WANTED page 2

I've been hosting Aussies in LA and my blogging has gone to the dogs. My buddy, Jason and I have been revelling in the gay overtext of ARMY OF TWO to the chagrin of our girlfriends. For those who want the funniest review of Army of Two which will explain exactly what I'm talking about, click HERE for the brilliant Zero Punctuation. When you're finished being distracted there, don't forget to come on back and read this post.

I'm writing this now as a warm-up to drawing. I'm not quite ready to get started. I'm sure you know what I mean. The cogs need a bit of time to get oiled and I'm sure a blog post is the perfect antidote.

This page was one huge cheat. What I can't figure out is why I repeated the same picture of Thompson! I drew an original picture of Thompson Jr on page 1 and blurred the hell out of it so no one ever saw it. I could/should have used it here instead of recycling the one picture of him three times from the first page. As they say, "E's lovely, but e's not very bwight."

This may seem like such a cop out, but I think it got the job done. I actually drew the Micah separately and just pasted and resized him into the panels. The beauty of this page was that it allowed me to spend more time on other stuff.

If time is my budget, I found I was able to save a lot to spend it elsewhere. I think you got your money's worth... especially given it's free!

Alexandre in one of his recent comments mentioned my guns and how I try to depict them accurately. Several people have asked about this. My secret is the lax gun laws in LA. Not the gun laws in LAX. The relaxed gun laws in LA. We all the same page yet?

In Australia NO ONE has a gun. If there's a shooting it's in every paper even if the shooting occurred in another state! You can't even get paintball guns in most places and toy guys don't resemble anything like real guns. But LA... In my first few months here I went down to the awesome army disposal story on Hollywood and grabbed myself a bunch of pellet firing replica hand guns. They've got a little orange nib on the end of the barrel so you know they're fake. But they look, feel and weigh like a real gun. When I give these props to a model, the performance I get is phenomenal. There's a real feel of respect for the weapon, and then they just get an evil grin (no matter how pacifistic they are) and just go for the performance with real gusto.

So there you go, another secret exposed!

Ollie just asked me if I wanted to do the 8 page finale of REBELLION written by James Martin esq. Of course I said, "Hell yes."

My 22 page script is being looked over by the kind folks at SUMAJIN. It's a covert action thriller that puts the characters in some very interesting places. Ollie Grigsby and Alex Hammond gave me such great feedback. They really helped me crank it up a heck of a lot. Man, I learn so much working with writers I really admire. It seems that the company funding the idea is very happy with it so far. I'm just waiting on final approval. Then I can start on layouts and character sketches. It's gonna be tight but fun!

I also finished my four issue mini-series of an unannounced project. At least you know it will released on time, right? Or if it doesn't, it's totally not my fault. I will word you up when it hits the mean streets of your local comic shop.

APPEARANCE: I'm doing a panel for Digital LA on digital comics being held by MELTDOWN COMICS on July 9th. I will be there from 7pm.

Here's the link:

http://digitalla.net/

There's also a Facebook page and you can join the other 235 people and sign up for:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=91736912490

The panel will go for an hour and a half starting at 8pm. I will bring along my silver pens to sign graphic novels, but I apologise, I won't be able to do any sketches. Sorry! Hit me up at San Diego for the sketching action.

WANTED page 1

You can find the free download of the comic I'm talking about here:

http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/novels/index.shtml?novel=140

Man, oh man has this last stint of HEROES been fun and tough.

I'm sure Harrison Wilcox, writer-extraordinaire, all-round nice guy and scourge of the undead would agree that the spoiler for the big twist on the thumbnail was a huge downer. Sure we reveal that Thompson Jr is the shooter three panels in... but really? Couldn't we have picked something else? When I'm drawing I'm always wondering who writes the preview text and picks the images. I'm always wondering which panel I would use to preview it. Personally, I would have used a cropped version of Micah tied up on page 5 or page 4 panel 2 or even page 1 panel 3 without Thompson in it. It just spoiled the cool reveal and let us know too much about the story before reading it. Ah well.

