New Batgirl, Abe, Skeletor, New Thor

We are now entering the final week of prep for my show at Seven Crowns Tattoo on Sat. Feb. 7th at 8pm. I have 41 (pretty sure) drawings about 21 paintings and three prints. Here are some more of the drawings. Gotta share my love for the new Batgirl costume, young, functional and current -this works for me, I chose to give her more of a young round face as opposed to the standard Almond shaped face that we see too often in comics.

Abe Sapien - wanted to mess around with the framing on this I think it worked out well, although the foreshortening on that front leg is a little wonky.

MYAH! It's Skeletor everyone loves Skeletor it's a great design and then, well go find a YouTube clip of him speaking his voice just puts it over the top.

I love the New Thor, Jason Aaron is a stand out writer, one of my favourites and through this book was introduced to the art of Russell Dauterman, his pencils are awesome go check out this comic.

cheers,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

MODOK, Beast, Black Widow and The Joker

Here are a few more pieces that I'm still tweaking for the show at Seven Crown's Tattoo on Feb. 7th. First up MODOK, there is much love on the Internet for MODOK, I have yet to read the new Secret Avengers series where he's in his new armour it looks great but this is the MODOK we know and love, so I decided to let him head out for a day at the Ballpark.

If pressed I would have to say that Hank McCoy is probably my favourite character in the MU, he's also been evolved into different forms over the past few  years by numerous artists and he currently looks like an ape but this version of Beast will always be my favourite. From the old days of arriving at Xavier's mansion as a more normal looking fella to this iteration that palled around with Wonder Man the Beast is the King.

This drawing of Natasha still needs some work, I want the background to have more going on and I know where it's going, it's just going be a lot of finicky little lines.

Last up we have the original rocker The Joker, everyone loves the Joker he has to be the best villain the DCU and I wanted to do a real dastardly punk version of him, I figure Joker showing you his crotch was the best way to go.

More drawings to come and I'm still waiting for Battle Rally to arrive from China, that will be THREE comics available at the Seven Crowns Party.

cheers, stay safe Eastern Seaboard!

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com



Seven Crowns Drawings

Here are just a few of the drawings that I'm working on for my show at Seven Crowns Tattoo on Feb. 7th. I don't consider any of the above pics finished, some may be coloured in watercolour, some in pen, some in graywash, some digitally, some will be turned into prints etc. Right now I'm just drawing as much "base" work as I can and then will then later on finish each piece one by one. I want to have about fifty finished drawings to choose from (plus there will be comic inspired paintings) when we hang the show on the 7th.

Keep coming back to check in on the progress, cheers!

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

Half Bad Ass/ Half Ridiculous

All villains must look half like a total  bad ass and half kinda stupid, that seems to be the rule- I mean look at Doc Oc or the Vulture or most of the villains in the DCU. I kept that in mind when concocting this bird of prey inspired armour.

This guy is from the THIRD book that I am finishing this month and sending to the printers so right now I will have three books available at TCAF (if I get accepted to TCAF of course) I figured it would be good to have more than one book available if I got a table and I think it will be very interesting to see which of the three titles is the most popular.

The Homeless G-Men proof is now going to print!

These are exciting times we live in, also be sure to head to the Cameron House (Toronto) to check out my show of paintings it will be up until the end of November. Check the Mad Craft Shoppe blog to have a look at some fine abstracts.

cheers, it is cold outside just ask my dog

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 



Cover Sketch Process, Homeless G-Men #1

Here's a quick breakdown of the cover sketch. It's a very simple picture but still needed to be perfect, I've been struggling with the covers of two of the four books but I had to move on. I figured an images of the main G-Man and hero of the book would suffice for the first issue.

Top page is the first sketch, was pretty happy with it so moved onto cover weight paper and traced it on the light box and then (final photo) laid in the inks.

After this the drawing was scanned and then coloured and some of the blacks were touched up in Manga Studio 5 and then the lettering was added.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

The Homeless G-Men and cleaned up

I had to leave before I was able to reorganize the walls at the Press Club, so they looked pretty sloppy for a week or so (see last post) but Jimmy Byron saved the day as he always does and tidied them up for me. The show is up for eleven more days so head on by for a pint and some live music, they've also bought new tables for their excellent back patio it's a great place to get off the main drag and chill out for awhile.

850 Dundas West is where it's at.

It's been a slow week here so far haven't accomplished mush besides a lot of gardening and cleaning around the house, I've been sketching and plotting but haven't produced the amount of work that I thought I would this week, here's hoping we turn a corner tomorrow

I did come up with a great concept for one of the crime families in Gull City that the Homeless G's go up against, just fleshing out their look right now.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com



Character Drawings Locking Concepts

Trying to draw for at least six hours a day, the only way to improve is full immersion, eat, sleep, breathe comics and story. I am solid on Swinnerton Hale's design, he's the heart of the series. I wish he looked a little more world weary in the drawing and a little less like Gary Sinise but that's fine for now.

