DIE or DIY

So I have been preparing a small side project last week and I am almost ready to get it out of the way and share it with the world. I wanted to give everyone here a sneak peak and a little inside scoop on what's it's going to be all about. The project name is Drawing Ideas Yeah, a strange name yes but there is a method to my madness. If you notice the acronym for the title is DIY, which is more commonly known to stand for Do It Yourself. See what I did there? The whole concept for this particular weekly comic is that it is to be done with the most basic of elements out there and available for you, paper and pens, the idea of simply getting down and drawing up a comic. And this will also be following my real life struggles in trying to bust out my first self published project and also some of my unreal adventures with the strange cats and characters in Toronto and in everyday life, so basically be ready for anything, or just about anything. Also, this does mean that you may appear in a few panels. Yes, you. Amazing isn't but just don't ask how soon is now, just wait for the surprise of it all, like life, you never know when it's going to happen. 

Okay that's enough talking, let's get to this preview, which is what everyone wants to see in the first place. And here we are...

But what's going on here? Well that's where you need to wait. But here it is, me in the ink, working away on my art, and yes, I do make a lot of faces, I call it being an animated person. But I hope that it can help and inspiring others while they work away on projects of there own, or even make you laugh a little at the silly little things we do, the way the world sees us and how we see the world in return. Granted this is through my little eyes and I am doing a lot more learning then any kind of teaching, but I still want to entertain and connect with everyone through arts and comics, so this is what I do. 

Anyways also I want to let everyone in the GTA know that me and the Spent Pencils crew will be at Image Comics on June 1st at the Streetsville Bread & Honey Festival this Saturday, drawing and sketching all day and of course plenty of shenanigans to be had all day. So come on out and get some original art and sketches, also free sketches with purchases over $20 at Image Comics. I will be posting the link down below for more information and directions, so be there this Saturday and get spent! 

Anyways that's all the day I got tonight, got to be back up early tomorrow morning but I will be back sometime in the week, remember to leave a comment below and to follow me and the SPC on our Facebook page by giving us a like on the page. And be sure to follow me here for more art and comic related news. Thanks again for your time, good night world! 

Link:

• Bread & Honey Festival 2013

Art Show gets Spent

Last night here in the culture corner of Queen street at the TOTA bar & lounge, I was honored to be able to take part in and share the evening with Spent family and friends. This night we were taking part in the Superheroes Invade Toronto art show created by the Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts & Culture, with a portion of the evening's proceeds from the art sale being donated to support community art programs at Kapisanan. The theme involved placing well known superheroes like Batman, Iron Man, Superman, Wolverine and many more interacting in different landmarks in the city of Toronto. The four artist for the evening were proudly artists from Spent Pencils, these guys are not only mentors and friends to me, but my big brothers. The four artist are...

•Kevin Briones: The Go-Man himself! With a style unique and distinctly Kevin's, here's a guy that every aspiring comic book artist should look up to. Already 3 issue in and a fourth issue on it's way, Kevin is constantly working hard day in and day out. And if you haven't read it already, find copies of Go-Man at plenty of different stores located through out the GTA.

•Oliver Castañeda: This man is a beast with his art, this man should be the next president. He can draw anything you can possibly think of and he really loves any kind of art challenge. No seriously, anything you could imagine, like Galactus eating the Death Star while being attack by a star fleet. He can do it. And he can sing. That's pretty awesome too. 

•Paul Limgenco: He can make your jaw drop in more ways then one, through martial arts or the less pain and more awe inspiring way of bringing comic art to life, honestly his ability to bring characters to life is unreal through paint and expression, it's incredible. He's also the most photogenic one of us all. 

 •Vince Sunico: Bow down to the king of kings! If I told a younger version of myself that I would be able to work with a man as talented and as hard working as captain Sunico, I wouldn't believe it and I couldn't wait to actually get there. So much talent and amazing skill, and also a great mentor to me and many of the young pencilnecks. He got here through hard work and determination and with a little motto, big girls don't cry.

As you can see from these works, these guys are talent, and I think the most important lesson that I've learned from them is that any kind of skills or talent from them all stems from hard work, hours and hours into a labor of love. You have to have a passion and really love what you do, and you see it in there works. If you missed out last night, you can always meet them and all of the artist of Spent Pencils at many of the upcoming events that we will be attending, I will be posting the dates down below. And a big thanks to everyone who came out last night, to TOTA bar for being awesome hosts, to Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts and Culture for bringing this idea to life, and to Guerrilla Printing and Comic Book Lounge for the support. And of course another round for all the artist and the amazing work that was created. But also be sure to like us on Facebook, or subscribe to the blog here for more news and updates. If you have any questions or comments leave right below and I will get back to you. Also one more day of Anime North left, so be sure to go by the artist alley and see some of the amazing work by SP's anime master, Gen Ishihara. She's been working hard all month long and this weekend has been hell of a busy, so bring some coffee or candy and say hi. Also be sure to stay tuned here for more news and blogs for all art related things, this storm is just starting. Thanks again guys and see you soon! 

Links:

•  Kevin's SP Page
• Oliver's SP Page
• Paul's SP Page
• Vince's SP Page
• Kapisanan Homepage 

Upcoming Events:

• Bread & Honey Festival 2013
• Niagara Comic Con
• Con Bravo

The Black Adam Song...

Today I wanted to share with everyone a little play by play on a simple little sketch card. So if you don't know, sketch cards are pretty big in our SP circle. It's a great way to create original art for the fans, and there are a few collectors as well who enjoy having original works. The challenge being that on these cards your space is limited when compared to a large canvas or even a regular sheet of paper, so you need to know how to place your character and what to do with the space you have. But it's always fun to work on one of these in between different projects or commissions, they shouldn't take you anymore then half an hour or so, depending how much you want to do with the card. So I want to show you how each stage goes in the process of bringing a sketch card to life, and today's character is no other then Captain Marvel's main foe, Black Adam. SHAZAM! 