I was specifically asked to come back for this story by Ollie Grigsby and Frank my editor because I'd drawn the last installment where Thompson, Donna, Fallon and Sabine had turned up. That was called INTO THE WILD (check links on the right) and it was written by Timm Keppler (who has unfortunately left the HEROES stable) and Jim Martin. It was great to come back to these characters, but I will go into that some more when I get to page 3. All things in time, my friend.

As you can see from the actual line art, I wasted the time drawing an actual Thompson for panel 2. I think I was going to re-use it for page 2, but ended up repeating the image from panel 4 instead. I don't know what sort of stroke of sub-brilliance inspired that, but I wasted time and recycled images that had already been seen. Not my finest moment.

But here it is for those who care. Yeah, that's you in the back row. Thanks. Takes a bow to the one person clapping.

Man, that background on panel 3 took some time. I don't know if you noticed the reflection of the water on the ground, but that took like, no time at all and looked far better than I expected. Is anyone else getting the impression that I kind of just flail around and sometimes stuff seems to work out really well?

Well, it's not an inaccurate impression.

I'm generally a big fan of Comicraft who do the lettering for all the HEROES graphic novels. I like their fonts and their sense of design. I wasn't a big fan of what they did on this page with panels 1 and 2. It works, but it's just a personal thing that I don't like balloons breaking over the panel edge. I don't like anything breaking outside of my panel borders. It's a personal and stylistic thing, but I like to keep my comics very simple and draw you into the action within the panel. I find that if you cross things outside the panel you suddenly become aware that you're reading a comic and pop outside the story. But that's just my call.

You can see on my layouts on the left how I indicated it. And that's pretty much from Harrison's directions in the script. Perhaps it was a stylistic choice on Comicraft's part, perhaps they thought it was just quicker. Perhaps both?

FRIDAY: Page 2. Colour palettes and repetition is the mother of saved deadlines.

LEFT BEHIND page 6

Thanks for the fantastic reception to Graphic Novel 140. All your comments mean so much to me. I will chat about it tomorrow though.

Today, the briefest wrap up of LEFT BEHIND. I have to run off soon and won't get any more opportunities to blog today.

I really like the colouring on this page. I really feel that I have out doors nailed down, but I'm still working on indoors. I found it tough to colour the Human Resources room without it looking muddy. But hey, I'm getting there!

Panel 1 is fun. It's got a widescreen feel that just really attracts me visually. It was one of the earliest panels I conceptualised. I especially like the design of the trees on the left to help our intrepid heroes pop visually making them easier to find on the panel. I also spent a ridiculous amount of time drawing windows. I recall listening to Dennis Leary's "Why We Suck" as I drew them. I at first disliked Leary because he spent the early part of his career ripping off the inestimable Bill Hicks (whom, if you haven't heard his stuff, prepare to be as equally enlightened as you are offended). But Leary has really grown into his own, and his show RESCUE ME (which I've only seen the first two seasons of) is ridiculously good. His book is fantastic. It has an incredibly offensive level headedness that I really enjoy.

But yes. A lot of windows.

I also like the trees. Yes, the trees. Sorry to bore your non-botanical butts (with alteration and the admiring of my foliage).

But most of all, I love how the colour of the final story feeds so naturally into the sniper scope on the very last panel. It just had a nice synchronicty that I'd like to take credit for making happen even if I didn't premeditate it. Hey, sometimes accidents happen for a good reason.

But you all seem very pleased that Micah was actually shot, and it was Ollie's and my intention to give you that impression. It was funny reading the extraordinarily cynical predictions of how Micah would avoid being shot.

Anyone, time out. I'm off for sushi! You all have fun and be good, and if you don't make sure you name it after me.

