Brushpen Migration....

Yes, I've migrated to Tumblr. Ah, the march of technology! Come follow the Brushpen as it continues the journey on the latest(ish) free web platform.

As a parting gift, I will be posting the full Chubby Cheekers chapter from the upcoming "FUME" comic book. In the meantime, here's a brush-up from last weekend's Rose City Comic Con in Portland, Oregon.

An unused sketch from my San Diego Opera excursion. Bought some new Tombo felt-tip brushpens just special for this trip--I had high hopes for these, forgetting that I'd used 'em before years ago and not got on with 'em. But I'd forgotten that, and in prep for this opera gig I'd dug up my old pens and did a few sketches--and I loved them! Real frothy with this ability to build up a line thru tone that is quite unique in my experience. They were old, (maybe 10 or even 20 years old??), basically unused all that time...so old that they were only good for a drawing or two before completely dying.

Here's an example of the OLD ones:

You can see the difference. Excited by this look, I bought six new pens...tried 'em out, but they didn't work at all. The new ones are way too wet, without any character to the line, and zero ability to generate tone.

So, a big dud.

Maybe I'll try and dry the new ones out by leaving the caps off for a while....

An off-the-cuff Kirby tribute that got out of hand....

Had a lunch-time sketch session today with the famous Joe Sanabria!

That's right...I'm just gonna post this as if I've been servicing this blog all along....

I just had to include this one. Crayola of my buddy, Jimmy "Maurice" Gorham.

 Had a great time drawing this for Tyler. Had no idea who Adam Strange was, but he filled me in. Tyler's homemade costume was great--and he got a real kick out of the drawing. Thanks, dude!

My shingle at the San Diego Comic Fest. Heading is nonsensical, but I liked the caricatures too much to redo it.

Pillow Talk. These days I'm not letting myself just sit and watch a movie without trying to sketch it.  (And why, you might ask, am I sitting waching something like "Pillow Talk"? Good question....)
I've found that drawing from old movies with proper movie stars really makes a difference. In the olden days, everyone's features tended to be very distinct. We don't have a DVR with pause and slow-mo, etc., so I just have to draw as the movie unspools. Even tho' a lot of the sketches wind up funky (and unrecognizable) this way, sometimes an unpredictable,  almost subliminal likeness appears. The drawing shows you something in the actor's features/personality you might not have discovered otherwise.

Other times, you just get crappy drawings and long for the ability to sit down with a photo and get the person RIGHT.

Tony Randall, Rock Hudson, Doris Day, and yes, Nick Adams as the Harvard Boy.

Spartacus doodle up at the Notorious T.A.G. Blog.