I warned you!

[Eric Lofgren]

Doing this stuff is refreshing. I too was wanting to be a comic artist in my early days, but alas, life, the great equalizer, had other plans. Please enjoy on one condition, I need to know what you think and how I can do better.

Thanks,
Eric
www.ericlofgren.com

[Matt Drake]

I mean DAMN! That is so cool! I mean, DAMN!

Matt Drake
www.spectrepress.com

[NPC David Hamilton]

What I think:

Sharp, clean work. Awesome detail. It'd be interesting to see a nice color-job over these inks. Wonderful.

What would make it better:

Come up with a story for the character, get some pages drawn, and publish that sucker!

just my opinion.....

David

[Storn]

Very nice foreshortening on the pistol. I know that ain't easy!

LIke the suit design too!

[Holy Bear]

I really like this. As storn said, the foreshortening on the gun is AMAZING! Hail to ye!

that said, d'you mind some friendly crit/comment?

I was wondering why you went for two different styles with this piece. The lines are all brilliantly crisp, but the Gritty style of the left picture IMO clashes a bit with the more (dare I say it?) manga-style of the right piece. (I don't mean manga as cute big eyes, but more open, especially the face). That's just my opinion by the way.

What is probably just a detail, but I think is just a little off, is how you drew her and the gun so exquisitely...but unless I'm very wrong, she isn't looking at whatever she is aiming for, making it more of a 'pose' than an 'action capture'.

Again, I love the pic. Not trying to be a curmudgeon.
Show us more of this good stuff!
*loves the friendly competition between you guys...gets us more great art to see!* :D

Asbjørn

[Eric Lofgren]

Thanks for doing your part folks, pleasekeep the comments and crticisms coming. It sure helps in self-evaluation.

Asbjorn, the reason for the two different styles is a case of contrast. In this case a contrast of styles and subsequently, a clashing. This happens for me only sometimes in the design process. Here, for example, I came up with the right side figure first as a first draft, so to speak, then the left side figure "entered my mind" and I couldn't let it go, so I developed that one. I liked them both so much that I decided to try and merge the two together and create perhaps a more dynamic, graphic, design rather than dump one in favour of another.

Thanks again for the comments, Guys,
Eric
www.ericlofgren.com

[Rick Hershey]

I hate to get off the subject here, but i'm sure Eric won't kick my ass to hard for it.
I was wondering how many of us guys started out with a goal to work in the comicbook field and ended up here. I also dreamed of spending my days working out those panels and creating far away worlds, but realizing that I didn't want to sacrifice my realistic style for the manga craze going on at the time i packed my bags and headed towards new horizons. I remember the day I started the path towards being a fantasy artist, I was sitting in my friends house at those early stages of becoming a gamer when I began to flip threw some of his rpg books. After several minutes I made the bold statement "I can draw better than that!"
Well as I soon learned the current artists working on rpg's were far more skilled than those of the old books and I found a challenge I've been enjoying ever since.
*sniff* and that's the whole sad story *sniff*

bye~
Rick Hershey
Empty Rooms: art of rick hershey (http://www.homestead.com/rickhershey/one.html)
grendalmage@yahoo.com

[Eric Lofgren]

I tell pretty much the same story, Rick. Back then (we're talking Byrne/ Clairmont X-men. Remember the Dark Pheonix saga?) John Byrne was my hero and all I wanted to do was be a comic book artist. I was convinced I was going to knock him off his high horse and take over. LOL. After the realization of many months, possibly years of submissions, I came back to Earth and rethank things (It didn't help hearing about McFarlanes 300 odd attempts at comicdom). It was about that time that me and some buddies started playing D&D and I had the same reaction as you "Hey! I can do better than that!". Well, it's been awhile, but I can now at least say "Hey! I can do just as good as that." ;} On a related note, I often wonder what some of those old D&D artists are up to these days. Remember, I'm talking around 1982/83 and it was all first edition stuff, I imagine. I wonder if they have any idea how they influenced and inspired more than a few of us and, Geez, I don't think I could name one of them. But I recall a couple of them we're really quite good.

Eric

[Storn]

Originally posted by Eric Lofgren
I tell pretty much the same story, Rick. Back then (we're talking Byrne/ Clairmont X-men. Remember the Dark Pheonix saga?) John Byrne was my hero and all I wanted to do was be a comic book artist. I was convinced I was going to knock him off his high horse and take over. LOL. After the realization of many months, possibly years of submissions, I came back to Earth and rethank things (It didn't help hearing about McFarlanes 300 odd attempts at comicdom). It was about that time that me and some buddies started playing D&D and I had the same reaction as you "Hey! I can do better than that!". Well, it's been awhile, but I can now at least say "Hey! I can do just as good as that." ;} On a related note, I often wonder what some of those old D&D artists are up to these days. Remember, I'm talking around 1982/83 and it was all first edition stuff, I imagine. I wonder if they have any idea how they influenced and inspired more than a few of us and, Geez, I don't think I could name one of them. But I recall a couple of them we're really quite good.

Eric

Jeff Dee. I loved his stuff. But I played games for years before thinking of sending any submissions in. I had already moved to NYC and plyed my wares to both of the major comic companies several times... to no avail.

Then on a whim, I sent out 6 submissions to 6 game companies. Next day, I had my first job with ICE. Eidolon: City in the Sky.

Luck.

1) Regular mail got to Charlotesville (where ICE is) from DC in one day.
2) Terry Amthor, art director, always held off on opening art submissions til the end of the month. Would do all of them at once. For some reason, he opened mine that day.
3) Terry was writing City in the Sky.
4) One of my submissions was of an elf on the deck of a sailing ship. It wasn't til you looked closer that you realize that the ship was above the horizon line, that it was above mountains and that there were other sailing/ flying ships in the sky in the distance. Well, City in the Sky was supplied by just such ships.

...just pure stupid luck.
The sample was never published though... I always wondered about that. I don't even know if I still have it.

[Noel Murphy]

Is this how all of us are? Wanting to do comics, doing RPGs, saying "I could do that" then later doing it. This is why I'm looking for a script because I want to really know if "I can do that". I recently got a load of old comics and remembered myself years ago wanting to draw comics but not having enough experience and skill (but talent). Now that I have more of each I want to know if I can hack it.
Who knows what the future holds?

[Rick Hershey]

Hey Noel,

Well, i'm working on my comic "Fistful of Heroes" and currently Darrel Langley is doing the first issue, I'm planning on having different artist suply each issue's art and if you'r interested I'll need an artist for the next one. Let me know what you think and I'll send you some info on the story so far and an outline for the next issue.


Rick Hershey