Legends of the Guard Storytellers:
For Volume 2 of Legends of the Guard (Which starts in issue form next Wednesday), I needed to design 12 new mouse storytellers - one for each of the contributors. A few of the artists had already turned in their stories when I started on the mouse designs, but not all, so instead of trying to match most of the mice to a particular story-tone, I just made a variety of characters that seemed interesting and matched them up later.

Here are the twelve storytelling mouse characters. Even though this art wasn't required until the Hardcover collection extras were being produced, I wanted a solid character model sheet to use while doing my pages for the series. Not only does each mouse have it's own marking (nicked ears, missing limbs) they also have their own fashion, details, palette, and tankard. For this blogpost, I'll talk about a few of the character's designs.

They all started as rougher sketches that I tightened up as I found a particular design I liked. Some of the characters started as 'What type of mouse hat haven't I drawn?" or "is there a material I haven't shown a mouse wearing often/yet?". Here is a scan of doodles on printed light blue 'mouse maniquins' and at the top and bottom are the versions I decided to tighten up and pursue as characters.



I had a bit of trouble as I was roughing out new clothes or details to make sure each character would read as a unique mouse and not easily mistaken for a different patron of the June Alley Inn. I knew I'd done a few commissions  in the last year (colored for the 2013 sketchbook due out at SDCC this year) that had some character/clothing designs I liked, so I opted to pull those up and re-use them:

These two I did on my London trip at the start of 2012. Each were inspired by architecture and sculpture I saw while there. So these two became Holton (on the left, who tells Nick Tapalansky & Alex Eckman Lawn's Story) and Alton (on the right, who tells Bill Willingham's story) I sat these two close together in the tavern, but only because of their London design connection 

This commission was to celebrate the engagement of some fans of mine, in fact, originally the ribbon-flag had the date of their happy day. The ladymouse on the balcony I thought had a nice dress that I'd like to draw again, so she became Odella (who tells Justin Gerard's story)

"A mouse guarding a pumpkin patch" was the request for this piece, and I took not only the design, but the 'guarding' bit as an occupation for him. For Legends of the Guard, he is now Orwin (who tells Ben Caldwell's story)

On two occasions, I used the main character from one of the contributor's stories as the storytellers, so it was a matter of drawing my interpretation of them:

For Stan Sakai's story, I felt the story might have more impact if the mice would be hearing it directly from who the tale happened to...it added a sincerity to my part of the book that was needed to do justice as a bridge in and out of Stan's story. She was un-named in the story, so I gave her the name Mira.

Lastly, Rick Geary's story is all told in the first person, so I had no choice but to have the main character also the mouse in the tavern narrating. In this case, Rick supplied me with the character's name: Edwy (as well as a background for his bio for the Hardcover extras page: The Storytellers.

To help me, I also made a floorplan chart showing where each character would be seated the majority of the book (as well as where each cover painting is hanging in the tavern). The floorplan is a top-down photo of my June Alley Inn model with the characters listed below and assigned a number/letter. The numbering was just to identify the mouse, the letter stood for which issue they told their tale in...this helped me distribute the characters around so we never spend too much time in any one corner of the bar.

Watercolor Wednesday: 

From last week's Watercolor Wednesday paintings: Here is the Knight Gnome. The sketch started life as a carved chess piece, but kept progressing towards 'character' rather than 'inanimate object'. I played off the standard gnome hat as a peaked & studded helm for the diminutive fighter. And now every time I see the final image, I think that he'd make a fun Christmas Tree ornament (though I don't know what connection he would have to the holiday).

The other piece from last week started as the idea for an 'ugly' mask...but felt like more fun if it really was a character's face. And besides having an unfortunate visage  I also don't think he looks too bright...so I dubbed him 'simpleton'

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.

Upcoming Appearances:

Albuquerque Comic Expo: June 21-23

San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21

Boston Comic Con: August 3-4

Baltimore Comic Con: September 7-8

New York Comic Con: October 10-13

North Carolina Comic Con: November 9-10

Spotlight on Legends of the Guard contributors: Nick Tapalansky & Alex Eckman-Lawn

David Petersen: How did you both get in to working in comics? (Nick writing and Alex drawing)

Alex Eckman-Lawn: We actually got into comics together. Nick found a few pinups and art samples of mine on the internet and approached me with a script. We did some preliminary art and a test page or two and the rest is beautiful romantic history.