LEFT BEHIND page 5

I just finished the final part of REBELLION that I'm involved with last night. I'm really excited to see the future installments and see where the guys take it. It was a late finish at 5am (as usual) but I like to cram as much into it as possible. The basic formula is:

EFFORT X TIME = TIRED JAS

Overall, I think the artwork is the best I've done. I think it's a step above this installment. On the downside, I don't think the colouring is quite as detailed as I would have liked. But as I'm reading in Stephen King's seventh and final book of THE DARK TOWER, "Wish in one hand, sh!t in the other and see which one fills up first."

But let's come back and wrap up LEFT BEHIND up before the next installment goes live tomorrow morning.

It became more and apparent as I drew everyone that I really wanted to draw some superheroes. These characters were no longer portraits of my friends but superheroic effigies of them. Many people noticed and commented on the visual similarities of this story to mainstream superhero comics. Some people love it, some people didn't, some people were indifferent. Some people wished the show was this big, some people found that it didn't fit with the show. The show is a "big" show, but I guess it's no Michael Bay extravaganza (speaking of which, I want to find an IMAX so big that I have to launch myself into geosynchronous orbit to fully capture the hugeness that's gonna be Transformers 2.)

The tight costumes and the team as well as the widescreen feel made it all feel larger than the show. What's funny is looking at the comments how aware people are of the limitations of television as a media. That primary limitation is budget. I see a great amount of wish fulfillment dreaming of a budget to be able to have a show of this visual extravagance on the air. The awareness of the audience stunned me. Do we sit down to watch television expecting a lower budget than we do of a movie? I know that when I sit down to watch Battlestar Galactica I don't have that expectation at all. And before you start with the BSG comments I *STILL* haven't watched the final season. I'm starting again and working my way through it again to give it full context. So just hold your god damn horses for me, ok? Some of us have been busy trying to entertain you. Cut me some slack. I'm still churning through TORCHWOOD season 2 and LOST season 5.

It's funny I bumped into some fans saying that the episode COLD SNAP was their favourite because they loved how Tracy froze everything. It just goes to show that any part of a show can be exceptional enough to capture people's imagination: direction, acting, writing, costumes, production, paintings or a cg sequence.

A lot of people loved West's "Mario" comment that the Princess is in another castle. I played a bit of Mario Brothers when I was a kid and did my time with sidescrolling platform games (yes, I know it's evolved a bit since then) so I don't know if it's a direct quote. Me? I thought it was more a thinly veiled code for any sort of fairy tale sequence. I guess we tap into what resonates with us. I guess someone who doesn't have a penchance for online rpgs is going to have to tell me if it's a direct quote. Or... I could just ask Ollie. But I think he's more of a LEFT 4 DEAD dude than a MARIO dude. And if you think his fiance Abby is collecting gold coins and riding cute green dinosaurs you're totally wrong. She's dual wielding M1911 pistols and carving holes the size of dinner plates into the craniums of the undead right next to him.

<- left you can see more of Paul Caggegi's awesome 3d modeling work on my layouts. I just slapped them in and drew over them so Ollie could see what I was doing.

TOMORROW: I was supposed to post on Friday, but drawing my ass off and getting free tix for Heather and I to go see the totally ghetto LA Erotica convention distracted me. Without any desire to purchase hardcore porn, a penile enhancement or a vibrator I found myself vaguely unentertained. It was like someone had built a convention out of my spam inbox and populated it with a bunch of guys who still live in their mother's basements. Ker-eepy.

But anyway, I will post the final page of LEFT BEHIND tomorrow, as the next part goes live tomorrow also. I wanna start covering the new stuff on Wednesday. God, I actually have time to blog now that I'm outside of the crushing (but incredibly fun) weight of HEROES.

LEFT BEHIND page 4

If you've been eating your carrots and Wheaties you might notice that the layouts overlap perfectly with the finished art. This occurs for two reasons. One is that I've started doing layouts on Photoshop. I sit down, do all my research (guns, buildings, clothing - or lack of it, etc.) and then figure out what shots I can do based on what research I've done. It seems much smarter to do this "cart after the horse action".

