Gabe from Penny Arcade

Something I started, just messin' with colors. I'll push this for sure, add some type or something, just to push it along. :) Any suggestions is most helpful.

Gabe (c) 2010 Penny Arcade

A Little Exercise for the Morning

I decided to do an exercise this morning, looking at something and seeing what I could do a little different. The panel on the left is a panel from Jeph Jacques' webcomic Questionable Content. It's a favorite of mine, his characters are wonderful together, and the dialogue is unique. I am always amazed how he constructs the dialogue from the beginning to the end of each page, like a conductor for a symphony (except the orchestra is assembled in Photoshop). :)

What have noticed from his style though is whenever he has the character in a side view, you don't really see the neck form the back of the character's skull (head). The neck just goes straight into the jawbone area. It makes the back of the head feel squished, at least to me. He did do draw the back of the head for Marten's girlfriend Dora, but for Marten it is not visible at all. Jeph has been doing this for a good while, and I thought it would be interesting to see what it's like with the neck line forming the back of the skull.

While attempting this exercise, I wanted to draw in Jeph's style, to hopefully make my observation more solid. For me it feels more fleshed out and full.

Now, I am not trying to bash Jeph's work, he does great stuff with Photoshop and his craftsmanship of characters. I felt that there could be something more added to his structure. It's a try for sure.

Hope you enjoy this exercise I did. :)

Those Who Love Typography..

Saw this earlier today from the popular webcomic PVP. Usually PVP covers video games, pop culture, and everything else...found it interesting that they would do a take on the documentary Helvetica. Enjoy!

Guest Comic Strip

My friend recently asked me to provide a guest comic for her webcomic. The picture above is the first panel for the strip, the rest you can view at her website.

Hope you enjoy the comic, and hope you had a wonderful 4th! :)

Collaborative Book Project and Thoughts

My typography class, along with a few other classes taught by Paige Taylor, were required to create a page for a collaborative book she's compiling. Without any delay, here's my piece added to the project:


My class' focus is the past, and I know every now and then, there's a dispute about who gets the cereal prize. I'm sure many can relate to that, especially if you have siblings. LOL :)

This project alone got me to do something I haven't done at all this year, let alone stopped a while ago: drawing comics. It's not just drawing the layout and determining the perspective or the facial expressions. It's also coming up with a good storyline and dialogue (if any) for the comic strip. Getting back into my cartoonist roots took a while, seeing I haven't been doing it for a long while, and it was rocky. At the end of the day though, I'm happy to bring my cartoonist juices to the table, and just let it fly.

It's like finding an old friend that you been waiting to come back to...I'm happy I found my cartoonist side again, you just don't know. ^___^

Anyways, hope you enjoy the comic! Ads coming tomorrow!