The Twelves' Daily Dalliances

50 GIRLS 50

2009-09-22T02:53:00.001-07:00

page_01, originally uploaded by The 12s.

My latest work - an entry to Image Comics' competition to draw a comic by Frank Cho & Doug Murray. Draw the first 6 pages, and win a chance to draw the next 90... so here's page #1.

50 GIRLS 50

2009-09-22T02:51:00.001-07:00

page_01, originally uploaded by The 12s.

My latest work - an entry to Image Comics' competition to draw a comic by Frank Cho & Doug Murray. Draw the first 6 pages, and win a chance to draw the next 90... so here's page #1.

September - Part Deux, the link-dump.

2009-09-07T17:05:00.001-07:00

So here are some of the current crop of links I follow looking for work - please, feel free to suggest more, or let me know if they're squirrelly.

Craigslist:

san francisco bay area creative gigs

san francisco bay area art/media/design jobs

los angeles art/media/design jobs

new york city creative

chicago creative gigs

london creative gigs

Other:

deviantART

Digital Webbing Forums

The CAFE » Freelance Corner

Worth1000.com

Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles | Call for Entries

altpick.com :: the source for creative talent and information

ComicBookClassifieds.com

artshub.co.uk | For UK Arts Workers

Art Jobs - Art Career - Art Employment - Art & Design

graphic:DESIGN:basics - graphic design basics, competitions, news, and more

http://artdeadlineslist.com/eag/submission.guidelines

Creative Hotlist: Job Searches, Portfolios and Recruiting for Graphic and Web Designers, Writers, Photographers and Illustrators

PRINT Magazine

Writing and Graphic design jobs for freelancers

ArtDeadline.Com

Communication Arts: Magazine

Design & Creative Jobs | Design Week Jobs

Concept Art:

Full-Time Positions - ConceptArt.org Forums

Freelance Jobs - ConceptArt.org Forums

Small Freelance Jobs (Under $500 USD Total) - ConceptArt.org Forums

Part-Time Jobs - ConceptArt.org Forums

Freelance Bid Sites (I have actually made money from one of these sites!):

oDesk iFreelance.com Guru.com GetAFreelancer Design JobMotel

September.

2009-09-07T15:49:00.000-07:00

September. I spent much of August in London, fixing up my mother's spare room. And drinking beer, and eating sausage rolls. Too much to really talk about.

So September is rolling along and I'll be spending the month looking for work - anything, really; and downsizing my living arrangements. Make of that what you will, but for the ... assuming anyone reads this, I'm living La Vida Single now.

I've emailed my portfolio to a bunch of Illustration Agencies and Reps to a very low rate of returns. What I'm going to try and do here, is start talking about my efforts to get illustration work. The sites I visit, the kinds of replies I get. Maybe rant about the dick-heads on Craigslist or Deviant Ar that don't know that "Unpaid Intern" means nothing unless College credits are given. Or that expecting spec work on a project is well, stupid and evil. How about asking for a drawing of a figure and thinking $20 is a fair price, when you should be looking at double that for just a simple sketch.

In other news, I'm working away on an OGN called "Lucky Town," written by Anthony Venutolo - which has a publisher attached.

At San Diego ComiCon, Archaia wanted to see a solicited submission for "Neverland," written by WORK! co-editor Eric Palicki.

I've spent the last few days knocking out some quality work for this, Frank Cho & Doug Murray's "50 Girls 50". It's only 6 pages, with the promise of a 4-issue mini-series at the end (and $3,000 an issue) so, despite my complaints about spec work and contests above, this is a different kettle of fish altogether - it's not a logo for $50, the stakes are much higher, and additionally - I like drawing comics. Like all scripts for these kinds of things, it's deliciously complicated - giant aliens, spaceships, crowds...

Which is strange, as a try-out script I have for 2000ad - also 6 pages, lots of buildings, odd perspectives and also, 6 panels a page (not many, I know, but ... annoying with the detail I put in.) looking at it a month later, I hate it. The figure-work seems forced and lacking any dynamism. While my heavy inks work okay in a sci-fi or noir setting (hey, space has hard shadows) maybe I should explore my pencil for a while... it gets the strongest response so far.

Moving along... How Soon Is Now?

2009-07-03T12:31:00.000-07:00

Just got a new Mac. The old one was getting stuffed with crap - music software, art software, I was running games off of an external HD...

