Sketches - an evolution

Hello, somewhat faithful readers!

Well, I'm back, and it hasn't even been several months. I'm on a roll now. :) Actually, I have something to write about, which doesn't happen just every day.

Today I'd like to discuss the rough sketch for an illustration. That sketch has two reasons to exist: of course the first is that you need to create a rough road map of the illustration you are going to create. That means getting the composition and basic drawing done to the point where you are confident that the final art will be effective and at least mostly non-embarrassing.

But second,and perhaps every bit as important, you are attempting to sell your idea to the Art Director on a given job. That means it needs to look good enough that you won't have to re-do it completely because it's uninteresting, incorrect for the brief, or just plain bad. So it has to be exciting, easy to "read", and far enough along that the AD can easily imagine the final picture from what you send.

But the other part of that equation is that you don't want to put too much work into it, especially if it's not a high-paying job. (Pro tip: if you spend a lot of time on a rough sketch that isn't accepted, you just threw away an hour or more of your time, and that's money you'll never get back!)

Well. For the first *cough* several *cough* years of my career, I've used the method of doing a rough sketch in pencil, for the most part. Sometimes felt pen, or even ball-point, but usually pencil and always a DRAWING. However, lately, that's been changing. I've always known that the large areas of light and shadow were important, but I'd never really thought about streamlining my process, to concentrate less on the *drawing* and more on the *forms*.

So, I decided a few months back to try something different. And, it seems to be a success!

Basically, I'm starting with either an incredibly simple pencil drawing - like, just a few lines, really - or nothing at all, and sketching straight into Photoshop with a large round brush. This forces me to sketch with areas instead of lines, and gives the picture more punchy light-and-dark areas, and more structural solidity. Plus, it's a lot quicker! I'm enjoying the results.

Of course, I didn't come up with this method on my own, far from it! Many great artists have been working this way for years on the computer, and even longer using paints. However, I've only recently started to experiment with it, which is why I thought I'd share.

For simplicity, let me demonstrate with some pictures that are all for Wizards of the Coast, so I can say:

All finished pictures in this post are © 2012 Wizards of the Coast. All sketches © 2012 Patrick McEvoy.

Nice.

OK, so here's one I did last year where I did a pencil sketch, and then you can see the final:

Now, as you can see, I paid attention to the usual things in the sketch: the composition, the lighting, and the basic forms. And I did it all in pencil, which I've always been comfortable with. But it actually takes a while to draw - I come up with the areas, and then fill them in with pencil scribbles to create my shadows.

OK, then here is an example of what I've been doing more recently:

Here, I'm blocking in lights and darks here using fairly large brushes (set to 80 or 90 percent opacity in Photoshop). There are several reasons I like this:

- Looser drawing. It's not tight and over-rendered.

- Easier to pay attention to the large forms and areas of value, for stronger shapes.

- Quicker!

- I only have to draw details ONCE, when I'm doing the final.

Here are a couple more examples:

One thing to keep in mind is that I'm not even doing a final drawing for these: I'm doing all the final drawing work and details directly on to the final painting! Why draw details twice? Now that I'm more confident with my drawing than when I was younger, this makes a lot more sense. It's all about confidence, really.

And just for fun, here's one that I'm working on now. No final yet (it's in to the AD for approval, currently). I'll post the final after it's been printed..

This gets everything across to the AD that needs to be shown. It's punchy, has JUST enough detail to show what's going on, it was quick, and it doesn't bog down in unimportant details (well, unimportant to the composition).

That's it for now - let me know what you think!

-Patrick

Sketching!

So, I went to a great sketching evening with some new friends from the Bay Area chapter of the ArtOrder group (found at http://artorder.ning.com/ ) A wonderful time was had by all (Alexis, our hostess, Brian, Mike, MuYoung and me). We also procured the services of an awesome model Francine Mean, who brought many costumes and even put on a short Fire show for us after the session was over.

In the interests of full disclosure, I now present to you the sketches I did that evening. It was not only fun, it was a great chance to do something that I hadn't done for MANY years, and stretch those artistic muscles we all need to exercise once in a while.

2-minute warm-ups:

5 - 10 minutes:

(Here's where I started using some 4B and 8B pencils on top of the HB and 2B)

And finally some 20-minute pieces!

I think I was getting into a groove over the last hour or so, and I'm pretty happy with how the evening went. I'm looking forward to a lot more live drawing now that I'm back in the Bay Area and there are more opportunities for this sort of thing.


Usually I show off my finished stuff here or elsewhere online, or at least a sketch leading up to a finished piece so you can see the progression, but here we have just practice, plain and simple, with numerous warts to amuse you. Let me know what you think!

-Patrick

fun thing - Avengers

So. I was Googling for something or other, and up came this:

I thought to myself, "Hmm... I've seen these pictures somewhere before.. But WHERE? And it soon occurred to me: Oh yeah, I DID THEM!

That's right, I'd completely forgotten about one of the many Marvel special projects I did. Duh. I had drawn these like a year before the show came out, then absolutely never thought to check the show out. Someone else went in and did the inks and colors, but I'd done the drawings. It's always cool to see something like that finally released! So many of my Marvel pieces never get out to the general public.

So, for the first time - my Avengers Animated drawings!

©2011 Marvel Characters, Inc.

©2011 Marvel Characters, Inc.

©2011 Marvel Characters, Inc.

The Blue and Red overlays are an indication to the colorist of where shadows and highlights could go. You can see they sort of followed them, but not always (for instance Cap's shield is very different). Oh, and I didn't draw the Hulk.

