Happy New Year

I did the cover for the Montreal Mirror this week, for their New Year's Eve party guide issue:



The illo was partly inspired by this photo I found while searching for reference, which gave me the idea to do the year 2010 in the spout of champagne:

Batman and Robin Inking Videos

Here's a couple of videos demonstrating my direct-to-finals approach to inking - I do my rough layout drawings digitally in Manga Studio 4, print them out in faint blue on the bristol board, and then take the plunge and go right to final drawings. It doesn't always turn out perfect (as you'll see in the first video, I make the occasional error) but it's a fun and efficient way to work, and really builds confidence.

Batman and Robin #7 First Look (Again)

Hi everyone, DC Comics has finally officially released a few pages from my upcoming Batman & Robin arc. This is the page I posted and had to pull a couple of months back, plus a couple more! Enjoy!

New Toys and Comics for November, part 1, DC and Warcraft

New Toys from November, part one, DC and WoW.

My first World of Warcraft figure, finally. I've been eying these ever since the line began, but I have finally taken the plunge. The rest of the figures are now on my want list, most with a high priority.

Tamurra, the Draenei Mage

Finally completed Giganta with the acquisition of Gentleman Ghost. And since I can't find the DCUC Hawkgirl, but bought the DC Direct Justice League of America Hawkgirl. Which I like better anyway.

November's MattyCollector.com DCUC 2 Pack Exclusive, the Color of Fear arrived, with two members of the Sinestro Corps. Also got the last wave 9 figure I needed, Mantis.

Had a good experience at a Target with an employee going a good ways out of her way to find Banshee for me, so I bought all four of the Public Enemeies figures so far released. I'm mostly trying to get the Build-A-Figure Brimstone, but who knows if we'll get Icicle and Banshee in DCUC. Also, the DVD is awesome, go get it!

I recently started following the Action Figure Blues blog, which is yet another blog that has a monthly givaway to commenters. I don't know if they just wanted me to join the forums, or if I really won the luck of the draw, but I won for October. I had my choice of the Salt Vampire from Star Trek The Original Series (by Diamond Select Toys), and Fire from Justice League International series 2 (by DC Direct). I've never actually been crazy about the aliens in Star Trek, other than Klingons and Romulans, and since that figure has been delayed and delayed and might never come out, and because I wanted Fire, I chose Fire. This of course prompted me to try harder to get the other two figures from JLI that I was interestd in, Black Canary in her 80's outfit, and Ice. And I managed to get both for $10 or $11 shipped. As you might imagine, my wife takes issues with the fleshy features of Fire's and Ice's costumes, so they'll be relegated to the back of any displays, but I'm glad to have them, who knows if or when Mattel will get around to releasing them.

Finally picked up Toyman and Supergirl from the penultimate wave of Alex Ross Justice figures. From all reports Toyman is one of the best figures DC Direct has ever done, and Supergirl's just in an odd costume. And I want to eventually acquire the entire Justice line.

I've been wanting to get Crisis on Infinite Earths Supergirl and Harbinger for a while, and I found a good deal on them, and as a bonus, got two other figures free, only one of which (Monitor) was interesting to me. Also, apparently I moved the camera while taking this picture. Despite the tripod.

DC Comics.

Got a really good deal on a Wonder Woman statue. It's not the one I really want (the Cover Girls of DC Wonder Woman statue), so I'll probably try to sell it to get money to buy the other one, though it's roughly 3 times the price.

In a couple of days I'll hopefully continue with with Marvel toys and a new line I got suckered into buying.

Edit: I just realized that every toy picture above has at least one female figure in it, and in most of them she was the focus in my comments about it.

Eurotour 2009 - iPhone Paintings

To avoid weighing myself down with too much stuff I didn't bring a sketchbook along with me on the trip, but I did try to do some quick paintings on my iPhone with the Brushes app. Here are some of the better ones. They're not terribly complicated, mostly they were quick sketches of things I had in front of me when sitting down for an extended period of time, but I like that they immediately conjure up very vivid memories of the exact time and place where I did them.

Eurotour 2009 - Sketches!

I'm back from my big European tour with my friends Karl Kerschl and Ramón Pérez! I'll post some photos from the trip shortly but for now, here are a few of the sketches I did for people at the various festivals and comic shop events:

(Yes, they are all quite similar headshots, but these were free and so I was doing them quickly)

More New Toys and Comics

As I sat down to write a post with the new toys I've received over the last two or three weeks, I realized there was an uncompleted post from before Halloween, that I apparently forgot I was in the middle of it. So finished up the photos and posted it. You'll have to wait a few days (or weeks probably) before I get around to write up a new one with the latest stuff.