So it's all wired in via DVI so my colours are much more colourful. My software runs blazing fast... yummo.

But that's not what I want to write about. I have a bunch of old comics I drew several years ago that I need to get around to tidying up and lettering. And then put 'em online. A 30 page black and white 'Nemesis The Warlock' kinda fan-fic thing. 'Judas Lucy', a couple of fully painted long-form stories. I still have 'Soft' as an ongoing 'Thing' as well... somewhere around page 80 or so of... 400?

So, I have a LOT of content that needs to go online. And that's why I stand knee-deep in oily water, greasy wrench in hand beating away at MySQL and PHP... WordPress, you WILL be my bitch, as I have Important Comics that must go online. Now.

Currently playing with MAMP (Mac Apache MySQL PHP) Virtual Server, WP, ThemeDreamer & DreamWeaver, and Artisteer 2. Maybe I have too many options...?

Caving in is so easy to do...

2009-06-26T19:43:00.001-07:00

So I caved and re-instated my Twitter account and feed.

I feel like such a worthless whore, but if I can use it to find work...

Egad! Followers!

2009-06-19T04:50:00.001-07:00

So I signed in to write a quick post, only to find I had followers. It was a sensation akin to coming home from work, randomly looking behind the sofa, only to discover an undiscovered tribe living there, cooking dinner over an open flame.

Being a social sort, I gave them a widgety thing there on the right.

This of course means I have to imrpve mii riting skillz and learn to type complete sentences as I am now being watched.

Back to my original post. I have renounced MySpace, and Twitter. I hardly visit them, and while I might miss out on opportunities via Twitter - writers looking for artists for publishers, that kind of thing (true story, folks! Coming soon.) So my Twitter widget has gone bye-bye.

What did I say about posters looking similar?

2009-06-18T05:34:00.000-07:00

Okay... spot the difference...

One was created in September, 2006. The other is a shitty rip-off.

(hint: 'The Final Destination' is the ripoff)

I *know* that if I contacted these bozos and tried to sue, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Okay, the film production company and the theatre company are both in LA. But they have enough *big money* behind them to tear me a new one.

So why bother, right?

Ten, no, Nine Years of Theatre

2009-06-18T04:36:00.000-07:00

As I outlined in my last post, I'm in the process of designing the postcards and posters for Lodestone Theatre's penultimate season. Here are few of ...well, most of my favourite images from the last decade in no particular order.

2000: American Monsters. My very first gig with Lodestone. This was 3 plays, for Halloween, hence the overt horror theme. Each image is a hand-drawn black and wh

ite piece, tucked safely away in the depths of my portfolio.

2001: A Dirty Secret Between The Toes.

The graphic designer did just about everything possible to destroy the image I'd so cleverly come up with, leading to me taking the reigns of the graphic design role for the next 8 years.

Thanks, nameless half-wit! Recently, I was asked if I might have the poster or some file somewhere of it for a reprint. I found my original art, scanned in the single postcard from the play I had... and actually respecting the nameless graphic designer, I carefully recreated it. In colour, to poster size. It was something of a feat.

*ah ha, ah haha ha*

See, the image has feet in it... it's a pun. It's punny.

Freak Storm. This image is just one reason why the writer, Matt Pelfrey, has mad man-love for me. I recently revisited it for the cover to the book of the play, from Broadway Publishers. I finally got to use the original artwork I'd done for the woman's face.

2002 was a bit awkward. For Lodestone's next play, "Refrigerators", I had this tasty image all lined up, and being a smart-arse, decided to go with 3D graphics - a woman trapped in an ice-cube. I created skins for the character, rendered an ice-cube in Photoshop, all kinds of clever stuff, and the dear little G3 laptop I was using decided to take dump and so I missed my - I think - only deadline.

I later managed the whole 3D rendering thing to much greater effect in Trapezoid.

Below is a concept 'sketch', incorporating a photo for the face, 3D for the cube and figure, all joined together in Photoshop. Again, for Ten To Life, I used similar processes for an even tighter

effect.

For When Tigers Smoked Long Pipes, I went back to a hand-drawn style. The tiger was photo-referenced at San Francisco zoo... (which later went on to international fame for mauling to death a couple of teenage jack-asses) with lots of references to Korean folk art. I think nowadays I'd have used vector images to tidy up the gouache backgrounds.

