Back when I was still in uni, there was this campus paper called Golden Words. It was a humour paper for the engineers but everyone read it all the same. Well, in my second year I gathered up enough guts to go into their office and apply with a strip I had done inbetween painting and drinking. It was entitled BoyGenius Tom & Flygirl M and followed the simple story of a kid genius who would create wacked inventions to try and impress his childhood friend M. It was a bit different from their style of humour but was drawn well enough for them to run it. I think, in the end, I had done about 20 strips with most seeing print. I figure since they are just sitting around I should showcase them here. Stylistically, it was about the time I began work on Sidekicks so I'm still tirelessly inking and toning everything with zip-a-tone like an idiot. You can see how I've come to refine faces and, more importantly, my line. It's kinda nice knowing you've actually improved over time. lol I'm missing a few so there may be gaps in the story but, anyway, enjoy.

Oh, almost forgot. My buddy Bryce (yeah, man!!!) sent me this link he found about comics and manga. I think it serves to show the bridge being made between North American and Japanese creators. A good read: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20060528x1.html

TAK

With the appearance of Gwen Stacy in Spider-man Loves Mary Jane #5, I figure it's okay to post these development pics. This first version I did waaaay back during the inception of the original Mary Jane comic book 2 years ago. You can see the rest of the cast done at the same time in my WORK gallery but this one was kept under the radar due to spoiling the future plot.


To be quit honest I had very little background on the character and sorta winged this one. Mary Jane is portrayed as a sweet and light-hearted teen so, naturally, I pictured Gwen as more of a posher, sheiker MJ. As the series continued the design began to see signs of being outdated so I did the following version for the present SMLMJ.


A little more innocent and a little more casual. I think it fits the tone of where the story is going.

I think everyone is worrying about whether she dies or not but, as far as I know, she seems to be a character that will be kicking around for a while to come. Which brings me to thinking how fortunate we are not to be working within the confines of (dreaded) Marvel continuity. I never understood the need for said continuity anyway since no one truly dies in comics. And speaking of comics and dying, I saw X-men 3 a coupla days ago and was rather puzzled with the fact that a good chunk of the cast gets obliterated. Vaporized. Whatever. I'm not going into details but it made for a very unsatisfying movie seeing it as purely a movie. I hardly cared for the characters (most come and go even before you know their names) and the rest is filled with explosions and CG fluff, making it very abrasive and rather disjointed. The only constants were Wolverine and Storm, both having had plenty of screen time in the past 2 films already. Hell, they should just call the movie Wolverine, Storm and the freaky bunch.

Anyway, maybe it was their way of saying "we're not making any more X-men films". Seeing the direction it's going that's cool by me.

TAK

It's comin' along. I'm still unsure about what I wanna do with the bottom half. All black or a shadow of Dagger melting into Cloak. After I get some MJ pages done I'll finish this motha up 2nite.

TAK

TAK

A panel from the forthcoming BFX week. It's turning out pretty awesome. You'll enjoy it.

I scanned this using my new Canon scanner I bought on Friday. It's about a fifth of the size of my old clunker and comes with about ten times the options. I couldn't resist even though the old one was working fine. Oh, anyone know if it's possible to open up a scanner to clean the glass plate from the other side? I'm finding there was some dust that's stuck to the glass during manufacturing. It mocks me.

Finished partial inks on the Cloak & Dagger pic. I was fooling around with some colours on it and it looks pretty sweet. Can't wait to make it into a poster, man.


These are just test colours, btw. I intend to attack it with more gusto later on.

I watched Narnia and High Tension on Friday night with an old comrade, Daphne. Back to back after being awake for about 30 hours so it was a bit rough but I managed to find a second and third wind through beer and chips. Narnia was too overly kiddie for me. Being a Disney movie I half expected it to be pretty clean but not this sterile. The dialogue was bland and the story rather predictable. At least it looked nice. The minotaur was all kinds of awesome. High Tension was recommended to us by the video store guy as we attempted to rent the recent Rob Zombie flick. I forget what it's called. So, anyway, we took his advice and went with HT and watched it to clean our palettes of Narnia. First of all, I've always had this thing for french chicks and the protagonist is (surprise surprise) a hot french chick so kudos to that. Damn, I love that accent... Wooo! Gimme a moment here...




Anyway, ample amounts of blood is shed and a handheld chain/skillsaw is introduced illustrated here:


Freakin' mint or WHAT!?? Hot damn, I almost forgot about the bludgeoning with a stick wrapped in barbed wire. Bwahahahaha! I'm not a sadist. Honest.

The plot was alright. Everything happens over a 3-4 hour period which makes the movie feel somewhat rushed but the twist ending was kinda rad so it's worth a rental if you like thriller horrors.

Wow, lotsa pics in this post.

TAK

Here's somethin' I've been chipping away at for the past few days in between MJ pages. I'm not sure what to do with Cloak (the dude behind her) yet. I think I may drape him across from the left instead of centering him like that. Maybe add a breeze in there so that he flows to the left. I dunno. I'll figure somethin' out.



I'm thinking of colouring and printing them into posters once it's done. It would be good to have them for sale at cons since, at the moment, I have nothing but my smile and sketches to offer.

Oh, btw, this has nothing to do with Marvel even though I'm biting their characters. It's just work I'm doing for fun.