I also did Ant Man and Hawkeye, but they aren't on the cover... If I ever see them somewhere I'll post those drawings too!

One more thing - I should mention that after I discovered this I took a look at the show (on Netflix streaming) and it is AWESOME. Started a bit slow, but it really took off, with small arcs coming to a huge, satisfying conclusion at the end of the 26-episode first season. This is what Heroes desperately wanted to be, I think; great, epic storytelling. And, even better, it works for kids AND adults, too.

Well, that's it for today. Just thought you might want to see some behind-the scenes stuff. Leave a note if you thought it was interesting!

New things, new commissions

Hi all!

Well, things have been hopping! I'm officially art directing a new online game from Dark Skull Studios, I'm doing some work for Marvel, starting a new iPad project AND still working on World War Kaiju. Busy enough? Not really - I've got some commissions too!

Here's what I've done lately on the commission front. I'm having LOTS of fun drawing these days...

Neil Gaiman's Death:

Scott James Taylor as Starkweather (& Solomon the lizard!):

Mary Watson, née Marston (from Sherlock Holmes' "The Sign of Four"):

Need I add that I want you -- yes YOU -- to drop by my online store and order a commission of your own? :) click here!

OK, T.T.F.N - talk to you later.

-Patrick

More commissions

Not a lot to report today, but I thought I'd share the latest commission work I've done. Everyone's getting pen and ink lately, which is fine with me. I haven't done much of that in recent years, so it's great to get back into it. (And it's going faster with practice, too!)

Lobster Johnson:

Judge Death and Judge Fish:

Rorschach:

If you're curious, I'm doing all of these on Strathmore smooth bristle, using a combination of Deleter and Pitt pens, a Windstor & Newton #1 sable brush, Titanium white acrylic, and Higgins Black Magic ink. And they're all 9" x 12".

If you want to order one of your own, don't be shy - I love doing them! Find out all about them on my new online store!

-Patrick

Epic Gladiator is out!

Hi again!

Wow, what about all these posts lately? I'm trying to be more diligent about posting with news and interesting stuff as it happens.

Case in point: the release of an iPhone app I did the art for several months back. EPIC GLADIATOR! (The game is free!)

It's a social game for iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) where you train and equip your stable of gladiators and fight against your friends (or enemies) for glory and fun. Yay! And I did all the art - hundreds of icons, backgrounds, characters, etc. Believe me, there are a LOT of weapons to get, each one unique.

Let me know what you think! I'm pretty happy with it. And I even did the logo. Check it out:

(This is the splash screen for the iPhone version).

In other news -- have you been to my online store yet? I'll be adding more stuff to it each day, so give it a try! http://www.megaflowgraphics.com/store

- Patrick

Online store ho!

Hey folks,

Well, I've finally gotten a real online store together. Excitement abounds!

http://www.megaflowgraphics.com/store

There's also a link to it from my main Megaflowgraphics.com site and here on the blog.

So, what exactly is there? Glad you asked. (Or, more precisely, I'm glad I think you asked...)

First, importantly, I have commissions available! Pencil and Ink now, and I'll be adding color soon. All the different options (sizes, backgrounds, number of characters) are available with E-Z pulldowns. Just order what you want, and put the description of your picture in the "Additional Notes" box during checkout. Couldn't be easier! :D

Also, I'll be adding some original paintings and drawings that I've done in the past for various assignments. The first piece that's up is my Forest Elemental painting. I'll be putting up some more of those on there soon. These are one-of-a-kind pieces, so don't miss out!

And finally, there are some prints available. I'll be adding more soon!

(By the way, did you know there is A LOT more of my art for sale through DeviantArt? Just go to my gallery there and look for any picture with the little shopping-bag icon next to the name. You can buy prints of different sizes, mouse pads, magnets, mugs and cards of all of them. I know, it's like you died and went to heaven, right?

Thanks, and please let me know what you think of the new store. I love to get feedback!

-Patrick

What I'm up to lately

Hey folks,

Thought you'd like a short update on my current projects. Would you? Darn this turn-based communication! Well, I shall simply assume you would and proceed from there...


A couple of interesting things came out recently. I did the illustration for an article in the new Dungeon magazine (#189) called "Killing Ground". You can see a preview here. Also out now from WotC is the "D&D Heroes of Shadow" supplement book. I did a few pictures in there that were quite fun.

Next up, I did the art and graphic design for an iPhone app that came out recently called "Police Scanner Radio" (yes, it's just what the name says!). The same company, Critical Hit Software, is in the very, very final stages of game-tuning for a new app called "Epic Gladiator", which should be lots of fun. You can find previews of the massive amounts of icon and other art I did for it here.

Lots of cards in the Legend of the Five Rings "Dead of Winter" set a few months back, and more in next month's "Before the Dawn". Read about that game on the AEG site.

In addition, I'm working on an awesome new Graphic Novel called World War Kaiju. Find out about it here, or check my DeviantArt account for updates! I think you'll be blown away by the ideas.

Speaking of DeviantArt, I'm updating that account more often these days, with both brand new art and favorite oldies. Take a look, give me faves, watch my account... Whatever makes you happy. :)

Aside from that, lots of development work for various iPhone games, concept art, and other stuff that I can't show for various reasons.

Oh, and did I mention I'm doing commissions these days? Let me not forget that!

That's it for now - talk to you soon!

Commissions - what they look like!

Well, I've completed the first three commissioned drawings, and I thought I'd share. I had lots of fun doing these, and hopefully there will be more in the future. I thoroughly enjoyed doing some quick work just for the fun of it.