Claim To Fame - I asked that all the actors have their pictures taken from above, looking up at the camera. I was 500 miles away at the time, and couldn't really describe how it was going to turn out. One photo-session later, and I came up with this awesome image.

American Monsters 2 was basically a red bed-sheet thrown over a door, and two pictures of my hands with the actor's face added in. Everything else was done in Photoshop. The invite was a little creepier - a skull, th

e mirror shattered, combined with the head of Aleister Crowley. Oooooh, spooky! Halloween, right?

Funnily enough the latest poster for Final Destination looks oddly similar.

OMG, whadda ya mean it's June already!?

2009-06-18T03:44:00.000-07:00

So... this is embarrassing. The WORK! project is almost a year old, now, and both Eric and I have done literally - fucking sweet FA on it for at least two months. If not three. There are random threats coming from Eric - oh, and a Facebook page.

That and here will be cross-posted to... if nothing else.

I'm slowly settling into the realization that thanks to Obama's extension plans on my unemployment, combined with the lack of hiring in construction now, my two alternatives are: Go back to retail, save up some money, buy a gun and shoot myself IN THE FUCKING FACE BECAUSE RETAIL IS SHITTT!!! Or face up to it - I'm an artist and I should try and make money as an artist. So far I'm circling around on a couple of commissions, and once things develop to a critical mass, I might even be able to do this for a living...

*pause for nervous laughter*

Or at least pay down a credit card or two. A little bit.

So, WORK! is currently on hold. Until I wake up one morning with a pile of other things to do and get around to emailing everyone angry emails asking where their work is.

I'm currently designing my penultimate campaign for Lodestone theatre - Closer Than Ever. This makes me sad, because I've been designing for them since 2000, and 9 years with a bunch of great people who put on awesome plays - you'd like to see it go on. Their next play is 'Grace Kim And The Spiders From Mars'.

I really enjoy working with theatre (and film) groups - getting a highly abstract concept like a play, and realizing into finished project, soup to nuts.

I'm also working on a B/D comic - no, not a bidet, or a bédé (bande dessinée) although I'd like to... as it's a private commission I'm not at liberty to discuss it too much, other than there's nudity and people being tied up. Look, it's B/D. If you don't know, ask a grown-up. Or Google. Or Wikipedia. Or Bing.

And in case you're still wondering, no, I don't. I might know people who do. You might know people who do but just don't tell you. But I don't, I just draw it well.

And finally, as I live in San Francisco, and given my positive support for all things LGBT (which, for those still confused about the B/D stuff above, is not a kind of sandwi... okay - it might be a kind of sandwich. Just not THAT kind of sandwich) I'm doing a book project. That is, a series of chapter headings, for a book. Proper, black and white ink illustrations. No super-heroes, no creepy monsters, just good old fashioned illustration. Just like what I went to College, got drunk, slept around and got in a band to do.

As this is fast becoming a monthly update, here's a couple of other things I've done this month. Warren Ellis, each week, posts up a random, obscure character that is out of copyright. Here's last weeks' - Gerry Carlyle.

She's a Big Game Hunter for the London Interplanetary Zoo, and wears an unfeasibly laudable mini-skirted space-suit. In the space of a few hours, I speed-painted the image - around 4, 5 hours, and in about another, what, 90 minutes? did all the typesetting and effects to give it that old-comic look. It was, as some might say, a piece of piss.

J-J-J-June

2009-05-27T22:58:00.000-07:00

June's almost upon us and I haven't written jack shit in ...how long? I trust you can do the maths.

So now I have no job. My 18 month construction project has wrapped up and I've had to sign on for unemployment. Hopefully not for too long, and hopefully I can augment it with some side work. (All legal and above board, if anyone from EDD is reading!) Hopefully Monday I'll be gleaning a book illustration deal, I have a website design gig, and a couple of posters for my favourite Theatre Group, Lodestone.

Last Friday we went to see NIN|JA. So if that's the last NIN tour, I could do worse and not see them again. I love their music and have done for 20 years, but watching Trent Reznor spaz around like a baby having a tantrum over slick, dull music played by some people I'd never heard of was not the epitome of showmanship gleaned over 20 years. I'm sure to all the meth-heads there it was wonderful, but... meh. Janes Addiction, though, rocked it. They owned the Shoreline Shittitheatre. (It also helped that most of the NIN fans had to be back in their trailers before sun-down or break their parole...). I fucking HATE the Shoreline Nazitheatre. The staff are all total consummate jerks, it smells like shit, and the Hayward Meth Labs always seem to drop their staff off there for shows.

