All I'm doing at the time is concentrating on the deadlines. When I'm done with the deadlines, I usually forget about it. Thanks to friends, I've been told another one of my books was recently released. Here's the cover to MARVEL ZOMBIES: EVIL EVOLUTION #1. Nice cover design. Here's the first page that I worked on. It's actually a horizontal page. In the book, it'll be published vertically and to see it the way I post it, you'll have to turn the book 90% clockwise. I believe this page will have credits on the top of it (or rather, the left of it when viewed vertically). Click on image to zoom up!
Here's another page. I've inked a total of fourteen pages in this issue over Adam DeKraker's pencils. I've worked with him before on a Spider-Ma'am project where his pencils was more cartoony. This time, it was more detailed and the pages turned out nice.

This issue is out in stores now and you can find out more by clicking here.

Bristol Boards and PULSE OF POWER COVER

Every now and then when I need to ink something in Blue Line, I would need bristol boards. DC and Marvel comics are great because they'll supply me with boards to work on. Board from both publishers are high in quality and doesn't bleed. There's nothing worse then having to ink on a board which bleeds. For example, when you ink a line on a lower quality board, you won't get a smooth stright line. Instead, you'll get what I call caterpillars. A line with hundreds of small legs on the side... Just like a caterpillar.

So what do you do when you don't have DC or Marvel baords around? A few months ago, I went to a art store and saw something that Canson released called Fanboy Comic Art Boards. "Fanboy", I said to myself. Must be for fans. It was sitting on the shelf next to the more popular Blue Line Pro Comic Boards. I don't have a good impression with Blue Line Pro boards. In fact, I have quite a few pads in my studio which are useless to be because they bleed. What the heck, I'm gonna buy one of these Canson Boards and see what happens. It's cost less than Blue Line Pro and Starthmore Comic Boards which I blogged about earlier. My only grip about Canson is that the boards are in a pad. All twenty two boards are attached on the top where you need to pull apart. Once you pull an individual board out, there's these residue stuck to the top of the boards. Not that big of an issue because you can pull and rub them all off. There are also these pre-ruled blue lines on the board if you're planning on drawing sequential pages with them. For me, I use just the back of the board to print out my own blue lines to ink on. Doesn't make a difference to me if they have pre-ruled lines or not. It's the A3 sized bristol board that attracted me. Another note about these boards. Once you rip off a page from the pad, there's these ridges on the top of the page. Those can get annoying if they were on the bottom of the board you're inking on. If I have to give it a description, it feels like gliding your arm across a strip of sand paper. That said, when I print my blue line boards out, I make it a point where the ridges are on top of the page. To my surprise, this board is actually very nice to work on. It doesn't bleed at all. Not even a little. It's a little thinner then Blue Line Pro and Strathmore. But it's the same thickness as a DC comic board. So if you're using a printed that rolls the baord around up top to print, thsi would be perfect! I took one of the boards for a spin. Here's the results...

This is a cover to a book called Pulse of Power which will be published by Dabel Brothers Publishing. It's pencilled by Brett Booth. If you like to see the pencils, Brett has it posted on his blog here. Dabel Brother Publishing contacted me a few months ago and had me ink this cover. I still haven't see solicitations for it yet. You've seen it here first!!! If anyone sees solicitations for this cover, let me know.

Anyway, the majority of this cover was inked with a crow quill, hunt 102 nib. If a bristol board is bad, it'll bleed all over the place. As you can see, it didn't bleed with the this cover I inked. It's a nice board for the price and it does it's job. If the Strathmore Bristol Comic Board cost too much for you, I recommend getting this one.

PREDATOR #3

Another comic that I did some inking work on, PREDATOR #3. Here's the cover to the comic...
Here's a page that had a lot of spotting blacks. With a spot here, and a spot there, here a spot, there a spot, everywhere a spot spot, Old Mac Donald had a farm E-I-E-I-O. Here's a page with more line work. Look at the first panel. Alcohol Bottle sat near a wall, Alcohol Bottle had a great fall, all the kings horses, and all the kings men, couldn't put Alcohal Bottle back together again.
Predator #3 is in stores now and you can find out more by clicking here.

DARK REIGN: THE SINISTER SPIDER-MAN #4

Another book which I did some inking work on. Here's the cover to this issue.
I've inked over Chris Bachalo on Blue Line. As usual with Blue Line, I download a high resolution pencil file, convert it, and print it light blue onto a bristol board. Before anyone gets too excited... I only helped out on inking one page. Just one... UNO! Here it is...

Still, it was exciting for me to work on it since I admire Chris Bachalo's work. Here's a fun fact: Did you know Chris Bachalo appeared in a few episodes of a television game show called Win, Loose, or Draw that aired from 1987 to 1990. Like the board game, Pictionary, he would draw images and team mates would guess to win the point.