(By the way, these were all ordered without backgrounds. The minimal backgrounds are included when I feel the figure needs them for a good composition, as all three of these did!)

*****

To recap, here are the types of pieces available and prices. NOTE - there's one addition now. Color! Yes, I'll be doing color pieces too, if anyone needs such a thing.

Here are the prices for a 9" x 12" picture -

Single figure pencil: $30

Single figure inked: $40

Single figure color/ink: $80

These may or may not include a bit of background or other elements, depending on how I think the composition works best. Also, the single figure could be a bust if you like. (Same price as a full figure, because I'll be putting extra work into the face detail, hair, etc.).

Add-ons -

Background: add $20

Each additional character: add $20

11" x 14" size: add $20

Shipping is included for U.S. - extra for other countries, based on actual cost.

Send your requests to me by email: contact@megaflowgraphics.com. For payment, Paypal is preferred, but I can accept a check if you have to do that.

Comissions and Wondercon wrapup

Much to catch up on, but important news first. For the first time in years I'll be accepting commissions for drawings! Custom drawings of any character or group you can think of. What a bonanza!

Here are the prices for a 9" x 12" picture -

Single figure pencil: $30

Single Figure inked: $40

These may or may not include a bit of background or other elements, depending on how I think the composition works best. Also, the single figure could be a bust if you like. (Same price as a full figure, because I'll be putting extra work into the face detail, hair, etc.).

Add-ons -

Background: add $20

Each additional character: add $20

11" x 14" size: add $20

Shipping is included for U.S. - extra for other countries, based on actual cost.

Send your requests to me by email: contact@megaflowgraphics.com. For payment, Paypal is preferred, but I can accept a check if you have to do that. ;)

I'm excited to give this a try! I'll be posting these on my here blog as I do them. Hopefully there will be a lot of good ones.

*****

And in other news, Wondercon went great! I sold a lot, caught up with good friends, and actually had some fun (which, frankly, I hadn't expected). There's a wrap-up of the con and some interviews with fellow artists on the latest episode of my podcast Ninja Mountain.

Also while at the con I was on the awesome podcast "Cammy's Comics Corner" on one of Cammy's crazy "Drinky Talky" episodes. That's right, me and a few other hep comics creators (Kat Rocha, Josh Finney and Jules Rivera) had some alcohol and talked comics. You can listen here.

That's about it at the moment. Talk to you later!

Wondercon

Last year's Wondercon was perhaps the best 4 days of my life.

No. Not perhaps. I can think of no more magical experience; no other time I would rather relive again.

But the past is past and the future is all that matters now. I hope that this year is even better in as many ways as the future can muster for me. And you can be a part of it!

Please come to see me on Saturday and Sunday (I'm arriving late Friday) 4/2 and 4/3 at table SP53 in the small press area. I will be sharing a table with Jules Rivera (If you are a listener to Ninja Mountain you may have heard me praising her "Marsh Rocket" web comic, which is well worth a read). I'll be doing lots of things:

1) Promoting my upcoming Graphic Novel "World War Kaiju", which I'm doing in conjuction with the new and soon-to-be-awesome Glitchwork publishing. The creator is Josh Finney (of Titanium Rain fame) and is co-written by Josh and Mike Colbert. Josh's lovely wife Kat Rocha also contributed a lot of creature design. WWK (as we affectionately call it) is the story of an alternate 20th century, where instead of the nuclear bomb, the great super weapon invented in World War II was the Giant Monster. The Kaiju! And now it's the middle of the cold war in the 1970s, where every major country has it's own arsenal of marauding monsters. It's funny, it's action-packed and it's very, very unique. See previews, designs, and hear me expound upon it at interminable length!

2) Releasing a new poster: The H.P. Lovecraft Rules of Survival! If you find yourself in a Lovecraft story, how will you survive with both your life and sanity intact? This poster tells you everything you'll need to know! Text by Josh Finney, and 9 original Lovecraft-inspired pictures by me. If you liked my "Uncle Cthulhu" poster from Boom! Studios, or my Call of Cthulhu cards, I am completely certain you'll LOVE this one.

3) Selling the Starkweather Immortal hardcover. My 160 page graphic novel of modern fantasy, intrigue, witchcraft, and foul-mouth talking lizards. Of course as is my tradition, with each copy you will get one piece of the original art from the series! And a sketch in the book if you play your cards right...

4) Convention sketches. Buy one!! Anything you want at popular prices. Be the first kid on your block to have an original McEvoy scribble!

5) Prints and postcards! Be the most awesome person on your block and display your McEvoy paraphernalia and/or ephemera proudly!

6) Most importantly: I'll be offering a World War Kaiju postcard, and all proceeds will be donated to Doctors Without Borders, who are currently doing such good work in Japan to help alleviate suffering. This is a very important thing, and I hope you will be good enough to generously donate. The cost is only $1.00 per card (a bargain!) but ANY amount will be gratefully accepted. And yes, 100% of the proceeds will go to this important charity. The cards will be available at both my table and Kat & Josh's Glitchwerk table. Buy lots - it's for a great cause.


OK! That's it for now. I really hope to see you there, just to say "hi". If you're at Wondercon please just stop by and let me know you read the blog or listen to Ninja Mountain. I'll be glad you did. :)

Returning

Hi all!

Well, if I'm lucky, you have been wondering where I've been.

Not in a good place.

But, I am returning, and feeling better all the time. And as part of my newly-reconstituted frame of mind, I've recently been interviewed by the astounding Cammy of Cammy's Comics Corner! Check out the interview here! We discuss H.P. Lovecraft, my upcoming comics projects, and a number of other things. And we rib my friend Josh Finney (writer/co-artist of Titanium Rain) in a gentle yet entirely cruel way.

