Art question?

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mt_rambler
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Art question?

Post by mt_rambler »

Dave,
I picked up a sketch you did sometime back (no date on it) which featured a baseball juggling three women.

Image

Do you remeber this piece and if so what the heck was it about? Was it a con sketch or a prelim to some promotional piece? It's one of the strangest pieces in my collection... but I love it.

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Post by Dark Bamf »

It must've been a con sketch, but I haven't the remotest memory of it.

:bamf
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Post by Paty »

:mags
HAW...HAW...HAW...
that looks like something he would do for an offhand quip on the order of "Mr. cockrum, how did you manage to draw these three characters...so well... " and with a wink, Dave says "Oh I had a ball juggling all those blondes!" and then proceeds to draw a ball juggling blonds... He often used to stuff like this on the back of regular pages. Something punnish would pop intohis head and he would visualize it...right in the middle of drawing a page. He would simply turn the page over and draw something silly to give himself a break from what he was doing in the story. Artists often do this. some of the most wonderful drawings John Buscema did were on the back of Conan pages when he was bored with drawing Conan. We used to xerox the drawings on the back of his pages ... just becarse they were so wonderful! I still have some of those xeroxes. A lot of artists do that... I have even done it...LOL... but if it is a smaller than regular comic art page...it is most probably a convention sketch, as Dave says. He does con sketches on either nine by twelve bristol or eleven by fifteen bristol. If the dimension of the page matches either of these criteria, it is most probably a con sketch.

This is a pun... Dave is a natural punner and studied with Murphy Andersson... the king of the punners! which only exacebated the disease...

sigh...we try to NOT encourage him in this... with a total lack of success...sigh...

Paty
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Post by BH123 »

Originally posted by mt_rambler
Dave,
I picked up a sketch you did sometime back (no date on it) which featured a baseball juggling three women.
Ha ha! That's great! Wherever did you find that? Congrats on the acquisition. And thanks for posting a scan of it.
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Post by BH123 »

Originally posted by Paty
He often used to stuff like this on the back of regular pages. Something punnish would pop intohis head and he would visualize it...right in the middle of drawing a page. He would simply turn the page over and draw something silly to give himself a break from what he was doing in the story.
I have the original Soulsearchers & Company page where Dave sketched "The Centaur From The Black Lagoon" on the back. That was a really cool bonus. Great pun, too :D
Originally posted by Paty
Artists often do this. sigh...we try to NOT encourage him in this... with a total lack of success...sigh...
True genius cannot be stifled!!!
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Post by mt_rambler »

I bought the sketch many many years ago, can't remeber where I picked it up. But it was probabaly about a decade ago. :surprise

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Post by Paty »

:mags
My bet is a convention sketch, hon... ever been to a nyc con? Dave has been to various cons all over the country, too... especially in years gone by...LOL
He did a lot of cons in years gone by...LOL
Paty
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Post by mt_rambler »

Could be a con sketch but I have never had the pleasure of meeting Dave. I probably bought it 2nd hand.

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Post by Entropy »

Dave,

Just a question of methods. Do you do prelims before a piece, and if so, do you do them more, less, or equal to, the number you did when you first started?
Dave, your creations brought joy to my life and inspired my imagination. R.I.P.

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Post by Dark Bamf »

I've always done thumbnail breakdowns before drawing a story. When I first started out, my thumbnails were so complete I was essentially drawing the story twice. These days I do just enough of a doodle to give me a point to start thinking from.

:bamf
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Atilla the Hun, Atilla the Hun.
He may pillage your village and kill everyone
but I still love Atilla the Hun.'
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Post by Entropy »

That's cool. . It's just amazing to me to watch an experienced artist draw something, it just seems to flow out of them.
Dave, your creations brought joy to my life and inspired my imagination. R.I.P.