This book is in stores now and to read more about Dark Reign: The Sinister Spider-Man #4, you can click here.

On your mark, get ready, get set, GOOOOO!!!

Every now and then, people ask me how long does it takes to ink a page. And I respond by saying it really depends on pencil details. I've inked as little as one page in three days because pencils were really intense. To as much as four pages a day on pencils that are simpler. On the average, a comfortable speed would be a day a page. Of course that really depends on deadlines... If you have it or if you don't. I've never really timed myself in the past. So just for kicks, I timed myself for this splash page which was used for Dark Reign Young Avengers #5. I broke it down by the hour to show my process. As usual, you can click on any image to expand it.

9:40am. First off, I get an High Resolution e-mail of the pencils from Mark Brooks, who pencilled this splash page. I download the file, clean it up a bit, convert it to blue line, and print it out on a full size printer which I can feel bristol boards into. First thing I do is ink the boarders.
10:40am. Here I inked both the heads. Faces are very important. In some case, I would use the magnifying glass that's on one of of my two drawing table swing arm lamps. I used the glass to magnify the faces on the bristol board while referring to the high resolution image of the same page on my computer screen blown up for clarity. Doing it this way, I can get a much more accurate line for the faces. Keep in mind, images pencilled more lightly and drawn smaller would just dissappear when printed in blue line. I like to do all that extra work so I can maintain all the lines from the pencils. 11:40am. Here I pull out my rulers and stencils to ink in all non organic lines. At the same time, I think about line weights. Using stencils and technical pens, you only get a dead flat line. To compensate, I would go back once or twice on certain lines to create perfect non organic lines with line weights. Line weights aren't always done just on the outside of the characters, I also ink them on the interior of the characters. Some of my comic friends think I'm crazy to do this because it takes so much more time than just free handing it in. I like to think I'm putting my best work out there so it's got to be as perfect as I can ink it.

12:40pm. I continue with the ruler work on the background as well as organic lines around and inside the body. The speed lines in the background, I would concentrate on which lines I need to make thicker and thinner. Organic lines, I would ink freehand.

1:40pm. I usually have some sort of pattern of inking. Sort of like working in an assembly line. Ink hear first, hands, spot blacks, and so forth. That usually saves me time from switching from one tool to another. With this splash page I'm inking, all that assembly line method goes out the door. I'm just inking the page to see how fast, or how slow, I can finish it. Which means I'm swapping inking tools constantly. Now, I go in there to spot some blacks as well as taper some of the lines going into the blacks. 2:40pm. I continue spotting the blacks and tapering all the areas of the characters with a brush. This process usually takes up most of the inking time because I'm concentrating on where the tip if the tapered line starts as well as where it'll end when the opposite end of the tip meets. I like both ends of tapered lines to be starting and ending in a pattern and not chaotically random out of whack.

2:41pm -3:45pm. I take a break. Eat lunch and look out the window at something far to adjust focus. It's always good to step away from your work to prevent eye strain. Some say you should look away and focus on something far every twenty minutes. I usually get into a zone and forget about doing that. Now, I get back to the inking table refreshed and recharged.

4:45pm. I finishing up inking both figures with a brush and quill. Some of the halos, I would ink around. Other times, I would use white ink and create that halo which separates objects from a black background. I usually wait until everything is done in black ink before I even think about using white ink for halos or effects. If I make a mistake, I'll pull out the white-out and correct it. Very rarely do I need to pull out the white out to fix corrections. Unless I sneeze in the process of drawing a line or something.

5:45pm. I work on the tapered speed line in the background. Only this time, I'm not using a brush to taper. I'm using a crow quill to whip these lines in because it needs to look non organic. I think of it this way... Non organic objects has to be perfectly straight, rounded, and arched. Organic objects has to be more natural and free flowing, more forgiving.

6:05 pm. At this point, I'm all finished with using the black ink. I double check to see if I'm missing any lines or blacks which needs to be spotted. Nope... All done. I take out my white ink, give it a shake to have a better mixture, and start using that. Since this is blue line, I would just take the white it and shake it up. Now if this was original pencils, I would usually double task. How? Check this out... I take an eraser with my right hand and hold it like how anyone would hold a eraser. Then I put the bottle of white ink in between my index and middle fingers and hold that above the eraser. While I'm erasing the pencils underneath my inks, I'm also shaking up the white it for a better mixture. Two birds with one stone! That's one of my time saving secrets for ya! All right, back to the finished page. Once the white ink is nicely mixed, I go in there and add more halos and effects where needed (like the scales on the outfit or the halo lines between armour pieces). After that, it's all done! Finito!

