Sketchin' + pastries = awesome.

Sketch night at Panera went well. There were five of us there, including one new guy. Not a lot to show you besides this sketch I did of Randy. It was nice to have unlimited coffee and great pastries (for free!).

Next Sketch Night is this Saturday! (Usual place.)

Hey, let's go bi-weekly!

That's right... for June, July, and maybe August we will be meeting twice a month. It won't always be on Saturdays or at my house. Hopefully, everyone will be able to make it to at least one a month.

As you can see to the right, the next one is Thursday, June 11 at Panera Bread. I'm going to try to get the conference room from 6-9pm. Good food, good coffee, good company... should be great.

So get yourself there!

(The next one will probably be the last weekend of June and at my house again.)

Remixed!

Our sketch challenge this week was to redesign an established character in such a way that all it had in common with the original was the name. Pretty fun and more challenging than you might think...

These first three are by me:




By Darian: Dr. Octopus, Batman, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, Iron Man, and Flaming Carrot...


By Randy: Madman and Darkseid....



By Dusty: Daredevil...

Comics Improv

For the first time ever, we actually made some jam comics at one of our sketch nights. In attendance were Randy, Darian, Amber, Elton, and me. Elton gave us a couple story seeds... objects that had to be included somehow in each comic. The results were pretty fun, as you can see...

___________

Top: Darian Holtsman.
Middle: Seth Wolfshorndl
Bottom: Amber Stone
This one had to include "lobotomy" and "socks" (story seeds provided by Elton Gahr):

___________

Top: Amber Stone
Middle: Seth Wolfshorndl
Bottom: Randy Rustin
This one had to include "wolf" and "eclipse" (story seeds provided by Elton Gahr):

___________

Top: Seth Wolfshorndl
Middle: Randy Rustin
Bottom: Darian Holtsman
This one had to include "crutches" and "taser" (story seeds provided by Elton Gahr):

___________

Top: Randy Rustin
Middle: Darian Holtsman
Bottom: Seth Wolfshorndl
This one had to include "lightning" and "vines" (story seeds provided by Elton Gahr):


And hey, what do you guys think of the new header graphic?

A couple more splatters...

These are two of the creations from Amber at the last sketch night. I think they're quite awesome.

Ink Splatter Creations

If you haven't checked out Stefan Bucher's The Daily Monster, you need to. As you can see in the above video, it's a creativity exercise where he splatters some ink, blows it around with compressed air, and turns into something interesting. We enjoyed making a mess with this on Saturday. We had our biggest turnout so far, and everyone cranked out some crazy, fun stuff...

From me:







From Randy:




From Matt:




From Darian Holtsman (the new guy):

Hoboes Unite!

Our sketch challenge this last weekend was inspired by the important historical work of John Hodgman. In his book, The Areas of My Expertise, Hodgman chronicles the legendary Hobo Wars of the Great Depression, which was of course when President Roosevelt declared war on hoboes everywhere. You can hear Hodgman read this section in the above video. Anyway, in the back of that book, he listed 800 hobo names. To say they are interesting is an understatement.

The following are our interpretations of what these folks may have looked like...

A couple more

Matt came over a couple days ago, and we drew each other's characters. Above is his take on Dimitri from the Vlad Squad. He said he wants to draw the other members, and I'm gonna hold him to that.

And below is my version of Monty, the main character from his new book, Decaying Death.

Fresh sketches and a date change.

Well, it was just Elton, Randy, and I at the last sketch night. We drew each other's characters, as planned. And watched John Hodgman on YouTube... genius.

My take on Randy's characters:



My version of the villain from Matt's new comic:


Randy's take on our characters, starting with the Last Martian:

Cinder from a soon-to-be released book of ours:

Al Lion, one of Elton's old characters from junior high:


My inks over Randy's pencils (which is always fun).


Starting this month, we will be starting to meet on the THIRD SATURDAY of each month. The last weekend was a conflict for some members.

Hope more of you can make it next time!

This Saturday!

That's right... only a few days until this month's SKETCH NIGHT. Usual place, usual time, as you can see to the right...

For this sketch night, I thought a fun challenge would be to draw each other's characters all night. If you're like me, it's pretty dang awesome to see another artist's take on your creation.

So... make sure you bring some pictures of your characters that we can use as reference.

This should be a lot of fun. Hope everyone can make it this time!




And don't forget... vote for Dango! Only a few days left!

Vote for Amber!

If you haven't heard already, Amber has a comic in the current Zuda competition. It's called "Love the Dango" and it's pretty great! Loose, fun, cute and creepy all rolled into one.

You definitely should check it out, if you haven't already. And make sure you register and vote for her... she has the chance of winning a year-long contract with DC Comics. How great is that?

(The contest is up at the end of the month, so make sure you give it a look before then.)

Hurley Con is coming!

Last year's con was very good... this year should be even better!

Elton, Dusty, Matt, and I will definitely be there. We'll have seven books to sell (four more than last year) and some other goodies. Amber will be there, as well. Anyone else planning on going?

Let's all help spread the word on this and make it the best show possible.

More info (including table pricing) here at the Hurley's Heroes site.