Great Strides Drawing Giveaway!

Hey folks, This is my last week of raising money for Great Strides Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I'm walking on Saturday, and I'm really far from hitting my goal! So I'm offering a free drawing painting to one of my donors. For every $10 you donate, You'll get a chance to win a drawing painting done by me, for free! and if I make more than $200, it'll be a painting!  Update: We hit $200! (note: It won't be the painting shown here). 

The more you donate, the more chances you have to win. Also, that same $10 will enter you into a drawing for 2 free disneyland tickets?!?!?!?! that's crazy. Click here to enter: http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/LevonJihanian7040.

DEADLINE: Friday 26th, 2013, 3pm PST

Some info on Cystic Fibrosis:  Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a life-threatening genetic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system. Just two generations ago, most children didn’t live long enough to attend elementary school. Today, nearly half of people with CF are age 18 or older. Impressive progress has been made, but so much more needs to be done, as we continue to lose precious lives to this disease every day.

Process: The Coil Tightens

A couple of weeks ago I posted this variant cover for Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever #2. I thought I'd go over my process for it, including the back and forth between me and the editor/publisher/art director for the book, Tom Neely.

My initial instructions were to depict Henry and Glenn as warriors fighting something. This was both vague and right up my alley! I quickly drew up a couple of thumbnails:

The one on the left was a standard contemporary book cover composition, which is deceptively simple, but hard to pull off. The thumbnail on the right was collaged together. I liked the idea of painting a horse, and it was more action packed. We decided to go with the horse, so I shot some quick reference and began the line drawing:

We work with what we've got.

I was getting close to finishing a tighter line drawing when Tom asked if it was possible to have them fighting a big monster. The giant snake is a great allusion to Conan, so I agreed. It also allowed for a more flexible composition. It was a bummer, however, to not get to paint a cool rearing black stallion. I'll have to save that for another painting.

I really liked the physical story I was able to tell in the snake version. Henry and Glenn are simultaneously saving each other's lives, with Henry holding back the snake's jaws, and Glenn preparing to cut off its tongue. Originally, the plan was to have a textured white background, but Tom wanted something a bit more pulpy and less contemporary, with the characters in genre-specific clothing. I was happy to oblige and, being a child of the 80's, added a Masters of the Universe-esque background and some barbarian/knight attire.

I brought my black and white roughs into color, got the go-ahead to dive in, and started painting in photoshop! Click here to see an animated gif showing the process. With the painting done, all that was left was to add some weathered paperback texture and create a title treatment.

Final, with distress and lettering.

This painting took me a longer time to finish than usual. It took a lot of iterations to nail down some of Henry's key features. One interesting thing about this piece is that it was entirely created digitally, including the sketches and thumbnails. Also, over the course of the last few paintings I've worked on, I've surprised myself at how much I now enjoy drawing and painting things that used to fill me with terror: namely, hands and rocks.

Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever #2 Cover

Hey folks, I'm going to start blogging here a bit more often now, mostly with process & technique posts. I've spent the last few months re-vamping my portfolio and focusing in more on painting and fantasy illustration.

That said, here's a cover that I finished a couple of weeks ago for the next issue of Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever!

Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever #2 variant cover

I hope you like it! I'm working on a process post for this painting and it will be posted up very soon! Below is the official promo for it, including the awesome official cover by Tom Neely.

Update on Things

If I haven't updated in a while it's because I've been extremely busy! For 1 thing, My daughter Olympia Laurel was born in the Christmas time. She came in at a mere 5 lbs. 12 ounces and 19 inches long. Her screams and cries, however, are immense.

Meanwhile, my other, slightly less attractive baby, Danger Country, is being serialized on the Studygroup Comics site. If you haven't read it yet, this is a good opportunity to catch it in full color. 

And while you're on that site, you can check out the blog entry I made there about coloring comics. If you ever wanted to know about my process, that is a good start. I'll be making some process blog posts on a new blog for my upcoming kickstarter subscribers. That's right, I'm working on a kickstarter. More details on that soon! 

And finally, if you've visited my site before you've obviously noticed that I redesigned it...At least most of it. I hope you enjoy this new design. I'd welcome your feedback.

Oh, one more thing. It looks like I'm currently out of the first printing of Danger Country. I want to thank Tim aka Teenage Dinosaur for having faith in me and publishing my first serialized comic. It's been a great experience to work with such a passionate and genuine person. However, due to purely logistical reasons, the rest of Danger Country will be published by I Will Destroy You, run by my friend Tom Neely (also very passionate and genuine). It's the first time he's publishing a single artist that's not himself, so I hope it goes well. We'll be starting with a re-printed chapter 1 and 2, combined in a single book we're calling Volume 1. We'll be publishing chapters 3 and 4 together as Volume 2 later this year, and when all the chapters are done, the entire series will be collected in full color! See you on the flip side.

Danger Country reviewed on The Comics Journal

I'm thrilled to receive this mostly positive review of Danger Country #1. I've started on #3 and hope it will be out in time for SPX next year. I also have some other Danger Country related things going on which I hope to announce next month.

A Princess of Mars

Just did an illustration of A Princess of Mars for the latest Art Order. Trying to get my sci-fi/fantasy skills up.

APE 2011

Hey guys! Just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be at APE, and there's a few details you should know.

1. I have a table this year! I'm sharing table #255 with my publisher Tim Goodyear/Teenage Dinosaur. He'll have a bunch of awesome books, including...

2. Danger Country #2!!!! It will debut at APE. Danger Country #1 got nominated for 2 Ignatz awards. Can #2 possibly live up to its predecessor? The answer is.... Yes. Yes, it can.

3. I'll also have a RANGER STEEL mini-comic, compiling the first 10 Ranger Steel web strips in a format deadly to trees. I'll also have some old books and zines including DANGER COUNTRY #1, FORK FRENZY #1, ORDINARY FIELDBOOK, and THE ONLY ONE THERE COULD EVER BE which is an illustrated book of extremely personal poems based on the Highlander movies.

4. I'll also have some posters!

5. And on Saturday, I'll be on the Comics Claptrap Live! Panel. That's at 2:00 PM.