How-To #4; CECE Promo Card #4

Monday, 1:00 PM

 Lunch was good, lots of leftovers from the Mexican themed party we had over the weekend.

... And I decided to go with Card "A". The main reasons were; even though the action in B was better, the figure looked a bit out of control and didn't quite fit with Shards character. Card A's figure being more in control with a steady stance felt more right. The flow of the chain whip in card A also felt better and less crowded than it is in card B. On top of all that, lately, in honor of Frazetta's passing, I've been meaning to do a piece where the main subject had their back to the camera. (something he did often) Seeing as how I already have pics of shards face I thought this would be a good time to switch things up.

  What I did was take the rough in Photoshop and add it to one of my Trading Card masters that has all the measurements and crop marks all ready worked out. Here I can adjust the piece, move the figure around a bit, adjust the size or whatever. I then turn the dark pencil lines into a very light Blueline drawing and print the whole thing out on good paper. This is where I go at it with some tight pencils and figure out the little details.

I was having a bitch of a time with the dead (Ogre's?) left hand and redrew that thing over and over. I finally broke out the camera and took a ref photo to make it easier on myself. Now that I have it tight enough and to a point where I'm happy with it, I'll move on to the next stage.

Later
WM

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Warren Martineck

How-To #3; CECE Promo Card #3

Monday, 10:00 am

Ok, all emails are caught up with, some scheduling is fleshed out and on the white board, and I'm back on the promo.
I spent some time going over a few more thumbnails but didn't come up with anything of worth and still hadn't decided which of the 2 I wanted to do. So I did roughs for both to see what I could come up with.

I use a really dull, blunt mechanical pencil lead to do my roughs. So much easier to erase and redraw. I darkened it up in Photoshop so it's easier to see in the post.

 This normally doesn't happen. Usually I do a few thumbnails, hit the one I want, and then it's off to the races. I don't think I can remember having trouble deciding between two different roughs before. But here are the two and I've yet to decide as I like elements of both.

See you in a few..
WM

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Warren Martineck

How-To #2, CECE Promo Card #2

 Monday morning; 5:30.
 Seeing as how I need to send out the finished artwork for the promo card this week, I needed to stop what I was working on and jump on this. As I mentioned in the previous CECE post, I'm going to post the process from start to finish and try to do it in real time.
  I've been thinking about the subject of the card for most of the weekend (while finishing up other work and doing all those weekend family functions) and wracking my brain about the what to draw.  
Then I noticed that Larry Elmore is going to be at the show and I got all excited and had flashbacks of my old D&D days. It was a time when I was seriously getting into art, planning on going to art school, and was visually absorbing any cool artwork like a sponge. There was a book I picked up of the Art Of Advanced  Dungeons & Dragons and I couldn't put it down. It was 120+ pages with 5 main artists work and a dozen or so other artists contributions. Larry was one of the artists and one of my favorites. His snow scenes were amazing.
  So, in honor and with a juiced renew for some fantasy, I thought I'd do a fantasy based card. Which works well because I have been developing a character on those lines (Shard) and most of the thought process and work is already done. You can see a bit of that development here in my Lightning Whip post.

I got up this morning about 4 am (not by choice) and couldn't wait to get down to the studio to start and work out some of the images I had in my head. So I did some thumbnails and I think, or I thought, I got what I needed as you can see from the scan. I was going to go with the bottom right image, the last one I drew, of Shard facing towards the camera with destruction and dead giants or Firbolgs behind him.
 Then I went back over the lower lower left image (of Shard facing the destruction) with some blue line, to help show what I drew, just for the blog. I knew what it looked like but I'm sure it would just look like scribbles to somebody else and thought this would make it easier for everyone to see it better. In doing so, I realized I liked the look of that one too, and maybe even more than the one I decided on.

 So I'm off for some caffeine and breakfast and to think about, again, which one to do.

Later
WM

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Warren Martineck

CECE Promo Card Development #1

  As I think I've mentioned in an earlier post, I will be attending the the Chicagoland Entertainment Collectors Expo (aka; CECE & the Nonsportcard Expo) for this years 10th Anniversary show. I did this show back in 2003, had a great time, and I'm really looking forward to returning for another go. (Gas up the van Cherie!)

  One of the aspects of the show is you get to design or supply them artwork and they will print up your own promo card in advance of the show to be given away when the show is open.
Here is the one I did for the 2003 show.

It's not often I get to post about jobs I'm working on or that are in development because more often than not, the companies won't let you show any artwork, post or talk about details until stuff is officially announced. But with this promo, I thought I'd post about the whole process while it's happening... because I can.
  So I need to get some full color artwork done, "non licenced" and something original of my own creation, and sent in by the end of July so they have time to print up the cards. I'll probably also need to come up with some kind of description and/or bio for the back of the card. I hate writing those things.

  At this point I have no clue what I'm going to do.

...and that's about as much time as I'm putting into it right now as I need to get back to work and finish this comic first. But I will be posting further about this as I progress and keeping this up to date.

Later
WM

p.s.  Not that I'll do whatever anyone chimes in with, but if there are any suggestions out there, feel free to add your $.02. (email or post)

p.p.s. I thought I'd also post the Promo card I did from the Philly Show.  "Cap'm Blood"

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Warren Martineck