Halloweenified

Well, it was just Randy and I at the last sketch night (the Saturday before Halloween) and we decided to draw each other as classic monsters. Above is my Frankenstein Randy and below is his rendition of me as a werewolf. Typecasting, I think.

Evil Ain't Easy on ZUDA!

In case you haven't heard... my comic Evil Ain't Easy is currently in this month's Zuda Comics competition! For those of you who might not know, Zuda Comics is an online division of DC Comics. Every month ten comic strips are chosen for the international competition, and votes from online visitors to the site determine the winner. This winner is then rewarded a year-long contract with DC Comics to create 52 more strips for the site.

Evil Ain’t Easy is my humor strip that tells the story of a maniacal scientist bent on world domination who is constantly thwarted by the everyday annoyances of life. He is accompanied by the laid-back henchman he created and a moody, little, old landlady.

It’s quite an honor to even be selected for the competition! So far, readers seem to enjoy the humor of the comic. It’s pretty light-hearted compared to a lot of the other comics on Zuda. I hope that uniqueness appeals enough to people to get their vote, as there are several great comics in this month’s competition.

So anyway... I need your help! Please take a few minutes to read the comic, register, and VOTE for it (registering is quick, easy, and spam-free)! Please also rate it, favorite it, and leave a comment... all these things will help it win.

Evil Ain't Easy will only win if we can really spread the word and get people to vote for it! I've setup a production blog at evilainteasy.com to help promote the comic, and there you'll find lots of sketches, downloads, and more! We're going to be running a few different contests to promote the comic, so stay tuned to that blog for details... and you might win some free stuff!

Thanks in advance for anything you can do to help out!

Realistic to Cartoony and vice versa

A bit late in posting these, but at the last sketch night the challenge was to take a realistic character and draw them in a simplified, cartoony way or vice versa. Some people took the challenge, and some did there own thing...

Animal, by Seth Wolfshorndl:


Marvin the Martian, by Seth Wolfshorndl:


Thor, by Randy Rustin:


Man-Spider, by Randy Rustin:


Various sketches by Darian:

ALSO... Note the date change on our September meeting (top right).

You look like a Dick Tracy villain.

Our challenge this last week was to make up our own Dick Tracy villains. His rogues gallery was always known for crazy facial features, so we tried to create some weirdos that would fit that style. It was fun to just focus on faces for once.

By Clayton Milliman:

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By Brad Shipp:

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By Seth Wolfshorndl:

Monster jam leftovers

A couple more of our monster jams that I just finished inking...

DARIAN: Right arm | SETH: Big head, torso, inks
CLAYTON: Layout, legs, left arm, small head, chest | MATT: Tree, glove
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DARIAN: Left arm, chicken | SETH: Head, mouth arm, top right arm, eyes, inks
CLAYTON: Layout, tail, top arm, top left arm, nose | MATT: Right arm

Name Brand Weirdos

For this sketch night, we redesigned famous name brand characters. It was fun thinking about how many are out there... and trying to remember them all. McDonalds and breakfast cereals seem to have the most colorful characters.

There should be more posted on here eventually from Darian and Dusty.


By Seth (with much input from Dusty):

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By Randy:

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By Seth:

More Monster Jams

We revisited the Monster Jam challenge last week. It was interesting because Clayton Milliman and Darian Holtsman were not here last time, so they definitely added a new flavor to these twisted creations...

(Body parts are labeled from character's perspective)

DARIAN: Layout, guitar, speakers | SETH: Head, body, right leg, inks
CLAYTON: Arms, left leg
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SETH: Layout, right arm, feet | MATT: Head, left arm
CLAYTON: Club, ear, body | DARIAN: Bloomers, inks
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SETH: Layout, right arm, first two tentacles, inks | MATT: Torso, last two tentacles
DARIAN: Left arm, neck, third tentacle | CLAYTON: Head, 4th tentacle, left hand
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DARIAN: Layout, background, left arm | MATT: Right leg
SETH: Head, Left leg, right arm, tail, inks | CLAYTON: back
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These last two were actually mostly drawn back at our August 2008 meeting. I finished up the inks finally...

DUSTY: Layout | SETH: Right arm, head, inks
MATT: Toenails, background, cow
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MATT: Layout, arms, legs | SETH: Head, inks
AMBER: background, tentacles, claws

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...

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

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

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

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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...