More to come soon, including my upcoming trip to this year's WonderCon in San Francisco. I'll be sharing a table with the awesome Jules Rivera, and selling some stuff. Wow! The mind reels. Talk to you again soon!

Several items of interest

Today will be a link-heavy blog post, because there's a LOT to report. Thanks for stopping by; hopefully you'll find something to improve your lot in life, or at least give you a reason to continue slogging through this horrible world of pain for yet another day.

First, and most importantly... Starkweather: Immortal, my first hardcover graphic novel, is available - FINALLY - on Amazon.com! My largest piece of work by far, I'm really glad it's a real thing at last. I'm very proud of it, both as a professional accomplishment and as a piece of entertainment. Please check it out, and possibly even buy a copy. ;)




SDCC wrapup!

San Diego Comic-Con was great on so many levels. I got to see all the latest happenings in the world of pop culture, I met with friends both old and new, and I met a couple of my wonderful Art Directors in person for the first time (Hi Jon Schindehette and Jeremy Cranford!) along with several other interesting new potential clients. And I hyped my wife Danelle's comic book flatting business (she's been doing that for a couple of years now and has worked on a lot of really cool books - if you need a flatter/color assistant, drop her an e-mail!)  So -- Good stuff all around.

But primarily I was there to promote Starkweather, and that went just fine! Hello and a big thanks to everyone who stopped by the Archaia booth to say hi and/or buy a copy of the book. We had 100 copies air-shipped from the publisher in South Korea and sold out all of them over the weekend!

I was invited to an interesting event at the con, put on by  VentureBrosBlog.com We recorded a podcast where @spookychan, @TheSciFiBlock and I and several other cool Venture Brothers fans talked all about the show from the super-fan perspective we all have. :)  I think it ended up being very interesting - find out for yourself here:  http://bit.ly/9i1sUv

Also, I was on the Archaia "all access" panel, where the artists and writers from Archaia's creator-owned books got together to talk about our comics. If you were there you probably know it was a ton of great fun!


In other news...

Back in April of this year I was interviewed by the Electric Playground show on G4 Canada, and it's now been released to the internet!  I talk all about Starkweather and everything!



And also on the Starkweather trail, the folks at Popculturehound.com interviewed both me and D-Rod about Starkweather, and you can now read the awesome results here (mine) and here (Dave's).  They came out great, though they do call me "Jason" in one place for no apparent reason.. :D

 And finally, for those who are Ninja Mountain podcast fans! I made one of my all-to-infrequent appearances on the show this week, and with Jeremy away at GenCon I also played host to Socar Myles and Kieran Yanner:  http://goo.gl/b/Z4uP

Well, that's about it for the moment. What, that's NOT ENOUGH?  You want MORE?? Well, a) you're a sick puppy, and b) I'll have some really big news about upcoming projects soon.

As always, be sure to leave a message. I love to hear from you!

SDCC schedule - Come see me!

OK, I have some more info about my San Diego Comic-con plans!

I'll be selling prints, cards, and my new hardcover Graphic Novel Starkweather: Immortal at the Archaia Booth, #2635 (a 20 x 20 space right between Marvel and Image).  Also I'll have some signed game cards to give away and of course a FREE PIECE OF ORIGINAL ART will be given away with each copy of the book sold while I'm there.

Here are the official signing times:

Wednesday (Preview Night!)
Table 4, 7:30PM - 9:00PM

Thursday
Table 4, 12:30PM - 1:30PM
Featured Table 1:30PM - 2:30PM

Friday
Table 3 9:00AM - 10:30AM

Saturday
Table 3 9:00AM - 10:30AM

Sunday
Table 4 2:30PM - 4:00PM

IN ADDITION: there are going to be some informal places for signings/chatting with folks around the Archaia booth area and we'll be there off and on throughout the con - just stop by and ask for me!

DON'T FORGET! I'll be doing commissions for the first time! Do you want me to do a drawing for you? Be sure to ask!!

Single characters, pencil drawing: $20, or inked for $30. Additional characters $10 each. Please bring reference if it's not one of my characters.

And if you're on a budget, $10 will get you a sketch on the blank back of a WoW artist's proof card. Such a deal!!

See you there!

My art process!

As you may know, Starkweather: Immortal, a hardcover graphic novel from Archaia which I did the art for, is out now!! (You can order it so many places on the web, but you may want to do it on Amazon.com - CLICK HERE TO ORDER!).

As part of the bonus features, we were going to include a 4-page "how-to" feature, but unfortunately it was cut due to space. So now I'm presenting it here, because I thought it came out pretty well and some of you might enjoy seeing the process I go through to create my comics. And if you like it, or have any questions at all, leave a comment.



page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Me and Starkweather at SDCC!

It's on!

We were having some worries behind the scenes. It seems that Archaia was switching printers. They were printing in China, but they recently switched to South Korea. Most likely a large part of this was due to the fact that Titanium Rain (another fine book from Archaia) was not allowed to be printed by the Chinese government, so they had to scramble to move the printing out of that country.

Well, long story short: Starkweather was delayed AGAIN... but this time only by a few weeks.

Starkweather: Immortal WILL be shipped soon, though not on June 30 as previously planned. And here's some really good news: Archaia are air-shipping some boxes of the book, hot off the presses, directly to San Diego Comic-Con! So writer Dave Rodriguez and I will have 100 copies of the hardcover graphic novel to sell. Let's hear it for capitalism!

