Artist to Watch – Grant Gould

Grant Gould
Website
Deviant Art

Grant is a great guy, and an amazing artist on top of that. I have more original Grant Gould pieces in my art collection then any other artist. I have had the chance to talk to him at a number of different conventions and he is always one of the most polite and down to earth artist at the cons. I have been collecting his yearly sketch books from the very first time I meet him and waiting very patiently for him to put a comic out. This past year that wait finally came to an end. Grant finally had a book coming out!

This past year SUPER REAL GRAPHICS published Grant’s first book. The Wolves of Odin summed up as brief as can be is Vikings Vs. Werewolves. While the art in the book was everything that I had hoped it would be coming from Grant, I was a little let down. It ended way to soon. I was hoping so much for it to go on much longer then it did. Hopefully this is just the start and we will see more stories from Grant.

I think that Grant is best known for his work with the trading card companies doing sketch cards for the various sets. He has done sketch cards in way to many sets for me to even try to start listing here. He has also contributed the art for a base card in the Star Wars Galaxys volume 4 set as well as one of the Lord of the Rings card sets.

Of all the art that I have collected of Grant’s, I think by far my favorite is a Rocket Raccoon drawing that I bought off of him at last years FALLCON. I loved Rocket when he first showed up in Marvel Comics way back when and he is what got me to read the Annihilation miniseries from Marvel Comics which led me into the relaunch of the Guardians of the Galaxy. The Rocket drawing is not only one of my favorite pieces, but one of my top two favorites in my whole collection.

And now just to make you jealous… My Rocket Racoon picture of Grant’s

Artist to Watch – Douglas Frey

DOUGLAS FREY
DEVIANT ART
BLOG
Douglas Frey goes by the screen name of Darkwaterfrey over on the Deviant Art page and produces some of the most amazingly detailed pieces. If I remember correctly I first stumbled upon Doug’s work while surfing through other people’s friends pages over on Livejournal, where for a long time I maintained a blog and followed others.

I think what probably got my interest the most was his series of Katmandi pictures. I am a HUGE Jack Kirby fan and his comic Kamandi is to this day one of my all time favorite works by him. When I saw Doug doing these pictures with a new take on the character I just had to keep watching in the hope of seeing more. Doug has since gone on to complete a whole story based on Katmandi which he then did a small print run of (Which reminds me, I never got around to ordering a copy of that… Have to get on that!)

The way in which Doug does his coloring is wonderful. In a world over run with digital coloring it is nice to see someone still creating in a good old fashion real medium! Water color is something that I have been playing around with as of late, so I know how hard it is to use. Doug makes it look perfect. He creates a level of excellance in these pages that I dream of reaching!

Artist to Watch – Amy Mebberson

AMY MEBBERSON
Blog
Deviant Art Page

Another fine artist that I probably would have never been exposed to if not for her page on Deviant Art. Amy is a former Disney artist who is now working producing Pixar and Muppets comics for Boom Studios.

Like Katie Cook’s art Amy’s art has that playful fun feel to it that I think is missing in so much of the art these days.

In her picture Nightcrawler once again has that feel of a playful elf and not a troubled demon that all the stories seem to want to portray him as these days.

Since I have been picking up the Boom Disney/Pixar/Muppets books I am sure the little red and I are going to be getting to enjoy her art a lot more in the coming months!

The piece of hers that is my favorite right now has to be this quickie pic of Uhura (click image to be taken to a larger version.) It has that old Childrens book painting feel to it that I am so into right now! I am really hoping to see some more posts from her in this style in the future…

UPDATE : Since I started writing this I have found out via previews that she will be handling the art on Muppets : Peter Pan and Monsters Inc.
I am really excited about the Monsters Inc. book, Monsters Inc. and the Incredibles are my two favorite Pixar films!

Artist to Watch

Well, I dont really have an artist write up to post today, but there are a lot of cool artist to really watch on Ustream lately.

Les McClaine
Otis Frampton
J. Scott Campbell
Dani Jones

Otis and Dani keep pretty regular schedules but the other two are more up in the air as to when they broadcast. They are all worth the time to watch, it is always impressive to see other artist at work!

Jim Lee Draws Gambit…

I really dont have anything to say TV wise right now that I can think of… So I will just post this, itis a really cool video of Jim Lee kicking out a 8 minute drawing of Gambit. He had done a contest for his followers on Twitter and this is what the winner got!

Microcon 2009

Another Microcon has come and gone.

I have to tell you, It was the best convention I have done money wise. That is not really why I get tables at con’s though. I do it because it gives me a chance to be a geek with fellow geeks, something that I dont get to do enough being a stay at home dad out in nowhere…

It is a big ego bump though. Knowing that people will pay for your art.

So a couple friends snapped pictures of me at the table with my buddy Bill…

Which did a really good job of reminding me that I really need to be hitting the gym much more often then I have been.

One of the things I like the most about Cons is being able to see all the other artist and writers that I am a fan of…

Michael May would be one of those. Michael is great writer and one heck of a nice guy. I have been following his personal blog as well as his RobotSix blog on the CBR page. Michael posts some real cool things in his blogs, and I find that his intrest run pretty dang close to mine. I loaned him some Usagi Yojimbo books in hopes of Dragging him into the world of the Ronan Bunny.

Jessica Hickman is another one of those people. I love Jessica’s art. She draws some real pretty pictures. The coolest thing about Jessica this weekend though was that she got inducted to the 501st Legion.

UPDATE : I guess since I let this go so long with out finishing it, I might as well just post what I have. Mind is pretty cloudy on what I wanted to write about and it is best to just start fresh with Monday and go from there.

Yup you heard that right. Starting things back up full force come monday. The majority of my school is done, just a little more on a final project and the Final test (and if you know me, you know I never bother to study for tests.) so things are going to be back to a normal level of stress here.

Doctor Who????

Semester is almost over. New stuff coming very soon.

Until then all I can say is that this is freaking brilliant.

Doctor Who???

Vote for Ryan PLEASE!!!!

If you havent already you should go check out my E-Friend Ryan’s comic and vote for it on Zuda! http://ping.fm/04iGP

He would really appreciate it and so would I!!!

Artist to Watch – Patrick Schoenmaker

Website
Blog

A lot of the artist I follow I first found from their work on doing sketch cards for various trading card sets.

Patrick Schoenmaker is one of those artist. I am not really sure if I can explain what it is about his work that I like. There is just something about it that appeals to me. So seriously take a couple minutes and just go out there and check out what he does!

Reasons I dont do a ustream broadcast of me drawing like all the cool artist are:

I have been watching some cool artist stream a video feed as they work as of late….
otis frampton
Dani Jones

1. Although I am getting better, I dont think I am that good yet.

2. I would be constintly inturupted by littleduck.

3. I have a tendency to draw with my nose just inches from the paper so the camera wouldnt see much.