"You're Not Coming Back Again"...60 Sec Doco clip- Creatives on Creativity

You're not coming back again. . @pmason83 . . Music: Mother's Son by Topher Mohr and Alex Elena. . . . #documentary #minidoc #microdoc #filmmaker #composition #inspired #artist #artistsoninstagram #videos #videography #comic #comics #frew #marvel #dc #phantom #videoclip #videoedit #videoproduction #folkvibe #visitqueensland #lifestylephotography #studentflights #thisisqueensland #filmakrs @videomaker @olympus_au @olympuscamera #olympus #videohance

A post shared by Josiah McGarvie (@josiahmcgarvie) on Jun 21, 2017 at 3:23pm PDT

Big thank you to Josiah McGarvie for his cool series of short doco subjects, touching on creatives. Here's one where I talk nonsense and scribble Kid Phantom covers. Cheers!

My pre-dinner scribble donations for the LFMBEC Dinner

This need up with light purple pencil colour

This one ended up being in mepxy colours.

The talented @pmason83 channelling his inner Kirby with his dynamic layout and loose, yet confident pen strokes! Was a pleasure to catch up with Paul during the annual Phantom dinner. If you haven't already, check out 'Kid Phantom' featuring Paul's kinetic art!

A post shared by Jamie Johnson (@quickdraw13) on Jun 17, 2017 at 8:23pm PDT

 Cheers for the video footage, Dan and Jermayn of the Chronicle Chamber, and Phantom cover artist Jamie Johnson!

@pmason83 sketching at the Lee Falk Memorial Bengali Explorer's Club Annual Dinner! 💀😈💜 #kidphantom #phantom

A post shared by Amanda Bacchi (@backflip_bacchi) on Jun 17, 2017 at 5:28am PDT

KID PHANTOM #2 Wraparound Cover

Due for release in a couple of weeks, debut of ongoing series writer Andrew Constant. Process above, thumbnails, inks and final. Cover as shown in recent 'Giant Sized Phantom #1' on Newsstands now. 

Anatomy of a Cover: Kid Phantom #1

Final low res cover mock up, announced by Frew last week (via Facebook)

From go to whoa- The wraparound cover for Kid Phantom #1, due out via Frew Publications in 2017.  This was actually the last thumbnail cover idea, with the other half a dozen being a single front cover design. But then, seeing as though many of Frew's other Phantom comics tend to have the wraparound, I scribbled up this idea, based on event in the first issue. 

The designs were inspired by memories of great covers and wraparound covers from John Romita Jr., such as his "Daredevil: Man without Fear" 90s mini-series/graphic novel with Frank Miller (tiny figures from story element, big background title character taking up the majority of space) and the Wraparound from memory that I also loved, from his 'Wolverine: Enemy of the State' part 1 (#25 of the Marvel Knights series? Can't remember the issue number, but the cover stands out, almost a callback to John Buscema's Wolverine #1 cover, standing on the pile of beaten bad guys) with Mark Millar as writer. Again, large element/title character from story, tiny figures that feature in story. 

For con season, if time permits, I'd like to do a WIP sketchbook, for "scholars review". Maybe. Anyways. Gotta run, Cheers!

Thumbnail: about A5

scribbly pencil roughs

Inked and pencils removed digitally in Photoshop

Colour Flats, and colour holds on various lines: Mainly clouds and smoke.

Some mild rendering

"Float like a Butterfly…"

Knocked up this homage to a great 1970s DC Comic (cover by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano, based on Joe Kubert layout), featuring Muhammad Ali boxing Superman. Rest in peace, G.O.A.T.

Process: Anatomy of a Cover/Pin Up: Retro Sci-Fi Tales #3, April 2016

After a post it note thumbnail, this was scribbled up. 

In a nutshell: Was approached by friend Darren Koziol, DarkOZ publisher of 'Decay' and 'Retro Sci-Fi' Magazine, to to a short story. I'm flat out finding time to sleep lately with all the other commitments, so a cover was proposed. From a list, I chose to draw 'Space Amazons', as I have a thing about drawing trees for some strange reason. *Shrug*- and thought it would be a cool challenge. The Alien landscape elements sounded like a fun opportunity. I scribbled something up, and tried to utilise the trees as a circular framing device for the figures in the composition, and place the figures in a staggered "fan" formation, countering the lines of action and heights for a bit of variety in their placement in relation to one another. I dig perpendicular lines in compositions- something I've seen Kirby pull off, or shown in Disney books on avoiding parallel placement of limbs in a pose, so this was attempted with the spear placement, for instance. Well, that was the thought process, anyways.

Raw scan. Inking is not my jam, but I take the Steve Ditko approach of using inks to "draw" the detail in, that the loose wrireframe scribble is missing. Keeps the job "fresh" in my head, rather than feeling I'm re-drawing something I already drew. Ultimised blacks in the foreground to re-enforce the framing of the figures, so that I didn't loose them in the image.

