Shono’s Art and Random Thoughts

Words fail me…

Anyways, I’m running a day late in my posts.  This should of been up yesterday.  I appologize  I’ll try to get back on track today.  Maybe i’ll do another post tonight just to get caught up…

I haven’t posted anything entertaining from our good friends in Asia in a long while.

I honestly don’t know what this commercial is for, or what is being said.  But I can’t stop watching it. Partially because its so cute and adorable, the other part because its HORRIFYING……

I’ll let you be the judge:

God I want to visit Japan….

Well I got some good news for your and some bad News.

First the bad news:

Last week I was laid off from my steady graphic design gig.  This was my consistent income that was used to pay the bills and build up my savings.

So now my mission is to find ways to make up for the cashflow I’m losing.

Now for the good news!!:

One of the ways I’m doing that is I’m going to be opening up commissions.  So here are the rules:

* All work will be Sent to you as a hi resolution tiff file through email unless the original art is requested.

* Original art can be sent only for pencil and ink commissions, not toned or colored.

* I can send you a Print of anything that has been digitally colored or toned.

* Requests for the original art and prints will be charged an additional fee for shipping.

* If you are interested send leave me a comment or send me an email. Include the what commission you want (sketch, full color or whatever) Character/pose/situation, and a link to a reference photo of this character.

* I accept pay pal for payment. And expect to receive payment before work is started. (if this is an issue we can talk about it maybe work out a compromise)

* You can expect to have the work completed 1-4 weeks depending on the complexity of the request and where in the queue your commission is. (example: if your #3 and you have two complicated commissions ahead of you you might be waiting 8-12 weeks to get yours).

* I reserve the right to refuse any commissions.

* I maintain copyright ownership of all artwork created, and reserve the right to display artwork, either original or copy anywhere i deem appropriate (websites, portfolios etc).

If you have any questions feel free to shoot me an email, or leave a comment.
Here are the rates:

Character Bust (One character , Head and Shoulders without background)
1 – Pencil sketch = $10
2 – Finished Pencils = $40
3 – finished Inks = $50
4 – Gray toned (similar to a Manga) = $55
5 – Monochromatic Color = $60
6 – Full color = $70

Character full body (One character , Head to toe (or most of the body depending on how composition dictates), no background.)
1 – Pencil sketch = $20
2 – Finished Pencils = $60
3 – finished Inks = $70
4 – Gray toned = $75
5 – Monochromatic Color = $80
6- Full color = $90
7 – With Background = add $5 – $40 to cost depending on the commission type (pencil sketch being $5, $40 being for full color)

Each Additional Character (In the same picture) add 25% (Examples: pencil sketch of two full body characters would be $25, and full color illustration with two full body figures would be $112)

*PLEASE NOTE: These rates are for pin up commissions for private use. Sequential art, Cover art, and/or Pin ups for publications and/or commercial use have a different page rate. Email me or note me for more details.

If you don’t want to commission me for art, but you still want to own some shono work, you can buy some Shono Wear in my Shono Shop.

And very soon I will be offering prints of my artwork as well as copies of my comic Shadows Of Oblivion

If you have any questions concerns, or you’re interested in some custom art, shoot me a line, I’d love to hear from you!!

Okay so i wanted to do a pin up image of War Angel.  Something sexy, but classy like what you’d see in some kind of fashion magazine.  Now I’m not classy, nor sexy so I had a great deal of difficulty thinking up a pose for War Angel.  So thats when my best friend Google comes in handy.  I scurried the internet looking for a pose that coincides with the ideas in my head.

So i came across this:

Unfortunately I'm not sure who the photographer, nor model is. So if this a picture of you, or you're photograph, let me know and I will happily credit you here.

So from this picture i did my sketch:

This actually doesn't look bad..... Maybe i should use references more often...

I then Import the sketch into Manga Studio EX4 and then I lay in my lines and tones.

I do this the same way I did my Remake of Heaven’s Sorrow .  So if you want more step by step process of how i go from the sketch to final line art you can check out that post.

