This time we are heading all the way back to the year 2001. The days of bell bottoms and big hair, slap bracelets, hyper-color underwear, and the kids couldn't get enough of that rock and roll... No? Maybe it was just me then... Like no one else wore hyper-color underwear!
Read more! I promise it's not all idiotic.
Last time we did one of these posts I had gone to the San Diego Comic
Con with a full portfolio and an open heart. I got a good response to my
work but no jobs. I did make some good connections. And after the
convention I got to work on submitting more work to those connections.
During that convention, in line to show my work to some publisher I met Camilla D'Errico, who has since become a bit of a big deal, but at that time was just like I was- trying to get work. She told me that she was going to do some stuff for a company called Committed Comics and that I should look into them as well. Months later I eventually did look into them and I submitted my work. I ended up agreeing to do 3 stories 10 pages each for them. They weren't paying, well there was some promise of a small percentage on the back end. Essentially money that probably wasn't going to happen, but I was desperate to draw comics so it seemed like a good idea at the time.
The first story I drew for them was a western. Here's a look. None of these stories were writen by me, by the way.
During that convention, in line to show my work to some publisher I met Camilla D'Errico, who has since become a bit of a big deal, but at that time was just like I was- trying to get work. She told me that she was going to do some stuff for a company called Committed Comics and that I should look into them as well. Months later I eventually did look into them and I submitted my work. I ended up agreeing to do 3 stories 10 pages each for them. They weren't paying, well there was some promise of a small percentage on the back end. Essentially money that probably wasn't going to happen, but I was desperate to draw comics so it seemed like a good idea at the time.
The first story I drew for them was a western. Here's a look. None of these stories were writen by me, by the way.
The second story was a Sci-fi set in a virtual Tron-esque Internet world.
The third story was about a kid who tries to become his favorite super hero's sidekick.
I would delve into each of these styles more and more over the years and I feel like they, along with the Jim Lee influence and the Travis Charest influence, have become the foundation of my illustration vocabulary. There are a few things I do that you wouldn't find in these styles, but most of what I do can be traced to these.
Two of these stories were published by Committed Comics in a book called Threads. The Sci-Fi one wasn't.
This work is some of my leased favorite stuff I've done. I was stepping out of my comfort zone a little and I just wasn't as good at these other styles as I was with what I had been doing. But it was worth it. I think shifting art styles is a good thing to do. Broadening your artistic vocabulary means that you can say things that you couldn't if you were limited by your style.
Next time on "Blast From The Past" I get into drawing my first full 22 page comic. In fact, I'll talk about drawing my first 3 comics. It's going to be a big post!
Till then,
Blogged and blogged
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