A "Fire-Fighter" indeed- a real-life inspiration behind a 'Soldier Legacy' comic character

A great write-up from a Central Coast publication this week, featuring one of my closest friends, and a bloke who I look up to as an "older brother". Gary was one of my instructors I would train under when not teaching at my own school years ago (of Authentic Taekwon-do Australia), and was my Muay Thai coach for a number of years. We competed together in the 2005, and 2007 World Taekwon-do championships, and are back for more punishment in the 2013 squad for Korea, where he is one of the Aussie coaches. Outside of TKD and belting people, Gary is just an all-around top bloke and someone I'm glad to call a friend.
 He's also the person I decided to use when I needed a mentor/martial art coach for the 'Young Soldier'. Our actual instructor, Master Moore, might show up in a page or two in the future, but looks a bit too close to the primary antagonist in the main WW2 Soldier story, hence I wanted to avoid confusion. Anyways, 'Barry' was introduced in Soldier Legacy #4, and becomes one to the characters integrel to the young vigilante's attempts to honour his WW2 grandfather's "legacy".

So, if you were actually interested enough in that little "behind the scenes" post, I thank you for taking the time to read about a fantastic Aussie bloke helping his community in more ways than one. And cheers, Gary, for not belting me when you saw yourself in the comic pages ;P

If you're keen and on the Central Coast of NSW, I recommend you check out Gary's Full Time Extreme Martial Arts Gym- Full equipped, complete with Kickboxing/MMA ring, taekwon-do ring, matted floors and heavy bags. Head to Alma avenue, Woy Woy, and tell 'em 'The Soldier' sent you ;)

OzAnimate's 25th Ann. GFS Animation Exhibition coverage

QCA 25th Anniversary of Animation from Ozanimate on Vimeo.

Paul Lalo, a QCA graduate and founder of 'OzAnimate', has posted up a video of the opening night of the 25th Anniversary of Griffith Film School Animation Exhibition held on Friday the 31st of August. What's rather fortunate about this video is that there's a few shots of one of the pages they picked from my art, a page from 'Soldier Legacy #3', featuring the Grandson of 'The Soldier'.

Also featured in the exhibition was an early bunch of concept art scribbles from 2009, looking for the design of 'The Soldier'.

Photographs of the screenings on Saturday, and Sunday's 'Where are they now?' Panel that I was asked to take part in, are also up to they GFS site: http://animation.griffithfilmschool.com/photos-from-sat-sun-screenings-and-presentations/ I was in awe of the calibre of animation talent at this, with past students (now experienced pros) working across a gamut of companies, from Disney, Animal Logic, Liquid, and even their own production studios. The common theme seemed to be hard work, tenacity and patience. Many of these folks took years and years to make any significant headway in their chosen profession; this is something I have to remind myself. I must reflect on the fact that I've hit a few goals in just 2 years of doing this character- succeed or fail, I just have to keep plugging away.

One of the other pieces they printed for the exhibition didn't make the walls due to space, (the Superman vs OMAC pic on the right) but was nicely given to me by the uni. Very unexpected, and I thank them very much :D I've never bothered to have any of my own images up in the house before, except for one or two to hide some bare brick space downstairs, so now with this image, I've made a small space in the corner so I can look up at them and cringe at all the glaring errors I can see. Onward ;P

Random panels- Soldier Legacy #4

Who's this random Muay Thai guy in this Work in progress panel? ;)

First glimpse of Soldier's Grandson in Soldier Legacy #4

Tribute to Gene Colan for Future Cover

Just wanted to share the penciled version of the future cover for 'The Soldier Legacy #4'. As one of the artist greats of the Silver Age of Marvel comics, the late Gene Colan, passed away earlier this year and I wanted to pay tribute to his wonderful and iconic 'Invincible Iron Man #1' cover from 1968.

The coloured version will feature in the upcoming release of Soldier Legacy 3 in October.

Pencil Preview for issue #3: The Young Soldier

For the fans of the modern 'soldier', here's a sneak peek before coloring commences.