SkottieYoung.com

Support Hero

2009-07-07T10:47:00.002-05:00

The Hero Initiative will be holding auctions for custom Wolverine: Weapon X sketch covers soon. Be sure to go to their site for updates and help support this incredible charity.

THE HERO INITIATIVE

Here is me doing my part to help the cause. Done with ink and brush and watercolor. Enjoy and get ready to make your bids. I'll let you know when it goes up for auction.

Draw Block Live Sketch Session Friday July 3rd

2009-07-02T22:35:00.004-05:00

For those of you that are interested, Friday July 3rd, 1pm central time I will be be broadcasting another episode of DRAW BLOCK LIVE SKETCH SESSION.

Come on over and join in the fun.

DRAW BLOCK

Studio Space 2009

2009-06-28T17:32:00.002-05:00

I've finally got around to cleaning my filthy studio and I always choose that time to take pictures. This allows me to fool you all into thinking I work in a completely clean room. If only I would have taken photos before I pulled out the mop.

Spider-Man cover process

2009-06-16T13:05:00.002-05:00

I thought I'd give you a look at each stage of the process on my latest Marvel Adventures Spider-Man cover.

Thumbnail: drawn in Photoshop. This is where I laying it out for my editor to see. I like to work up a color comp so that they can fully understand what I intend to do with the piece.

Pencils: Drawn digitally with Sketchbook Pro. You can see here that I'm not working out the details. I'm just going in and roughing it out. I ink myself so there is no reason for me to waste alot of time drawing things perfectly. Then the inking stage would be no fun.

Inks: I print out the digital pencils onto bristol board and ink traditionally with a brush. Here's where I make most of the line choices. I really just start inking lines. Not a ton of thought, just going from the gut.

Color: Photoshop. You can see that I changed the pallet from the thumbnail. I decided that since this piece was focused on the Police, I wanted a color that would invoke that feeling. The boys in BLUE goes along way. When I think police, I think blue. Works well on a Spidey cover as well and blue is big part of his color scheme. (even thought I don't show much of it on his costume.

There you go, a little look into each stage.

Wolverine 19 cover

2009-06-15T11:57:00.002-05:00

I love getting the chance to have fun and be a little funny on a cover from time to time. It's nice to cut loose and have fun with superheroes. It's cool to draw the dark and gritty, but it's great step outside and bring a little laughter to an image.

Digitaly penciled, inked with brush and ink, colored in photoshop with tones done in Manga Studio.

Give me your ideas...NOW

2009-06-07T09:47:00.001-05:00

I'm about halfway done writing my graphic novel and things are going great. It's my love letter to a time in comics that I consider MY time...the 90's. Not so much in the look of it, but the tone. I loved the 90's era of comics because they knew what they were and didn't pretend to be anything else. They were excess, they were flash, and most of all, they were balls to wall fun as hell. From Lobo to Spawn, and Creed to Gen 13. From Generation X to the Maxx and Trencher to Youngblood. There seemed to be a little something for everyone. I loved it! So, for my first graphic novel, I've tried to put in all the things that made me love that period in comics.

Here's where I want your help. I've been adding cameo and homages to creators that have played a part in my comic history and want to know who you'd like to see in there and what they would be doing.

example. I have a character named Rob L. Feld who owns a Comic & Guns store and below is a giant lab for him to make giant, sick ass weapons. Like insanely big weapons! Oh yea!

So, take that and reply your ideas. If any of them pop off the page at me, i'll try to work them in and you'll get a special thanks in the book!

Let's have some fun!

Shaggy Man

2009-06-04T17:12:00.002-05:00

Eric Shanowers partner DavidMaxine organizes an Oz show and asked me to do piece for the program. The theme is Road to Oz, the fifth book ( I think)

This was quick, but so fun. I love this character, The Shaggy Man. Tools on this one. Sketched digitally in Sketchbook Pro, printed on 8.5x11 printer paper and inked with the Pentel brush pen. Photoshop halftone to cap it off. About 30 minutes total.