Free Art Giveaway!!

Each and every person who buys a copy of the book while Dave and I are there will get a free piece of original art from the book. I do pencils one panel at a time, so each panel has a pencil original - and YOU can own one! Just stop by, get a signed book, and take any piece of art you like. What could be easier?


What? You want more? OK, here's a special offer you won't get anywhere else! I have a number of World of Warcraft cards I did the art for, with special blank backs (the artist proof cards). With EACH copy of Starkweather: Immortal sold while I'm at the booth, I will personally do a sketch to order on a WoW card and give it to you with the book. How about THAT?

SO - stop by the Archaia booth (location details to follow), and get the awesome book, an actual piece of original art from the book, and a sketch on a collectible WoW card. Hey, I'M excited and I'm just giving it all away. Imagine how excited you'd be to get it!

See you in San Diego!!

Starkweather discount and other stuff!

For a very limited time you can pre-order the Starkweather: Immortal hardcover for OVER $11 OFF at DCBS: http://www.dcbservice.com/search.aspx?search=starkweather

Plus, we'll throw in a free exclusive print. Order quickly - I don't know how long this sale will last but it's very short.

Here's a fun preview for you - the layout of the dust jacket!


Also, I did a four-page tutorial about my Starkweather art process! If you're interested in my art techniques, you might like this:
http://patrickmcevoy.deviantart.com/gallery/#Tutorial-art-process

Starkweather at C2E2

Dave Rodriguez, writer of Starkweather: Immortal, will be at C2E2 in Chicago, April 16-18 at the Archaia booth. I've put together a promotional poster he'll have there - I thought you might want a first look at it!

Wondercon - another reminder!

Hi! Bet you thought I'd forgotten to remind you again about Wondercon again! Ha! What are the odds of that?

Find out all about WonderCon (April 2 - 4) here: http://www.comic-con.org/wc/

I'll be signing and drawing and chatting and whatnot at the Archaia booth 813/815. Also, you can check me out at two events. First my digital painting seminar:

Digital Painting
Friday, APRIL 2
6:00-7:00pm
ROOM 204/206

And second, the Archaia panel on Sunday with other great artists and writers from that fine publisher, such as Chandra Free, Kat Rocha, Josh Finney, and more!

Archaia News, Notes and Hightlights
Sunday, April 4
3:30 - 4:30
Room 236/238

I should note that I'm expecting almost no one to be at my seminar this year, because it's at the same time as Kevin Smith's talk. So if you do show up you can consider yourself one of a VERY select group.

Hope to see you there!

Wondercon news

Hi! OK, there are now two events planned for Wondercon! First, on Friday 4/2, I'll be giving a digital painting seminar:

Digital Painting Demo – Patrick McEvoy (Starkweather: Immortal, Fall of Cthulhu) will demonstrate the art of digital painting with Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter. Using examples from his work on the Marvel Style Guide and art for Wizards of the Coast, Patrick will step through various techniques to create a fully rendered painting, including color blocking, textures, lighting, blending and more. Learn how to bring a fully-painted look to your digital artwork!

Digital Painting
Friday, APRIL 2
6:00-7:00pm
ROOM 204/206

Then, on Sunday the 5th, I'll be on the Archaia panel talking about my Starkweather: Immortal book with other creators from that publisher. That should be fun!

Archaia News, Notes and Highlights for 2010— In the coming months, Archaia will be making a big splash with new hardcover books, new #1s and digital releases of its high-quality line of titles. Join us for a spirited discussion about all that and more! Panelists include Archaia’s Mel Caylo, Stephen Christy and Paul Morrissey, plus creators Josh Finney and Kat Rocha (Titanium Rain), Joshua Hale Fialkov (Tumor), Chandra Free (The God Machine), Patrick McEvoy (Starkweather: Immortal) Tom Pinchuk (Hybrid Bastards!) and Michael McMillian (Lucid). Also on hand will be members of the Fraggle Rock #1 comics team, including writer Heather White, artist Jeff Stokely, consulting editor Joe LeFavi and managing editor Tim Beedle! Attendees will receive a free gift from Archaia!

Sunday, April 4
3:30-4:30PM
Room 236/238

See you there!

Digital Painting Seminar at WonderCon!

Well, if you missed my seminar at MacWorld last month, then you'll be happy to know that I'm doing another in the very same venue (the Moscone Center in San Francisco) for WONDERCON next month. And this one, while sadly a half-hour shorter (only one hour) is no extra charge for convention-goers.

Here's the birds-eye lowdown on the caper, whatever that means:

Digital Painting Demo – Patrick McEvoy (Starkweather: Immortal, Fall of Cthulhu) will demonstrate the art of digital painting with Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter. Using examples from his work on the Marvel Style Guide and art for Wizards of the Coast, Patrick will step through various techniques to create a fully rendered painting, including color blocking, textures, lighting, blending and more. Learn how to bring a fully-painted look to your digital artwork!

Digital Painting
Friday, APRIL 2
6:00-7:00pm
ROOM 204/206

Hope to see you there!

Starkweather character sketches

It's time for a little bit more about my process on Starkweather: Immortal, the graphic novel!

Originally, we were going to print an issue 3 and 4, but as I mentioned in my previous Starkweather post, those plans were changed so we'd just fold that all into the hardback GN collection. And for issue 3, we were starting with a scene that introduces several new characters at a mysterious meeting place.