Insanity is all in the mind...
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Post by Paty »

:mags
actually, dave will do individual drawings out of thin air...LOL...me too...
but sequential art used in storytelling needs planning and pacing. what you are doing when you draw a comic book is the same thing movie storyboarders do... only the comic art has to be much more finished and complete because the comic page is your "screen" to tell your story. a comic book is a movie you can put in your pocket!...Or comic box...LOL

Pacing a story is a tricky thing to do and some artists can do it naturally cuz they are storytellers in their souls... and some artists cannot... they are artists, but not storytellers... and this is where a good plotter/writer comes in realllll handy!LOL. whe you have a good writer and an ar5ist who is a natural storyteller, you will have a superior comic book!

some writers will want todo their own pacing and they like to work from a complete script. Other writers prefer to work from a synopsis and let a talented artist/storyteller help them pace the action. It all depends on the team and how they work together.

but to pace a story means you want to plan out pages in advance... which, with dave, means fairly detailed thumbnail sketches in page format that is about three inches by four inches...per page...LOL... very small stuff but it lets him think about what needs to go on a page before he actually draws it full size. and he has been known to change things or deviate from the thumbnail if he has a "better" idea! LOL...this sometimes occasioned midnight calls to Claremont when they were working on the early X Men...LOL Chris responded in kind if something struck him in the middle of the night, too...LOL sometimes it was danmed inconvenient, let me tell you!!! LOL... but when the sotry would come out, it all went away cuz the end product was so good!

Tales of the errant comic book artist...chapter ...uh... what chapter is this?

LOL
Paty
:mags
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Art question?

Post by Entropy »

Thanks for the 'inside' info :D
I've always been curious as to the way things get done, esp. btn the artist and writer.

Also I have definetly noticed when artists and writers work well together and when they don't. When they work well together it's like magic.
Dave, your creations brought joy to my life and inspired my imagination. R.I.P.

Insanity is all in the mind...
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Post by Paty »

:mags
Yup... and that's how it should be! cuz that's what comic books ARE... little pieces of magick in your hands...taking you to places and times and adventure that you might never have imagined without that little piece of paper in hour hands...LOL...and , quite frankly, they take the creators there, too...that is, if the industry is more than just a "job" to them. If their hearts and souls are woven into the stories, then it is just as much fun for them as it is for the readers! It's blood and sweat and sometimes tears... and sleepless nights and deadline worries too... but it's magick and the most fun you can have and still get paid for it!

Paty
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Magneto Rules!
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Post by Entropy »

Makes me wish I had more artistic talents :D
When you write the comic as well as draw it, do you still use the pasted dialogue, or do you just write them on the board itself? I can see how if you've written the book youself you can arrange the artwork so as to make the dialogue fit in easier and not take away from the art.
Dave, your creations brought joy to my life and inspired my imagination. R.I.P.

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Post by Dark Bamf »

Pasted-up dialog usually is done because the book's running late. The writer does the dialog from xeroxes while the book's being inked, and thenthe copy's pasted in after. If I'm doing the whole thing, the copy usually is lettered directly on the page.

:bamf
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Atilla the Hun, Atilla the Hun.
He may pillage your village and kill everyone
but I still love Atilla the Hun.'
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Post by Paty »

:mags
for those of you not familiar with production... a writer will give the artist either a synopsis to work with or a full script to work with. the artist then draws the pages in pencil. the pencilled pages are xeroxed first thing, with the artist keeping a copy for reference and the office keeping a copy in case pages get lost and have to be redone on vellum. Xeroxes of the pencilled pages go to the writer...obviously if the writer is also the artist, this step is done at the same time as the pencils... and the writer types out a script indicating on the Xeroxes where word balloon one goes on this panel and where blurb two goes...etc...with a magic marker or pen... showing where the pointers to to which characters and such. then this marked up Xerox page and the typed script as well as the original pencilled page go to a letterer who letters the word balloons and blurbs directly onto the pencilled page... using the marked Xerox as a guide to placment. The pencilled page with inked word balloons and blurbs then goes to the inker who inks all the art around the word balloons and blurbs... then erases the pencils...so that all that shows for the camera is inked art with word balloons and blurbs intact.
If the book is late, time can be saved by having the inker ink the pages while the letterer does the word balloons and blurbs on vellum laid over the xeroxes...just as if he were doing it on the penciled page. the vellum and the inked pages then meet in the production room and the word balloons are cut out of the vellum, opaqued on the back and pasted onto the inked page... once again, using the marked xeroxes form the writer as a guide to placement of word balloons and blurbs. sometimes when this happens, you get missing pointers and such cuz they tear off...LOL...
If you have a page of art done in this manner, sometimes the word balloons and blurbs will turn yellow as the rubber cement with which they are glued on turns yellow. And with age, the word balloons and blurbs can fall off, too...so that is a bummer when buying art. If the project wasn't late, the word balloons and blurbs will be lettered directly onto the page and you don't have this drawback.