New addition - on the right is my Etsy Store! Go there, marvel, buy stuff!

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana...

2009-03-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been almost all of February, and most of March - what's goin' on?

Eric P. got busy at the NYCC, taking names and after - mailing files. We'll see how long before he can paper his bedroom with rejection letters...! Or use them to line his budgie's cage.

Just had a couple of old comics I did resurface in shiny new formats: Donnie, a comic I did originally in black and white is now in glorious technicolour over at WebComics Nation. An even older comic, "Steve Brain, Gay Payday" is now out (En Portugese!) in the Brazilian anthology from Escritorio Noturno (The Night Office). That'll be getting an English translation before too long.

I mention this because a number of Brazilians, and a few non-Brazilian vinyl-jockeys think I'm somehow linked to The Twelves, the Brazilian remix duo. Unfortunately, that is not the case, and I've been The Twelves a hell of a lot longer than they have. I win.

BUT- I heartily recommend The Night Office to all fans of all things Brazilian, and comics. And Brazilian comics, especially.

I'm pretty much wrapped on the pitch for Lucky Town, with Anthony Venutolo. Just a couple of minor lettering edits to take care of. I also sent Eric some art for his pitch, Neverland. I think it's pretty sweet, and I'll post some of it when I get permission. (Or if he doesn't like it...)

I finally got Best Little HellHouse In DC off the launchpad to Heavy Metal. It had been sitting around for literally, a couple of years waiting on Travis Johnson to do some rewrites. He finally decided he couldn't get back into the story, so I (probably) brutalised his child, added some minor edits and shipped it off to HM. I'm not a great writer, but hopefully I punched it up a little...

Now to start work on Milky, co-written with MikeD... Gothic Horror and monkeys. Edgar Allen Poe meets Edgar Rice Burroughs. Hmm...

WORK! is still chugging away, like a sterno-fuelled hobo that refuses to die (!) and just this week, our heroes are:

Anna Pulchaski, for re-lettering the gorgeous Komori, written by Steve Wallace.

Susan 'Kat' Golton, for nailing Problems, by Nick Andreychuk.

Previous Stakhanovites of the glorious WORK! effort have been,

Chris Fenoglio for inking Owen Jones' Only A Miner Killed.

Mario Boon, for page 2 of Lowlands Of Holland.

Greg Carter is writing and co/writing a number of stories - I suspect he's angling for a co-editorship! :)

We got this from him at the end of February:

The updated status:

I Love a Man in Uniform- Gang of Four

Artist: Gina Biggs, (http://redstring.strawberrycomics.com)

Status: Complete!

Cowboy's Wild Song to His Herd / When The Works All Done in the Fall - Carter Family / Traditional

Artist: Emily Brady (http://www.footloosecomic.com)

Status: Art complete. Currently lettering.

OMC - MC Chris

Artist: M. Carter, (http://www.deadcentercello.com),

Status: art complete - we're arguing over the lettering. O.o

Take the Day Off of Work Day - Graham Smith & Kleenex Girl Wonder

writer and artist: Claire Carter (http://johnnysunshine.deviantart.com)

Status: One page left to complete

Just resting, busier than ever...!

2009-02-03T21:40:00.000-08:00

So... WORK! is currently working away beneath the surface. New art and finished stories are coming in, and Eric estimates that it's about 65% complete. That's what happens once you get a ball rolling...

Eric's off to NYCC to pimp the project HARD! along with his Corduroy Road thing - with a re-dressed cover by me - he was having the panics so I stepped up and gave him to goods. Hopefully. Good luck to him on that...

So while WORK! is simply doing its thing I'm going to go back to using this blog to talk crap and witter on about myself.

Whilst editing WORK!, I'm also working on a pitch project with Anthony Venutolo called 'Lucky Town', so hey - editors, keep an eye out for that in the near future! More shortly...

I just discovered some of my poster art up at this website: The Rock Poster Society. I'm thrilled to see my work propagating throughout the web...!

2009-01-07T16:32:00.001-08:00

Just registered w/ Ping.fm... let's see what this f*cker can do...