New characters means "new character designs" of course. My partner-in-infamy Dave Rodriguez is very good about writing vague descriptions of characters and letting me design them visually pretty much as I like, so this is always a fun part of the process. I don't spend a lot of time making the pictures look 'great', per se (or even 'good'!), since they are just for me and Dave. However they do have to serve as a model for future drawings. Here are some of the new characters that are introduced in the first few pages of the former "issue 3"...


Barak


Decarte


Mr. Nyps


Persephone (She's sort of based visually on a movie star from the 1920's & '30's, Brigitte Helm).

I usually fill up a few pages with ideas before I get to this point, and then do a page like this with some front and side views and a bit of distinctive emotion or action the character might display. With that done, I am able to work going forward with a good idea of how these characters look and feel. I did a couple more pages of sketches of each before starting the final drawings, just so I was comfortable with them.

And here is where we first meet Mr. Nyps and his boss, Persephone. This is the first page of chapter 3!




As before, I'd appreciate any feedback you might have, questions, comments, etc. Thanks for stopping by.

MacWorld approacheth!

Well, the big date is almost here. My digital painting seminar is Thursday at MacWorld.

Will any readers of this blog be there? If so, let me know in the comments!


Thanks - see you in San Francisco!!

Starkweather: Immortal!

It's finally done. It's in the can. It's completely finished.

"Will Ferrell's career" you ask? No, we wish. Rather, I speak of the Graphic Novel that I've been working on with writer Dave Rodriguez for (off and on) 2-1/2 years!

STARKWEATHER: IMMORTAL

This hardback edition from Archaia will contain 138 pages of story, four covers, a complete original prose story by Piers Anthony, and lots of contemporary fantasy fun! It compiles Starkweather: Immortal issues 0 - 2, and the unpublished issues 3 and 4 (with the fourth part coming in at 35 pages alone!)


Here's a first look at the wraparound cover for the book:



The logo, "trade dress" etc. goes on the right side, and the left side is the back cover, where Dave will no doubt write some gloriously wonderful prose to sell the book to prospective buyers. Such as you!!

We hope that the book will be published and ready for the San Diego Comic-Con in July. We were hoping to have it out in time for Wonder*Con in San Francisco (in April) but unfortunately our fine publisher Archaia didn't have a place for us on the schedule for then. So July it is. I think it will be worth the wait.

And we've already waited a long time as it is! After a good start with the zero issue (based on a story written for us by Fantasy great Piers Anthony) and then two main issues, we sort of hit some snags. Archaia Studios Press had some ownership shakeups, and took a year off from publishing, to re-emerge last year as simply "Archaia". In the meantime I personally had some ongoing money problems which greatly curtailed the time I could spend on what is basically an unpaid labor of love.

However, during that extra time Dave was continually thinking about, and improving the script. After a few plot sessions we actually ended up with a very different animal than we'd started with, and Dave re-scripted much of chapter 4 and added some pages to chapter 3... Which gave me a lot of extra work, but I think you'll find it was well worth it.

Also - of interest to those of you who have already read issue Zero (the story of Cartaphilus, immortal Roman bastard), Dave went back and extensively tweaked the script, so the version in this volume will read (I think you'll agree) MUCH better than the original. We're still using Piers Anthony's story, but now I think the dialog works better for the comics page, thanks to Dave's expert massaging.

[Quick aside - you will probably love Dave's web comic Shadowgirls, with art by Dave Reynolds. I know I do! www.shadowgirlscomic.com]

MY BIG PLAN
So right here, on this very blog, I plan to do a series of behind-the-scenes process posts. Showing sketches, drawings, render process, 3D models (I used a few for recurring sets!) and hopefully some interesting thoughts about the series in general.

As a start, here's a previously-unpublished page from the fourth chapter. No big spoilers on this page, I think (and I won't be including any word balloons anyway on these previews) but I think it's a fun one. Definitely one of my favorite pages from the chapter.





OK, more to come soon, including some steps through my work process for panels. Hope to see you here. Please leave a message if you like reading about this.

-Patrick

Match-up Math!

How would you like to try a FREE version of Match-up Math, the iPhone/iPod touch game I worked on? Just use this link:

Match-Up Math!

(If this link doesn't work on your browser, just go to the iTunes Store and search "match-up math")

This is an educational game that's a lot like Mahjong solitaire, except instead of matching symbols, you're matching numbers, equations, fractions and decimals. I'm pretty proud of this fledgling effort on the iPhone (My Turn Mobile is a start-up company with some great ideas about making educational software) And I'd love for you to download it for free and let me know what you think.

Oh, and did I mention it's FREE?

Here's a demo video to give you an idea of what it looks like:



And if you like it, you can buy the full version too, which would be pretty awesome. :) I did the art, audio, and was co-designer on this app. It's great for kids to learn math, but also a lot of fun for us grown-ups too!


Oh! I almost forgot.. If/when you DO download it (for FREE, in case I forgot to mention), please leave a comment and rating - that will REALLY help people find it, and it's very hard to get found above the noise on iTunes. I do appreciate that - thanks!

Macworld Expo!

Are you going to Macworld Expo in February 2010?

Would you go if you knew I was going to be doing a Digital Painting seminar there, with new art, new techniques, and all new hilarious patter that all the cool kids dig?

Well, would you go if you could get 15% off the price of a conference pass? Wouldja?

OK then, here's the deal! Click the banner below and use the promotional code PMCEVOY and you can join in the fun for less money. You can't afford NOT to go! This code will give you a 15% discount off any conference package (except the 1-day Users Conf.)

Here's the seminar info:
Users Conference / Creative Track
Thursday, February 11, 2010 / 5:00pm – 6:15pm
US932: Digital Painting
Room: 2003, West Hall



Click here for more information about MacWorld Expo.


