What I try to do during my spare time...

There's nothing wrong with having a little 'me time' now and again, it's just that me time is usually I don't get that much.  I'm not complaining of such, the me time I sacrifice goes directly to my family and I love every minute of it, it's just that the little me time I try to take on I can't get my mind wrapped up to all that I want to do.  One of those things is drawing, well, sketching is what I like to call it.  It's not the text book form of the word, but that's what I've been calling my visual art work for however long I've been doing it.  I love drawing in comic book style art and well, to get good at it no doubt takes time and to keep consistent at it after you're good takes longer if you want to crank out stuff on a regular basis.  That was well good and all as a younger version of me that had nothing but time to waste but now, time is such a precious commodity that what I can do I try to maximize on it.

I was working on this last sketch for the past 3 weeks, give or take.  On and off for about 20 minutes at a time.  Normally since I consider myself an amatur, I see as this should've took me about an hour and a half (well, probably another 45 more after adding in color) to present a finished product.  This being one of my signature characters that I've created back in 1996.  A character I named Marksman, is supposed to be like part Batman, part Iron Man, part a whole bunch of other elements, but that means going into the story line more.  

I was really into illustration back then prior to when I started playing bass and writing lyrics.  I wanted to try to get something started with story line and all.  The basic premise of it was that this guy was head of some type of weapons and arms manufacturer that was contracted by the government to make some kind of super armor for black ops solders in their missions.  When terrorists had wind of the super armor, they were plotting to use it for their own vendetta to cause chaos.  The owner of the arms manufacturer then used himself as a test guinea pig for the armor, the plans were destroyed and the only existing suit is what he and he alone can use because it was they were assigned to their users based off of their DNA.  Thus, he started wearing it and became a sentential for his company providing protection and being leased by the government for extreme missions and such.

All in all, I expanded the story line with lots of twists and turns and had planned about 75 issues for the hero and even 6 special double issues that were annuals and followed up the storyline for the next year.  It was pretty awesome, and the only bad thing about all this is I lost the storywork for all of those issues.  It was about a decade ago and I was devistated.  I still have all of the original art for the concepts of all the important characters involved in the 75 issues (which I'm lucky to have kept.)  I've even tried to recreate the story line but I know that it wouldn't have had the same intensity as when it was first penned.  But I do plan on resurecting the title and making some of it.  But as for now, I'll continue sketching and producing fine art like this...

Hope you enjoy the creative process and the fine work of it all.

BootLeG sampler.. signing out...


Oh, and BTW, Happy Thanksgiving and have a safe and happy holiday season...  Just in case I fail to post prior to my Year in Review message...