Moving on...

This blog is now no longer updated- Please visit the Art of Pete site for updates. Thanks!

Goodbye and Hello

Well it's been a long while and I've been trying to get back into the whole blogging thing again. The trouble is I've been trying to maintain 2 blogs, a website, and trying to sell art on eBay. Hard to do while meeting deadlines and trying to maintain a family life. After much tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth I've decided to compress everything into one site.
artofpete.com
It contains a blog, galleries, and a small shop.
This means of course that I will be discontinuing my Blogger account- not that I've used it for the past 2 years. Fret not tho', you can get an RSS feed at my new site.
I'll be posting previews and the like there.
Also, If you would like your website or journal added to my links list just leave me a comment here and I'll be glad to do it.

Thanks for reading!
-Pete

The Work-A-Day World

Quite a few people have been asking me about my process lately- how I do things, what tools I use, etc. I'm going to try to answer the basic questions here, but feel free to ask questions and I'll do my bet to answer them.

First, when I get my script (or in the case of Superman, my plot) I read through the whole thing. If I get any immediate ideas from it I sketch them out quickly, but for the most part I just absorb the basic story. If possible I like to let that percolate in my head for a couple of days and then I come back and read through it again. Then I pop on my headphones and put on a playlist full of music appropriate to the mood of the story I'm working on and I try to visualize it as a movie. Finally I go back through the script one last time (usually in 6-7 page batches) and do rough thumbnails- about 2" X 3".

With my thumbnails in hand I take whatever photo reference I'm going to need and then do full sized layouts on Photoshop. I use quite a few photos and I also find that I have an easier time sketching things out on the computer that I do on paper. Purely a mental hang up of mine. I do these layouts at night (starting around 8 pm) and usually in 3-6 page batches. Then I print them out so I'll have them in the morning.

I usually try to get up no later than 7 am. This gives me a couple of munchkin free hours to get the core of the work done.

First I ink my panel borders. Then on a lightbox I very loosely sketch out the figures and occasional foreground elements in pencil. I use a "slightly better than what you can get in the grocery store" .5 mechanical pencil and HB lead. Then I start inking. In my case is more just drawing with a pen since what I lay down with pencil is very loose. For inks I use a combination of a .05 Staedtler pigment liner, .03 and .8 Zig Millenniums, and a Pitt brush pen.

Once done inking the figures and foreground elements I draw in perspective grids for my background stuff. I've already worked out the perspective on my layouts first, so I'm just copying the grids onto the actual board. Again, I loosely pencil in the background and then draw in it ink.

Using this process (and let's not forget 10 years of learning from mistakes) I can finish about 1.5 to 2 pages a day. Looking at my schedule right now I'm gonna need it. I would prefer to keep in down to 1 page a day, but until this Superman arc is done I don't have that luxury.

Any questions?

Waxing the Nostalgia

Well, today was about the crappiest day in recent memory, but thanks to a great family we managed to make the best of it. Not a lot of bad stuff, just major bad stuff. Could be a lot worse-- we're all alive and healthy and I've still got Superman.

I was going through some old stuff yesterday and happened across my first pro work. Actually, I should qualify that- my first mainstream pro work. I did two stories for Antarctic Press before I got hired at WildStorm.

To give some back story...
I was hired by Jim Lee over the phone in February of 1996 after about two years of sending in samples via mail. I actually started at WildStorm on April first as an intern. Among this group of young hopefuls was Mike Ryan (working on New X-Men now I believe), Rob Stotz (who went into advertising, but has started a line of Christian themes comics), Luke Rizzo (an aspiring inker), and Saleem Crawford (what happened to Saleem?). Rebecca was also there as an assistant inker (we met at WildStorm). Shortly thereafter were added Ale Garza, Carlos D'Anda, and Caleb Salstrom (Cabin Boy). We were hired as interns for three months on a sort of trial basis. After the three months were over we either got hired or we washed out. Most of us (obviously) made it in some form or another.

What follows is the first work I did after making it through the internship program. It's from Stormwatch #39 pages 1 and 2 (I did up to page 11, but I don't think you need to suffer that much.)




...I know. it's stunning I have a career at all.

Jim was kind enough to go over these pages with me shortly after I completed them. He described them elegantly as "shit". He was most assuredly right. It still stung, though.

Warren, can you ever forgive me?

Anyway, we've moved on now.

To atone for the posting of those pages I now present you with a couple of panels from "upcoming projects". The second is a panel I wasn't too proud of, but Brad made it look great. Brad is my hero.




...yay.

I'll probably look back at these in another 10 years and call them shit, too.

Pete Smash

Thanks

Your results:
You are Hulk

Hulk 70% Green Lantern 65% Superman 60% Spider-Man 60% Iron Man 60% Batman 55% Supergirl 50% The Flash 50% Catwoman 50% Robin 37% Wonder Woman 30%

You are a wanderer with amazing strength.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Well, I guess the cat's out of the bag. Wizard magazine let slip my new gig. For those of you who haven't heard, I'll be working with the spectacular, inimitable, and quite handsome messrs. Kurt Busiek and Geoff Johns on the Post Crisis Superman books (yes that's books plural). Needless to say I'm quite giddy. I can't say much more than that at the moment- details will follow when possible!

Gone and Forgotten

Okay, so I've been gone a really long time. My apologies to everyone o Doodleland for abandoning that group. I honestly thought that I'd have time to mod it, and then I got a bunch of extra work and Rebecca's pregnancy has been a little rough. Things just got out of hand....

And mega-super apologies to Casey for not getting back in touch after you treated us to the comedy club. Rebecca and I had a great time, and we really enjoyed meeting your friends. You're all really cool and we'd like to get together again in a place where we can all really get to know each other.

For those of you who have been paying attention you'll have noticed I've been doing some Marvel work. It's been really fun and I've been able to work on a great concept called "Blackjack" with writer Dan Slott which will be appearing in Amazing Fantasy 15.

Go here to see some VERY BIG pages
Blackjack page 1
Blackjack page 3

All this extra work has lead to an absence of time. It's also led to some of the greatest news of my career. I can't say a thing about any of it yet, but I understand that an announcement will be made in the nearish future. Suffice it to say I'm really stoked.

On a final note- For those of you who haven't heard of Chris Brunner (and you are probably legion) rush out and buy a copy of The Ride: Foreign Parts. It'll most likely be in the back issue bins as it came out in January. IMHO he is one of the most talented guys in our business .