Paty
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Post by Panz »

The internet, while it can be a ripe pain in the arse, has certainly sped up the procese of getting the art and scripts back and forth between the various folks.

I'm curious though, on another art front. I just recently, at my advanced age :p got back into artist modelling. There are several artists in the art groups that I model for who are avid comic lovers and hope to work in the field and we are all curious: Do the larger comic publishers have in house art groups? I know that the Disney animation folk used to have one or more regular artist groups. I used to model for them in thier Burbank studio (I think it was in Burbank???... It's been years)...does Marvel or DC have anything like that? We are all just curious. Do the Pro artists go to art workshops or "Jams"? or is it usually a more individual, solitary thing?

Oh, and Paty, you forgot to add the part where the various creative persons involved in getting a comic put together, call each other up on the phone at odd hours and scream incoherently at each other :LOL

WOOPS! nope, I found your post about Dave and Chris in the early X-Men days and the late night "bat phone" calls ....good to know I'm not alone out here :p
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Post by Entropy »

Dave and Paty,

thanks for the info. i had no real idea of what was involved on the making of comics. this helps to give some real insight.
Dave, your creations brought joy to my life and inspired my imagination. R.I.P.

Insanity is all in the mind...
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Post by Dark Bamf »

Originally posted by Panz
The internet, while it can be a ripe pain in the arse, has certainly sped up the procese of getting the art and scripts back and forth between the various folks.

I'm curious though, on another art front. I just recently, at my advanced age :p got back into artist modelling. There are several artists in the art groups that I model for who are avid comic lovers and hope to work in the field and we are all curious: Do the larger comic publishers have in house art groups? I know that the Disney animation folk used to have one or more regular artist groups. I used to model for them in thier Burbank studio (I think it was in Burbank???... It's been years)...does Marvel or DC have anything like that? We are all just curious. Do the Pro artists go to art workshops or "Jams"? or is it usually a more individual, solitary thing?

Oh, and Paty, you forgot to add the part where the various creative persons involved in getting a comic put together, call each other up on the phone at odd hours and scream incoherently at each other :LOL

WOOPS! nope, I found your post about Dave and Chris in the early X-Men days and the late night "bat phone" calls ....good to know I'm not alone out here :p
Sorry, Panz, the big companies don't have art groups or models. Individual artists might use model--Alex Raymond did when he drew Flash Gordon,(--but since the models have to be paid, I consider it unlikely.

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but I still love Atilla the Hun.'
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Post by Panz »

Eh...it would be a bit of a commute anyway. Thanks for the reply Dave.
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Post by Paty »

:mags
Actually, what the big companies DO have is usually a couple of drawing boards set up in an area that an artist can use to do spot work or corrections that an editor may want. they also have "in house" staff people capable of doing artistic changes and/or pasteup... or at least they did before computers... who knows what they have now?! but i can almost guarantee ... no in house models...as Dave said, that would involve the layout of bucks... and the little boys would be sure to abuse the privledge...or TRY to. The west coast is a lot more laid back aobut things like that...New York offices would probably get a bit stuffy about it... or at least blanch at the expense! LOL Plus, in the making of film, you have a whole different artistic endeavor. Youhave a group of people painting individual cells...not necessarily storyboarding individual pages... which is what comic art IS... storyboards in four color finished format. but you don't have seventeen people working on that single page. with animation cells. you used to HAVE to have lotsa people working on the sequential cells...thus the group effort...and the models...especially for rotoscoping and techniques like that. It might even be different at disney now, with the advent of computer graphics... who knows? The computer art scene is a vastly different thing than the old art studio...pasteup...boardwork scene used to be. while comic bookpages are stilldone by individual artists on paper, the animation scene may be vastly different. I am personally not sanguine about a lot of the computer coloring I see in the books, these days. Some is excellent and done by competent colorists... some is awful and tone by people who are competant computer geeks but not COLORISTS! And there is a world of difference.
I know Boris Vallejo uses models for his finished paintings...and personally, I wish he wouldn't. He is a good enough artist to do without them. His preliminary sketches are ful of life and movement and are lovely and excitinng... and the finished paintings, while technically excellent, are lifeless and posed. And that is just not necessary with a man of that immense talent! But it was how he started getting his paintings to look so realistic. In later years, he seems to have understood things like this and gotten better about injecting movement into his paintings. Technically wonderful work with improving movement...at least the last compendium of his recent work I sw was exhibiting some signs of more movement. Now... Frazetta...LOL...There's movement for ya! That man is awesome!...although he is in failing health, Ihear...which is too bad...he is a genius!
In any event...as Dave said...no group hug at marvel! that's for sure...