Nick Tapalansky: That's not how I remember it at all. I'm pretty sure your mom put you in my cab and I drove you to your uncle's place out west after you got in one little fight while playing basketball outside your school in Philadelphia. Your mom tends to be panicky. You were singing the most annoying song on the way, but somehow we came up with a few good ideas and kept in touch.

David: For folks unaware, you two are the creative team behind Awakening. Tell the readers a bit about that book.

Alex: AWAKENING is a zombie noir story, set in the small town of Park Falls. I tried to use my experiences growing up on the playgrounds of west Philly to inform my portrayal of the streets.

Nick: Yes, little-known fact: AWAKENING is a philosophical exploration of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, set against a heady science v. religion debate.

In all seriousness though, AWAKENING is, like Alex said, a zombie noir. We tossed almost all of your basic zombie tropes out the window and started fresh, giving the story room to breathe with a slower pace. We wanted time to explore questions and ramifications without the constant pressure of SURVIVAL placed on the characters from the beginning, so we began at the start of a year when the first zombies appear. They don't infect with their bites and they don't multiply dramatically by their own doing. It's an inexplicable trickle that slowly builds up as people begin to drop dead and "awaken" in this new, undefined state. That's where the story starts, following a retired cop as he tries to put the pieces together, both for the town and his own life.

Alex: It’s probably worth mentioning that AWAKENING was both mine and Nick’s first comic book ever (or since childhood anyway). To backtrack a bit, AWAKENING is pretty much how we got into working in comics.

David: A horror book about a potential outbreak of zombies, I would think, is very different from writing and drawing a mouse folktale. Did the process feel different to you guys? Did you approach it differently?

Nick: It didn't feel too different for me, to be honest. Is that weird? I try to think of stories as stories, writing as writing. I'm just putting down what I see, but the process stays pretty static. So when I sat down to work on "Leviathan" I just tried to convey what I saw as best I was able, applying what I'd learned from other shorts, and even AWAKENING. It was the first time I told a story like this though, and it really was a lot of fun.

I think, in terms of process, things change a bit more for Alex, since so much of the atmosphere and tone in a comic relies on the instant visual connection a reader makes with material.

Alex: I definitely did have to approach this story differently, but that’s always exciting for me. Part of the fun of making pictures, for me at least, is getting to try out different visual approaches for different projects.

"Leviathan" was a breath of fresh air for me, especially after all the bleak and spooky stuff I usually tend to do.

David: Nick, describe the Legends of the Guard story and its origins.

Nick: "Leviathan" was the product of me being a sarcastic pain in the ass! Back at some old con or another, may have been New York, right when MOUSE GUARD was really just going insane, I joked that I was going to do my own animal guard to ride your coattails to stardom. Somehow we settled on a Whale Guard, and I distinctly remember your sweet, sweet whale impressions. Then you ripped off a piece of cardboard and drew the quick sketch (pictured) signed with your blessing. Pretty sure you also bit it to sign off with your slobber-DNA. I still have that cardboard and fully expect it to buy me a sweet house one day, not to mention produce my own stay-at-home-Petersen clone.

Then at another con, San Diego I think, you asked me to moderate your spotlight panel. During the talk I had another opportunity to chat about my great idea, Whale Guard, and sow the seeds for usurping your fanbase. It's been a slow process, but it finally paid off. When LEGENDS OF THE GUARD's second volume was getting underway, we got the call: "Nick, we want it. We want “Whale Guard.”

David: Did you ever think that joke would have paid off into this short story?

Nick: Never! Haha! I'm almost sure my first reaction was abject terror, followed immediately by excitement. Not only is it such a robust and well-loved world, but we're in ridiculously great company. I'm gonna have to start joking about more things I want to do.

Alex: I have to admit, I thought Nick was joking when he told me we'd be doing “Whale Guard” for realsies.

David: I remember thinking when I getting ready to ask you guys for a story: "With Legends, I think Nick could play up his whale guard joke and it not seem silly, but grounded and honest for Mouse Guard. Without spoiling anything, what themes or intent did you want to pursue when you started actually writing ‘Leviathan’?

Nick: I think, for me, it was a matter of scope. The Mouse Guard tend to be brave, selfless mice who stare danger in the eye to protect their fellow mice. They'll fight down other mice, snakes, owls and bats but at some point there are certain dangers even the bravest, most headstrong mouse can't face on their own. Things just get too big, sometimes literally. I wanted to explore that a bit.

