Sonic the Hedgehog 232

Hey everyone! Just wanted to share with you the preview for this month's issue of Sonic the Hedgehog, from Archie Comics. Enjoy!

 

 

 

Sonic the Hedgehog Cover Gallery (Part 6)

Some more recent covers for ya'!

This cover to Sonic the Hedgehog #235 was great fun to work on. First off, reuniting with the talented Tracy Yardley is always a pleasure - the man can frame a shot like nobody's business and is one of the most talented story-tellers working in comics today! We were going for a real "Indiana Jones" feel to this piece - except instead of a torch we've got Silver's groovy glow-powers!

Love the metal texture to his bracelets, but I think my favorite part of this whole thing is the painting. I've had to color paintings in the books before, but those are on such tight deadlines that you don't really... Well, you don't really get to paint them. It was a great new experiment and I think really makes this cover pop!

Another cover by Tracy, which he inked himself. For the majority of my coloring career I've worked with the legendary inker Terry Austin, who uses very thin and detailed linework. I suppose I never realized how totally comfortable I am working with Terry's style now, because the sharp contrast of Tracy's bold and defined lines really took me some time to adapt to. This cover was set to the storyline that takes place in Sonic the Hedgehog #230, so I picked my color scheme directly from those interiors. Really fun, action-packed cover to work on. I'm very honored to contribute again to next year's FCBD!

March Solicits

Hey guys! Solicits for a few books I've got work appearing in next year!

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #235

"Remember the Fallen." The Freedom Fighters are torn apart in the fallout from last issue. Sonic and his friends must deal with the loss in their own way, and it will change the team forever. When Silver the Hedgehog arrives looking for "the traitor," will the weary Sonic give him a chance to speak?
32 pages, $2.99.

SONIC UNIVERSE #38

"Scrambled," Part 2. The hunt is on! Dr. Eggman goes into all-out war with G.U.N., all in an attempt to smoke out his wayward lackey, Snively! Meanwhile, in the heart of G.U.N. headquarters, Snively seeks the next step in his master plan: a girl named Hope!
32 pages, $2.99

MEGA MAN #12

This is it, the grand finale of "The Return Of Dr. Wily!" Dr. Wily has hidden himself in his latest fortress and surrounded himself with killer robots as he plots his counter-attack. Can Mega Man breach the defenses and stop the mad scientist in time? Maybe not alone -- but the Original Robot Masters have got his back! It's all-out robot warfare in the explosive conclusion!
32 pages, $2.99.



Free Comic Book Day 2012!

Awesome! So as of today, the Gold and Silver level sponsor comic book have been announced for 2012's Free Comic Book Day, and Archie Comics has books in each! 

First up, Gold Level, is the first ever Mega Man FCBD issue! This is gonna' be a reprint of the very first issue which is an awesome origin story and a perfect introduction to this iconic video game hero! And it features a gorgeously ink-and-color version of Chad Thomas' original sketch variant. (Inks by Fabio ReDivo and colors by Evan Stanley.)

Next up, Silver Level, is this year's Sonic the Hedgehog FCBD ish! No details have been released for it yet, though "Two Steps Back..." was the story featured in Sonic the Hedgehog #230... I got to work on this cover with the ever-talented Tracy Yardley! Bigger sized, raw artwork to be shown off later. 

So yeah, there ya' go! I'm pretty pumped that there are gonna' be TWO awesome books that I got to have a hand in on the FCBD tables this next year. Haven't solidified my plans yet for the event, but I will definitely be someplace for some signings/sketches! Hope to see you guys out there!

Mega Man 10 Cover

So I handed in the finished colors to Mega Man #13's cover for Archie yesterday, and thought I'd share the raw artwork from Mega Man #10's cover. This paired me with Patrick "Spaz" Spaziante again for a totally intense, battle-damaged cover!

As always, Spaz's attention to detail and the precision with which he draws the official Mega Man style makes him a pleasure to work with - check out Dr. Wily's face in the flames of that explosion! I'm actually in the midst of coloring the interiors for this issue right now, and the story fully lives up to this epic cover!

Mega Man 2 is my favorite of the original games - and the closest I ever came to beating a Mega Man game (I really, really suck at them). It would have blown my seven-year-old mind to know that someday I would be working on the official comic book adaptation of that game!

Mega Man 08

Just a quick look at this month's issue of Mega Man, from Archie Comics, that I colored.

I remember this one having a rough deadline towards the end... My wife works as a teacher's aide in the Special Education department of an elementary school. The school's in a bit of a rough neighborhood - pretty poor area with lots of wild and abandoned dogs. She fairly routinely stops and tries to rescue these dogs, and about five days before this issue was due she at last successfully coaxed a brown-coated, one-year-old-or-so Viszla puppy to come home with her.

Having never rescued a dog off the streets, we really thought it was as easy as dropping her off at one of the many rescue groups in the Houston area. I lost about two days of scheduled work trying to find a place for our girl to no avail. Houston has a tremendous problem with strays. At this point, we were way too attached to even consider the possibility of leaving her at a kill-shelter to be euthanized within 72 hours, so we reached out to Friends for Life in the Heights.

We're now the proud fosters of Holley - named for my wife's elementary school. If you're in the Houston area and looking for an animal to adopt - or are interested in fostering yourself - I highly recommend Friends for Life. They've been wonderful to us!

And now, on to the preview...

MEGA MAN #8
"Time Keeps Slipping" Part Four: The finale to Mega Man's newest adventure! Dr. Wily has captured Roll and turned the eight Robot Masters against Mega Man! Can the blue bomber and Federal agent Roslyn Krantz turn the tides, save Roll, and bring down Dr. Wily for good? Don't miss this thrilling conclusion! ?
Script: Ian Flynn
Art: Chad Thomas
Cover by Patrick "Spaz" Spaziante
Shipping Date: 11/23/11
On Sale at Comic Specialty Shops: 12/7/11
On Sale on Newsstands: 12/13/11
32-page, full color comic
$2.99 US

Just one more bit of commentary... I really dig how dark this issue is! It all takes place at night/in a dark warehouse. I really appreciate that I'm known for bright, vibrant colors but I also have tried hard - especially this last year - to do some darker-toned stuff. Expand my horizons, so to speak. This ish is one of my faves!

Sonic the Hedgehog Cover Gallery (Part 5)

Roundin' up some of my most recent cover coloring for the Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Universe books...

The cover to Sonic Universe #36 was designed to be very "movie poster." I think my first pass was pretty bland, and my editor asked me to really punch up the outer space background afterwards - go nuts! I had some experience with these kinds of backgrounds from other freelancing, but I still find outer-space to be equally difficult and fun to render!

The cover to Sonic Universe #37. Woah! So much is happening! This issue marks the debut of a new artist on the SU series, Jamal Peppers. I think this cover is alot of fun, but we did go through about four or more passes trying to focus this piece. For example: The text above the holograms used to read "Eggman's Most Wanted," which was covering up too much detail so we dropped the first part. In-house, there were a couple more changes made before print: The entire background, featuring the Legion undersea boss Akhlut in a fish tank, was dropped out for pitch black and some word baloons were added.

One-and-done. We knocked out the cover to Sonic the Hedgehog #234 in a single pass. I believe this is the cover debut of Sonic penciling veteran James Fry. His unique style made this one alot of fun to color for. This was colored simulatenous to SU#37's cover (above). When coloring back-to-back books, I try to define a unique color scheme to each so that they'll stand out from each other.