A rough week...in more ways than one.

Time flies by so fast now, it seems. Between all I have on the drawing table and just getting thru the day. Some days are of course tough to make it thru, and some days are pretty good days. And by pretty good I mean productive days.  Mostly this past week has been just roughs and layouts and such.  Above is a warm up of one of everybody's favorite sketch icons, Bob Howard's Conan. 

 And here, again in rough stages are a couple of pages from the first part of the Number 13 project. I need to get kicking on these pages, but of course there is the initial layout process.  But any project I work on with Martin Powell is a joy, both in our understanding of how each other works and of course in the Edgar Rice Burroughs subject matter.

This scene takes place at a railway station in 1913, so I will have to pull out the good old web and reference some clothing and decorations from that time frame.

And here are the finished inks of the KiGor and Helene piece I was working on. Really no place for this piece, just felt with the renewed interest in these projects that I should spend a little time getting to know them again.

And also in a Captain Spectre update, no real art, but a major story problem has been solved. Wish I could expose more of it to you Loyal Legionnaires, but then that would ruin the first arc of three issues I have planned.  But more on that later Legionnaires, so stay tuned!

my how time flies....

Hey all you Loyal Legionnaires....are you still out there in internet land??? Hope so.

Once again apologizing for the lack of updates. Time just flies the older you get. ha.

I have been a little busy with projects, but it seems to be all over the place so this post is going to wander by the nature of the times.

Well seems that old KiGor wide vision  story I did a couple of years ago for Moonstone is finally going to surface.  If you remember it is a prose story with I think five illustrations I did that spread across the double page spread.  Remember, this is the one.  Written by the great Martin Powell, so look for 'War of the Beast-Men' sometime in the future....I will keep you posted...I promise.

Also been working on another proposed KiGor thing, after all I need a few bucks to pay down some of my medical bills that roll in. Believe me it isn't much of a chance at some money, but then again no publisher pays much at all anymore. It is all back end money and promises mostly. Shame the industry has to resort to this kind of treatment of the talent. Anyway, I feel I draw a bit better than a couple of years ago, so went for a slight redesign of the KiGor character last night while watching 'the Spider Returns' serial. 

I was also dealing with a haunting feeling that the Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Deep Ones from HP Lovecrafts tales are closely related. So was playing around with that in my daily warm up sketches...and it is thinking toward another little project for bucks I may have going. 

Also I have been playing around with some color, especially for the Number 13 project for Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse.  I consider myself one of the worst color theorists in the business. Plus I seem to agonize over it way too much when I color something, and it just takes so much time hitting the art one more time after inking it. Sometimes after I ink something, I feel done with it. ha. Anyway here is a un-refined color version of the first page of Number 13. 

Also, since I am thinking ahead to doing more conventions next year and the year after, and also wishing and hoping I can take early retirement....so I figured while I had a pay check coming in I thought I would go ahead and get a business card....then I figured I needed two....one kind of serious one, and one spotlighting the cartooning aspect of everything from cartoony to serious illustration type stuff. So here those are.....

So see even tho I don't make it around to posting, and feel I don't have anything new to show, I guess I really do most of the time.....it may not all be finished stuff, or good stuff.....but it is stuff! ha. 

And of course once again I am slowing down due to my health, can't seem to sit at the board for ultra long periods like I used too.  So some days when the day job is long and tough, the evening just isn't very productive.   

So Loyal Legionnaires hope you are still tuning in........and if you are, Thanks for hanging around and waiting on the old man. 

Page 1 inks as promised...

Hey all, well it was a day yesterday, a long day it seemed. And it was early to rise around Lightning Legion HQ this morning, as I churned out the inks for page 1 from the Number 13 story to be adapted by Martin Powell and myself.

I will try to color this thing, but the more I think about it all I may try to find someone to do the 'flats' at least for me. The reason for this is going to be TIME, as always. Also I truly don't do well with color. My color theory, in my eyes, is the worst thing I do....well other than write, pencil, ink, and everything else...ha. Just a thought anyway. As I would like to find a good colorist to work with for most things I am trying to do....anyway more on that at a later date.

I did have a blast inking this, altho it took a bit of time. Has been awhile since I inked much and with my hands and all I have to get used to it all over again it seems. Getting old isn't fun, so don't try it at home - unsupervised...ha.

I have been trying to cut back on buying stuff, since my try for an early retirement is coming up in a couple of years. I will probably starve to death, but at least I will starve happy, working on my own stuff or doing freelance comics. But sometimes you just can't pass something up. These Artist Editions are truly amazing!!!! Especially this one. I missed out on the Rocketeer one as I didn't really know what they were going to look like. I say my friend Scott's copy of the Rocketeer, and kind of wished I had gotten it. But now it is too high.

For those that don't know of these books, you need to see them. They are full color scans of the original art boards and printed in color at full size. Amazing. You might ask about the 'color' of black and white art, but if you think about it they need to be in color. As many artists used blue line pencils, or litho markers or crayons, and white out and tons of other stuff to make the art. With these scans you get to see it all! So if someone spilled grape juice on the art, then it would be purple. ha.