I also wanted to bring just a touch of magic to the world, since this was a "tall tale" and it wouldn't impact the main narrative or the realism of your story in the main books. So that was fun, getting to see our little guy, not a guard mouse but an adventurer, in situations you might not typically get to see in MOUSE GUARD thanks to a sprinkle of some fantasy elements.

David: Did you guys work on the story ideas together or is the workload separated strictly into writing and art?

Alex: I wouldn't say it's STRICTLY separated, but Nick had a clear idea of what he wanted to do with the story so in this case it was pretty much all him.

Nick: Yeah, it does vary from story to story for us. We both try to get our hands pretty dirty in everything.

Alex: Yup, we do a fair amount of back and forth about actual layouts and visual stuff, but I think this story was 100% Tapalansky.

David: Nick do you write scripts with page breakdowns (each page’s panel count described with what goes in them) or do you leave a lot of the pacing and layouts to Alex?

Nick: This script wound up being the last one I wrote with panel counts, actually. I wrote all of AWAKENING that way, and the handful of shorts we followed that book with. Alex knew that my scripts were just the best way I saw to do it, not necessarily the actual best way, and played with formats and pacing if he saw better ways to approach what I was trying to pull off. That's the best part of working in comics - the collaboration.

Alex: This is why I like working with this guy. Not everyone feels that way.

Nick: Nowadays I tend to take an approach between screenwriting and full-script comics. I won't label panels with numbers, sizing, or total count on a page (except in specific instances). If an artist wants to take a "panel" and make it into two, there's no problem there. Want to combine actions? Go for it! I couldn't work in the old Marvel Style - I'd feel as claustrophobic and passive as an artist given a super-strict script - but I think this is a middle ground that works. It gives freedom to everyone, and permission to be as involved as possible in every aspect of bringing a story together.

Alex: I think the real challenge with this story was just fitting everything into the six pages.

Nick: Oh, totally! Working within a defined page count like that definitely pushed us to trim every bit of fat wherever we could. I like to think we packed each page with possibilities though, in case Tiernan ever gets a chance to pop back up.

David: Alex, how do you approach starting work on a page?

Alex: Well for this story I had Nick's script to work from, so I start by laying out panel shapes in photoshop and doing some ultra rough drawings with my tablet-- just to get placement and shapes down. When I'm happy with everything in this super-rough stage I start actually putting pencil to paper.

David: Your artwork is ultimately a blend of drawing and textures and photo-collage and digital painting. How do your ideas develop and what is the process for getting to a finished page?

Alex: This is always a hard one to answer. I tend to work a little differently on every project, depending on the subject matter, tone, setting, etc. For "Leviathan" I tried to let the pencils speak the loudest.

There is a bit of photo collage and scanned texture in there as well, especially when we start getting close up to the whales, but this is primarily just pencil and photoshop "painting!"

I suppose the more technical answer is that I start with a scanned pencil drawing, then paint under and over it, introducing photo elements as I go. It's a kind of push and pull process, until I find a balance I think works.

David: Awakening is a closed ending story that wrapped into a collected softcover back in 2011, so what have you two been working on since and currently?

Nick: We've been quietly busy, but comics take FOREVER sometimes! I just finished writing a new book, just a bit shorter than AWAKENING, that First Second will be publishing in the next year or two. Comics are tons of fun but, like I said, sometimes take a while to make it from our collective brains, through the publishing machine, and into a reader's hands. My editor and I are looking for just the right illustrator for that book, so when that comes together we'll really be off and running. 

It's a pretty big departure for me, this book, but it took on a life of its own when I was writing it. It's more of a kids/all-ages title, with a very animated, or even a manga style to the writing. A brave new world from the desk of Tapalansky, and I can't wait until it's finally out!

In the meantime, I'm working on another exciting graphic novel, which I hope to start pitching this month, and Alex and I are always brainstorming what comes next.

Alex: Yeah, I've got a few bigger projects in the works as well but most of whats actually seen print has been shorts.

I had a piece in The Graphic Canon Part 1- a collection of comic artists and illustrators taking on classic literature and poetry. There's some pretty awesome stuff in there, and I'm proud to have been a part of it!