Moah Picks!

2008-11-23T16:56:00.000-08:00

More luvverly, luvverly pics

2008-11-23T16:32:00.000-08:00

So, it's that time again, and here are some more previews of the WORK! In Progress.

First off, the Pitch Document.

Awesome, right?

Moah soon...

Links!

2008-11-03T01:51:00.000-08:00

Finally, I updated the Links space to the right, added my Twitter feed so you can read about my daily crap IN MINUTAE!

Bugger, forgot the MySpace link... let me just.... okay. Added the link the the WORK! Anthology MySpace page.

Now, anyone contributing to this project and who either needs their link updating, or adding, please comment to this post.

And if you're NOT following the blog... why not?

New artwork

2008-11-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

So, once again I'll be putting up artwork here shortly.

In the last month we've had some amazing work from Nic Hunter, Gina Biggs and Bevis' work has been coloured and lettered.

2008-11-02T23:41:00.000-08:00

Wow. It's been a whole month since I last updated my Blog. I'm a bad BlogDaddy.

So I went to the Birmingham Comic Con in the UK and met Bevis Musson and Tony Lee. Sterling gents. Saw some sneak previews of something they're working on together. Also, met with my editors at FutureQuake, for whom I draw stuff occasionally, and Andy Winter - an Eagle Award winning writer/publisher who I've worked with before.

Did a load of familial stuff, and came back to the States.

Since then artwork has been rolling in like gangbusters and I've been busy as hell putting it all together, hassling artists and writers as well as focussing on writing and drawing my own contributions.

This weekend was APE, here in moist San Francisco. Aside from WORK!, I got Barron Storey to crit my artwork. I wonder if I can add to my website somewhere that Barron 'loves' my artwork... he's a lovely man, full of fascinating stories about his life.

Besides Barron, got a few people to look at artwork in progress for WORK! Got a lot of highly positive feedback - found out from Larry Young that he's publishing the Tony Lee/Bevis Musson project I saw in the UK. God, but comics are a small world.

I've been knocking out artwork on a project called 'Lucky Town' that's completely unrelated to WORK! for a proposal. Oh, and I turned out a tri-fold brochure for Lodestone Theatre Group. If you're in the LA area and like theatre, look them up. 2009 is their final season.

Thing's I've learnt this month:

I found out what a pica is, exactly - and how unforgiving InDesign is.

How Kinko's scores on the Failometer. Who knew the Failometer goes up to Infinity.

The Tramp Page 3

2008-10-01T16:01:00.001-07:00

Tramp P3, originally uploaded by The 12s.

When I catch Bevis, I will force alcomohol upon him and force it into one of his orifices.

Kind of like the opposite of Warren Ellis' Arse Eels.

The Tramp Page 1

2008-10-01T16:00:00.001-07:00

Tramp P1, originally uploaded by The 12s.

I shall be chasing Bevis throughout Birmingham ComiCon for this marvelous piece of art.

She Works Hard - The Customer Is Always Right

2008-10-01T15:57:00.001-07:00

She Works Hard P1, originally uploaded by The 12s.

When you suggest an artist for a writer and everything goes horribly right, there's no better feeling.

She Works Hard - The Customer Is Always Right

2008-10-01T15:56:00.001-07:00

She Works Hard P2, originally uploaded by The 12s.

Isaac Perez sets out to make Ye Olde Art editor feel puny in comparison. Good Work!

Buffalo Soldiers - The Stories They Sing

2008-10-01T15:54:00.001-07:00

Buffalo Soldiers P2, originally uploaded by The 12s.

Danny Zabal is planning on World Domination. Will you wan to stop him? Didn't think so.

The Twelves' Daily Dalliances

50 GIRLS 50

50 GIRLS 50

September - Part Deux, the link-dump.

September.

Moving along... How Soon Is Now?

Caving in is so easy to do...

Egad! Followers!

More theatre posters...

What did I say about posters looking similar?

Ten, no, Nine Years of Theatre

OMG, whadda ya mean it's June already!?

J-J-J-June

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana...

Just resting, busier than ever...!

Moah Picks!

More luvverly, luvverly pics

Links!

New artwork

The Tramp Page 3

The Tramp Page 1

She Works Hard - The Customer Is Always Right

She Works Hard - The Customer Is Always Right

Buffalo Soldiers - The Stories They Sing