The second sketch is our "Black Widow" type "Blackstrap" currently she's just missing one item, something to make her a little different from all of the other kick ass spy types out there, it will come to me.

Hope everyone had a great FCBD

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

We're Gonna Have a Good Time

Here's one of the first promo pieces for The Homeless G-Men, I'm doing them to lock in main character designs, this is Swinnerton Hale. I grabbed the name Swinnerton from my friend Jay Swinnerton who is the force behind the band Tarantuela. It's such a great name and I think it fits the character perfectly.

I'm using "We're Gonna Have A Good Time" as the catchphrase/slogan for the series I want readers to instantly know that they are in for a fun run with this book.

The only drag with designing these is trying to make the figures fit in a way that reveals what is written behind them, there are nine Homeless G-Men that we meet in the first book so I have eight more chances to get it right.

I also screwed up that left leg so badly that I may have to redo this whole thing, which is fine, I have lots of time.

I have been working like mad on pages, I was going to post a lot of work in progress shots but I have too many photos on the go to keep track of them all so I'll just be posting work like this and successful or unsuccessful panels.

Don't forget Free Comic Book Day is Saturday so be sure to head out buy some comics and get some free ones - comics are fun - we're gonna have a good time

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

Lion Robot, Mal and The Horror

Top to Bottom, The Horror From the Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba

Lion Robot from Kill All Monsters by Michael May and Jason Copland

Mal from Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson and Grace Ellis

Every morning I'm doing at least one warm up before getting to the Homeless G-Men pages that I'm working on, so here are three characters from three great series that I hope you check out, I only bought the first issue of the Umbrella Academy and then something must have happened to me because I didn't get the rest when the series was published in 2007, it's a fun, edgy read and Gabriel Ba is one of the best artists out there, I have even chosen a little police car that he drew for one of my next tattoos.

The Lion Robot is from Kill All Monsters are great trade that I picked up last week (see post below) and Mal is character from a new comic that I think is a lot of fun called "Lumberjanes" which I think has huge all ages appeal.

Alright time to walk the dog and then get back to "Champin" and the other stories

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

don't forget my show is still up at the Press Club until the end of the month (850 Dundas West) proceeds from sales of drawings go to the printing costs of Homeless G-Men

 

One of the Pages and Character Intro

This is what I assume is about the third page of one of the "Homeless G-Men" stories, I'm old so I like when comics have the cast featured in the sidebars. I think I'll keep that device for every story in the first HG book. I didn't really plan who was going to be in the story I just knew that I should start with something fun so I chose Axe-Celsior, because the name cracks me up.

The Boy Scout is in some of the first pages that I drew (see older entries) and he has a cool back story as does Blackstrap, so I wanted to have both of them around, the rest were pulled from the HG sketches that I did for the Press Club show. The final character is Flopsy Bunny who is a dog in a bunny suit - more on that later.

I think the page turned out pretty well, still a learning curve for getting my lines correct and firmed up, I'm just improvising pages right now this one begins with an arm wrestling match between Axe and Turduchen but I think will spin off into a zombie story.

Why would it do that?

Because yesterday I received the third collection in the FUBAR series of zombie books, which is a whole bunch of five page zombie stories collected in a volume it's a cool looking book.

Here's a link to their site http://fubarpress.com/news/

Alright back to the boards

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 



Homeless G-Men Grid

Here's a quick view of some of the drawings that I'll be hanging tomorrow at the Press Club

850 Dundas West. Each is an original drawing (not a print) and comes framed for $25.00

so I hope to see you on Thursday April 3rd, from 7-9pm.

Today is a day of rest, I am resting in the sun and air

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

Designing the Main Homeless G-Man

This is the first roughing for our main character (name TBA) he's in his early forties, in good shape and isn't an alcoholic or chain smoker like most folks in Gull City. The big problem with doing something in the pulp/noir genre is that everyone will either be in suits or undershirts and its important to find a way to make each unique and stand out. I didn't want to give him a facial deformity or anything extreme so I think the striped black tie and belt suspenders will help distinguish him from the rest. I will also be designing his trench coat which will be unique and his "Angry Monk" which is the signature gune of the Homeless G-Men.