Finally I import it into Photoshop and put in the colors. Since i wanted more of a magazine model feel, I made it a little more feminine in my color pallet (I'm mostly talking about the pink)....

So there you have it.  From reference to finished art.

And as always, if you want me to talk about something, or go into more detail about a specific part of my process.  Or just have a general question for me, feel free to leave comments!  I love to hear them!

I think I’m going to start a new segment here on my blog called “New Comic Book Day.”

As a comic artist i find myself reading alot of comics.  One part because I’m a nerd and I LOVE comic books, and the other part because i want to keep up with whats going on in the industry, both in how stories are being told, and how art is being handled.  So I figured every week on new comic book day (thats Wednesday for those of you who might not know) I’ll do a post of what comic I’ve really been enjoying.  It might not always what came out this week.  In fact, most of the time it probably will be a week or so old.  But I’ll just tell you who the creative team is and why I enjoyed it so much.

So on this first Installment I’m going to do talk about a Story Arc thats been out for a little while but i just loved to death.  And that’s the Second Coming story line that crossed over all the X-men titles.

(there were various covers, i just like David Finch's art... haha)

Now, I have to admit. I HATE big crossovers.  I really prefer it when one complete story is contained in one title.  I hate it if i have to read 30 titles to get the full understanding for the story.  HOWEVER, for some reason, the massive crossover for this story didn’t bother me.  In fact, the reason why i loved it was because it reminded me of the 90′s X-men comics that got me hooked into comics to start with.  And they always had cross overs throughout the entire X-book series.  It has everything that i remember loving about the X-men.

Another reason why i just loved this story was it had all of my favorite anti-mutant villains: (i’m going to indulge myself and do a mini roll call here)

Bastion

Cameron Hodge

"The Right" Smilie armor troops

Nimrod Sentinels

And of course:

Master Mold

And, to my surprise i saw a character who i thought was long gone. (although apparently hes been back for a while, i’ve just been out of the loop.)

ARCHANGEL! the angel of death!

I’m not going to tell you all about the story here.  You should read it yourself.  But if you want just a straight up awesome action story with heroism and self sacrifice as the Mutant species balances on the edge of extinction.  You need to pick up this story arc!

My personal favorite is how bad ass Cyclops is.  Everyone always gives me shit for liking Cyclops.  But the guy is bad ass, and it comes through in this story.

I’m not going to spoil it, but I am going to tease you.  To MAJOR X-Men die through outt the story.  So brace yourself for an emotional ride!

Normally here I’ll say, run out and pick it up.  But i know the single issues are hard to find.  So you’re going to have to wait for the trade to come out.  BUT WHEN IT DOES!  go pick it up!  If you’re an X-men fan, you will love this story!

Okay, that does it for me today….

Thanks for reading everyone!

Over the years I’ve been an artist.  And even before I would officially call myself an artist, I’ve always been drawing.  Sometimes when I’m drawing I have great ideas, however i lack the skill to give it the impact i wanted.  So something i love doing is going back to these old ideas and making them new again.  Some artists discourage going back to old work and re-doing it.  And i agree that it is sort of living in the past.  However,  I enjoy doing it.  So, I’m going to always draw what i like drawing.

Here is the process of one of my remakes:

here is the original drawing. I did it about 4 or 5 years ago. Great idea, but as you can see, the Anatomy is not there. Coloring is weird in parts, but it deserves to look as cool as the idea...

Here is the the pencil sketch of the new drawing. This thing is already looking better...

I scan in my sketch and import it into Manga Studio EX4. Once there i can easily convert the pencil lines to blue. This makes for easy inking...

I then go over the the sketch lines using Manga Studio's ink pen tool. For this style i keep it pretty loose. I it keeps my lines more interesting, and more energy in the piece...

I then take out the blue line layer so that it dosent' distract me from the final inks. And at this point I'll make any needed adjustments...(one of the beautiful things about digital inks)

Next I'll lay in my flat zip-a-tones. i put in a fabric patern in War Angel's skirt. and a flat gray pattern for the blood. I also put in a dot pattern for her arm and leg armor...

In the final stage of the line art I'll throw in a flat gray tone to accent the shadows in the piece...