You might think it limits my storytelling, but it does just the opposite. It seems my brain has very limited camera angles and ways that it can perceive a sequential scenario. This doesn't mean that I can't perceive a scene from multiple angles, I can. I can draw it through the plastic mesh of a shopping basket discarded in a corner, I can perch above a chandelier with the crystals creating a glittering frame. That's not the problem. The problem for me is moving around the scene in a way that is dynamic, highlights the main action and moves in a way that the geography and action makes sense to the reader.

While some people perceive comics as a seamless stream of action, it is far from the truth. In fact, nothing is seamless. Movies have cuts. Hell, even your eyes blink cutting your perception 10 times per minute! That momentary darkness is compensated for in an unconscious immediate way. I know there's a term for it that I learned in my psychology course in college (university for everyone else on the globe), but I just can't remember it. Spot the person who's suddenly regretting their college debt. Anyway, comics are jagged, frozen moments of time held together by dialogue, captions but hopefully (and mostly), good visual storytelling. A good storyteller will lead the reader around the scene in a manner that makes the action seem seamless. If you at any point ever go, "What the hell? Where am I?" when the storyteller hasn't intended you to feel that way, then the storyteller hasn't done a great job.

So by finding the research first, I tend to use these shots as anchors, or to belabor an animation metaphor - keys (coming from the term, "key frame" which is a frame drawn by a senior animator to indicate a key, or important frame of movement). I then tween around these shots (short for "in between - shots that are less important in animation than the "key frame"). I find it incredibly challenging and exhilarating when I'm able to tie it all together in a manner which is both readable and exciting. But I always try and lean towards readable before exciting. I'd rather be boring and clear, than exciting and impenetrable.

Having Paul do the backgrounds for the Human Resources room allowed me to shoot everything exactly as I wanted. We're now experimenting with software that enables him to give me the model and for me to just set up my cameras and light it just the way I want it. It's less time on his part and we don't have to keep going back and forth with me saying, "can you lower it about 10 inches and tilt it up 15 degrees."

Doing this back and forth on email sometimes feels like the joke of two blind men both groping at different ends of an elephant. If you haven't heard it, you can Google it or something.

The second reason the layouts are so close to the final artwork (you thought I'd forgotten that I'd mentioned two right? Well I remembered without even having to do a reread! Go coffee!) is that Frank uses my layouts to do lettering when I haven't finished drawing in time. Which is pretty much every time. Because I follow these layouts exactly, he can have the lettering done before I've finished the art. The letterer then just has to lay the artwork underneath. A 2 minute job for each page. Speaking of which... Frank needs me to double check the layouts and send them through for lettering right now.

In good news, my character outlines for my story have been approved. I'm so excited. I'd been coming up with concept stuff and action scenes. Then I found myself totally bored as I realised I was just writing about ciphers. Faceless killers. So I wrote a quick 100 word background on both of the characters, and discovered that there needed to be a third - a love interest. I added each character's theme and submitted it. Bingo! Approved! Suddenly I'm writing about people and the situations just start to write themselves.

LEFT BEHIND page 3

Three scene changes in one page! It's like being backstage at a runway show. Now all we need is some emaciated young thing shuffling in and out of their outfit out of the corner of our eyes and the scene is complete. Once again, Ollie handles this with ease. I just tried to stay out of his way. I worry sometimes that I'm a bit too ham-fisted in my storytelling. Given that I've not had any complaints on the boards by people wondering what the hell's happening, I'm guessing that I'm taking the right course.

I did design all the colour palettes beforehand. I knew Peter and Matt's story and the general corridors of Building 26 would be a green/cyan palette. I knew the Human Resources room would be blue, the final panel on every page was... challenging. Recently Ollie read POWERS by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming (go the three names dudes). Originally the sniper story occurred in random panels throughout the story. I pointed out a sequence in POWERS where a news television show is running down the bottom of every page. I suggested that perhaps if we did the same that it might be easier to understand what's going on. In fact, you should be able to read all of the Sniper story separately with ease if you had it in book form.