LOL... s'OK Panz... I knew I had mentioned in a previous post about the two am calls between Dave and Chris. Every so often dave and I would be being "frisky" and the phone would ring...and it would be "NOT NOW, CHRIS!!!" and you would hear an "OH MY GOD!..." on the other end...LOLOL It got so I would say that whenever Chris called just to get the reaction... then I would say "NONO... lol...just kidding " before I handed the phone to Dave. The more outrageous the hour, the more I was tempted to say "Not NOW chris!!!"

HEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHEEEE....
I know...I'm BAD...

LOL
Paty
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Post by Panz »

:LOL Paty, you are an evil woman. I think Dave missed a joke here, he should have written "Acme Blonde Co." on thier shirts :p I watched too many Loony Toons at an impressionable age. Heeheehee
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Post by steyn »

Just curious here, how much time is spent on one comic book?
For instance Dave, how long would you spend on one page, and how long would an inker and colorist spend on that same page?
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Post by Paty »

:mags
OOG... Depends a lot on the artist and inker involved. Some are slower than others because some put more into a page than others. If you do detailed, illustrative drwing, with fancy costumes and intricate backgrounds, you are gonna take more time than someone who doesn't put any backgrounds or embellishments on walls or any dirt on the streets aor any detail into background buildings or greenery or whatever. some artists whip out page after page of little more than coloring book outlines with damn little shading or detail. and some inkers fill in stuff that the penciller never put there. Dave inked gil Kane on John Carter of Mars... and all the wonderful costumes and jewelry and such were all Dave's! the background carvings on the walls of magneto's Burmuda triangle island were supposed to be from the "elder gods"... a tip of the hat to HP Lovecraft.. He could have put Scott and Lee forrester in jeans and torn tee shirts but chose to dress them in esoteric and higlhly fanciful costumes... just to give the island a more exotic atmosphere...which later artists ignored. sigh... It was visually more exciting to him. Dave has been known to do anywhere from half a page a day to several pages a day. He did a two issue "Skywolf" thing... a whole book!!!! in less than a week! He was so excited about doing a blackhawk esque job. Of course, that was when he was young and had lotsa energy...LOL...but he surprised even himself on that one!
Dave and johnnie romita were two of a kind. the lines had to be in just the right place for them. I have seen Dave erase a whole page cuz one goddam panel didn't work for him! then there are artists who just fattle pages out lke they are on an assemblyline... no backgrounds, no details... everything open for color like a damn coloring book! Which is OK if you are doing coloring books...
And you have to break down the story... pace it... so it takes longer for the artist or penciller... unless the inker is working from breakdowns... which are bare outlines storyboarded onto the page and the inker embellishes them and adds detail and such.
they used to do this with premiere storytellers like john buscema. His storytelling was so good, that he finally did breakdowns and the details were left to an experienced inker to embellish... like tom Palmer or Joe sinnott..deptnding on the style your were going for...more illustrative or very superhero crisp. buscema's early pencils were wondrous things to behold! but he was in such demand that finally he was doing little more than storyboarding cuz he could pace a story so well... and the inkers would add a lot of detail. Especially on some of the later Conan stuff...
colorists doing color for indication, where you don't have to be careful can do five to eight pages per day. a good color for reproduction page takes between two to four hours each... if you know what you are doing and are fairly fast. I have no idea what computer coloring takes...LOL... I amstuck firmly in the past! How much time a writer puts into script... well...you would have to ask Chris or someone who does that! A writer can usually do more books per month than an artist! It is easier to type than to draw.
LOL
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