Alright back to the drawing and the reading.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

SquirleyCorn and Homeless G-Men

Here's the other Squirleycorn (how do I spell that again?) drawings that I did a few weeks ago, the lettering is terrible, that's fine that's what Manga Studio is for my lettering has always been terrible and my carpal tunnel always gets in the way when I'm lettering because my hand gets tense.

Anyways, if you haven't seen the hero of our series here he is, I do predict that comics with animals as the lead characters are going to be all the rage this year, I picked up an issue of "Beasts Of Burden" by Evan Dworkin and Jill Thompson, it was a one off so I really didn't get a sense of the story but the collected TPB is supposed to be excellent, Mark Waid of Millar or one of those guys is also doing a series called, "Red Rover Charlie" or something which is all about talking dogs and I may pick up an issue or two to see how it is.

I'm currently reading "B.P.R.D Hell On Earth" which features the kick ass style of James Harren and also I'm a huge fan of the new series "Manifest Destiny" which is drawn by Matthew Roberts. I think my style for "Homeless G-Men " will fall somewhere between these two guys.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com



Squirlycorn, the comic

It all began about a week ago some friends and I were talking on fb, a friend said that she had something galloping around in her ceiling, I joked that perhaps she had infestation of Shetland ponies after a few more folks chimed in that maybe the culprit was a unicorn. By the end of the conversation it was deduced that it was probably a squirrel but by then I had already drawn the first image. A squirrel dressed as a unicorn, my friend asked to buy the drawing but I decided to keep it, something about the picture just made sense to me.

I started to think that maybe this cute squirrel needed a comic book created for him, I decided to head to Guerilla Printing and figure out how much it would cost to self publish a comic. It turns out the price wasn't as prohibitive as I thought it would be so on the way home on the TTC I started to write the origin story of a hero that I would call, "Squirlycon".

It's been a couple of days and I can't figure out anything else to call this guy except Squirlycorn, my wife kept asking, "Are you sure you can't come up with a better name?" and try as I might I can't so here for the world to see is my creation, Squirlycorn.

To follow the story of his creation you'll have to head over to the Smudges and Lines blog, see links right side of page.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

The Local Dive - Drawing and Inking

I'm pretty happy with this page so I decided to quit when I got to a point where I wasn't sure what to do next. I took some of the characters I featured on the other pages and put them at a dive bar.

I've been reading "the Ten Rules for Drawing Comics" http://www.10rulesfordrawingcomics.com/search/label/Mike%20Allred and getting lots of great advice and food for thought, the post by Mike Allred stood out as one to remember.

My style seems to be announcing itself the more I draw, it isn't quite pretty yet, but I'm getting there.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

Fight Club for Blondes, Page inking

First Pass) Rough pencils for fight scene, not bad, I need to concentrate more on getting these figures tighter at this stage, may switch to a rough sketch in blue pencil then refine in fine lead.

Second Pass)Lining the fight, problems with feet and hands - need to work on that, got ahead of myself again, I can draw the anatomy, I just rushed ahead.

Third Pass) Decided to skip the background colour - couldn't decide what to do and after the sky on the last past, it's best to just avoid it. The shadows are okay, needs a better sense of drama and contrast, need to look at some other pages - there was a great fight in an issue of Global Frequency that I'll go back and check out for future reference.

Summary - Not bad still at about 60% satisfied with what I'm doing, still have to slow down and work more intelligently.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

 

 

Final Three Panels on Page #?

For the last three panels on this page I wanted to do some facial expressions, the Robot with no eyes is responding to something that JFK said, RWNE thinks he has the upper hand and then realizes that he's been duped.

It's not bad - I would say I'm at about 66% satisfied with what's on this page. My big problem/fear that I have to over come right now is using a mechanical pencil - I hate them and I've hated them all of my life. Why? Because I have a heavy hand I push much too hard on the page and have to teach myself to lighten up on the pressure. This is going to take some time.

Not sure if I'll get to another page today I have a commission for an alphabet letter that I need to get started and some other crap jobs around the house.

But the next page I work on is going to have some action in it and a few more characters.

cheers,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

JFK and The Robot With No Eyes

The next two panels are a medium shot of each character, the first cat in the suit reminds me of JFK, the second character I decided would have no eyes - only because of how the figure looks in the first panel.

I'm using Staedtler pigment liners for the black work, 0.5, 0.7, 0.8 and a skinny 005 Prismacolour Premier for the finer lines. The colours are a mix of everything from Copics to Crayolas.

The content of the story isn't important to me, this could be the first page or the tenth page of the story, it doesn't matter, it's just about fitting figures into panels and having them interact.

I will post character sketches and other sketches at this blog but my primary goal is to have things happening inside comic panels, trying different angles and styles until I develop a way of working that I enjoy.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com