Enjoy.

The Kid Inside is Smiling

2009-05-28T15:05:00.000-05:00

When I was 15 or 16, i started buying Wizard Magazine. I loved it. This was how I got my comic news before the internet came along and would read each issue from front to back. This is how I found out about my first comic book shows and conventions and led me to attending one of the first Chicago Wizard Worlds in '96. That show opened my eyes to a whole new world that I wanted to be apart of. Creating comics.

During those teenage years, I used to check in each month to see if any of my favorite artist would make the Wizard Top Ten artists. I would have arguments with friends over who was on it and who wasn't each month. It was our version of watching sports. Today made me remember those conversations and I wonder what my old pals would think of Wizard #213.

Yes, the kid inside is smiling because today I made the list. It's a small thing, but it's huge to that 16 year old that used to wait for Wizard each month hope to see his name on that Top 10 list. It's pretty cool to see. Thanks to everyone out there buying and supporting me on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and making that childhood dream come true! You guys kick ass!

New Podcast L.O.N.

2009-05-21T15:32:00.002-05:00

Some of you might be missing the Devil and Me and I'm not sure when we'll be able to get back to it as Casey has so many dates book this summer.

But I have great news. (Mostly for me) A few buddies and me have started a book club podcast called THE LEAGUE OF NOBODIES. Brian Salazar, Braxton Harrison, Matt Burden and myself are going to be doing about 2 episodes a month. Each episode will focus on one graphic novel or trade. It's really just a chance for a few pals to sit around and talk about a book in detail and record it. Go over to the site and check out the primer episode. We'll be at itunes soon enough.

LEAGUE OF NOBODIES

Commissions and Deviant Art

2009-05-21T12:35:00.004-05:00

You all are funny. I post about being VERY behind and all I get are comments on getting on the list...haha. You all are in love with punishment. Seriously, I won't be adding anyone to the commissions list for quite awhile. So please, hold off on emails asking about getting commissions, prices, etc.

And on the art side. I will be getting back to adding art updates here at the blog very soon. I've been trying to give my Deviant Art account a little exclusive love to things rolling there but will start the posts here again shortly. So, go over to my DA page for new art.

VISIT MY ART GALLERY

Commissions and the Black Whole they Live In

2009-05-15T10:05:00.003-05:00

Ok, for those of you with commissions outstanding with me, hold on for just a bit longer. They are coming. I've got a few things to wrap up this month and then I'm not doing anything for a week or two until the commissions are done. So, if you have one and are waiting, the wait is almost over, I promise.

Thanks for being so incredible with the waiting!

Free Comic Book Day Signing

2009-04-29T13:16:00.002-05:00

Amazing Fantasy
20523 S. La Grange Rd.
Frankfort, IL 60423
(815) 469-5092

I'll be signing at this store from 11am-2pm on Sat. May 2 for Free Comic Book Day. See you there.

Expecting

2009-04-24T10:10:00.002-05:00

Just thought I would finally let everyone know that Casey and I are expecting our first kid in November. I knew moving the country and getting a dog was leading somewhere!

That's all for today.

Along came a spider

2009-04-20T13:13:00.002-05:00

I've taken on a few new cover gigs and one of them is Marvel Adventures Spider-Man. I'm very excited about it as I love being able to cover a wide range of characters over the run of covers I'll be doing. Hopefully we'll all have fun.

Here's the first one. This a bit more about Peter than Spidey.

There's No Place Like Home

2009-04-20T13:10:00.002-05:00

Here's the last cover of my run on Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It thought that after all the adventures it would be nice to feature Dorothy coming home again.

Alien Concepts

2009-04-17T12:39:00.004-05:00

I was trying to find the alien design for my children's book and here are my two attempts.

The second one didn't do it for me so much. The first one is much more the direction I want to go. I like the thing legs and the contrast in shapes thru out the figure.

Again, for those of you who didn't know, check out MY DEVIANT ART page for more art updates and galleries.