And of course being printed at full size is amazing. You get to see all the detail, the mistakes, the corrections and all. This Wally Wood book is an amazing 15 x 22 inches....holy moley it is huge!!! As older comic art was on bigger boards, and believe me this shows it all.

And of course these are some of the great EC stories that Wally Wood illustrated. Even one of the Ray Bradbury stories is there. Again Amazing stuff....these pages are a true inspiration to any artist, or comic fan for sure. The price is high, but worth every penny.

the beginning of #13 and stuff

Well here are the long awaited pencils to page 1 of Number 13. Number 13 is the adaption of ERB's Monster Men written by Martin Powell with art scribbles by me, coming in the future from Sequential Pulp imprint of Dark Horse comics.

While doing the pencils, and now while doing the inks this weekend, I can't seem to get that old 'monster mash' song out of my mind. ha.

Also, it has been a very long time since I updated the Legion blog here.  I won't go into details since it is the old standard things and I hate even using an excuse. Really there is no excuse other than the medical and all. My mother used to have a saying, 'just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get going'. That keeps running thru my mind too. Needless to say sometimes it doesn't work really well remembering that. And since I hate to post if I don't have anything solid to show. Oh sure there are sketches, mostly bad ones lately, and there are writing ideas and all, but again nothing solid. So I will try and post the inks to this page later this weekend. I should finish it up tomorrow, if all goes well, so look for it later tomorrow.

I always think of tons of stuff I should post about, but then when I start posting it all seems to go away. Ha, one of the worst things of getting old.

I am kind of pumped because of the newer footage of the John Carter movie. It does look like a good adventure film.  And if you can believe the leaking reviews, it is trending as an adventure film with heart and a story. I sure hope so as more people need to know of Edgar Rice Burroughs and his works. Most modern readers or first timers will probably think his writing is stilted and old fashioned, and well it might be in places for the modern mind.  But people need to realize where all the stuff they have been watching for decades comes from.

I was always a bigger fan of the Tarzan novels than the Mars. I enjoy them both a lot, just always could really get into the Tarzan and some of the other series more. I don't remember ever playing John Carter as a kid, but I do remember trying to be like Tarzan. ha.

Also, as a bit of news, I started a page on Facebook for Action Science Adventures magazine. This, if you don't know, was the fictional pulp mag that I created when I started Captain Spectre years ago. His adventures, sequential and prose, would have appeared in this magazine.  But lately with the growing new pulp comics and prose items, I have noticed people from time to time will stumble on the term 'action science' for a description of some adventures here and there. So since I came up with the term when Cap started I thought I had better put out some stuff to anchor my claim to it.  The future Captain Spectre stuff will be under this banner or publishing house.
I would hope in the future to achieve to actually put out issues of this, with sequential and prose stories in it. I really like the combo of comics and prose together in one magazine. I have seen a couple of later day pulps that did this and thought it was something I would like to do.  All in the future, but the mind likes to have something to shoot for. ha.

Also the other day I was churning thru old archive discs looking for a couple of files, haven't found them yet but did find some of my discs are losing date.  But in the process found some older stuff. This maybe be a piece not many of you have seen. I did this cover for a game supplement book for a pulp game company a few years ago. Ha a blast doing it.....I sure need to get back on the painting wagon some day soon.....but time is my enemy.  

overdue post

 Here are some of the things I have been slowly working on. These are a couple of additional pages for 'Pre-flight' - the stand alone Captain Spectre adventure I am currently working on. I don't want to give it all away as I want some surprizes left in the book. But I do like getting reactions to the storytelling and art from everyone so I will post as much as I can. Alot of it will be process stuff, from pencils to inks into the color process. I am trying to keep this story short and simple and that is tough to do as I want to pack all kinds of things into it. But I have to try and keep it manageable so I will finally finish one book at a time. ha. I want it to be action packed so keeping the speeches down is tough to get some ideas across. After all it's about the action for Captain Spectre.

Also a character piece for 'Number 13'. Here we have Virginia manning the Maxium machine gun mounted on the foredeck of the yacht, with the chinese cook bringing ammo to her as they strike back at the pirates.

And again apologies to all the loyal Legionnaires for the lack of posts. I have been having a very hard time with my physical and mental states lately. But I will leave all that up to my biographer when they write my pitiful life story.....ha.

Happy Holidays to one and all.

To all the loyal Legionnaires in the world, have a Happy Holiday as we go towards the new year from me and the gang at Lightning Legion Headquarters.

I know it has been awhile again between updates, and I apologize yet once again for that. I am working on a couple of pieces, and finally felt well enough to throw this holiday greeting together, mainly hoping to get me into the holiday spirit. I don't have much holiday spirit from year to year. It is something I lost along time ago and never found it again. And I do apologize for that too. The day job is shutdown for awhile over the holidays, and I hope to get some work of my own done. That does include some things around the house, but mainly some serious drawing. So look for some things to pop up here soon. I hope.

