Archive for October 28th, 2010

30 Characters Challenger: Joey Esposito

| October 28, 2010 | 3 Comments

Hey everyone, my name is Joey, I’m a writer from New England currently shoehorned into Queens, NY. Okay, so technically it’s Long Island, but Queens sounds “better”.

I write comics — no real artistic skill here, so I fear you’ll be reading lengthy character sketches and journal entries from me for the next 30 days! But it’s nice to find something like this that isn’t restricted to artists only! Currently, I’ve got two projects in development, one of which, Roscoe and Alice Find God, can be seen here, and the other which is super-tip-top-secret! For a day job (or… night job, I suppose), I’m the Comics Channel Editor for CraveOnline, covering all things throughout the industry as well as dabbling in other areas. I also freelance for a variety of other sites, covering topics that range from awesome to “making a buck”. During the day, I make videos for an online toy retailer. You know, the American dream. I’m also the drummer of a band called Hounds Basket that your mother would hate.

More importantly, I love ice cream, my cat, dog, girlfriend and fish. The order is up for interpretation. Working as much as I do, I find the creative outlets in my life constantly being pushed to the side in favor of something considerably less exciting. 30 Characters sounded like a stellar opportunity to force myself into creating, so I hope it triggers some mad desperate need to get crackin’.

So here goes nothing, and I can’t wait to see what every pumps out! You can find me on Twitter, or feel free to e-mail me.

30 Characters Challenger: Perry Watson

| October 28, 2010 | 0 Comments

Avete, artifices colega! My name is Perry Hamner Watson. I am a 19 year old white male and resident of South Georgia. I am presently a college student enrolled in Valdosta State University on the pre-engineering program, training to be an electrical engineer. Also, brownie points to whoever can translate my salutation and tell me its language.

Having settled on a technical career, art is purely a hobby for me. I consider myself an intellectual and strive for expansion of the mind through artistic expression. I am a writer, having written half a dozen short stories and am currently working on a novel, and I have some degree of profficiency with traditional drawing media, as evident by my deviantART page (http://stoneman123.deviantart.com/).

The one quality that I always pursue in my artwork is the fabrication of new or at least unanticipated ideas. When ideas are used and re-used over and over again, they start to grow stale and boring, to me at least. The ur-example, I would say, would be the tropes of the Tolkienesque fantasy, having been rehashed countlessly over the years. I want ideas that are original, or at least haven’t been done to death.

As for inspiration, I’ve been consuming video games and cartoons all my life, and will continue to do so. I’m also a fan of Dungeons and Dragons and other such role-playing games and an avid reader of novels. My current favorite cartoon is Adventure Time with Finn and Jake, due mostly to the vibrant originality of its setting, not to mention the humor, the characters, and a score of other things that make it awesome. My favorite books are the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman and A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay, just to name a couple. My favorite video games are No More Heroes and the Monster Hunter games, again, to barely scratch the surface. All of them have inspired me in one way or another. Indeed, so has everything I’ve ever experienced.

My hope is that with this challenge I will be able to grow as an artist, to generate an array of interesting and unique characters for later use, and, perhaps, to inspire other artists.

30 Characters Challenger: Luke Burchfield

| October 28, 2010 | 0 Comments

Hello, Internets! I’m Luke Burchfield, a sixteen year old writer from Texas and quite possibly the youngest challenger so far. I enjoy Italian food and long walks on the beach…

Heh. I’m actually just a budding sci-fi/fantasy nerd who found this challenge exciting. I usually have troubles with just character creation, because my writing style focuses more on plots and ideas than people. I hope to use this challenge to break out of that habit and grow as a writer.
Anyway, once the Challenge gets into full swing, I’ll be putting up short vignettes and a crappily hand-drawn, crappily scanned doodle of what I used to help form the character in my head. I apologize in advance for whatever harm I may cause to your brain cells in doing so, as I am a terrible drawer.

