An Interlude

My schedule has been thrown out of whack in the past month because of fulfilling my civic duty as a juror for three weeks. I am unable to continue the comic strips momentarily while I catch up with other priorities. The wait may be awhile. But fret not, I decided to post this animatic for your viewing in the meantime.

This animatic was a project I assigned myself to learn Adobe After Effects using my first storyboards. See more of the storyboards posted on 1/13/10 "Baby Steps" for more on that assignment. Enjoy!

March 25, 2010 Part Ten

March 14, 2010 Part Nine

March 6, 2010 Part Eight

February 26,2010 Part Seven

February 21, 2010 Part Six

February 13, 2010 Part Five

February 4, 2010 Part Four

January 30, 2010 Part Three

January 23, 2010 Part Two

January 18, 2010 Part One

The Big Brawl

Here's another exercise I did yesterday without any preconceived idea of what the final piece will look like. I was just staring at a blank sheet on my computer wondering what I wanted to draw and all I knew that it had to involve Silverado in all out action. So without paying too much attention to proportion, correct folds, perspective, and tangency problems, I just let loose and doodle for about an hour.

A Digital Quickie

I spent all this morning scanning designs in preps for my next storyboard assignment. I am officially moving 100 percent digital and have been doing exercises for the past month to feel more comfortable with them. They still feel alien and unnatural to me, but I can see a lot of the benefits with different approach to drawing and creating art on computer.

Here's a screen capture of one exercise I did for this blog. I don't always draw Silverado and I usually tackle different subjects when experimenting with different tools using Photoshop, Illustrator, Toonboom, and in this case, Sketchbook Pro. This was a ten minute quickie and hopefully soon, I will be able to share something a bit more elaborate.

Baby Steps

I started my career in animation as a Prop Designer. Though it was fun designing objects, I always had it in my head that I wanted to tell stories in pictures. As a stepping stone to becoming a Storyboard Artist, I asked for more assignment in addition to my duties as a designer and started helping out with storyboard revisions and clean-ups. The experience working as a revisionist was vital to my learning. I applied all the knowledge and put myself to task.

Here are samples of my first attempt at storyboarding, completed in early 1998. The pages were blueprints I used to create my first and only Flash cartoon (which I have yet to figure out how to share here for viewing). These samples also rewarded me with my first storyboard assignment back in 1999 at Saban on Nascar Racers.

A Hero Molded In Clay

Back in 2004, I commissioned a very talented sculptor, Arahom Radjah, to sculpt a maquette of Silverado. Arahom was still living in Brazil at the time and we communicated daily to bring the character to three dimensional life. I was overly impressed with the final product and his professionalism and ended up asking him to do more characters from another property I created.

Arahom has since moved to the United States and just started his own company, ARH Studios, producing a series of collectible statues. The Silverado maquette stands about 12" high and made of resin.

Rushing Through

Hard to believe time whizzed by and it's been almost a month since my last post. Here is a quick sketch of Silverado charging through traffic as part of a recent exercise to loosen up my drawing skills. Overall time was less than half hour using a ballpoint pen, a 2B pencil, and a blue Col-Erase pencil. How's that for quickness to keep up with time?

October Madness

The baseball playoffs are in full force and both the Yankees and Angels are still duking it out in extra innings past midnight. While those die hard Yankees fans are braving the heavy rain, I'm calling in couple of very talented artists, Tom Morgan and Chris Stevens, to pinch hit and spin their version of Silverado. Both are solid home runs.

Triple Trouble

Here's another presentation piece I did last year. This time, we see Silverado duke it out with a trio of professional mercenaries hired by Fax Lang. Like with the piece shown below, this was penciled in ball point pen and shaded with 2B pencil. When time allows, my intention is to clean up each of the pieces and color them in photoshop to make them more presentable, hence the meaning of "presentation".

A Thorn In His Side

Early in 2008 just when I started to pull Silverado out of limbo, I worked on a series of presentation pieces. Single panel stories that show the whole picture without words and best exemplify the spirit, mood, and direction I wanted to go. Each of these pieces took me about a half hour from quick thumbnails to final transferred into legal size paper in wide screen format. All were done in ball point pen and shaded in 2B pencil. I completed a total of ten pieces, a few which I will share here.

Big Red

Here's the first super powered villain I created for Silverado when I was working on the property in the early stages. The very first bad guy other than the main adversary, Fax Lang, and one of the loonies terrorizing the streets of Meridian. This baddie is one hulking mass hiding his horribly disfigured face under a red hood. Someone I came up with while re-watching Jason in one of the sometimes good, and mostly horrid Friday the 13th flicks. I thought that this is what Jason would look like if he knew how to dress spiffy. He became the subject of my Silverado flash animation cartoon I completed in early 2000. Once I figure out how to convert the format to work here, I'll post it for viewing.

The Popcorn Man

Maniacal, murderous, and unpredictably crazy. A psychopath who will kill anyone at a moment's notice, merely for his own amusement. The egomaniacal Popcorn Man decided he has found an opponent worthy of his criminal genius and found that he takes far greater satisfaction in outwitting Silverado than he might in simply killing him.

Dusting Off The Pages

Here are the first three pencilled pages of issue #2. These pages were started in late summer of 2004, and then put away not to be seen again until now. I was on my way to getting the second comic book finished and ready for 2005, then life suddenly got a full grasp on me and barely found any time to put full attention to the project. I am slowly trying to get back into the swing and hopefully finish the story. Maybe soon.