See you there!

New Web Site!!

Thanks to Ninja Mountain fan and all-around good guy Collin Lenzen, I've got a shiny new web site for everyone to enjoy!

I made the decision to take down a lot of my older stuff, and it's really streamlined now. I will probably be adding more pictures over the coming weeks, but I like the simpler layout and focus on mostly newer and better pieces.

Of course if you do want to see a lot of my older work and a wider variety, there's always my Epilogue gallery (where you can leave comments as well!)

So, enjoy the awesome new look, and maybe see a few pieces you hadn't before: http://www.megaflowgraphics.com

Lovecraft Primer

Hey, that book I illustrated several months ago is out:


Click here and here to see the black and white pictures steps I used to create some of the art for this book. I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out!

San Diego here I come!

I'll be at the San Diego comic-con this week, July 22 - 26. You will most often find me at the Archaia booth, which is #2635, right between the Image and Marvel booths (so that we can be ignored by fans of both). Here's a helpful map of the convention floor!

Also, I'll be at two events. The biggie is my DIGITAL PAINTING SEMINAR on Friday, where I'll be demonstrating my Photoshop and Painter techniques. Here's what the official blurb says:

Friday 6:30-7:30 Digital Painting Seminar: Patrick McEvoy (Starkweather: Immortal) demonstrates the art of digital painting with Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter. Using examples from his work on the Marvel Style guide, a panel from Archaia's Starkweather, and a cover from BOOM! Studios' Fall of Cthulhu, Patrick will step through various techniques, starting from pencils and working up to a final rendering. Learn how to bring a fully painted look to your digital artwork! Room 30CDE

And the other is an Archaia comics panel on Thursday:

2:30-3:30 Archaia/Roddenberry Productions: Days Missing— Archaia Studios Press is now simply known as Archaia! Learn about the sci-fi titles the publisher has in store, such as Titanium Rain (with creators Josh Finney and Kat Rocha), Robotika (with creator Alex Sheikman), and Starkweather (with writer David Rodriguez and artist Patrick McEvoy). Then meet the creative dream team behind Days Missing, the new sci-fi comic miniseries from Archaia and Roddenberry Productions, the legendary company that brought you Star Trek. Get a sneak peek of exclusive covers and art, and learn more about storylines for upcoming issues. Panelists include Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth from Roddenberry Productions; Archaia’s Stephen Christy, Mark Smylie and Rob Levin; Chris Burnham (X-Men: Divided We Stand); Ian Edginton (Stormwatch); Phil Hester (The Darkness); David Hine (Batman: Battle for the Cowl); Frazer Irving (Batman and Robin); and Matz(The Killer). All attendees will receive a free copy of Days Missing#1! Room 3

Also, I'll be roaming about doing interviews for the Ninja Mountain podcast. So all in all it should be an exciting and fun week of fun excitement. Hope to see you there! If you happen to see me, come on over and say Hi - I'm almost as friendly as I look.

Ninja Mountain - the awful, terrible truth!

I thought that listeners to the Ninja Mountain Podcast might appreciate a little rundown on just how it got started. I just realized that we've just passed our 16th week. FOUR MONTHS! We really had no idea we could do this thing weekly for so long...

The story behind the Ninja Mountain podcast is really two stories - there's the podcast, and there's Ninja Mountain, the group.

Long before our podcast took the universe by storm, Ninja Mountain existed as a loose collective of artists working in the Fantasy/SF/Horror genres, mostly in the field of Roll Playing Games, Collectible Card Games, and the like. The initial gang mostly met at the rpg.net forums, and put together the core group at that time. And it's still going strong, with a stalwart cadre of 20 or so artists who meet online to discuss their latest jobs, sketches they've done, art they dig, and just shoot the breeze.

I was invited to join (totally out of the blue - I still don't quite know how!) way back in mid-2005. I realized pretty early on that this was a perfect coterie for me, in that I don't really feel too comfy in public forums, but a nice small, talented group like this would be just right.

You can see a list of most of the members here: http://www.ninjamountain.net/

(And an aside - I really don't know why more artists don't do this! A smallish private league of like-minded artists is a really good idea. We don't do projects together as a team, or make calendars or have bake sales. Just hanging out to talk art and stuff. Suggestion to the world: you should try it!)

Anyway, some time last year I got it in my head that we really had a lot of fun talking to each other, and we had some really kickass artists on the Mountain, so maybe, just maybe, a Podcast would be fun, and a good way to get our names out there some more, as all freelancers must. And because, you know, all the really cool kids are doing it! And aside from all the artistic talent, I was pretty sure that having such an international bunch (North America, South America, U.K., Northern Europe, and Australia all represented) would make for some fun-sounding discussions if nothing else.

Now, as with any project involving artists, it took a lot of time to get it together. ("Herding cats" is a phrase not altogether inappropriate for the process). Not that people weren't interested, but we all had to figure out when we'd have the time, and I had to figure out how to make a podcast from different locations, and we needed to discuss just what we could possibly talk about. After all if we were going to talk for a WHOLE HOUR wouldn't we run out of things to say?

(Actually I knew all along we'd be fine with that. I mean, have you ever sat at a convention and listened to a gaggle of artists chatting? We're talkative folk. Just try and stop us...)

Finally, a date was decided upon. Jeremy McHugh, Jon Hodgson and I were ready to do it! I would record and edit, Jon made the music and stings for stitching parts together, and Jeremy - at literally the last moment before we started recording - volunteered to be the MC. A great call that turned out to be! You can hear the fruits of that labor in our first astounding episode, made way back in the distant past: January of 2009.