Some more personal info: I’m both an actor and a techie for my high school’s theatre troupe, and just got casted as the lead in a small play that goes on in February. I’m learning how to play guitar, and have been for about six months. If I’m not acting, playing guitar, or working on homework, I’m reading. I absolutely love to read, and will read just about anything. I have a strong preference for fantasy, with most of my influences and most favorite authors being Stephen King, Darren Shan, JK Rowling, JRR Tolkein, and Jenny Nimmo. Sci-fi is also one of my loves, with Frank Herbert and Isaac Asimov being the forerunners. Anyway, that’s me. I look forward to seeing what awaits me in November! 🙂

You can find me here on Facebook. Just tell me that you saw me on the Challenge site and I’ll accept your request. 🙂 My Twitter is GotItAllWrong. I’ll be posting updates on those two sites whenever I post up a new character.

30 Characters Challenger: Jonathan Moore

| October 28, 2010 | 0 Comments

Hail, challengers. I’m Jonathan and I draw and paint stuff. I’m working on a few comics projects now as well as painting various commissions, etc. I’ll have my creator-owned book New Holland Days coming out next year. I have a story in the well-received WWII zombie anthology FUBAR that hits comic shops sometime in late November, I believe.

About me: I live in South Carolina with my angelic wife and two daughters.  Aside from my art, I teach human anatomy to aspiring health sciences students at a local college. In my free time I like to do lots of other things…too many, to be honest. It took me far too long to decide to do art for a living.

So, I don’t really relish talking about myself. I hope to have fun with this challenge and if it be in the cards, come up with some decent characters. The best place to see the rest of my work right now is http://furmanjon.deviantart.com and I’m on Twitter, @TheOnlyJonathan.

30 Characters Challenger: Martha Schwartz

| October 28, 2010 | 0 Comments

Hey, I am finding this a very fascinating thing to do and hope to meet and understand all you out there and why we are doing this.  Me?  I love the idea.  I feel that art should be about fun.  Many of us are trying too much to make an impression out there, and I am sure that you are taking the opportunity to do so as much as anyone else.. but I am solely

self portrait

Super Warrior

Super Warrior

doing it for the fun.  I love this because we can share ideas and get them out there as well as see what others can do and put up to the challenge.  I feel that I can learn a lot about this for myself and for others.  I want to do this to see if I can not only do the art once a day, but to come up with something that says or screams.. me, the creative.  I hope that we all get more out of this, but I want to thank the time to do such a thing.

From the happiest place on earth, well to some people, I just think that life is fun but when it comes to art, it can be the best.  I want to take the time to show others what I have to offer.  Art should be fun, and that’s what I am about.  I hope that it will all go great and to share with many of you guys.

30 Characters Challenger: Josh Heusinkveld

| October 28, 2010 | 2 Comments

Howdy to all, my name Josh Heusinkveld, I’m very excited participant again and can’t wait to gets start it. Few things about me: I am married to beautiful, sexy writer; father of two children; and have two awesome six month old Golden Retrievers: River & Simon. Yes, I did name them after the Tams from Serenity/Firefly.

I’m amateur artist into comic book, graphic and web comic. I don’t have any published works but I donated a lot of my works to charities such as Wonder Woman Day and Cure for Comics past three years.  You able to see my works at Deviant Art site – www.JoshHeusinkveld.DeviantArt.com

My goal is to create/develop characters for my web comic and graphic novel. Currently I am working on getting a web comic up going by the end of year and working on my comic Ultimate Patriot from 24 Hour Comic Day, which I didn’t complete 24 pages in 24 hour. And finally, once my wife completes and gives me the script for her graphic novel, I  am going to be her artist. I been drawing on/off throughout years and I’m getting better small step at time every day.

30 Characters Challenger: Amy “Of Many Faces” Heisei

| October 28, 2010 | 0 Comments

Well met, everyone. I’m Amy of Many Faces: she who spontaneously breaks into song, and she who makes strange noises while talking to herself when she’s bored. I tend to do a lot of things at once or nothing at all. For example, I recently finished shooting a feature-length movie (my first) as a production designer while simultaneously playing a small part in a musical, putting me at sometimes 15-hour workdays not getting paid. But so are the labors of love. Now with those projects over I’ve been lamely lethargic. Through this 30 challenge, it is my hope that I see this thing to completion and get back into the swing of art and drawing and design.

On top of doing movie-making and theater-doing, I write and perform music with my sister, here in Northeast Ohio. We do songs that are both silly and serious, haunting and taunting. I play piano and sing. She does guitar/bass and sings. We’re still figuring out a name for ourselves, but what’s in a name?

