Damsels in Darkwood Pages

Hi All,

It's been quite a while since my last post, but I wanted to share some new work with you. The following pages are a part of a pitch I am working on with my friend George. Our goal is to have the series bought by a comics publisher. The story is a really fun read, and I hope my artwork will do it justice!

Thanks for visiting!

Dave

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

Acid Totem

This image was created as a small, quarter page show flier for my friend Rocky. I threw in some obvious marajuana and other drug references since it was gonna be that kind of show. But what show isn't that kind of show?

Drawing this made me realize I need to quit my job and draw more. My hands were shaky and my lines were not confident. What the hell is up with my life?

Going Strong

Look at me! Another week, another post!! Don't get your panties in a twist out of raw, unabashed excitement now!

I really like this image. I imagine my guy here slicing and dicing his way through a ton of baddies, probably while whisking himself over something impossible like a rooftop terrace or horses backs or something.

Rocket from the Crypt

I'm trying to pump some life into this little blog o' mine, but I have recently not had the time or energy to do so. I now have a pile of drawings scanned and ready to go, so I guess I'll try to post regularly until that little stockpile runs out (notice how doing new drawings did not enter the equation).

My beginning of the year blog post which promises more updates "soon" just goes to show how relative the word "soon" can be. Same goes for promises made to friends concerning hanging out, calling each other, or getting that fabled drink.

I started fooling around with some different character designs a little while back due to the nature of a project I was working on at the time. The designs I liked the best didn't make the cut, which actually works in my favor, because now no company owns them!! Huzzah! I started drawing this monkey character in this sort-of samurai get-up. He's a lot of fun to draw, and I get to be very gestural due to his loose garments (and morals). He doesn't have a name yet, but I wanted it to be one of those really old fashioned names (not necessarily Biblical) that has somehow worked its way back into being a modern, cool name.

Happy New Year!

Brrrr, baby, it's cold out there! New posts coming soon!

DD - 2

Here are a few headshots of Daredevil out of costume, aka lawyer Matt Murdoch. These sketches were drawn from an article in recent issue of GQ about which topcoats to buy for this winter. Since I don't really have $1200 to drop on a coat, I just used the photos (which happened to be of Joshua Jackson of "Dawson's Creek" fame) for reference. Enjoy!

DD

Busting my butt to get some new samples together for NY Comic Con, which is in early February. I'm going to try my hand at some Daredevil pages and am currently doing some prelim sketching in an attempt to capture the mood of Daredevil and his environment, Hell's Kitchen.

Dragonlance Cover

Hi All,

I drew this cover for the Dragonlance Legends: War of the Twins series a few months ago. The War of the Twins is the follow-up to the series that I drew, Time of the Twins. I will not be doing interior artwork for the War series, just covers.

When I came across the colored version of the cover in the Devil's Due January 09 solicitations, I figured I would be safe to finally post this image on my blog. I'm really happy with how this turned out, as I think it colored up nicely.

As you can see, I've included a few other images to demonstrate the process that goes into creating the image, from initial thumbnails, tighter comps to final pencils. Enjoy!

D

Captain America chopping the Red Skull's head off with his shield

'Nuff said?

quickie

just doodled this freakish gunner guy at several different times over the past day or two while i have been on the phone. again, rather than attempt 'perfect' anatomy (show me a comic book artist who can achieve that), i'm trying to create interesting shapes and exaggerated gestures.

i'm REALLY excited about this other piece that i'm working on which i hope to post over the upcoming weekend. it's probably one of my favorite things that i've done and i'm having a blast working on it.

check back soon.

oh, i didn't post during november because on november 3rd, i was mugged and assaulted while walking home from the subway. as a result of the attack, my ankle was fractured and i was laid up for an entire month. so that's that! stay safe out there, people!

Almost forgot about this one

The third and final long awaited (by me only) Batman image in a series I probably started around February I think...
I obviously messed around with this one in Photoshop a bit (maybe too much?)-- but I do like the overall motion blur/washed out with floodlight effect.

Green Lantern

I've been having a lot of fun drawing DC characters lately for some reason. I was always such a marvel/image zombie when i was a kid, but I guess that just has to do with the fact that all my favorite artists (at the time) worked for those companies. DC's art was much more traditional and not at all as "cutting edge" (in the eyes of a 12-year old kid) as those other companies, and therefore, i never really gravitated towards their books. Well, I was definitely missing out. Aside from their handful of main icons, DC has a great library of weird and wacky characters that I'll be posting a bit more of in the future. For now, here's another one of their icons, John Stewart, as Green Lantern.

while we're at it

since i'm on a green arrow/black canary kick, i thought i'd throw another piece on the ol' blog just for fun. in recent sketches i've done, i'm trying to 'push' the anatomical exaggerations of my figures to closer resemble the general arcs and other gestural lines of my thumbnail doodles while maintaining a tightly rendered style. make sense?