On the "Table" today

2009-03-25T15:04:00.002-05:00

Another peek at the Cintiq and todays work.

If I only had a brain!

2009-03-24T11:13:00.002-05:00

The cover to Wonderful Wizard of Oz #7. Only one left (it's already done) but it feels like a great vacation is coming close to an end. But it's not over yet!

On the "Table" today

2009-03-20T10:51:00.003-05:00

The Cintiq isn't really a table, but I'm doing cover thumbnails today. Here is a cover idea that I really love but I missed the mark for the cover. I need to have Wolvie in costume and don't really think it would work the same way. No big deal. That's the beauty of doing something this small and loose. You don't mind if you miss the mark, no harm, no foul.

I love doing cover thumbs digitally as it allows me to do a full color mock up on the fly. Before I'd have to sketch after sketch, wasting a tone of paper while I looked for the composition that I wanted. Then scan it and do the color stuff. I'm not going to pretend that it was back breaking, but once I started handling this stage on the Cintiq, I really felt more free to try all types of things.

Videos inspire new Podcast

2009-03-18T15:09:00.002-05:00

I downloaded a program that allowed me to record my screen and wanted to try a small sketch video. Once I got finished, I had the idea to do this on a more regular and turn it into a podcast.

DRAW BLOCK will be a video podcast of 15 minute (give or take) sketches with audio commentary. There will be anywhere from 1 to 5 videos per week. I'll be getting this rolling in the next few weeks. The videos will be much better quality than these 2, as youtube really cuts on the res.

JUNK, the art book is a little behind and I'm putting the final touches on it now.

On the Table Today

2009-03-16T12:54:00.003-05:00

Update

In my attempt at using Twitter as a productive tool, I thought I would do a 3 way posting of images from the days work to be added to Twitter, Deviant Art and here. This post will be updated thru out the day as more pages get worked on.

These are some panels from a page on issue 6 of Oz.

More to added later today.

Emma update

2009-03-12T19:31:00.003-05:00

I realized that I haven't given you all a update on Emma. She's 7 months now and about 80 lbs. So, she's about halfway there.

She sleeps like a damn human, pillow and all.

Wonderful Wizard of Oz #4 In Stores

2009-03-12T09:21:00.002-05:00

Thanks to everyone for all the support on Oz so far. It's been a blast and there's more to come. #4 is in stores now so go check it out.

Here's a very flattering review from IGN. And another very kind review.

Thanks again.

Dim Twit

2009-03-10T10:25:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I thought I would drop in today with an update of my first full day of being apart of Twitter. My first impression is that it isn't as bad as I thought it was... for some people. For others that i've made the mistake of following, it's worse than I imagined.

Some people give links to what they worked on that day, or tips on getting into comics. These type of things are very helpful to many people.

Some people are tragically in need of 11 kinds of attention and seem to just sit and wait for a "tweet" so that they can then pounce on it with some want-so-hard-to-be-witty reply that it actually disturbs me a bit. I guess that's the problem. Comedy rarely gets translated well thru words. It's about delivery and timing and inflection. Typing out a sarcastic or witty remark just reads as snobby and pompous, never funny. And when done 20 times in a row it seems a bit sad and pathetic... but still not funny.

Twitter. I'm on it now, but it's still strange and I'm sure I'll find myself not following many people. I am happy with the positive points of it for now. I'll keep you up to day on my "progress"... haha.

Since today's post didn't have much of a point, I'll top it off with some art in the same vein. A page of doodles.

My words for dinner

2009-03-08T19:05:00.003-05:00

So, don't ever let it be said that I'm not a man that can eat my own words. I wrote a post about not getting Twitter. I still don't, but I'm biting the bullet and signing up. I said I wouldn't and I am. I am starting to feel like a cranky old bastard by fighting what ever power I'm tryuing to fight. Fuck it, I'll join the rest of the world and get on this odd little trend.

Let this be a lesson to all of you... Don't ever make proclamations on the internet!