I love graphic novels and surreal art. Some of my biggest influences and looked-up-to names include Harold the Gargantuan Bird of AppalachiaBrian Froud, Alan Lee, Dave McKean, HR Geiger, Beloved Creature, Salvador Dali, and… there’s more, I just can’t think of any at the moment… Inspiration also comes from weird bugs, animals, people, places, animation and puppetry. Among my favorite directors/storytellers are Hayao Miyazaki (I spent two years teaching English in Japan and was surrounded by Miyazaki films’ characters in some form or other, and during my learning of Japanese I was bent on watching the movies in their original language with English subs in order to get a feel for the myth and culture and history surrounding each story and appreciate it in a way that would be missed in English dubbing: the artwork reflects the natural beauty of the Japanese rural countryside and is breathtaking to watch– I feel like I’m back in the small town I was living in where there are rice fields in every direction and a big mother mountain watching over everyone), Don Bluth, Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, Henry, Selick, Charlie Kaufman, Guy Ritchie, and Neil Gaiman. Nearly every film/television series/etc. involving Jim Henson’s Creature Shop inspires me. Some miscellaneous titles or particularly influential films: The Animatrix, The Neverending Story, The Dark Crystal, Mirrormask, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and many more. I also used to watch Disney/Buena Vista’s “Gargoyles” obsessively for a while. The bug still bites me time and again.

Oh! I have the most splendid birth date: 7/11/1984. It is both lucky and ominous. Made for great things that I must put into action before it’s too late… (duhn duhn DUHN…!)

Moving Reel

Good luck, everyone! I’m excited to see the process in all of us. Creativity is what brings us together today. May it do its part.

I need to get my scanner fixed, and soon!

宜しくお願いします。
Mucho gusto.
Pleased to make your acquaintance.

30 Characters Challenger: Bobby Phanphormma

| October 28, 2010 | 0 Comments

Hi! My name is Bobby Phanphormma. I’m 17 years old and currently a senior in high school residing in North Carolina. I’m mostly self-taught up to this point with only one high school art class.

I’m partaking in the challenge to challenge myself further. As I enter the challenge I was only sketching and doing art projects for other classes. I’m also doing this as a mean to create characters for my graduation project product portion. I’m doing a mystery genre comic for my project.

Throughout the challenge I will be drawing the characters for my project that I have yet started (Yay for procrastination), characters for stories I collaborated with a friends, and probably a few randoms here and there. I will try using the oil and chalk pastels I have lying around and digitally.

So, that is it for me. I look forward to the characters others create and my own. Sorry that I can not upload any images for all to see as they are on the computer that is being checkup.

30 Characters Challenger: Amanda Rachels

| October 28, 2010 | 1 Comment

I’m a comic artist from Magnolia Springs, Alabama.  Turn-ons include Lex Luthor, Judas Priest, the Indianapolis Colts and dark theaters illuminated only by the work of Christopher Nolan.  My partner – writer Kevin LaPorte – and I produce a weekly vigilante/horror web comic, The Blind Eye, updating each Monday at http://blindeyecomic.com, and our clown slasher opus, Clown Town, is currently a finalist in Small Press Idol 2010!

The 30 Characters Challenge is a no-brainer for Kevin and I.  Character planning and design are two of the most enjoyable aspects of comic creation for us, and the very idea of bestowing a new imaginary life each day for a month is irresistible!  We’ll be delivering characters from a variety of story ideas we’ve thrown back and forth recently.  Ours will be a genre-spanning bunch, but, you should know, no matter what we start with thematically, horror concepts always work their way into what we do.  We can’t wait to get started!

30 Characters Challenger: Fes Works

| October 28, 2010 | 0 Comments

HELLO! This is Fes, and I have a hard time ignoring new creative ideas and projects! Aside from the standard high school art classes, I’m a self-taught cartoonist. I’ve not read much of any print comics aside from the Sunday funnies, but I got into reading webcomics in 2005. By 2006 I thought “I can do that! That’s EASY!” Well, no… It’s hard work, and takes a lot of dedication. So with a newfound respect, I’ve been plugging away at my comic P.S.I.: A Pessimistic Sense of Inadequacy, a training ground for improving my story-writing, drawing and character narrative.