Nick and I also did a short story for the Perhapanauts gang, which is finally up on their website *LINK*. It's a bit older at this point but it'll be new to all of you!

Nick:  And it’s free! Who doesn’t like free comics?

Alex: I also just finished working on a short for Moon Lake Volume 2, coming out through Archaia. I did a whole mess of pinups for that book as well. As always, big stuff is on the way.

David: Thank guys for a fun story for Legends of the Guard. Where can readers find out more about each of you and your work?

Alex: Thank YOU, Dave! This was a blast to work on and I think both Nick and I are pretty honored to be a part of the MOUSE GUARD story, if even just tangentially.

Nick: It was definitely a great experience! We rarely get to play in other people's sandboxes, but when we do it's always a treat. Especially when the sandbox is as vast and inviting as MOUSE GUARD.

I tend to hang around on Twitter mostly (under the creative handle, @NickTapalansky) and have a secret narcissistic internet fort at nicktapalansky.com/blog, resplendent with info about yours truly and free comics. A Tumblr is imminent, once production gets going on the new book, so feel free to bookmark/follow nicktapalansky.tumblr.com. I do not yet have an Instagram, though I take enough pictures of my food that I should seriously consider it.

Alex: You can find me work on Tumblr:  http://dudenukem.tumblr.com, read my innermost thoughts on Twitter, @alexeckmanlawn, and Check out my website here: www.alexeckmanlawn.com

Nick & Alex's Story Leviathan will appear in Legends of the Guard

volume 2 # 1 along with stories by Stan Sakai & Ben Caldwell

Watercolor Wednesday:

Here's another look at last week's Watercolor Wednesday paintings: As I said in last week's blogpost, I was influenced by being at Spectrum Live and seeing all the folklore creatures. This week's pieces continue in that tradition. First up we have "Nod Longcap" When I grabbed the scrap piece of bristol he would occupy, I thought "It would be fun to do a vertical painting where most of it is the character's hat." The fun facial hair and nervous expression and body language developed on its own.

The other little fay from last week's Watercolor Wednesday offerings is this minstrel wearing a thimble for a hat. In Mouse Guard I love playing with having them use objects they have hand crafted to their scale so they look no different than human-scale items: swords, mugs, tools, etc....while still having them use items that are raw natural materials that remind us of the mouse-scale: acorn cap snowshoes, pinecone shingles, turtle shell boats. The tiny lute and the thimble gave me that same scale juxtaposition in this piece.

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.

Upcoming Appearances:

Albuquerque Comic Expo: June 21-23

San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21

Boston Comic Con: August 3-4

Baltimore Comic Con: September 7-8

New York Comic Con: October 10-13

North Carolina Comic Con: November 9-10

Legends of the Guard Vol 2. #3 cover process:
With Legends Volume 2 in full solicitation swing, I'm back with another Legends cover process post. Last cover I mentioned considering having the main character be a musician...Well, I saved the idea for this cover and made the single musician a trio...a trio that could play so well, they'd call back the dead.

The cover started with some sketches and research into medieval instruments. After looking at several pages (and even listening to some recordings of people playing the instruments) I settled on bagpipes, an organetto, and something like a rebec. I took some liberties with them and the way they are played for the sake of being from mouse culture rather than man's. The dancing ghosts were also loosely sketched in my sketchbook so I could start to digitally compose a layout.

With sketches in hand, I worried about this cover and how it was going to work. Simply pasting together the drawings would not give me a full idea of this cover's final appearance or what pitfalls I would have to watch out for. So I did a bit more with tone and effects in the digital composite than I normally would. I played with some stock photos of trees in the background to give a foggy sense of depth.

The inks were a bit tricky because of the ghost effects...and at several times while inking I worried this cover wouldn't work the way I was proceeding with it, but I just pushed through figuring I'd make sense of it all in color. I inked this on two different sheets of bristol. The first was the 'real world' inks: ground, musician mice, and trees. The other sheet consisted of the mice and some sparkly effects I inked as dots. Before I started inking, I printed out the digital composite twice: one without the ghosts and one with just the ghosts. I added a few mice that were not in my initial rough, but I drew and inked them as I went.

The flats were rather quick, but took some advanced thought as to arranging the layers of them so I could achieve all the transparencies and ghost effects. I color held the trees and the ghost outlines on different layers. After the flat colors were established for the ground, sky, and musicians, I made some semi-transparent ghostly layers for the spirits' bodies. The ghosts are on multiple layers so that where they overlap there is a density change in their color. I kept the musician color choices fairly muted to make sure they didn't seem too out of place.