To further separate the sniper story from the rest of the story, I ended my standard black background and added the blurred blood texture. I think this also leant a subtle danger to the sequence. But then I needed to make this pop from the rest of the story. I normally run a standard "gutter" (the gutter is the distance between two panels). Sometimes I make it smaller for faster sequences, but in this case I made it a fairly large distance from the main story. These techniques are relatively subtle storytelling techniques. The last technique I used was the green lens. This was perhaps over the top, but definitely helped avoid any confusion.

Nana was fun to draw. While I find old Trek amusing, I'm more of a Next Generation sort of guy. Now despite my martial training I'm also a fair pacifist. But if Patrick Stewart said I needed to don the army greens and go fight, I'd be right behind him. Captain Picard is Da Man as far as I'm concerned. I even once heard of IBM showing clips of him at work at one of their executive seminars as an example of a true leader. Anyway, as a pop culture junkie I love the shout outs to old Trek, and Uhura (Nana) was no exception.

As an aside, if you've seen the New Trek, or like the old stuff you're gonna dig this:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/trekkies_bash_new_star_trek_film

Now I'm sure some of you don't check the comments. While I always do (sometimes late - but I'm MUCH better these days) there's some great stuff that happens there. Paul Caggegi, background artiste extraordinaire expanded the video of his contribution to this work including building 26. It's so well edited and scored. It's fast, it's cool and it really seems to be the tip of the iceberg as to what this guy can do.

Check it out here: http://www.vimeo.com/4957527

Oh, and do I know who the sniper is and what happens to Micah?

You bet your ass I do.

LEFT BEHIND page 2

Just finished listening to the amazing NO DOMINION by Charlie Huston read by the incredible Scott Brick. Boy, what a fun, fun book. It's the perfect thing to listen to while drawing: smart, funny, dark and... vampires. Scott Brick does such a great job. I highly recommend this and it's predecessor ALREADY DEAD. Thanks to JAn for sowing the seeds and of course Peter Marshall for helping me get my hands on this copy.

I think I'm gonna head back to listening to the ORIGINAL RED SOX podcast. Heather's a huge Red Sox fan, and I'm trying to not look like a poser and catch up on what's been going on. I started at the start of the 2005 season and I'm currently in June 2006. I'm getting there. But there's only so much baseball you can listen to. No really. There is.

Enough with Jason's recommendations. This isn't a critic's choice thing ("with a two snaps up and a round the twist"), this is an artblog.

Ollie's script didn't indicate the shadow of the guy nor his gun in the first panel, just West and Abby taking out said guard in the second panel. I decided to add these elements to help us get to the second panel. Otherwise you'd be wondering a bit where he came from. It's not a huge leap to guess that guards are probably wandering around, but I don't like making people take leaps of faith and intuition to read my comics.

Ollie and I brainstormed a whole bunch of things that Abby, Sparrow and West could team up and do in terms of power combinations and stunts. In the old Marvel Superheroes Roleplaying game (and Jason ushers in his total nerdiness with those 4 simple words) any unconventional use of a power is called a "power stunt". For example, Sparrow's rock slide is a power stunt. Ollie came up with the West/Abby battering ram and it's such a great idea. I'd to show some of the others.

Boy it was fun drawing Peter here. I think it's this panel that really ties this comic into the show. I really dig that. People complained that this story is such an afterthought. I would counter that it's such a brilliant extrapolation of events. It's a testament to Ollie's storytelling skills that he can not only weave a great story, but weave that story into the episodes and events that we've already seen. It's a fantastic piece of storytelling that fleshes out events and enriches the HEROES experience. As fas as I'm concerned, it's stories like these that tie in between the episodes that the comics were made for.

Once again, Paul Caggegi steped in to lend an enormous hand. I stared at the enormous task of having to draw the Human Resources room in Building 26. Frankly I just had no idea how I could do it justice. Enter Paul Caggegi and his amazing 3d modeling. He built the room and one person on one gurney, copied and pasted it and made me a Human Resources room! He made the impossible, possible.