In 2007, I created a weeekly, topical podcast called The Webcomic Beacon, which is one of the longest-running, continually-updating, webcomic podcasts online and still updating regularly. A labor of love with a focus on helping amateurs getting started in creating webcomics. Heavily advocating webcomics as a hobby and as artistic expression.

I’ve also participated in The Crossover Wars, the biggest webcomic crossover even in history TO THIS DAY! Crossover in the sense of ACTUAL crossing over of comics, not merely cameos as some certain comics have claimed. The Crossover Wars involved over 50 comics in assorted, direct crossovers, across at least 10 different storylines. All involved in trying to prevent a hostile takeover of the Webcomic Multiverse.

It was during this time, that I discovered Jenny Everywhere (a.k.a. “The Shifter”). Jenny Everywhere is a purposefully open source, comic heroine created in 2003. Around this time, the original website had gone done, but I brought her back with The Shifter Archive Project, where I catalog comics, cameos, artwork, articles, and writings on this character. With the help of several enthusiasts, it is the most compressive archive of the most notable open source character online, to date. I’ve seen and helped promote Jenny Everywhere as a character in many projects.

These days I’m trying to keep my head above water, with all the projects I’m engaged in; and I could talk for hours about all of it. While I’ve not giving into Art Memes so much, it’s hard to let a Comic CHALLENGE go by, once I find out about it. 30 Characters will certainly be a challenge for me, given my schedule, but I have to try. I hope to get at least 15, if not the full 30. I hope to utilize these new characters in my main comic as background characters, and see how things go from there.

Well, it’s time I signed off. You can check out my Fesworks Hub site for links to all I am involved with.

30 Characters Challenger: Jeremy “MADDOG” Miller

| October 28, 2010 | 0 Comments

Hey Gang !! Maddog here. You can Call me Jeremy if you want just don’t call me late to Dinner! YUK! YUK! I’m a Dedicated husband and father of 6 kids (That explains the insanity!) I’m a creative person. That seems to be the title that fits the best. I’m not really educated in any art field unless you count the two years of commercial art training I did in high school that is now obsolete because of photo shop. I got married early and started having kids and thus left any ideas of an art career behind.So 15 years later I’m thinking why not enjoy the powers of the pen again. So on a long trek in 07 driving an 18 wheeler over road I decided to delve into the world of web-comics .Well I’m still doing comics now but not driving a truck. Three days a week I update my black and white drawings to Zombie George.com I enjoy my scribblings .And I’m going to enjoy the creative spark that comes from imagining these new characters. I promise to do some in color.

I guess that is enough B.S. For one Creative person Bio. I would like to go ahead and thank my wife and kids for all the love and understanding . My wife specifically because with out her I would be lost in my own little world forever.

30 Characters Challenger: Jay “Mig!” Mcleod

| October 28, 2010 | 0 Comments

Hi all, my name is Jay Mcleod. My art name is Mig!, and I am very excited to be participating in this challenge. I have always loved drawing, but did not get serious into the comics artform until about 1997. I spent a few years creating characters and worlds I never thought would see the light of day, but I had a lot of fun creating. I used to spend entire weekends drawing in my home studio, coming out only for the bare essentials.

After a few years of practice, I met a bunch of like minded people who helped drive me into the self publishing world with my character Migrayn. Migrayn is a lone warrior looking for a peaceful world, but finds havok along the way. I self published a few of the books, and then life happened and I stopped drawing.

I got married, had a kid, I opened up my own Internet Marketing company and generally forgot how much fun it was to draw. I never had time anymore to pick up the pencil.

Now, many years later, things are starting to fall into place. I have some more free time now, the urge to draw again is hitting me real hard, and I think I am ready to work on my characters again.

I will be working on background and important characters for my new Migrayn series, so mostly everything you see in the challenge will be part of that world. Thanks to Tyler for making this all happen, and hope you all enjoy the art!

Visit www.migrayn.com, my main art site, and also where the comic book archives are.

