Demarcus Williams and the Job From Hell: test prints!

I printed out my entire "Demarcus Williams and the Job From Hell" graphic novel this evening. This comic is looking awesome! Its definitely my best comic to date! I plan to wisk it off to the beach this weekend where I'm going to take it for long romatic walks during the day and edit the crap out of it at night. The goal is to have the print file ready to go for January.

#prettyweirdart #graphicnovel #comic #comicbookart #indie #art #artist #book #publication #comicbook #jobfromhell #illustrations

Pretty Weird Art Avatar Pitch

Pretty Weird Art's Portfolio of Music Related Artwork.
A Note from Bird-
I have loved the  music scene since I was 14 years old.  Punk Rock first and then Metal as I outgrew my preteen angst. My dad was military and we were stationed at a base 30 minutes outside of Nashville, TN. I found myself living next door to two wonderful underground scenes and I took full advantage of the opportunity. Flash forward to five years later. Favor House Atlantic just came on the radio and I'm sitting on the floor in a friends living room reading the first issue of the Amory Wars.  The wheels in my head turned with the pages of that comic book, and at 19 years old I knew that I wanted to illustrate music.  I believe every song whether part of a concept album or not, tells a story in and of itself. I want to go beyond videos and albums and illustrate full graphic novels based on music and lyrics.

After talking with Johannes from Avatar over a month ago, I have put these many years of moshing, learning, listening and developing my craft to work. Johannes' lyrics to The King's Harvest are beautiful and deserving of visuals that illustrate them well.  If Long Live the King is Avatar's love letter to metal, then this project proposal is my way of writing back.

Bird's Contribution: 5 page Illustration: Avatar The King's Harvest

Pages 1-2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Ethan's Contribution: Posters & Character Design

Comp poster: Avatar's 2019 tour

 Character design for The King

Alternate Comp Poster: Avatar's 2019 tour

Pretty Weird Art Posters: Nekrogoblikon Album Posters

Last month I decided to build a portfolio of music related artwork. I've always loved making posters and I've been listening to a lot of Nekrogoblikon so I decided to make some posters for them. I've spent my last couple of weekends drawing a poster for each of their album releases. Here's the final artwork. I loved their "Goblins from outer space want to destroy the human race" narrative so I designed each poster to illustrate various goblin war machines and soldiers .

 

Poster Artwork: Nekrogoblikon Goblin Island album

 

Poster Artwork: Nekrogoblikon's Heavy Meta album

Poster Artwork: Nekrogoblikon Power Album 

Poster Artwork: Nekrogoblikon Stench Album 

Poster Artwork: Nekrogoblikon Welcome to Bonkers album 

Music Poster Projects

My wife and I are currently working on building a portfolio of gig posters. Here's some comp posters that I designed over the last week for the band "Avatar".

 Comp Record Cover

Gig poster for the "Twins of Evil" tour that just passed through Atlanta recently.

2018 Pretty Weird Art Posters

2018 Pretty Weird Art Posters

A few years ago I set a personal goal of illustrating five 18x24 posters each year. Making posters gives me a break from working on long-term comic projects and gives me something I can complete in a couple of weeks and show to the public to prove that I'm still alive and working on artwork. 

 

The first poster of the year was based off of famous slasher horror movie characters. 

 

The 2nd poster depicts Pretty Weird Art's version of the classic Universal Monsters line-up. 

 

 My 3rd poster illustrates the old Midway arcade game "Primal Rage". As a child I used to play this game religiously at my local skating rink.

All posters are available for purchase.

Email prettyweirdart@gmail.com for details.

Pretty Weird Art: Primal Rage Poster

 

Spent the last 2 weeks working on another poster. Finally think it's close to being complete. 

I love old arcade fighting games and Primal Rage was one of the best!

Pretty Weird Art Poster: WIP of Primal Rage

 

Here's a WIP shot of my next poster. It's based off an old arcade fighting game named "Primal Rage". 

