Battle Rally Proof Photos

Hey everyone, hope you have been having a wonderful and happy holiday season, I received some more great photos of my third comic BATTLE RALLY! from the good people at Print Ninja looks great so far and a sample copy is on the way for me to hold in my hands.

For the next month I'll be drawing a series of comic characters and film characters for a show at 7 Crown's Tattoo (Toronto) and launching all three books there, mark it in your calendars good people, the show is called SWEET ACTION! and it's going to be hoot.

have a happy New Year's Eve.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com 

Project Bouncing, Book Two News

So I started working on the first two pages of the second issue of Battle Rally for two days (see top) and then switched over to work on the second issue of Crypto Zombic. I have five pages almost finished now and should be able to pencil two more before I take a break for Christmas.

It does seem a bit crazy to be working on all three (yes I have pages for the Homeless G-Men issue #2 as well) but I'd like to have at least one of them sent to the printers by the end of February.

Most of January is going to be spent finishing and creating drawings for my show at Seven Crowns Tattoo in February and then move back to the comics.

I would like at least two more issues available for purchase at the start of April just so folks who bought the first issues and are hyped about the stories don't have to wait too long for the next installments. Most comics are made well in advance of publication, that the team have at least two or three finished before the first issue is released but it's not like that with independent self published books.

I'll let you know when the story I drew for Amazing Forest is available on comixilogy.

send me any questions or let me know if you'd like a review copy of one of the comics when they are available in January.

cheers,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

Second Issues, Digital Hybrids

 

After a few days of puttering around getting the house ready for Christmas and having some friends over to watch Kung Fu movies I started the second issue of Battle Rally. With this issue I have combined  using models of vehicles the I've built and importing photos of them to trace in Manga Studio 5 and actual manual drawing of characters/scenes. Battle Rally is very different from the other two books since it is so heavy with vehicles and instead of driving (get it "driving") myself crazy getting the lines right by free handing and using rulers I'll just be photographing the cars, trucks, planes etc. and developing them digitally.

I haven't decided if I'll work on this issue exclusively or work on Homeless G-Men and Crypto Zombic all at once, I'm just going to let the story ideas come and see where they take me.

For the month of January I'll be posting mainly drawings here,  I have a show of my comic themed work coming up in February at Seven Crowns Tattoo shop and will be focusing on drawing pin ups of some of my favourite comic and movie characters.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

 

Physical Sample Copies, Smiles, Tears of Joy

As I was heading out to walk the dog yesterday I found this envelope in the mailbox, our dog, Double is excitable and a bit manic and going for a walk gets him jacked up and crazy so there was no way that I'd be able to open the envelope until I got back from our walk.

I spent most of the walk completely distracted, worried that I made a mistake in my proofing and that there would be pages that repeated and I would have 1000 comics that I couldn't sell.

At around 5:30 pm I opened the envelope and looked at the covers of my first comics but I couldn't open them and read them yet, I wanted to surprise my wife who had been in a business meeting for about 12 hours straight  and decorate the house for Christmas, wrap some gifts for my nephews and clean up a bunch of piles of stuff on the dining room table which I have to clear off since we're having six or seven people over to watch Kung Fu movies and eat cheese and meat , it's a Kung-Futerie.

I finally sat down around 7pm last night with a glass of wine and went over the comics word balloon by word balloon, image by image.

They look great.

I really enjoyed the flow of the stories, the humour that was there, the homages to movies and comics that I'd added here and there, sure there were a couple of typos and a few clunky balloons but it doesn't matter these were my first books. They have the feel of comics from the 70's-80's the paper is a matte, the covers aren't gloss, they look and feel like the comics you'd roll up and put in your back pocket and that's exactly what I wanted. A sense of nostalgia, some casual fun, I think you're really going to enjoy the introduction to this comic universe I've created.

 I'm taking a day or two off this week to just let it soak in, and after all this work, and even not getting into TCAF doesn't bother me, I'm holding my comics, it feels great. 