30 Character Challenger: Ralph Contreras

| October 28, 2010 | 2 Comments

SHAZAM! My name is Ralph Contreras, I’m an alumni from last year’s 30 Character Challenge. It’s super great to see so many creative people getting involved this year. I had a blast last year. So there was no question I’d accept the challenge this year too. This time around I have a better idea what to expect. I’m just going to let my imagination go wild, no planning or restrictions when it comes to the characters. I will approach the actual artistic process differently though. Last year I only did penciled work. This year I’m planning on inking them as well. I’ve recently started inking my own work (and totally enjoying it!). So I’m very excited to strengthen this skill with this challenge.

I’m a proud self proclaimed major comic book nerd. On one random weekend in the summer of ’84 my aunt gave me a stack of comic books. She was doing some spring cleaning and was tossing her husband’s comics. (bad for him, good for me). She thought I would like them (she was right!); a new world of of great stories with amazing art took hold of my imagination. From that day on comic books have been a major part of my life in one way or another. I was your typical comic fanboy (collector) throughout the 80’s and 90’s. Buying every issue I could find. Reading and memorizing all the rich character histories. I always loved to draw the characters I was reading about too. I’d fill notepads with drawing of all the amazing characters I was reading about. My real first dive into to character design was when I was playing the Marvel Comics Universe role playing game. I’d write up a description and draw the character, like the way I saw in the Marvel comics Handbook. There was “Mister Gloves”, “The Duplicator” and so many others. This is when I discovered I wanted to someday create my own comics.

Fast forward a few years, I graduated from college with a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts, emphasis in Graphic Design. Ready to conquer the world I looked for work for about a year, but couldn’t find anything. So what’s a comic nerd to do? I opened my own comic book store. (It was Awesome!) I was surrounded by comics for five years, meeting fellow fans and great local comic artists. After closing the doors to my shop, I jumped into the world of graphic design. I was moving from to city to city doing that. It was during this time I started drawing again and creating my own comic characters.

For the past 2 years I’ve been focusing on creating my own comic. I’ve been working on sharpening my storytelling, drawing and inking skills. I setup a personal blog www.ComicBookGraphicDesign.com, where I combine my comic artwork with my graphic design skills. I post all my sketches, character designs and fanboy adventures. I’ve created several Free comic book resources there to help other aspiring comic artists in this journey too. I’ve recently set up www.NewMexicoComics.com, a comic creators community to help connect writers and artist in New Mexico. Always the comic nerd I’ve also created a Marvel comic news fan site, www.TheHeroicAge.com.

Plans for the future, I”ll be focusing on my comic projects in 2011. A quarterly comic “Hero Guard”, and a weekly webcomic “Amazing Hero Adventures”. Maybe some characters coming out of the this challenge will make it into one of these comics. I’m excited to be involved in the 30 character challenge again and I’m ready to start creating!

Let’s be friends: Connect with me on my Blog and other sites!

30 Characters Challenger: Rob Stenzinger

| October 28, 2010 | 2 Comments

Welcome Back “30 Characters” Readers and Challengers!

Rob Stenzinger

I’m Rob Stenzinger. I survived last years challenge and though it was a ton of fun, it was also quite challenging. Recalling the good and bad stresses I ran into last year, part of me is asking my self… “DUDE! Why in the world do you want to do this AGAIN?”.

But the truth of it is that it was great practice and an incredible experience. It was inspriring to be part of a group of artists and writers sharing the best we could muster each and every day for a whole month. The practice, inspiration, shared experience and supportive audience made it totally worth while.

So I’m back and stoked to see what comes of it this year! What cool art and words will I wake up to everyday in November?

As to the other projects I do:  I draw the comic Art Geek Zoo: The Way of Sound every week:

Art Geek Zoo - The Way of Sound
(Art Geek Zoo – The Way of Sound)

… and I continue with new updates for the game I released earlier this year, Guitar Fretter.

Guitar Fretter
(Guitar Fretter – an action-puzzle game of learning the guitar fretboard and defeating Minions!)

Finally – there’s another big event I’ll be a part of this November: the UP! Fair. I’ll be meeting and learning from other comic creators and independent publishers and that’s where I’ll be debuting my new workshop “Storytelling to Make Your Comic’s User Interface Awesome“.

Cthulhu - Deep Sea Bassist
(Cthulhu – Deep Sea Bassist will be in the UP! Fair art auction coming soon…)

Good luck, good practice, good discipline to us all! And thanks again, Tyler James for instigating such a fun creative challenge!