Pretty Weird 90's Comic Book Review: Uncanny X-men 302

Issue: Uncanny X-men Issue 302

Publication Date: July 1993

Writer: Scott Lobdell

Pencils: John Romita JR

Story Synopsis

The villainous Trevor Fitzroy attacks the mutant Forge in an attempt to gain favor with the cabal known as "The Upstarts". The X-men are alerted to the attack and rush to thwart it while Professor Xavier remains at the x-mansion watching over Colossus’ dying sister.

Writing

The more I read Scott Lobdell’s work on the X-men, the more I appreciate how he weaves character motivation into his plots. This issue would probably be best characterized as an “action-centric” story, but the action works in the service of character development. There are two action set pieces in the story and both evolve their participants into more well-rounded individuals. The first action scene shows Storm and Iceman fending off a riot. Storm apparently has a troubled romantic history with Forge but is still rushing to his aid while Iceman is shown pushing his powers to limits he hasn’t before reached. The second scene is of Forge, Bishop, and Colossus fending off Trevor Fritzroy’s attack. Bishop is forced to confront how his view of lethal force differs from the rest of the X-men’s while Colossus’ anguish over his dying sister pushes him to act with greater violence than normal.

Art

 John Romita Jr does a great job on interiors once again, but seems to turn in pretty lazily conceived cover art. The cropping of Iceman and Bishop holding back a furious Colossus feels way to claustrophobic. The more cynical portion of my brain says that the cropping is deliberate so that the artist doesn’t have to draw a background or anything above the waist. The cover art could be a side-effect of the cover artist being the same guy doing the interiors, so I wouldn’t factor out deadlines as being partially responsible for the end result. 

This issue did impress on me how much I enjoy Romita’s interior page layouts. When he’s not drawing for the cover, his pages show a number of dynamic, full-body depictions of the main characters. Storm, Fitzroy, Bishop, Forge, and Colossus all get at least one panel that clearly shows them and their costume clearly and dynamically. John draws a number of his panels as if they are pin ups with dialogue and I like that. Some of my favorite comic book artists have wonderful art styles ( I’m looking at you Chris Bachalo) but they crop their panels in such a way that you never get a clear view of the entire character. Romita’s work here avoids that annoyance. If you compare this issue with Uncanny X-men #300, you’ll see how each X-men character gets at least one pin-up-worthy panel without breaking the flow of the story. The only drawback is that Romita has a habit of doing a sideways double page spread every couple of issues that comes across as being 50% awe-inspiring and 50% annoying because it breaks up the page flow. He also continues to have a deft ability to use ink to convey motion or visual sensory effects.

Atmospheric / Impressionistic Inking

I really enjoy how he uses loose inks to create buildings and landscapes in his establishing shots.

 

Sideways 2 Page Spread

Here’s the dreaded sideways two-page spread. Sometimes it’s awesome and sometimes it’s annoying.

Panel Flow

I like how Romita popped Bishop out of the middle panel on this page. It aids in panel progression and gives the reader a chance to soak in Bishop’s character design.

Touching 6 Panel Emotional Beat

This scene is beautifully written. It’s a single-page poignant character beat for professor Xavior.

 

Effective Inking / Coloring = Cinematic Atmospheric Effects 

Romita’s loose inking combined with appropriate coloring effectively simulates a flare’s blinding light. Good stuff!

Iceman's Power Set

The staging of Bobby’s use of his ice powers in these two pages is awesome! And the banter between him and a rioter are pithily amusing. The coloring on Bobby is also notable. I love the blues/green color scheme.

Pretty Weird Art Universal Monsters Poster

I'm finished another large 18 x 24 poster illustrating the classic monsters from Universal Studios. 

It should look pretty awesome next to the "Slasher" movie poster I completed in March. I've included rather gruesome illustrations of the Mummy, Frankenstein's Monster, the Wolfman, Dracula, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Pretty Weird Universal Monsters Poster

I'm working on another large 18 x 24 poster illustrating the classic monsters from Universal Studios. 

Here's a few snippets of pieces of the poster as it's progressing. Hopefully the entire thing will be done by the end of the month. It should look pretty awesome next to the "Slasher" movie poster I completed in March. So far I've included rather gruesome illustrations of the Mummy, Frankenstein's Monster, the Wolfman, Dracula, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.