TAK

I've realized I have a problem concentrating lately and fear it's an early form of ADD. I think my 2 month break fucked me up a bit in the motivation aspect of working for yourself but it also caused me to pick up bad habits like leaving the TV on all the time and playing some online Command & Conquer whenever I found a dull moment. An online game can last anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours. It's a total drainer. Not good. Very so not good. Anyway, I spent a solid 5 hours drawing a cover last night to prove to myself that I CAN still work without screwin' around. The cover turned out pretty nice to boot. So, yeah, through self-diagnosis and self-remedy, I've caught and cured myself of ADD. Am I good or what?

TAK

Lazy Sunday. Think I'm gonna go watch a movie later or rent one at least.

I've had this annoying tendancy to listen to people breathe in lately. Next time you watch TV, focus on the voice and take a pause to hear the quick inhale. It's rather noticable when you catch it and it ends up being all you hear after that. I suppose this goes for more live TV like the news and reality TV cuz in others it's edited out but, trust me, it gets really REALLY annoying.

I'm starting to get rid of junk I've accumulated over the last 2 years. I have a ton of magazines I've kept hoping I'd use for reference in the future but never did. I should just chuck all those. No wait, recycle, I mean. I also have lots of DVD and CD cases I don't really need and they just sit around too. Chuck. I've commited to leaving at the end of this year so this is all efforts to make that as smooth as possible. For the stuff I wanna keep I will pack, mail and store somehow. I'm flying my dad out here next month to go fishing for his birthday so I figure I can pack a bunch of stuff for him to take back to Toronto. heh heh. sucker...

I realize BFX hasn't been updated in a while. I have the cover at least. Check it.



TAK

Taking a break as I reply to some e-mails. I'm in nocturnal mode again and I just finished having some lunch. At 2am!? I had a semi-productive half day so far, though. Got some groceries, unpacked my Chicago stuff and played some guitar. I bought 2 books yesterday and read bits of those as well. One was Becky Cloonan's East Coast Rising which I've been looking forward to for a while now and the other was Mark Rothko's The Artist's Reality. ECR has been great so far if not a bit light on story. I think that's been the general observation of Tokyopop books for me so far. The deconstruction of story makes the 200 or so pages kinda fly by and I'm left without much plot. Course, these are meant to be 3 issue works so I suppose I should just think of first issues as a first "act". Don't get me wrong, I'm still really impressed with the work and this isn't a complaint but, rather, just an observation. Anyway, I appreciated the amount of detail poured into the characters. Everything from their clothes, scars and tattoos were soaked with style. If these hipster pirates really existed, bars and clubs would look hella cooler I bet. I also appreciated the creative panel work on some of the spreads. I rarely do the spread thing so it was nice to see ships draped across 2 pages as it flies through the water. Really cool stuff. Rothko's book, I've only read the intro to where his son kinda talks about how the book came about. Will have a better review of it once I dive into it a bit more.

TAK

Got back last night from Calgary. Was only there for 2 days but I must say the con was pretty awesome. The organizers Kandrix and Laurie and all the staff really deserve a big pat on the back for putting a great show together. The only photo I got besides my sketches was the one above. Only in Calgary do you get the restroom couple in cowboy hats. If there were any doubters of a big con for Western Canada, they can put their worries to rest cuz I really believe they've started something special.

I got to meet a bunch of cool artists and guests. Shook hands with Chewbacca himself. Thanks to all those that came by and said "hi". I think the greatest thing about this past weekend was the amount of families and kids that came by diggin' Spider-man Loves Mary Jane. So, thanks.

Updated my con sketches gallery with all the work I did. The photo quality was poor so I did my best to bump up the contrast and clear up some of the line work. Enjoy.

TAK

So, I just spent a shitload of money paying off my taxes, VISA bill and rent. All at once! Luckily, I've been semi-smart about saving so it didn't hurt too too bad. I had to take a nap after it was all over though. Well, more, like, just fell asleep on the couch and woke up peeling the contacts out of my eyes. lol.

I updated the bio section with photos if you haven't noticed. I decided to be honest about how I work so things are a little astray. Thing is, I'm not dirty just messy. haha...

Still playing catch-up on a few things. Last week I barely got anything done and the weekend was spent slaving over tallying receipts and paystubs so that was pretty much a write-off. I need to really get a new week of BFX done. It's been too long.

I just finished this for a friend in Calgary.

He has a great site with a bank of unbelievable sketches from illustrators all themed under literary figures. You can check it out here. I've done a Big Brother piece for him in the past which you can find there. Dunno how literary a figure Nausicaa is but she's a classic in my books!

Calgary in 3 days!!

TAK

I updated the about section to the left. Just a simple bio and some other info. I plan on adding some photos of my studio once I clean up a bit. Don't wanna look like a slob for the public.

Weekend was spent coughing, sneezing and blowing my nose. I think the worst of it is gone now. I've never been a fan of pills or drugs but, damn, Contac really works.

I picked up some books today in Richmond. New issue of Afternoon and the 3rd volume of Pluto. I've been following Pluto through raw scans which spoiled it a bit but there was an interesting article about Urasawa at the very back of the book describing "Urasawa-realism". How he used each of his books to improve his storytelling and technique and to further solidify his style. It was most interesting reading about how he refuses to add sweat drops in order to stress the real. Something I never really noticed. Something I really admire about the man is his minimal approach to drawing and letting the story, characters and situations drive the plot. In Pluto, the setting is a futuristic earth where flying ships and tubed roadways exist, yet, none are ever over-designed. I suppose he is working off of Tezuka's foundations for a futuristic city where simple, broad lines are utilized but thinking back to works like Monster or Yawara, much of his settings and backgrounds remind me of pedestrian photography. Clean shots, showing exactly what you need to see and nothing more. Makes me reflect on what really is important in a story.

TAK