Step 1: You of course need to select the character you want to draw and then you need to choose where and how much do you want to show of said character. For this one, I picked Black Adam and I wanted to focus on giving him just a plain old super mean face, like this man is pissed. I didn't want to spend too much time on the pencils, cause a lot that would bring this particular card to life is going to be the inks. No point in wasting time on some lines that may not be seen, but of course you can totally choose to be more detailed oriented if you want to be, it's all up to you.

Step 2: Here is the first step in the inking process, go over the lines and makes sure to add weight to the lines to that you want to make darker to highlight more importance. You can also add more lines, like I did here on the face to add the emotion of anger in Black Adam's face. After you add most the ink over the lines you want, you need to erase the lines you don't need anymore. You can ignore this part as well if you choose to, but erasing the lines will give your card a cleaner look. 






Step 3: Filling up all the blank spaces on the drawing with as much as black as you want, this would also be time for color if you were going to do just that. In this case I wanted to keep it just to black and white, but I can totally come back to this piece and color it in later if I feel the need to. I also added a grey border around the character to give it a more in your face effect. But this is strictly a thing that I do, it's up to you to choose what you want to do with any and everyone of your pieces. 






 
And the final product after this is done may or may not look something a little like this, finished Black Adam.

Thanks everyone for checking this out, hopefully you enjoyed seeing the process of a sketch card. I want to ask you though, what character sketch card would you like to see me work on and I can post the play by play as well. So leave a comment below and let me know what you want to see done. 

Thanks again, to forget to subscribe and tell your friends all about this blog and to check out our Spent Pencils Facebook page, see you guys tomorrow.

The Road begins...

I want to start off with a notice, to everyone and anyone who doesn't know, in 3 months time it will be Fan Expo, the biggest geek fest in Canada and it will be my first time having a table with my incredible team, Spent Pencils. So yeah, kind of a big deal. What this means though, is that any sort of free time you thought I had, I really don't have it anymore, it's crunch time. And yes this means less natural sunlight and less partying, but at this moment I need to make my name known, and no one is going to do that for me but me, the time is now. But who knows, depending on how fast I finish projects maybe I can afford a day off or two, but looking at what's on my plate as far as work to be finished and the amount of content I want to push out by Fan Expo, not mention holding down a part time job on the side, my time is something I need to manage wisely. But know that my legend is only beginning and if you thought I was a pretty talented guy now, well, you haven't seen anything yet. 

I wanted to take this time now and lay out some goals for everyone to see and share in with me, I feel like this is a good way for you to keep track of what I am doing and for me to have an idea of what I will need to finish. With that said, these are just a few of the goals I have in mind...

•Finish and release an 8 to 10 page issue 0 of Glass Prison, my first self published project.

•Have the website for Glass Prison up and ready to be followed and prepare to have issue 1 ready.

•Have a weekly comic strip up and going, a slice of art life comic.

•Have ten different fully coloured prints available for sale.

•Be able to create a network of communication with social media for free random sketches.

•A personal business card, I need one of those.

We got big plans coming ahead, not only me but everyone in the Spent Pencils family, including a lot of new projects and new issues of current series that have been on going so far. And not to mention a lot of new fan art prints that will be available to you at various different shows and conventions during the spring and summer season, so be sure to follows us at these different shows and on the many different networks and websites. If you haven't by now, be sure to like us on Facebook and keep track on all SP related news. Also I will be posting the links to various different sites and pages you should be following, also look for me soon on YouTube. 

It's going to be a wild ride, but I will be sure to be updating this blog here more often, with news and also plugging various different artist and their projects as well. So tell your friends and be sure to follow up daily, the road starts here, lets get going!

Links:

• https://www.facebook.com/SpentPencils
• http://spentpencils.com/
• http://www.maddsketch.com/
• http://www.youtube.com/user/maddsketch

Check this pages out, and tell your friends! 

Capital Punishment, Spent Style

This weekend I got the chance to go on a road trip to Ottawa with my art family Spent Pencils, this marking my first big road trip with the crew and my first big convention out of the general GTA area. Now granted this is going to cost me more then I may make, but honestly if I was in this business just for the money, I wouldn't be an artist. I know I am starting and I know my place in the large vast art world, I need to have patience and use this time to learn everything I can from my crew mates and other fellow artist friends, and learned I have. But I am loving this experience to grow and develop, and it's something every artist should enjoy. Take critic and suggestion with an extremely open mind and know your place, you may not be as high up as you think you may be. Honestly if I can give any real advice to young artist, it is to listen. 

But so far, I want to say thank you to everyone who came by our table and said hi, grabbed a business card and/or picked up some art from any of us here at the Ottawa Comic Con. Again thank you guys and gals for coming by, we honestly appreciate everyones love for the Spent way of art. Keep coming back at the next shows, we are only getting better and better. 

I must say though, Ottawa does feel like an upside down Toronto, everything feels out of place and a little further away then it should be. But I will say this, the downtown and the canal is absolutely gorgeous! And good on all the Sens fans for Sens Mile, we need to get our shit together in Toronto and make a Leafs Nation street. I hope the Maple Leafs can do the impossible and defeat Boston and have another round in the playoffs, easier said then done of course. 

Anyways, one last trip to the convention today and in a way it's going to be sad to leave, but it's the life that we live, after one show we got another to get ready for and on and on and on. Thanks for the memories Ottawa.