The Real Deal Magazine Illustrations

I have been doing a few illustrations for the Real Deal Magazine over the last few months, both for interior spots as well as cover illustrations. I actually have a real estate license in the state of NY and worked in real estate for the first half of this year, so I am very familiar with the names, buildings, and concepts I am illustrating.

Sketch Dump!

Here are a few selections from the old sketchbook over the past few months. I was on a Turtles kick for a minute there.

Newbies

This was the last set of samples I've vowed to do for comic publishers. This isn't to say that I think they're perfect, but I've realized that the time spent working on samples that eventually bring me no work could be at least spent on pages that are my own. My own story, my own chracters, my own world - my own pitch. Then, the work becomes a part of a larger whole, not just three random pages that have nothing to do with anything else.

I'm currently working on a pitch with a friend of mine. Instead of taking the traditional writer and illustrator roles, we've begun a true collaboration where I'm taking on a large part of the creating and writing too -- the art is still all me, though :) I've found this process to be creatively rewarding so far and am looking forward to have a formal pitch together to send to publishers in the very near future. As everyone in comics knows, it only takes a couple good paragraphs to hook 'em, the rest you just make up as you go along!!

DEATHLOK

I was showing these pages to my friend Alicia, and she said that in every pack of trading cards she ever bought as a kid, she would never get any of the popular, cool characters, but alas, always get at lease one deathlok per pack. I think the same thing happened to me. I think deathlok is kinda cool and enjoy drawing him, because I love drawing stuff that is all decaying and gross looking. So i'd take a character like him any day over someone all grecian and statuesque. These pages were a lot of fun to draw due to the high velocity nature of them -- and motorcycles! definitely need to draw more motorcycles! you should too!

Daredevil Samples

With this new batch, I've been trying to focus on some things that I feel are my weaknesses, such as believable perspective and interior shots. I think these two things look better than ever in terms of my work, so I'm pretty pleased. In retrospect, this was probably a bad script to work from. The writer, Brian Michael Bendis, used a lot of cutting back and forth between reality and memory, which forced me to patch together the script to make some coherent samples. Next time, I'm just going to choose something that has more straightforward and simple storytelling, to make it easier on both myself and the viewer. Enjoy. Comments and criticism welcome, as always.

Morbius

Thick Skin

I've started a new job a few months ago that has really been severely cutting back on my drawing time. This is tough for me, because no matter what I'm doing, and no matter how busy I am, I still always have the urge to draw. CONSTANTLY.

The new job (in real estate, don't ask) has definitely thickened my skin considerably. I've never been in such an absolute rollercoaster of a work environment before. It's fucking emotional. Seriously. One day, you're putting in applications, closing deals, making money, and feeling absolutely great. Then you'll have a tough client who you spend two weeks working with who then, on a whim, doesn't rent from you. Money aside, you have just wasted TWO WEEKS (or however long it is) of your fucking LIFE working with this asshole. A stellar first week of a month with tons of prospects can end up being just an average, run of the mill month. Such is life I guess with any profession or any situation, but it has still taught me to not get too excited until everything is DONE. Not when the leases are signed, NOT when they move in, but only when the money is in your bank account.

Getting back to drawing... well, simply put... I miss it. A lot. And I'm kind of wondering why I just can't figure out how to do it for a living. Similar to real estate, I've certainly had some great leads. I've been published numerous times, but just can't seem to keep it consistent enough to live on.

Rhinos have pretty thick hide, and I think it's in every artist's (and real estate agent's) interest to develop some pretty quickly. You may think this post is an indication of the opposite, but I'm not whining, I swear. I just keep doing my thing in every regard and have learned that for every one step forward that you take, sometimes you do have to take two steps back. Just make sure that for that one forward , you make sure it's a rampage.

Cheers

D