I'm not a Cheesecake artist, and frankly, that stuff doesn't interest me; A good drawing is a good drawing. In this instance, the subject matter and reference material suggested figures a bit too cheesecake for my comfort zone, and figured the Amazon component, coupled with the "John Carter of Mars/Sci-Fi fantasy/Red Sonja/Robert E Howard" vibes, should speak to female forms of more athletic frames, than buxom bikini types. So in this case, UFC/Women's Boxing and Olympian forms were referenced, at a poor man's attempt at what a Frank Frazetta drawing would look like if he drew like me (a monkey with a pencil taped to his paw, in comparison). If I can learn from a pose, I will. 

Cleaned up scan, with pencils eradicated. The handy part about drawing in Prismacolour animation pencils (actually, mine had died by this point; I think this image was using cheap, kids colouring in pencils that came free with a marvel pencil case :P), is that Clean ups after scanning the image is super quick in photo shop.

So this was the scanned image, with a black and white adjustment layer/filter applied to "knock out" the colours from the pencil roughs. Saves a heap of time (relative, without a Cintiq that is…*sigh*) in the clean up process, rather than deal with smudged/scribbly graphite that photoshop can confuse with ink lines when darkening/adjusting levels, contrast etc.

Re: inking- a discipline in itself, and something I continue to try and learn/challenge myself, particularly when I have the tools, time and courage to move beyond the cheap, store-bought calligraphy markers and art line pens. The smoke, for some reason I love trying to draw different sorts of clouds; the cross hatching with the thick to thin lines, is another poor man's attempt- in this case, Joe Kubert. The attempt is to at least give each element its own treatment- a Klaus Janson tip- so that the mud doesn't look like bark of a tree, the moss looks different to the bushes, the mist (it looks kinda Arthur Adams-ish, but I wouldn't point it out to him, it would be an insult) looks different to the heavy smoke clouds etc. I figured at least I could use colour to reinforce the difference.

If I recall, the colour scheme shifted during the course of this; Colouring for me is the ultimate fight; make this image work, or at least get as close to the vision I have in my brain not always the case- but the main idea was to simply select a main colour, and work in terms of complimenting the main colour, without overdoing the values, and still supporting the focal points.

So this was essentially the colours, sans ink lines. Flats to renders and final flourishes etc. Always starting with a base gradient/colour, I wanted to further reinforce the alien landscape, and support the light/framing of the inks to tell the "story". An illustration can still convey a story, which is why I always promote th importance of understanding composition, and visual storytelling language regardless of the chosen medium; knowledge and practice of these elements always lift an image over a mere "drawing". 

I think the hardest part of the colouring was that damn Alien Parrot in the foreground...

The Final image: A bit of a challenge to say the least, but at the moment, I don't hate it. That's a win, in my books. The problem with something like this is that the variety of colour elements run the potential of clashing if not handled subtly. Being able to utilise complementary colour-rim lighting, helped further separate the figures from the environment, without having them feel like their colour scheme clashes, or that they don't belong/feel part of the image. Some Colour holds and bits used to knock the edge off some of the parts in this pic, and given the number of these I got a chance to scribble a signature on, over the last weekend at Adelaide OZ Comic-Con (where the book was launched), I guess some people thought it was alright, so I'm content.

Thanks Darren for the opportunity to draw your characters, and for publication of the image. You can find DarkOZ publications on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DECAY-horror-comic-249103491793685/?fref=ts, or from their website  www.darkoz.com.au.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=995150443855649&id=249103491793685

Scribble Dump 2

More Stuff I haven't thrown up lately. Tried some things; not sure how successful I was, probably because I'm not 100% happy, but then again, I never am. Anyways, back to the drawing board.

I hate warm ups. But...

A Mike Mignola-inspired 'Soldier Legacy' image (with a dash of Jack Kirby "dots"- the best smoke and fire in comics ;) ).
I'm going to throw some colours down and see what I can do with this. Maybe a cover for issue 6, or new print? Aussie team fundraiser print? I dunno. Just had the urge to try some mediums that I wasn't comfortable with. Particularly before I dive in on a sequential page without crash testing it first. I'm usually not a "warm up sketch" guy. To me, I don't have the time to screw about, and warm ups feel like "Stuffing about before starting work" guy :P But in this instance, I felt it necessary.

I also started a mini-fundraiser to aid to pay my way to compete in the Open World ITF Taekwon-Do World Championships in London in July. July is a big month- a guest at Melbourne Oz Comic-Con, a trip to SDCC in LA to talk on the Human Fly panel (!), and see some of my stuff released in the US for the first time (a bucket list item-very stoked), and then shoot to the UK to prep for the fights. All great, all life memories, all bank account draining. Broke, but we'll see what happens. Here's the link, plenty of cheap stuff and freebies too: I'm giving away a tonne of time on sketches, so I hope if you're keen, you get in before stocks run out :D http://paulmason.bigcartel.com/ Please spread the world, and many many thanks to the kind readers and supporters who have touched base/ordered so far. (Mostly from Perth by the way, I love you W.A!)