For this particular splash page, it took me a little over eight hours to complete.

I scan the inks onto photoshop at a resolution of 600 dpi full size. Once that's done, I upload the file to Marvel's FTP site. Then I take the same high resolution file, shrink it down to 100 dpi and save it as a jpeg file so I can e-mail it my editor to view. The below file is the actual jpeg that I used to send to my editor. Enjoy.

DARK REIGN: YOUNG AVENGERS #5

Here's a sneak preview of DARK REIGN: YOUNG AVENGERS #5 which I did the inking work on. As usual, you can click images to expand it. This is the last issue of the mini series. Lots of action in this issue. I'll post some of my black and white inks soon. In the meantime, enjoy.

This is in stores October 28. And you can click here for more info.

Flooding at VIZ Media

This past Monday, without notice, there was a storm that hit San Francisco. The weather was nice all morning, then around 2:00pm in the afternoon, it came out of nowhere. So much rain that it started to flood certain areas. Manholes started bursting with water because there was too much rain. I saw this footage from a local news station and notice the manhole was right down the street from VIZ Media (publishers of Dragonball, Pokemon, etc). I didn't think anything of it until I got an e-mail from VIZ today that the the building was closed all this week due to flooding.

If you watch the video, you'll see the red brick building down the block in the center of the video. That's the VIZ Media Building. The tan colored buildinhg on the right building belongs to the USPS. Just those two buildings on that one side of the block. I hope it didn't do much damage. If you walk in the first door at VIZ, right next to the USPS, it goes one level down. That would hold a lot of water. Man... all those comic books, ruined!!! Just wait for the commercial to end if it pops up. The local news station put that there and I can't get rid of it.

SUPERMAN: RED SON DELUXE EDITION HARDCOVER

Complementary copies again! It's always nice to open up a package delivered to me when I'm not expecting anything. Feels like opening up presents. Except it's not wrapped in colorful wrapping paper packed with nice tissue paper inside... just a plain crushed brown box with bubble wrap where you can make annoying sounds by popping them.

I crack open the box, make some annoying popping sounds and see what's inside. Seven copies of SUPERMAN: RED SON DELUXE EDITION in hardcover that I did some inking work. All still sealed in plastic. I ripped open the plastic seal on one of the books to check it out. I remove the dust jacket and notice the hardcover in black with a gold foil logo of a Hammer and Sickle. You know what could have been nicer...? The hardcover being in the color red with the hammer and sickle inside a diamond like Superman's logo. Still looks nice. Aside from the regular Superman: Red Son that's been published, collected, and reprinted numerous times, this Deluxe Hardcover version has a little something extra. There's about fifteen pages of sketch book art material that's never been seen. Here's a few of those pages...

As usual, you can click on any image to expand.

There's also colored sketches, drawings of how the logo was developed, commentaries, and so forth. Fun stuff to look at.

Finally, I look at the credits page...

According to the credits, it says I only inked Killian Plunkett on his part of the book. That's true, but I also inked quite a few pages over Dave Johnson which the credits didn't list. It should have been "Dave Johnson with Andrew Robinson & Walden Wong". But that's okay... I can see how it could get confusing for people to read that. Besides, if that did add my name right after Robinson, then my name would appear twice. Nah... after all... "Two WONGS don't make a right." :)

This book will be on sale in stores November 11, 2009 and you can click here for more info.

DEADPOOL #900

I usually buy my comic books by mail, ordering them with a Previews catalogue that gets sent to me. I would flip through the whole comic store catalogue to see what I want and order it. When the books are published 2-3 months later, it'll be sent to me.

Anyways, every so often when I find myself near a actual brick and mortar comic book store, I would walk in to see what's new for the week. This past weekend, I found this little nugget. DEADPOOL #900. I always had a heart for Deadpool because he's was one of the first Characters I worked on when I started inking for Marvel Comics. When I picked it up, my thought was "Nine hundred?? How did Deadpool get to issue number 900? Did I miss something in between? Was there a lot of mini series with different issue numbers where Marvel decided to add them all up and release this issue #900?" So I took it to the counter and bought it. Here's how the cover to DEADPOOL #900 looks...
I picked it up and give it a quick flip through. Found out that it's a special issue which reprints some older previously released Deadpool stories. The numbering was a selling gimmick. Good gimmick because it got me to pick it up. It's a thicker book with 104 page for a $5.99 price tag. Not bad considering some of the comics these day are $3.99 with only 32 pages. As I got towards the middle of the book, I saw this reprinted cover...