I do wish all the loyal Legionnaires and their families a very Merry Christmas and a good New Year. I hope this message finds you all well and it carries over into the new year. May this New Year be a better year than the past one. And thank you all for looking in from time to time and hopefully enjoying Captain Spectre and the other projects I try to be a part of.

Thanks to each of you, you are what drives me to do the work, and I thank you.

tom

Dec 4 update

Again sorry for a late update, but if I have nothing finished or even a good sketch I don't like bothering everyone with nothing. So anyway I have a couple of things more finished. First up is more coloring on the Number 13 cover art.

There are still a few things I want to refine in this coloring, but I do think it is finally getting there.

Also today was a pretty good day. Freezing outside and all the rain I got Saturday is all frozen in the ground or on top of it. Also got a dusting of snow pebbles on top of most everything. So saturday working on the story for 'Pre-flight' a little more. Pre-flight is the working title of the first Captain Spectre comic. As you remember the other stories I was in development on were turning into more novella's or graphic novel length. And I wanted to get something a bit shorter and cheaper out there first to get people looking at the material. So Pre-flight is the first story. I don't want to reveal alot of the story points yet. But today I banged out the first page of pencils. Enjoy Loyal Legionnaires.

Number 13 (Monster Men) progress

Well Loyal Legionnaires, I was wanting to post this in a finished state, but it just didn't make the grade yet. But here are the inks progressing. I really have most of it finished, just need to put the jungle, the vines on the adobe walls and fix a couple of areas. Which will have to wait for a few more days. My hand just won't take anymore this weekend. 

Just six months ago, I could have inked this piece in a day. This is close to two days work and looking at another one for the background. I really hate this stuff that is attacking me. It is getting worse all the time.

So anyway that is about it Legionnaires, I am sorry I wanted to post some Captain Spectre stuff, but nothing new has happened. That is nothing new in the art area. Even tho this stuff is slowing down my hands, it hasn't taken over my mind. So I am learning more about writing all the time. Hopefully all this behind the scenes work that I really can't show will improve the stories greatly. I can only hope. It is a complex thing to design and trim a story to get it into a comic. I think short story or novel might be easier. More room to get the points across. The comics have to be lean and mean, trimmed down to get you to want to turn the page.

Anyway, I am off to my big chair to watch a bit of tv and write some more, and rest my arm and hand.....

Swift, Sure and True.....Legionnaires.

Nov 13 update...

Well folks, and of course Loyal Legionnaires from all over, it seems I just can't keep up. I have a couple of additions to throw at you so here goes.

The first are the finished pencils for a piece produced for the project 'Number 13'. An ERBurroughs adventure published in 1913, adapted by Martin Powell. Number 13 is the original name of 'the Monster men'. We are going to use the original tales' name to try to keep things straight.
This is a piece that I roughed out, sized up in photoshop and fixed a couple of things, then lightly printed out onto board, then I finished the pencils on the printed board. It is a great way to get things composed and organized on the page before committing to highly finished pencils or even inks.

The second piece is the finished cover design to 'PreFlight' which is taking over, kind of cutting in line in front of the promised 'Solo Flight' issue of Captain Spectre. Again the reason for this juggling of issues is that 'PreFlight' will be a short tale, and easier for me to get to. It will be an introductory tale to Captain Spectre....kind of setting the stage. But it isn't an origin story. It will have a taste of an origin to let new readers know who, what, why, and all that of the Captain Spectre story. But nothing long and drawn out. I have posted this before, but it didn't have the cover treatment done to it. 

And if you want to know a bit more I will post this below the actual good stuff up top. The reason I haven't posted much, is I haven't been able to get much done. I have had many bad days lately and things just aren't moving along at a decent pace. I hate it, and I hate even writing about it. I feel like I am whining, and have never been know to whine much about myself, just about my day job and stupid things. ha. Anyway I will continue to post the medical stuff below the art so as you Loyal Legionnaires pass over the art, you can ignore the last paragraph of my posts. Here's to better days and more art which leads to more posts. 

Busy weekend.

Here is a quick edition update to the last entry I posted. I knew when I inked the Captain Spectre piece it was going to need color to clear it up some...so I couldn't rest til I saw it with some color on it. So thought I would post it sooner than later.


Also with more and more conventions starting up in the central plains/midwest area and with my new plan of starting to get to more of them and advertise a bit more, make some friends and fans, and actually get some work published ( the number 13 from Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse) and self publishing Captain Spectre...I figured it was time to look into a new banner. As I was looking around I found a place that has those roll up display banner things at a good price. Those things used to be so expensive I couldn't justify them, but now it seems they are cheaper and you can get two for less than just one of them used to be. So I decided to promote two things, my art - myself, and Captain Spectre and Action Science magazine. So here are a couple of designs I churned up.