Let's start with books. I started re-reading The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, because there are 11 or 12 books out, but I've only read 8 or maybe 9, despite owning all of them (I think). I've really been enjoying it, reading the third book in 2 or 3 days. But when I went to start the fourth one, I couldn't find it! Oh noes! Turns out, last Christmas my brother was reading the books, so I gave him our copy of books 4 and 5. Curses! Of course, it took about three weeks to receive them from eBay/Amazon, and my local library had all the books EXCEPT 4. I had to steal my cousin's library card to go to the good library, that had three or four copies of the entire series. Anyway, point being, I bought books 4 and 5 of The Wheel of Time, slowly converting our paperback collection to hardback.

Comics!

I'm endeavoring to acquire House of M and its tie-ins, along with Civil War, the newest arrivals are 5 Civil War books (Road To Civil War, Peter Parker Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, New Avengers, and Heroes for Hire) and 2 House of M (Amazing Spider-man and Uncanny X-Men (not pictured) ). My daughters were helping me take pictures. Also got a few JLA comics, one in particular that I've been trying to get for a while (without paying too much for it): JLA: Ultramarine Corps, for two reasons, the first being it's drawn by Ed McGuinness, whose art I LOVE. I generally read comics for the stories and then the art, but I wanted this one purely for the art, and merely hope the story is good too. But, Grant Morrison wrote it, and I'm a fan of his work in JLA and New X-Men, and what I've read of Batman, so I'm pretty confident it will be good.

Also, the 6th book of the aforementioned Grant Morrison New X-Men books (still lack the 5th) and for whatever reason I bid on and won Ultimate X-Men Ultimate Collection volume 2, which really only consists of Ultimate X-Men vols 3 and 4.

Toys!

Some Silver and Blue Batman figure from Legends of the Dark Knight, whose name I have completely forgotten at this moment.

Inexpensive Aquaman figures in armor: Justice Armored Aquaman and DC Armory Aquaman. Lots of people weren't big fans of the Armored figures in the Justice line, but I think armor is cool, so I like them. Plus, they were only $6 each.

More Misc Marvel Figures! Stealth Iron Man and Sharon Carter 2 pack! White Hand Ninja and Dum Dum Dugan (SHIELD Agent) 2 pack! Planet Hulk and the final piece to the Annihilus Build A Figure! Marvel Select Diamond Variant Emma Frost! Spider-man Classics Carnage!

Misc Marvel and DC Figures: Scarlet Spider, Marvel Girl, Earth 2 Alex Luthor, Red Son Wonder Woman!

More Wonder Woman! I finally broke down and bought some Wonder Woman figures I've been look at for a long time, the previously shown Red Son WW is from the Superman story Red Son which is one of my all time favorite comics, and definitely my favorite Superman story. Instead of landing in Kansas and being raised by the humble farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent, Superman's ship lands him in the fields of a Ukrainian farmer, where he is raised as a loyal member of the Soviet Socialist Party (Communist). It's a great story, and it's fun to see the characters we know and love in a Communist orientation. Superman is the Soviet symbol for Communism, and spreads Communist rule throughout the world, and Wonder Woman also believes in Communism.

Anyway, going back to Wonder Woman, I also finally got the JLA Classified Wonder Woman, based on Ed McGuinness' art (see the above JLA Classified comic). I'm excited for the new Ed McGuinness figures coming out later this year, or next, I'm not sure. And finally, I got the Justice League of America series 2 Wonder Woman. I like them.

And finally, my first taste of the Masters of the Universe Classics line, Teela. MOTUC is an online-only line by Mattel. There is a new figure every month, and they cost $20 each, plus shipping. You begin to see why I've never bought them before. Also, while I saw the show and played with the toys when I was a kid, He-Man holds no real nostalgic value for me. But one can never have too many female figures, so when I saw they were going to release a good looking figure with lots of cool accessories, how could I pass it up?

Teela comes with an alternate, helmeted head, a snake headdress, a snake staff, a sword, shield and a bird (named Zor or something like that, as if I care). She's a bit bigger than the DCUC line, about the size Big Barda could have been, but she's quite cool, and I think she was worth the price. If Mattel ever gets in to some She-Ra figures, I might have to buy some more.