The Power of Music

Happy Tuesday everybody. Today's doodle was inspired by U2. I started my morning off by listening to their new album, "No Line On The Horizon." After only one listen, I am really happy with what I am hearing. Some truly wonderful stuff. Highly recommended.

On a slightly humorous yet appreciative note... my previous Lunar Launch Ramp post was picked up by Gadgets.BongBoing.net! (CLICK HERE TO SEE POST) It seems to have inspired some spirited discussion regarding it's ability to actually launch things into space. If I had known it would have attracted over 2000 people to the drawing, I may have spent more time thinking it out! I plan on taking every one of the science based comments on their site to heart before I put the fearless crew of "The Skybreakers" into orbit. :)

Lunar Recon Group

And a happy Monday to you all. This morning I scribbled out an idea for a "space suit" style. Baggy. Antiquated. Rather clunky. Right up my alley!

And This Is How We Will Do It

Rusty Rocket

Adventure Will Not Die

Today I wanted to share a rough "storyboard" from my story "The Skybreakers." I have been writing and re-writing... and as I go along panels like these emerge. They are not final in any way, but with me being such a visual boy, I like to see things as I go. In fact, I am almost to the point in the process where I start laying out all of the pages in rough form. (My favorite part.)

This Baby Has Seen Some Action

Hey! It has been a while! Thanks to a nasty flu bug, I have been knocked out for a few days. Being sick is no fun at all let me tell you. Blech. I still have the sniffles, but I think I am slowly winning the health war.

This is a colored version of "The Sky Breakers" logo that I had shown you before. I tried to do this in a style similar to what might have actually been painted on the side of a plane. I will eventually do a fully painted version for other uses, but my biggest goal for the main logo was to go simple and "hand painted." As I was reading about WW2 nose art, I discovered that the logos were usually either painted by the pilot himself or a member of the group who had been singled out as the "Artist" of the group.

The story is progressing well and I hope to start thumbnailing pages soon. I will also be fleshing out the main characters quite a bit, and hope to share some of that with you.

Thanks for looking!

Aliens Are So Boss

Still in the writing/concepting stage for the book. There is a lot of busy work going on behind the scenes, and that is great. The story is inching towards completion, and at that time I will kick into bigger more fleshed out concepts. Exciting stuff... for me anyway!

The Mission Begins

Sky Breakers Logo

Making a bit of progress on the first logo. Still working rough. I needed something that looked like WW2 bomber nose art, and could possibly be used for that purpose in the story. I will probably do at least two styles of color on this, as well as a more "designy" version that would be better at small sizes.

Thanks to everyone who has posted here on the blog or sent me an email regarding this new story project. Your encouragement goes a long way! I greatly appreciate it.

The Sky Breakers

Good morning all. Today I am revealing the name of the project I am tackling this year! "The Sky Breakers" will be the first book in what I hope will be a two book series. Done as a graphic novel, my goal for this project is to create a fun adventure story in a style that I would have loved as a kid. There will be action, adventure, airplanes, rockets, jaw crackin, and yes even robots. But more important than all of those things... I will finish this story! Yes, my resolution this year is to put my nose to the old grind stone and see this thing through.

My blogging will change just a bit due to this project. I will of course be posting a lot of work from the book, but not everything. I will not be posting every day, but my goal is to share something at least three times a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I think things will work out better for everyone though, since hopefully the work I do post will be a bit more polished.

I am excited, and nervous. This will be a long road since I will be doing all of this in my "off time", but I plan to see this one through.

Goals for the year?

1. Be a good father and husband.
2. Put forth my very best effort at the day job.
3. Apply blood, sweat, and tears to my first graphic novel project.
4. Take care of myself. (And all that that implies.)

I look forward to what the year brings. I thank you for listening.