ULTRAIST STUDIOS

Regular visitors will have noticed that I haven’t been posting much artwork recently. Well that is about to change with this post! I have 2 guest artist pin-up sketches. An Ultraist Studios Blog Journal FIRST!

Here we have SPY GUY with THE POSSUM drawn by Blair Kitchen! And the amazing thing about this drawing is that it is the first time in SPY GUY’s 20 year history (my God, has it been that long) that I have seen SPY GUY drawn by someone other than myself! Neat!

Here we have SPUD & HARRY drawn by über-fan Alan Groening. It was drawn on official Ultraist Studios stationary live at A.P.E.’07. Again, the first time in SPUD & HARRY’s 20 year history that I have seen SPUD & HARRY drawn by someone other than myself! Thanks!

There is something exciting about seeing another person draw a character that you’ve created.

Here are some more doodles while sitting at my day job (the one I sort of quit three weeks ago).

Getting myself prepped for SPY GUY #1.

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Here are a couple of sketches done for some Cerebus Yahoos!

The first sketch makes reference to Cerebus #7.

If Hellboy had a sister… what would she look like?

Viktor Kalvachev posed this question over at The Drawing Board last January.

Which got me thinking. This is the part of creation I enjoy the most. The logical progression in trying to flesh out an idea. Sitting at work, after a couple minutes of processing time, an image began to form in my head.

This is my thought process:

I assumed that if Hellboy was to have a sister, it would be a younger sister. Because there has been no mention of an older sister anywhere in the series, a younger sister seemed like the only logical choice. She couldn’t be a little kid, because Hellboy is something like 70 years old.

She wouldn’t have a Right Hand Of Doom, because that is the sort of item that would be a one-of-a-kind rarity. And her brother’s the one that’s got it.

When she came to earth, it would be in flames, like when baby Hellboy was summoned. She would arrive unclothed, however Hellboy isn’t a cheesecake sort of comic, and I’m pretty sure that Hellboy (who would be bound to be first on the scene) would not let his sis’ walk around in the nude, him being accustomed to human traditions and all. Hence the choice of having her covered with Hellboy’s trench coat.

She would arrive with horns. Now, whether she would follow her brother’s lead and cut them off later is debatable, but my best thinking is she wouldn’t, and would instead treat them as a hair accessory; women are like that.

Personality-wise, to start, she would be like a deer caught in the headlights, wondering what sort of world she has gotten herself into. The rest would develop later, depending on the story archs. So that is what I tried to capture in this image.

I did my best attempt at aping Mignola’s style for this.
You can let me know if I was at all successful.

I’ve posted the above image both at The Drawing Board and on the Hellboy Forums.
And if you want to check out the original concept doodles, click open the comment section below.

Another sketch done for our most recent Ultraist Shopper…
I especially like the way this one turned out.

The Possum appears courtesy of Possum Press.

Warren Ellis asked for a picture, so I gave him one:

If you look closely, you can see page 6 of HARRY, and page 13 of SPUD.

ALSO:
Another Installment of Work Doodles…

These were done between playblasts with a dry erase marker in my animation dailies notebook. Trying to get better + faster at drawing…

First Blog Journal Post of 2007.

The following sketch was done for the latest buyer of the Possum Press / Ultraist Studios Promopack.

Buy a comic, get a sketch.  Just like at the convention!

Work Doodle…
I did these sketches at work, trying to apply some of those Walt Stanchfield notes on drawing folds. Mildly pleased with the results. A couple more hundred drawings, and I might just get it right.

Thoughts on Blogging.
I never really cared about comments or feedback before. The artwork I would draw, and the stories I would craft were primarily for myself. However since the start of this blog journal experiment I find myself looking for the next comment like a junkie looking for his next hit. Pathetic. As a result, this song has been playing through my head all week:

Which brings me to a new feature / post category:

Mantra
The idea of this being; any word of wisdom or advice which I constantly need reminding about will go in this category.

In Other News…
Today was a good day for inking. Progress on SPUD & HARRY had just about ground to a halt during the month of November. However for the better part of the day, I managed to ink a good chunk of character stuff on HARRY pg. 14 as well as some backgrounds that previously were causing me problems. Progress pics would have been posted, but they’d give away the story. So for that you’ll just have to wait.

The next SPY GUY Webcomic is ready to go (tune in tomorrow).

In The Mail…
Thai Nguyen (ILM Animator and member of the SPY GUY Street Team) writes:

youre web comic should be called Mashed. its kinda have an emenem sound to it. + its like ur mixing a bunch of style youre trying out. and its been put together quickly

http://m-w.com/dictionary/mashed

Interesting.
I kind of like it.
Any thoughts?

I haven’t been satisfied with the way I’ve been drawing Spy Guy’s hat. I did these doodles at work to see if I could get more gravity effecting the rim to give it more weight.

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I pulled this out from my sketchbook. An inside look into the creative process of the genius behind Ultraist Studios. I still like that hockey sketch, it would have made a nice little painting.

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