So, besides my normal sexually deviant shenanigans (just finished a four page horror/comedy/erotic teaser comic for Swedish Playboy model Nikki Magnusson) I decided to do something POSITIVE with my art.

I started taking correspondance classes at the Joe Kubert (drew "Conan" back in the day, and both his son's work in comics now) School of Art.

Normally, I'm not a big fan of "art calsses" in general, mainly because once you have the basics down, it really comes down to perfecting your style through practice.

However, when I actually looked into it, I found that the classes were cheap, the school is an actual accredited (legit, not the "draw a turtle" horseshit) college, AND I respect Joe Kubert's art. And the man that would be my critic, Tom Mandrake is an AWESOME artist.

So I figured it would be worth it to give it a go, try a class, see what I think of it.

As opposed to "normal" art classes, I wouldn't be told from the get go by my art teacher that "Comics aren't REAL art. Now here, study Monet and copy his work!" as happenened in the two art schools I dropped out of years ago.

I'm halfway through my first "course"...."Horror Art", and I already find that it's helping my work. MY attention to detail is improving drastically. I think the presure of knowing an actual pro that I respect the hell out of is making me work harder on this stuff, and that's great in the long run.

Also, I used to do very basic pencils, and then added most of my detail in the inking after. This class requires everything be turned in in pencil, so I'm doing MUCH more work in the beginning pencil whcih makes the whole pice better once I add even more detail in my inks.

Anywho, here's some samples of some of my crap so far....

Assignment...Make your own version of a classic monster. One large, three smaller down the side.




Assignment.... Three panels on top, one large on bottom. Emphasize location, time, era, weather, and mood. Three top panels to show a location, slowly getting closer and changing angles. Large panel, a shadow drops across character frightening them.




BTW, the above one Rick may recognize. It's of Sebago in the Old Port.

If anyone is interested in comics and learning comic art, these correspondence courses are worth it in my eyes. The actual college in NJ costs $18,000 a year (tuition only) and is a two year college.

A couple hundred per course (complete with supplies) and more importantly the opportunity to be critiqued by true pros that know their shit is totally worth it to me.


Also, here's just a little something I did on the side. I hadn't worked in Charcoal in over a decade, and decided to give it a try again. These two will probably be part of a larger series of near-nudes done in charcoal I'll send out to erotic mags when done. Obviously I ink them first, then do all my shading with my soft black charcoal pencil and white pencil. Vine charcoal is for chumps!





I've gotta say, working in charcoal now is MUCH easier than I remember it being back in the day when I tried before. These are still a little more rough than I would like, but for the first two pics I've done in a decade, I'm kinda happy with how it came back to me.