His invaluable assistance meant I could concentrate on storytelling and rendering all those stupid foam lumps on the briefcase in the last panel rather than spending days on perspective lines, grids and foreshortening of the human figure. This panel took a full day to draw instead of several days. Thanks so much, Paul!

Now, here's an incredible treat. Paul has created a dynamic video of how we worked together on the last story 138. Check out the awesomeness:

http://www.vimeo.com/4957527

He's got a bunch of cool stuff there, so feel free to get distracted.

UPCOMING: My cousin has approached me about writing and drawing a story to tie into a line of action figures he's produced. More details as that gets closer to the wire. Right now I'm nutting out a story. I've come up with something good... but I think I have the time to make it great.

NEXT: More of Paul's awesomeness and some thoughts on the last panel story.

LEFT BEHIND page 1

Hey gang! Thanks for the great comments on LEFT BEHIND.

You can find the free download at the nbc site: HERE.

This was a lot of fun to draw. I love drawing the episodes that tie directly into the episodes. In fact, when people ask me what the comics are about, I usuallyuse ROAD KILL as an example...

"Let's say the bad guy gets away and turns up next episode in the show. The comics would show you how he gets away and how and why he turns up at the next place you see him. They fill in the gaps between the series. You don't NEED to read them, but they're fun if you do."

My likenesses of Peter are... ok. I think I did some great Matt Parkman's though. So I'm very happy with that. I think you can tell it's Peter, but you're not really gonna put any of these pics of him on Milo's driver's license.

In panel 2 there's shout outs to Natalie Wells (of the Nat and Noo hotel from ROOT AND BRANCH part 1). I didn't manage to include her or Ryan (who has always been so incredibly helpful and supportive of me) in the last story. And given that I included shout outs to Tom, Dick, Harry, their dogs, cousins and parakeets in the last story, I felt kinda bad. I would have loved to have put in more shout outs in the story (andI got a LOT of requests to do more) I just couldn't fit any more in without it detracting from the story. And while I like doing shout outs, the story comes first people.

And now the elephant in the corner. What the flaming heck is with the costumes? Here's the thing, they're not wearing spandex, but I wanted a stealthy superspy/superhero feel. West is in a tight top (like what he wore on the show) and black jeans. Abby is also in a tight top with what I guess are yoga pants. I actually saw a chick in her outfit at the gym. Have you ever noticed how much people in gym gear look like superheroes? Sparrow is in a halter top and jeans. The main reason why it's all tight is cos I didn't feel like drawing jackets. folds in clothing take time, and time was not a luxury I had. This had to be done in the blink of an eye. Ollie bought me more time and I tried to put that time in to backgrounds and detail rather than clothing.

Tight fitting clothing is FAST TO DRAW. Here's how many times I drew everyone (not including distance shots):

Sparrow: 2 times - including a huge poster shot. Those rocks took FOREVER!
Abby: 9 times
West: 8 times

Now you add jackets and accessories with folds, texture, lighting, zips, buckles etc and my time frame starts blowing out the window. Just think about an elbow. A bare bent elbow is about 3 lines plus some rendering. A bent elbow in a jacket is about 10-15 plus the same amount of rendering for each of those lines. And that's just an elbow let alone every joint on each person 8 to 9 panels! I made a call against the deadline I had that would also sell the visual sexiness of all the characters as well as the stealthiness.

My favourite quote is from Pamela (WickedM on the 9th Wonders boards) who quoted Buffy saying, "Don't worry I've patrolled in this halter many times."

And Joss makes it ok cos he makes the characters self aware of the ridiculousness of their wardrobe choices to help put bums on seats.

NEXT: Page 2. Powers and Paul Caggegi.

aw no

Another interlude! I can't blog on LEFT BEHIND. I'm over at Heather's and left these files back at my house. At the time I couldn't think for the life of me why I would need them. Well... oops. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

In other news I also forgot to bring any t-shirts or tops. I'm wearing a tshirt so small it's hard to breathe and you can also tell if I'm an inny or an outy (inny for those of you not walking around the apartment right now).