Finally I'll export it to Photoshop and put in all the beautiful colors haha. And then I'll throw in the logo and text.

Well There you have it.  I could be biased but i think this new version is about 1,000 times better than the old one.  I’m sure my opinion will change in 4-5 years and i’ll end up drawing it again.  But Thats a good problem to have right?

Anyways Thanks for reading as always!  And if there are any subjects or topics you’d like me to discuss on my blog, or you just want to say how much you enjoy it, feel free to leave me a comment!  (I’m an artist, my frail ego needs constant re-assurance haha)

Okay,  time for some shameless self promotion:  STEEL YOURSELF FOR MARKETING PITCH!

Have you ever been looking at my artwork and thought: “DAMN that would love to wear that on my t-shirt?”

Well i want to introduce to you, SHONO WEAR. You can now wear shirts with my legendary Wolf Symbol, Or the Symbol of the Dragon Clan, And even WarAngel’s symbol.

I’ve also taken panels from my comic: Shadows of Oblivion and put them on shirts for you!

So heres the link: Shono’s Shop

Here are a couple examples:

We have Men’s and Women’s shirts and designs, so check it out!

Browse, Shop, Buy, Enjoy!!

And if there is any art you’d like to see me put on a shirt. or have any suggestions for my shop, let me know! I’m happy to accommodate!

Now ends my sales pitch haha.

Generally I really hate color.  Well, more accurately I coloring. Which would explain to why I’m a line artist and not a colorist when i do my comic gigs.  But being the well rounded artist that I am, I do know how to color my work, and at the risk of sounding cocky I think I’m pretty good at it.

So this blog post will be short, I’m just going to show you the line art.  The finished art, and the video that gets you between those points.

Here we go!

So here is good ole Tinkerbell in her line art glory....

And here she is all done.

And heres the video that gets me from point A to point B.  Just keep in mind, the video starts with all the flat colors already put in.  I didn’t waste time on that in the video.  Anyone who has ever colored in a coloring book when they were 6 can handle that part.  The video is also about 2 hours long.  But its in real time.  I didn’t edit out any mistakes or changes I made as i colored.  So you can feel better about yourself haha even pros make mistakes! haha

Okay the video!

Enjoy, and thanks for reading, as always!

I was working yesterday on anew cover for my Comic Shadows of Oblivion and  I drew a pretty sweet cover.  (At least i think its pretty sweet)

Black and white Line art. (with a little special effects to make the lightning glow and zip tones for some depth...)

So after I inked the drawing I colored it in the normal way i color all my work:

So after i took a look at this cover and compared it to the cover of Shadows of Oblivion #0…

… I thought to myself.  Damn this cover looks boring and like every other cover of every comic book ever made.  How can I change this cover to look more graphic?  More like the cover for issue 0?

So i started to do some google searching for graphic art as inspiration.  And what really Caught my eye was Old Communist Propaganda posters.  They’re so graphic and depict such images of strength and unity for the working man, and the power we have when we unite.  (Even if this is propaganda, this is idealistic notions that i think everyone subscribes to.)

So keeping the line art exactly the same i retooled the colors:

"Communist Propaganda" cover

I think this looks really good.  But Cerberus blends too much into that background.  We need to bring him forward a bit more.  So a tweaked to colors a little more……

Communist Propaganda cover Final

There we go!  Thats looking pretty good.

Man what a difference color makes.  Even though the lines hadn’t changed at all the whole feel and meaning of the cover completely changes depending on the colors used.

I dunno, i found that that interesting, so I decided to share…..

I hope you enjoyed.

People seem to really enjoy seeing my drawing process.  So who am I to argue?!
This is a hybrid process.  The initial sketch/loose pencils was done traditionally.  But the inks and colors were done digitally.  I’ll explain as we go:

There is the initial drawing done in pencil. I usually sketch using a 2H pencil. This looks pretty bad ass to start...

Next i scan it into Manga Studio EX4 and convert the lines to blue. The composition was bothering me, so i moved around the characters to a composition that i like better....