HEY!!! That's the book I worked on over a decade ago. One of my earlier inking gigs for Marvel Comics. DEADPOOL TEAM-UP STARRING DEADPOOL AND WIDDLEWADE. They reprinted the whole issue. This was a nice surprise. How do I know I worked on this over ten years ago? I can actually tell you the exact month and year. In the art, you can see Pete Woods' name, my name, and the year written in kanji. A little Easter egg I put in there. At the time, the penciller, Pete Woods, wanted to have kanji characters written on some of the background art. He drew something there, but it didn't really look like kanji. I spoke to him over the phone and asked if it's cool for me to fix it. He gave me the green light, I did some research on kanji characters that sounded like both our names and wrote/drew that into the art along with the year we did it. Below is a scan of the two pages from the comic that has those kanji characters. I circled it in green. You can also click on to the image to blow up it up. Both pages has Pete Woods and Walden Wong written in Kanji. On the left page, it had the year 98 in Kanji and on the right page, 97 in kanji. Which means, I inked the page on the right on 1997 late December, then I inked the page on the left in 1998 early January. In the middle the New Years I believe.

Seeing this reprinted is a nice surprise. Hum... I wonder if I'll get royalties on it. DEADPOOL #900 is in stores now and you can read more about it by clicking here.

I got it for the articles!

First time buying one of these. Playboy Magazine!!! Why did I buy this? Because of Marge Simpson of the cartoon show, Simpsons. Today's the first day of release. I went to a few stores and they didn't have them. I could have bought one off EBay, but didn't feel like paying over $25 to get a copy from the secondary market. Besides, I wanted to see it now! NOW NOW NOW! After a few more shops, I finally found one and bought it. Look that it... all sitting there by itself in the "Adult Interest" section. Here's a close up photo. This is really a Playboy Magazine. No joke. I bought this because I wanted to see how Marge Simpson looks in her birthday suit.

Apparently, the cover is an homage to another Playboy issue from October of 1971 where they first had another person of color on the cover with an extreme hair due. Why do I know this? No, I don't have a collection of Playboys in my attic. I know because it was on the news a week earlier where it was mentioned it. That's what made me want to buy it in the first place. Anyway, I rip open the polybag and flip to the table of contents so I can find Marge Simpson quicker. "Page 52 The Devil in Marge Simpson". Flipping pages can't flip fast enough.

I quickly got to page 52. Bingo! There she is! You can't see it, but I'm smiling ear to ear.

There's an interview with Marge Simpson as if she was a real person responding to an interviewer. If you want to read it, just click on the picture below and it'll expand. Haha. "Springfield's Sexiest Celebrity Reveals All". Every part of that sentence is so make believe.

Here's a closer look at the splash page on the right. Look at Homer Simpsons shadow in the background. Such a nasty man. I also notice a subliminal drawing around Homer Simpson's crotch area. That can't be an accident. It's a drawing. Every line is drawn there for a reason.

I notice Matt Groening's (creator of Simpsons) signature on the bottom of the page. Of all the people to draw Marge Simpson, I would expect it to be by the creator for this. Anybody else drawing Marge Simpson for Playboy would be the same as looking at fake breasts. Just not original. I want the real deal.

I turn the page and it's the pull out image. I'm thinking AWESOME! THIS IS COOL! A CARTOON CHARACTER TOTALLY NAKED! Gotta turn the magazine sideways to get the fill effect.

Not much of an effect at all. Here's that pull out page. Wasn't what I was expecting. The image is just two pages tall. The top page is the interview page which we already saw. Aren't these Playboy pull out images supposed to be three pages long? Nice can of Duff Beer near her butt. What's up with the donuts? Is Marge Simpson supposed to be seducing some police officer? I turn the page and it's the Model Date Sheet with all of Marge Simpson's stats. If you like to read it, click on image to expand. Funny stuff especially her measurements. 26,26,26...

stright as a pipe. Nothing sext about that. Funny though. After this page... That's it!!! There's other naked pictures of real people, but I don't buy this magazine for that... I wanted to see more Marge Simpson in the buff. I feel gypped. No totally naked boobies of her either. Just a see through blouse. For all I know, that could be a white blouse with boobs painted on. Seriously, wouldn't it be easier to draw totally naked breasts? It's just two half circles and a couple of dots. So this is as close as any of us will ever see. For Homer Simpson's eyes only. *sigh*

You know... I never imagined her nipples would be colored like that. I thought they would just be black dots... same as Homer Simpson when he runs around topless in the cartoon show.

That said, here's a picture of Matt Groening and myself. Yeap, This is the guy who created the Simpsons.

After that Playboy issue with Marge, this picture of us makes me feel so guilty inside. Like I saw a father's daughter in the nude. *yeesh*

UPDATE: Just read in the magazine that the Marge Simpsons illustrations were drawn by someone else. Which means Matt Groening's name was slapped on. Great... Fake Boobs.