Here is a look at the final colors sans-text with all the rendering finished and the effects tweaked:

Issue 3 of Legends of the Guard volume 2 will feature stories by:
C.P. Wilson III, Cory Godbey, & Eric Canete

Watercolor Wednesday: 
Ever since getting back from Spectrum Live, I've wanted to play more in the world of gnomes, elves, fay, sprites, cluricauns,  and brownies. I tend to do some work in that direction anyhow, but the next few weeks of Watercolor Wednesdays will be firmly planted there. The first up of last week's watercolor pieces was inspired by my design of a Fairy creature for a Mayfair game.

The other piece from last week I built up rather slowly with lots of layers of watercolor. The worried little fay seemed to be in the middle of telling me his story as I painted him. I figure he's some sort of late night watch who keeps his eyes and ears on the moon and heavens and will-o-wisps and even the humans and their farm beasts in order to make sure the world passes at it's correct pace, in sync with prophetic charts and runic almanacs. He frets a lot, but only jingles his bell soundly when real trouble (cosmic or domestic) puts everything in jeopardy.

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.


Upcoming Appearances:
Heroes Con: June 7-9

Albuquerque Comic Expo: June 21-23
San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21
Boston Comic Con: August 3-4

Baltimore Comic Con: September 7-8

New York Comic Con: October 10-13

North Carolina Comic Con: November 9-10

Game illustrations:
For a recent freelance job I was asked to do artwork for Mayfair Games on an upcoming game of theirs. I don't know if I'm allowed to say the title of the game (based on internet searches, it has yet to be announced) so I'll hold off on that. I did check with my editor and he said I could share the process images of the artwork.

Roughs: The assignment was to illustrate (and perhaps visually design in some of the cases) three woodland mythological fantasy creatures/races: Elf, Fairy, & Huldra. The Elf I was told to come up with something between Tolkien elves and Rackham elves. The Fairy I was given free reign on except to not make them too 'princessey'. And for the Huldra, a naked female with a tree-hollow of a pack and an ox tail, I was given the leway to make her more of a creature than a woman with some odd features. Below are the roughs I sent off to the Editor. They are pencil sketches with quick digital colors. Each creature was also to get two designs, one of them normal, and one of them 'powerd up'...though I thought of them more as the 'royal' versions.

Inks: After the editor made some notes on the roughs, I printed them out and taped them to the back of some Strathmore 300 series bristol board to ink them on the lightbox. The art of these measure about 6" x 6", so I switched from my normal pen size of 0.7 down to a 0.25. I worked to add detail and texture, especially on the Elf and Huldra. For the 'royal' additions, I inked those on separate bristol sheets that I laid on top of my finished inks (for registration purposes). That way I could isolate those elements when coloring the final images. For the Huldra's background, I drew a scene in pencil to help me with digitally painting the more detailed foliage.

Colors: Unline my work on Mouse Guard, I used a Wacom tablet to digitally paint these illustrations. I used paintbrushes in photoshop more than falling back on my standard dodge and burn tools for the renderings. All of the linework received a color hold, so none of it will print 100% black....but more of a dark sepia. Below are the final Elf, Fairy, & Huldra.

Watercolor Wednesday: 
Last week's watercolor piece was highly influenced by the delightful, charming, and beautifully rendered work of Jean Baptise Monge.

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.





Upcoming Appearances:
Heroes Con: June 7-9

Albuquerque Comic Expo: June 21-23
San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21

Baltimore Comic Con: September 7-8

New York Comic Con: October 10-13

North Carolina Comic Con: November 9-10

Questions and Answers:
A few of the same questions hit my email on a regular basis and today I thought I'd address a few of them here for everyone to read.I figure that if a question is being asked by a few, it's something that may interest the many.  If you would like to submit a question for a future Q&A blogpost, email me through the mouseguard.net site or Twitter or Facebook.

Q: How you handle just a bad day artistically? What has worked & what hasn't?