Next, i ink over it all. The idea was to have the 4 human Green Lanterns in the foreground. and glowing figures in the background representing the GL corps. Now i was sort of (very) lazy so i just drew one figure and copied and pasted them all over the background....

Green Lantern is a Sci Fi book, so lets get a space background in there....

Okay lets see how this looks nice and clean without the blue. At this stage i also will make any edits to the ink that i might need.

Lets add in a little zip-a-tone. One part to add a little depth. One part so it looks a little more old school.

Those Green lantern silhouettes i added in the background are really distracting, and i think it sucks. So I'm going to take those out now...

Finally we export it into Photoshop and add the colors!

You can watch me do some of the coloring in real time here:

Well there you have it.  Another process blog in the books!

Maybe I’ll post some sketches next blog…we’ll see.

If there’s something you’d like me to talk about or show here in my blog, then just let me know!  You can always send me an email or just leave a comment in the blog!  I read everything, so don’t think I’m some stuck up jackass….. i need all the friends i can get……

Okay until next time blog-0-sphere…. ( i like twitterverse better)…

I am REALLY getting into this drawing digitally thing.  I’ve been using Manga Studio EX4 more and more and more…AND I LOVE IT!!

1. it saves me time. (i don’t need to wast time drawing perspective lines)

2. it saves me money.  (now i don’t have to spend money on ink and paper)

3. it saves me space. (i don’t have to store all my rulers and circle templates etc)

I’m still waiting to get a Wacom Cintiq.  Apparently they’re back in stock in Sept.  But until then its Intuos 3 for me!

So lets check out my process shall we?

You can't see it here. But first i lay in my perspective lines. Its a great tool in Manga Studio that saves me boat loads of time. Than i start drawing the figure in the fore ground. Admittedly, I didn't know what i was going to draw when i started. I don't recommend this, but sometimes its fun just to see where the pencil takes you...

Next I lay in the background. Again, i don't know exactly what i want, so this is sorta spontaneous. But I know generally the shape of the room so i lay it all in there....

Next I ink over the blue lines. The beauty of inking digitally is that its not permanent. I don't need to know exactly what the image is going to look like before i start. I can make decisions and changes on the fly. You can clearly see the changes i made against the blue line here....

Next I make the blue line invisible so that it doesn't distract me from the inks. I'll make any fine adjustments to the inks at this point.

Next we add in the gray tones. I use a mix of Zip-a-tone (or computone, or manga tones, whatever you like to call them) and flat gray to give the piece some lighting and depth. I usually use the zip-tones to add a dirty feeling texture to things. It really works for this character and comic in general.

Finally i export it to Photoshop and add in some lighting effects. AND WE'RE DONE!

I really like this process. And If i continue to ink in this rough looser style I might cut out some of the blue line work to save time.  But I’ll have to do some more experementing and playing around to see what works and what doesn’t.

I hope you enjoyed!  See ya next time!

Hidy ho neighborinos!

I’ve just got back not to long ago from the legendary San Diego Comic Con.  or how its commonly abriviated as SDCC…. even though technically its Comic Con international….so the abriviation should be CCI?  but i like SDCC better haha.

This year was GREAT, but super busy.  I didn’t get as many portfolio reviews as i have in the past.  But the ones i did get were very insightful and useful.  When you go 6 months with everyone around you telling you how great you are, it is hard to grow.  I needed these editors at cons to kick my ass back to reality so i can keep on growing and improving.  So i want to just quickly shout out a big thank you to the people who took the time to look at my portfolio at the convention. Even if it was just for a minute.  so here we go:

So thanks to Phil Smith at Top Cow, Scott Chitwood at Red 5 comics, David Hedgecock at Ape Entertainment (who gave me the biggest kick in the pants, i appreciate it!), and the editors at Oni press who I think I annoyed with my portfolio samples, but they still were kind enough to give me a review anyways, and I truly appreciate it.  I know all of you who looked at my portfolio had very very busy schedules, so I truly thank you for taking the time to look at my portfolio. I also dropped my portfolio off at a ton of other publishers, but for all i know they toss it in the trash the second i walk away from the booth.  So i have no way of knowing they looked at my work.

