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This is the last page. It was really fun to draw because I like to draw moment to moment sequences, perhaps because I like animation and I don’t get to do it hardly ever. The characters in these panels are based on actual members. All except for the girl with the portfolio in panel 1.  In 2 you have Adam Furgang. On panel 3 Colin WIlkinson and Rebecca Schoonmaker show up followed by Tommy Watkins on panel 4. Panel 5 goes crazy with Richard Clandorf, Nina Stanley, John Wailder and Michael Wiedrich. Along the bottom there’s  me (cowboy hat), the back of Scott and Natasha’s heads, then Christa and finally a terrible 1/4 view shot of Robyn. Sorry babe the I lost it on the inking.

Well I hope you like the UAG mini. Next week I’ll begin the longer story of the Iron Horse Ghosts. Till then don’t forget to help your local art collectives.

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Even though I was under a tight dead line I tried something unusual in this page. Remember I was hand lettering (something I need to practice more) before I shrunk the comic and realized the text needed to be bigger. On the last panel of the page I decided I wanted to try  a news paper styled article of the previous panel. I drew in a version of the previous panel first. Then I wrote some copy in the computer using type writer font. I printed this text on to paper then cut and pasted (with glue) the text on to the panel. Fun as it was it wasn’t smooth enough. The scanner picked up the edges of the paper strips and these had to be cleaned up later on Photoshop. I was glad to try it seeing as how next time I have a better idea of what to expect.

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This is the experimental page. The perspectives and treatments were chosen rather quickly. I really liked doing panel 3. I made the gallery space double the width to fit in more people but make no mistake it gets that crowded in there.

In this page the toughest thing to do was getting reference for the trolley used in 1st Friday. The peoples faces there I am not too proud off. I think I was going at a fairly fast rate in this project. Perhaps 1/2 day to pencil and ink but I wanted to hand letter the work. Latter when I printed minis the text was too small so I had to re-letter in photoshop. More planning would have been good to do but I was rather trying to get this done as fast as possible for the upcoming Art on Lark festival.

It is an important lesson to learn for anyone putting together a mini. Be prepared for (or just expect) the unexpected if you skip the planning.

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Today we switch gears to a little side project I took on earlier this year. You see I’m a member of a local non for profit art collective thats worked for years to bring art to down town Albany. They stay in operation with member fees, art sales and donations so its no surprise that this economic times have hit the gallery specially hard. The UAG mini comic was created as a tool to help people find out more about the organization in a more artistic way.

I wrote a rough draft of what I wanted to say and then spent some time thumb nailing ideas. This page is all about people coming together to create something. The last panel is what the gallery looks like in real life.

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It is not often I dabble in Acrylic, but I had this idea in my head that I needed to put down. What came out of it is a final piece but at the same time its a concept for something much bigger.

Electronic Dream Box is my submission to this months Upstate Artist Guild show which is themed for Games. I work in games but I had to put myself outside that experience to get to the point I wanted to make.

First I wanted to create something with NES cartridge shape but bigger. This one piece is about 10-12 inches across. I would have liked to make it 2-3 feet across but I was short for time and more importantly was not sure until the very last minute of what I wanted to do for the label. Took me a while to pick a card label to base my version on.

Eventually I settled for Super Mario Bros. 3 for a few reasons. It is recognizable, it is simple and had a layout that went along with the way I wanted to look at games. This being how I think I saw them when I was a kid which was as an experience full of possibilities. Like making shapes out of clouds in the sky.

The original reads: Super Mario Bros. 3tm, Nintendo Entertainment System, Made in Japan, NES-UM-USA-1, Official Nintendo Seal of Quality.

I changed it to: Electronic Dream Box, The Digital Experiences Genesis, Made for Selfhood, WHO-WILL-I_B, Books, Art, Film Now Games.

It’s for sale for 69.99 at the gallery. I figure once I get more practice at acrylic I could do it bigger then the lettering would be easier. It’s really hard to do type with paint on board.