In Cryogenic State

Here's the cover for issue two that I completed shortly after receiving the first issue from the printer and has remained in my computer untouched since then. Back then, I liked the cover enough and considered it final. But looking at it now, not so much and probably will re-do the cover once I get around to finishing the interior pages of the second issue.

A Damsel In Distress

I was going through files of old drawings and came across this one which I forgot exist. This piece was drawn in 2001 on 11 X 17 comic book board with HB pencil. Here we see a super bad guy with a cool name about to hand it to a hopeless victim and the hero about to save the day. As I recall while working on the first comic book, this illustration was going to serve as the cover to the third issue after completing the story arc for the first two issues. Now, about issue two...

Ever Vigilant

Here is a second piece I did to continue learning Photoshop. See that moon in the background? That's the same moon I used on the first action piece. When I was working on this drawing, I had no intention other than to improve my skills using the software and the final illustration ended up serving two things a few years later. First, as an image underlay on the inside back cover of the first issue of the comic book. And second, the image was re-used for postcards handed out to help promote awareness.

Jumping Into Action

Back in 1999, I found myself with some free time between gigs and took it upon myself to start learning Photoshop. My good friend, Andre Nieves, was kind enough to share me his knowledge of the software and walked me through to get started. What you see here is my first attempt in coloring an action piece using Photoshop and was very pleased with how it turned out.

Night Of The Swamp Monster

Thus, the title for the first issue of the comic book. Here are the sneak for the first six pages of the comic book as it appeared in final print. The story and words were written by Andrew Warren, penciled by yours truly, inked my Mike Collins, and lettered by Jaymes.

I found Andrew after placing an ad looking for a writer and selected him among the forty something submissions I received in the mail or online. Mike Collins was someone whom was referred to me by an intern while working at Cartoon Network. Jaymes was a letterer I found online on a last ditch effort to find a replacement and came across his website.

Both Mike and Jaymes were late addition to the project after the original inker and letterer were unable to stay due to other commitments. They both delivered in the clutch and I was able to get the comic book completed just couple months before the Con.

The First Stage

Here you see are actual roughs of the first six pages from the Silverado comic. I go through three stages from start to finish when I work on a page. Stage one is when I rough out a page using a ballpoint pen on 8 by 11 regular paper. This is where I block out the composition and word balloons and also where the bulk of the drawings are roughed out in terms of acting and action.

Once I am satisfied, I enlarge a copy of the drawings and transfer the roughs onto a 11 X 17 comic book board paper using HB pencils and a lightbox. Third and final stage is converting the pencils to non-photo blue using a color copier and sending the copies to the inker for inking and ready for printing.

Hot Off The Press

Here is the cover to the premiere issue of the comic book released in 2004. A lot of hard work and effort was put into making this comic book and I couldn't be happier with the result.

To Maverick Or Not To Maverick

Should he be called Maverick? That was a question that had me stumped the last few months while working on the property and moving into the comic book stage in 2003. Since the inception of developing this project, the name of the character was Maverick. Not after the old James Garner TV show, but rather the old '75 Ford my friend drove when we used to cruise down Stevens Creek Blvd. on Friday nights.

I hit a red flag when Jim Lee created a character called Maverick for Marvel in the early 90's. It bothered me for the longest time. I held on to the name anyways because I liked it so much and the Marvel character was a C-lister at best. But still, the thought lingered on.

Then one day in 2003 while stuck in a major gridlock near the 101/405 interchange, my question was finally answered. My vehicle was ambling behind a very slow moving Chevy Silverado truck and made me realize at that moment that the perfect name was under my nose the whole time.

Silverado was a name I picked up after watching the excellent 1985 western flick and gave it to another character I created who is a member of The Spartans (another pet project long in development, which I may or may not talk more about in another blog). So I finally dropped Maverick and Silverado name was born.

The artwork you see above is a piece I did as a complimentary sticker which was distributed at convention circuits to entice readers and visitors. It also served as a large banner displayed at the booth.

Disturbing The Balance Of Justice

The Langs are one of the elite families in Meridian City. They trace their roots to the Lang Family that was one of the original settlers in the area.

Carter became a prominent figure and respected by the public through his support of helping build the city, legal or illegal. Carter seems to have everything in life, but behind the public facade is a ruthless and bitter man running an underground terrorist organization, The Silent Society, involved in nefarious acts and willing to stop at nothing to achieve domination.

Fax is Carter's eldest son and heir to his father's seat in controlling the family business. His contributions continued to expand the family's wealth until his influence was felt in virtually every commercial, financial, and political transaction in Meridian City. Some people feared Fax, other's grew to love and admire him, but no one could ignore him.

For years, Silverado continually hindered their businesses and ended or nearly ended some of their holdings, but Lang Corporation continued to grow.

The Masked Avenger

Silverado has no supernatural powers. He relies instead upon superior training, intellect, and minimal array of gadgets. No, he is not Batman either.

When Silverado springs to action, he sometimes feel like he's in the crusade at his grandfather's biddings. The differences in judgement has lead to some tension between them.

Preston Trent

Preston now assumes his grandfather's mantle as the modern day Silverado. Though more resourceful, rational, and straightforward, his actions have had a more lighthearted feel to them than Garrison's hard-headed and sometimes hard-hearted crusade.

Garrison Trent

Garrison is the original Silverado. For years, he roamed the streets of Meridian as the city's guardian and protector. One misfortune left him seriously injured and permanently crippled. The public never heard of Silverado again until many, many years later.

Marion Potts

Marion was the nurse entrusted with the task of aiding Garrison back to health. She now serves as a liaison between Silverado and Garrison during their escapades.