A: I don't handle them well, that's for sure. I have two basic approaches 1) Walk Away or 2) Push Through. Depending on the situation I may try either or both of those. To walk away doesn't mean necessarily to give up. It can mean to take a break. In that break I may take a hot shower (something that almost always clears my head and improves my mood) play a game, watch TV or a movie, read a book, go for a bike ride, or it very well might mean quit for the day. The break can serve to purposefully inspire you or it may just be the mental distraction you need to clear your head and get back into a good place. Other times it's just coming back tomorrow and seeing where you stand...but more than a few of those days and you are in serious trouble.

Pushing through can be a tricky one. It means that you are going to force yourself to do bad drawings and work that makes you perhaps madder than you are when considering 'how do I get past this bad artistic day'. It's a "darkest before the dawn" scenario. And it doesn't always work. Trying to draw the character on a new sheet of paper can help (put away the bad drawings) focusing on a new part of the drawing, or if working on a layout, change the camera angle or panel size to something drastically different and see what happens...even if you hate it, by seeing what you hate about it, you may find what you like and need to focus on for a better layout

The only surefire's for me to kick the bad art days (or at least the most reliable) include keeping in touch with other creatives (even if just to verbalize your issues with the work you are unhappy with, if not to also share jpgs of process work), the hot shower mentioned above, and staying fed & rested on a schedule.

Q: What are your thoughts on college or art school for a future in illustration/comics. Are there classes you recommend?

A: First off, to get a job working in illustration or comics (which can sometimes just mean producing work and self-publishing it) no one will ever check to see if you have a degree and if so, what kind. The gates to art employment won't be barred to you because you didn't go to college. The chief criteria for getting work is: can you do the work well...which is to say, can you draw, illustrate, & tell stories well....AND can you prove it. That being said, college and art schools can help you become a better artist. Their programs are designed to do so.

Then you get into the debate of structured educational learning of art vs self exploration & study. Both have benefits and detriments. School gives structure, a social web of like-minded creatives to bounce ideas off of, and a forced schedule for getting work done...however, it can also be as good or flawed as the professors who have tenure and it costs a great deal of money. Self study focuses on what you want to learn, costs little, and leaves you more artistic freedom ..but can be tricky to stick with & push yourself hard enough and won't expose you to as much artistic diversity as school.

I started at a community college for two years, and then transferred to a university. At the time of the transfer, I also considered an art school, but decided I wanted to experience the college campus life and not leave all my non artistic studies behind (science, literature, etc.). The two most important classes I took were 2D design (which I've posted about before) and Printmaking (which I've posted on a few times A, B, C) The artistic education was sturdy, and certainly forced me outside of my comfort zone, but I found the lack of illustration classes at my school and the desire of professors to re-mold you into their artistic image a step backwards. So do you need a college degree for this line of work? I think the question needs to be What do you think you need to get your work ready for this line of work?.

Q: What materials do you use?

A: Paper: Strathmore sketchbooks & 300 series bristol

Drawing: A 0.5mm mechanical pencil with HB lead & a kneaded eraser

Inking: Copic Multiliners (the 0.7 nib mainly) Dr. Martin's Bombay Black ink and a #1 brush for fills or brushwork

Watercolor: I have a few Sakura portable trays and an assortment of Windsor Newton tubes (especially their Payne's Grey)

Digital Coloring: Photoshop 7.0

Watercolor Wednesday: 
Last week's watercolor pieces were of inanimate objects. First up is a traffic signal. Mr. Rogers had one in his house, and when I was a kid I thought it would be a cool item to have in your home...not one of those novelty ones, but a real, weathered, street-used traffic signal. Of the three pieces from last week, I painted this last asking myself "what other object that we all see every day would be interesting enough to paint" and my mind flashed to that childhood desire to own one of these.

The spigot came first in the order of these being painted. I was in my basement laundry room and saw the shut-off valve in the floor joists for the outside spigot and thought the valve looked cool and would be interesting to paint. But when I sat down to draw it, I thought showing a spigot would be more interesting for someone to own than just a valve.

Last up from last week's pieces is a pair of scissors. My friend Mike Davis (who is the inspiration for Rand) did a lot of college sketchbooks themed around him drawing every day objects over and over: utensils, eyelash curlers, drafting implements, simple hand tools...and I think he did a page on scissors too. Anyhow, that flashed to mind after the spigot painting and I aped his idea to do this pair of scissors.

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.

2013 Appearances: 

Heroes Con: June 7-9

Albuquerque Comic Expo June 21-23

San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21

*more 2013 dates coming*