(For those wondering, we were then and still are as of this writing doing things on a very low budget. We use Skype to conference, which is free. I record with CallRecorder (the only part of the process that actually cost anything), then edit in Audacity and mix tracks in Garage Band. Oh, and Jeremy and Jon do backup recordings, which have come in handy in the past!)

That first one went pretty well for us. With Jon's great sense of humor, Jeremy's sonorous tones, and, um, me, we thought we had a good core group. From there things gelled pretty quickly. The inestimable Andy Hepworth joined in the very next week, not only making a great addition to the mix (as our only Anime expert, for one thing!) but also giving us the vague idea that 4 or 5 was a good number to shoot for in the weekly cast.

That lineup stayed consistent for over a month, but in March, for episode 6, we finally started getting some more Ninjas to join in, and things have been on a constant roil since! That episode Kieran Yanner joined us for the first time of many, and Scott Johnson joined us for the only time so far (though we keep hoping for another!).

Other Ninja Members started coming on more frequently after Kieran and Scott broke the ice. Also we've had one special guest, superstar illustrator Von Glitschka. Hopefully we'll be getting some more guests on again soon.

Here's a list of everyone from our collective who's been on so far, roughly in order of appearance, with their inaugural episodes in parenthesis.

Jeremy McHugh (1)
Jon Hodgson (1)
Patrick McEvoy (1)
Andy Hepworth (2)
Kieran Yanner (6)
Scott Johnson (6)
Anne Stokes (8)
Ralph Horsley (8)
Mattias Snygg (8)
Scott Purdy (10)
Socar Myles (13)
Sam Araya (14)

Wow - what a grouping of talent! You can find links to all of them on the aforementioned Ninja Mountain home page. And as you can see, there are still several more Ninjas we must yet coerce into making appearances.

Of course we're still going strong, and have even had a few shows now without Jon or me. Jeremy's record is still 100% though, but he has the vigor of youth. We record pretty much every Wednesday, though some Tuesday sessions have happened as well. It's in the evening for the UK crowd, which is noon (or maybe 1:00) for me on the West Coast U.S.

Oh - and our blog is HOPPING! Loads of great comments from listeners every week, with good discussions and ideas for show topics and just some nice feedback on the episodes. If you haven't left a message there yet, you really should. After all, it's our only payment.

Well, I guess if that was the sort of thing you are interested in then you may have found it interesting. Now you have a bit of history and context for the weekly madness - I beg you to use your knowledge responsibly!

If you have any questions I didn't answer (but really, what are the odds of that...) feel free to ask!

Ninja Mountain Podcast update

We're in the process of putting together this week's Ninja Mountain show right now. The first step is always seeing who's available and when. We usually record on Wednesday around 8 - 9PM GMT (or noonish my time), but we move times around when needed. And sometimes we do secondary recordings on Tuesday if folks can do that day instead.

Clockwork precision, that's our motto!

Anyway, since I hadn't mentioned any of the specific podcasts for a while, I should make a note here that the last two episodes introduced newcomers to the show. Episode 13 had the debut of Socar Myles, wonderful former-digital-artist and current incredible pen-and-ink artist. And the most recent episode 14 had the first appearance of Sam Araya, zombie artist extraordinaire, along with Anne Stokes' second time on the show.

Be sure to keep up with all the latest at http://ninjamountain.blogspot.com

My Favorite Books 5 - the "me" edition!

In a blatant display of vile narcissism, I thought I'd do an entry in my "favorite art books" series where all the books feature... ME! :) Though by no means all of the books I've worked on - there are a plethora of RPG books out there with my covers and interiors - this is a fun bunch of mostly-art or instruction books.

The Art Of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos

If you like Lovecraft and/or my art, this is probably the book for you! It's an incredibly well-realized volume of art from the "Call of Cthulhu" collectible card game, for which I was a major contributor. There are about 30 pieces of mine here, as well as boatloads of other very cool and creepy art by top illustrators of the strange (and a number of fellow Ninja Mountain members!)


World Of Warcraft: The Art Of The Trading Card Game
This is another book featuring art from a collectible card game. And what spectacular art it is, too! Only a couple of mine in here, but if you're a fan of fantasy art OR World of Warcraft, this is a good one.



Fall of Cthulhu Vol. 2: The Gathering

I just did covers for this comic book series from Boom! Studios, but I was very happy with the cover for issue #9, and they used it as the cover for this collection. Fall of Cthulhu has a GREAT story for the Lovecraft fan, so it was a real blast to be a part of such a cool project.


Drawing & Painting Fantasy Beasts

This is a great instructional book by Kev Walker and various other artists - including me! Also, there are several other Ninja Mountain regulars in this: Anne Stokes, Ralph Horsley, and Jon Hodgson. For each of our segments we wrote the text and did all the art and instructional material. I did three of the creatures: Desert Elemental, Sea Elemental and my favorite, the Forest Elemental.


The Fantasy Figure Artist's Reference File with CD-ROM

With tons of pictures of Fantasy characters to use as reference, this is an interesting but flawed book. The major problem is that the photographer took shots with too much foreshortening, but at the same time they aren't very dynamic. Should be one or the other, I would think. But at ANY rate, don't worry about that! I did lots of sketches throughout the book, so that has to count for something. Doesn't it? :)

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Well, thanks for bearing with me as I bring you the best in me. Next time out I'll try for something with a little more broad-based interest!


Oh, and one more thing! If you're reading this blog and not following me on Twitter, you're missing out on my continuous stream of utterly brilliant babbling. Follow the hell out of me.