The Comic Book Convention

Here in my hometown, ever since I was old enough to admire comics in more than a semi-serious kind of way, I remember that I always wanted to go to The Comic Book Convention. It takes place twice a year and it was a really exciting event to attend to. In the beginning it was very small and modest, but later on it got bigger and... not so much better. Anyway. The point is that I never really imagined that I would be on the other side of those booths, the artists side of the convention.

Fast forward to March 2010, the weekend of my birthday to be exact. That was the day all the work and effort that we had put in the project paid off. We had completed the 1st issue of Sevenfold: Legends in War. It had been a very short period of time to put together a comic but we did it. Sure it had many many things that could have been improved, but even then, the important thing was to start. Surely enough, as in many things in life, everything should get better as time pases.

One thing I should point out, was the fact that this comic was the first experience for every person in the team, so it was bound to have many flaws and room for improvement. With that being said, I was never happy with the way it was colored, I was only responsible for the pencils and the character design in the book, but in the overall development, I think it was a decent job under the circumstances.

I know this is a blog about the process of making art, so here are some pics of that day, which was kind of important to realize several thins about the business, its people and my future as an artist.

 

 

Also, I have never mention before this, but if you have any questions or comments about anything at all, please don't hesitate to do so. I would love to know what you think, even it if I have to wait for a while.

Issue No. 1.

The main characters for the first Issue of my first comic project were authorized. I was getting to like the story a lot, it involved mythical creatures, angels demons and some other cool stuff. It was time to really get back on the horse. The truth was, I haven't drawn anything before that point for the past 5 or 6 years (I got into being an art director for an Advertising Agency, [pretty good one too]) and I was pretty rusty. But I had the will and the desire to do this. I started right in penciling the pages based on story boards drawn by some one else, so it saved me some time. Time, it seemed, was a resource artists do not have the luxury of.
It was only one week after I had completed only 2 or 3 pages when Ed, the writer of the comic told me:
-Dude, I got us a spot on the Comic Book Convention!- Great! I thought. But that's in March, meaning 2 months from now. And we dont have a comic book yet...

The Horror.

So I got into hyper speed mode, sleeping just enough hours and drawing the rest of the time. It was here where I really grasped the mechanics of what I lacked or better yet what I needed to improve in order to be able to do this faster and more practical. But in the mean time, it was draw or die. And I'm still here.

These are some of the first pages of Issue 1. I can't believe it was a year ago, there are many many mistakes that I see now, but right then and there that was my 110% all the way. I'll tell you more about the process of drawing the comic pages and how that process has improved dramatically since then.