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Good News and Bad News

The Good News is that I finished my very first professional comics job, I was contacted by Eric Freitas who has a comic available on comixology (via monkeybrain comics) called Amazing Forest, his partner in crime in this venture is Ulises Farinas a very talented artist whose work is reminiscent of Geof Darrow. I have one of their books called, "Gamma" and it was a fun one-shot issue so when I received an email asking me to do this story and saw the name Freitas I knew exactly who was getting in touch with me. I received the script over a month ago but wasn't able to get to it until the first of December due to other work obligations.

I knew it was going to be a tight deadline to this drawn, inked, coloured and lettered before Christmas, because what good is a Christmas story submitted after the 25th, so I said I'd have it done by the 14th. My schedule was pretty empty so I was able to dedicate full days to getting the work finished and I turned in the story on Monday.

The feedback is received was "OMG this is unbelievable!" so I feel pretty good about that.

 

The Bad News, I was not accepted for TCAF 2015, this does not surprise me, at the time of applying for the festival I was still finishing the comics to send to the printers, so on end of the TCAF my application would look almost incomplete - what if the books weren't finished? what if they don't arrive on time. I'm sure my application was risky and with over 700 applicants I know there were folks who applied who were more ready than I would appear. This is fine there are many cons to sell my books at and coming in February at Seven Crowns tattoo you'll be able to buy them (they will also be available online and in some Toronto shops).

So there you have it, the good and the bad but one way to look at what has happened is this, nine months ago I started drawing a comic book, now I am a professional, that's a pretty good timeline.

 

I am now creating the drawings for my show at Seven Crowns so expect to see a lot of posts over the next month and a half.

cheers,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

Pictures of the Physical Copies

Thanks so much Print Ninja for sending these photos of physical copies of both the Homeless G-Men and Crypto Zombic along with some interior shots of Crypto. The books look great and I can't wait to get my hands on them so I can get them into your hands. The proof for Battle Rally has been approved so in 2015 you will be able to purchase three different comics from me. This has been one heck of an adventure and I'd like to thank the people at Print Ninja for their help with getting the books together.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

The Battle Rally is off to the Printers!

The third comic is off to the printers for proofing, I thought I'd do a break down the work that I've done since April for a quick timeline.

 I began drawing some rough comic pages in January of 2014, I have been reading comics since the age of six, I am a life long fan of the medium. Growing up with the drawings of great artists like John Byrne, Michael Golden and George Perez really formed and helped my drawing skills as a kid, my vocabulary and spelling were leaps ahead of many kids in my class. Although I took many breaks from buying comics over the years either because of lack of money or my interests were elsewhere if I visited a friend's apartment who was still collecting I'd always borrow theirs to see what the X-Men or whoever were up to.

If I hadn't set my mind on going to art school when I was sixteen I would have worked on my portfolio and tried to break into comics.

Now that printing is easier to access and programs like Manga Studio 5 have made the process easier to get through I decided that it was time to make my own, in April I began drawing the first issue of the Homeless G-Men, I knew there were two episodic stories I wanted to tell so I grabbed a bunch of 11x17 boards, bought a ton of graphic novels to get current with the new bunch of creators and illustrators  and went to work.

As I was working on the book I decided to do another - and then another. I get bored very easily and working on three books at the same time was a great way to keep things moving. I wrote barely any script notes, I made up the comics as I went along letting my thoughts guide the story and writing dialogue notes at the same time so I could plug it in when it was time.

 There were many checklists made, many story notes written on legal pads and a deadline coming - I had to get everything ready to digitally colour and letter by August 1rst. I finished drawing three 32 page comics by my deadline, I also started drawing 13 pages of a mini-series that is going to feature all three teams in the comics coming together and the two of the stories for the second issue of the Homeless G-Men.

I have spent the past three months keeping crazy hours (8am- 3:30 am)  and teaching myself to learn Manga 5, at the same time I finished 14 paintings for my annual Cameron House show and committed to a show of my drawings for Seven Crowns Tattoo in February, we also got the great news in June that my wife is pregnant and due in February, it has been a very busy seven months.

Now that the third comic has been sent to the printers for proofing (thanks print ninja) I can take two minutes to pause and pat myself on the back and also get to work on my first professional comics job that I was offered about a month ago. I will be drawing a Christmas 7 pager for Eric Freitas and Ulises Farinas comic "Amazing Forest" on Monkeybrain comics. 

So there you have it, amateur fan to professional comic artist in nine months.

 

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com