Another reason I go to SDCC is because its the one time a year I get to see alot of old friends who are scattered across the country and I always end up making new friends, (or at the very least meeting new people that could easily BECOME friends haha.)  So I’m going to shout then out right here too.  They’re all very cool people and talented artists/creators so when you all click on the links to thier sites and check them out.  You won’t regret it!

First is My con partner, Dina Greenberg.  We’ve gone to every SDCC together and countless other cons.  Shes like magic, somehow getting us into the best parties!  She’s not going next year because shes doing something stupid, like getting married.  WHERE ARE HER PRIORITIES! So i’m looking for a new partner next year, any takers?

Next you gotta check out my buddy Ken Knudtsen and the other guys at Epic Proportions.  Ken does 2 fantastic comic books. “My Monkey’s Name is Jennifer” and “I hate Zombies”

I got to see my best friend in San Diego Di Chowmut!  You’ll see some pics of her later, she’s an awesome nerd to hang with, and an fantastic designer too!

I visited Anthony and Elaine Garcia, who I’ve referred to in the past as my Comic book parents.  But in retrospect thats probably an insulting term, cause these two are cooler than my parents ever would be!  This year at their booth they were cosplaying in some amazing Steam Punk outfits.  My parents would NEVER do that.  And now as I’m typing this I wish I took a picture to show the world, but i didn’t so you’ll have to settle with going to thier websites, twentytosix.com and shrunkenstudio.com

And on my last day at the Con i met this amazing writer artist team of Joseph Wong and Genevieve Tsai, who do a self published comic book “Islands in the Sky”  They were very cool, I just wish i didn’t meet then as i was leaving the con, cause i would of liked to hang out with them more.  I even bought a pretty sweet mousepad from them.  You’ll see how awesome in a little bit when I show you the pics.

OKAY OKAY, thats enough plugging all the people i met, lets get to the fun stuff, the PICTURES!!

We'll start with the view from my Hotel window, since this is the first thing i saw when i got to San Diego (other than the airport of course)

Looking down at my window. You can already see people lining up to get into the con. (Sorry for the weird pattern The window screen was wierd)

The motorcycle from the New Tron Movie. They had such a big booth there...

I am a sucker for Gundams, they're so freaking cool looking....

Another Kick ass Gundam...

Speaking of giant robots, check out the Mech from the movie "Avatar" That thing was so bad ass in person. I wish i could of took it for a spin...

More giant convention robots. This one was to promote the new video game Red Faction 2. But what made this robot particularly awesome was.....

... my friend Di popping out of its chest! Shes like the the creature from the Movie Alien. Poor robot didn't have a chance...

Speaking of Di here she is! Shes dressed as Gogo from Kill Bill. (probably my favorite movie haha)

Here is Di and me at Dicks last resort. Thats our favorite place to grab lunch in San Diego... well at least while the con is going on...

And these are our beers and Dicks Last Resort... (it was barely noon.)

From left to right. Dina, Di, and Me! These two are the coolest people and make my trip to San Diego AMAZING every single year!

okay, lets head back to the con.....

I'm a big fan of the Full Metal Alchemist. So naturally i had to nerd out and take a picture of this life size Alphonse Statue

Check out Optimus Prime standing guard infront of my hotel!

David Petersen signing and doing a little sketch in the copies of Mouse Guard i picked up from him. I love that comic!!

Look at this amazing mouse pad i picked up! Try to deny its awesome... YOU CAN'T CAN YOU!

The angle of that last picture might be hard to see why it is so awesome. I think this clears it up....

Slave Leias sitting on Odin's throne.... Is there anything more awesome? (to be fair i didn't take this photo, Marvel's C.B. Cebulski did. I did not have my camera available at the time of this awesomeness...)

Danny Devito and the rest of the cast of "Its always sunny in Philadelphia"

Mini Sticks of deodorant that were handed out. I think the people at the con were trying to tell me something....Kingdom of Loathing had thier own booth. My brother LOVED this game. I could never get into it. Its probably cause i'm a visual artist, but graphics are important to me. And the only RPG that has worse graphics than this game, are the text based ones...