Bloggage tomorrow!

Thanks for the kind comments on my Facebook and on the blog. If you wanna friend me up on Facebook, please please say how you know me. Mum told me not to talk to, take candy or accept Facebook invitations from strangers.

FAMILY part 6

Hey all, thanks for the patience on the posting. The part after FAMILY goes live tomorrow morning. I hope you enjoy it. Ollie and I had a blast making it!

But let's finish off FAMILY then. Man, I read this again, and Ollie did such a sweet job. It's so light, yet so dense. It reads so fast, but if you pay attention there's meat on the bones and stuff between the lines. The next part is gonna rock you with some super-heroics and a very clever tie in to a previously aired episode. The part after that, by Harrison Wilcox is just balls to the wall fun. I'm so glad I'm drawing it... the only clue I'm giving is that it picks up where I've left off. You can figure out what that means.

This page was fun, fun, fun. Zach and Ollie asked me if I could show off Sparrow's tatoo on her right arm. So I flipped the page so her right arm was towards us. The main problem was when I shot the reference shots, I just didn't do a great job of directing the girls and Kat's pose didn't show her right forearm at all. You can see their incredible performances in previous pages (and previous installments in Abby's case). But these final shots just lacked punch and I'd got their poses all wrong. I realised I had to deviate from my reference to really sell these characters as a full on super team.

I had to sell the power, the sexiness and the whole vicarious "you wanna be these people" factor. My greatest conundrum came when I had to sex up the girls. I mean, Abby is Ollie's fiance and a very good friend and Kat is Zach's girlfriend and also a good friend. I didn't want anyone looking at the pictures and wondering what the hell was going through my head. All I knew, is that at this stage I had to leave the reference behind, and stop drawing homages to my friends and sell these characters to the best of my ability.

I did several things. I gave ALL the characters (including West) heroic proportions. Proportions are measured with respect to the figure's head instead of feet, inches, centimetres, metres or some other form of spatial distance measurement. The human body is 7.5 heads tall (or something like that). The heroic figure is about 8.5 to 9.5 heads tall. What this means is that the body is much larger than the head. The person looks taller and generally more heroic and idyllic. If you think about it, high heels are designed to add an extra 1/3 of a head to a woman's height making her look taller, her head smaller and therefore more idyllic. Body builders are spending all their time increasing the size of their body to make their heads looks smaller and therefore more heroic. I think the statue of David by Michaelangelo is also on idyllic proportions.

So the girls and West are about 9 heads tall (or thereabouts) stretching them out to impossible proportions. Dynamic poses and tight fitting clothing round out the ensemble. I had fun with the clothing, especially with the girls. The union jack top was a fun design. I saw someone wishing that they had a top like that. When people want the clothing I design, then I figure that's a good thing. Sparrow's print is based on her Native American affiliation. Zach did a bunch of research for Sparrow's tattoo even figuring out which tribe she's from. I found a textile texture from that tribe and mapped it onto her body. A small detail, but an important one for me.



VERSION 1

I initially started out giving Abby these sort of forcefield shields (see left), but Ollie asked if I could go back to what Annette established in the last arc, and I think that was an excellent call.

You can see also a print on West's tshirt. That's the SPACEDOG logo for the company I work for. It just looked distracting so we removed it.

NEXT: I will post about page 1 of the next part on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to scouring the boards for all your thoughts and comments.

Meanwhile I'm hard at work on the 8 page third part written by Harrison Wilcox. I've been working on HEROES since about halfway through the first season, and I just gotta say, these epic arcs are getting better and better. These 20 pages, as well as INTO THE WILD, then before that ROOT AND BRANCH and before that THE DEATH OF HANA GITELMANN... well, I just think you can read them all and see the improvement of everyone involved. There just seems to be a stronger grasp of the medium, story and characters.

Anyway, enjoy the next part tomorrow.