Jeremy A. Bastian's Blog, page 3

What I had left from Baltimore

So this is a new one, I actually have finished all the sketches I had left over from Baltimore.  Thank you very much to everyone who stopped by the table or contacted me via email to commission these. 




Ironically I did all these while listening to the audio book of It.  That's such a cool creepy book.  I really have got to get an audible account.  So the next show I'll be at is the Detroit Fanfare show at Cobo Hall in just a couple of weeks.  I'll open up the list for con sketches the week preceding the con, again there will be 8 available slots.  I'll only take 4 before the show and the other half during.  If you're interested they will be $100 for something like you see here.  You can email me at talpasouk@hotmail.com.  

More sketches... overdue

Here's the rest of the con sketches I owe to people.  I hope this is the rest of them.  I will be opening another 6 spots for the Baltimore show.

post Comicon post... heh

Ok, last week was the San Diego Comicon.  As I'm sure a lot of you already know.  Highlights of the show for me [since I was stuck behind a table for the whole time] were-
   I got to shake hands and meet with Aaron Horkey [!!!!!] I think this guy is a genius and here's some proof.
   I attended the Eisners and saw a lot of people I sorta know win awards for being extremely talented, and one guy I really know win an award for being extremely talented and for what turned out to be a great idea.  Congratulations Mr. David Petersen and all those who participated in his Mouse Guard anthology book Legends of the Guard.  Which I had a lil story in myself I might add.
   I met Andy Serkis, whom I highly admire, and got to shake his hand as well.  I thought I did a pretty good job of not totally geeking out all over him.  I am happy his kids seemed like they really liked Pook [that's a character from my book and it is not misspelled, it ends with a "k"]. 
   Ooh I also saw Ron Perlman walk by as we were getting Pink Berry one night.
   Emily and I picked up a couple of great books [not so much comic related], I found a copy of The Twelve Dancing Princesses illustrated by K.Y.Craft and Emily found a great !! copy of Anderson's Fairy Tales illustrated by Harry Clarke.  Which I did not know existed.
    And just having a great time after the show every night with friends and going to great restaurants and eating great food.


 I had a great spot this year and met a lot of new fans, current fans, and surprised a bunch of people who had never heard of me before.  Here are a few con sketches I did over the week we were there.  Spoiler alert! to those I owe these to.

Queen of Hearts and Alice
forest demon


Victorian Emily
Kraken  Knight of the Omertas
CPG coat of arms
  
  
CPG fishing

 Over all SDCC was great!  Thank you so much Katie and Ryan for making the show even better and a lot closer.  I love doing that show and I'm always looking forward to it throughout the year.  It does take a lot out of you, I'm in day 3 of recovery.  Our plane left San Diego around 10:30 mon. night and we didn't get home until 11:00pm tues.  Still trying to work through all the con sketches that I owe people from previous shows. 

Now I have the Baltimore Comicon just up ahead Aug. 20th and 21st!  It looks to be a really great show and a much lighter con.  Baltimore is boasting such great guests as Stan Lee, Bernie Wrightson, Adam Hughes, Geoff Darrow and so many more.  Check out their site here.  I really look forward to this show every year too, it's in a really nice spot and has lots to offer.  Hope to see you there!

tentacles and skulls... spoiler alert for people who I owe stuff to.

A little catch up first.  The 25th of last month [June] was my birthday!  I spent it in Traverse City as a guest of the Cherry Capital Con.  I really like that show, it's a small show in comparison with Heroes but the folks that put it on and the volunteers take care of you.  The city itself has lots of neat features as well. Good restaurants, you got a couple of vineyards like Black Star Farms, it's right on the water, there's the casino [which I'm told was very good to a couple of the comic guests], and one of the best mom and pop style used/new book stores I've ever been to- Horizon Books [which Emily and I were very good to].  If you live somewhat near by I suggest you think about planning on attending next year, I know I will be.

Heroes Con went by as well and I had an amazing time in Charlotte.  Again, thank you so very very much to Shelton, Rico, Andy and the rest of the crew for letting me be a part of it!  That's another show that I will be putting on the "Must attend every year from now on" list.



Mad Eye MoodySo I'm sure you all know how friggin slow I am, and I apologize to all the patrons who I still owe drawings to. I did warn you... I'm not saying I'm not a jerk, but I did warn you.  Here are a couple of con sketches I've finished up.  This isn't all the con sketches I have finished, so if yours isn't up here, that doesn't mean I haven't started and or finished it.

Thestral Older CPGEmily and I just got back from celebrating her mother's birthday in a cottage she rented for this past weekend up north.  It was a cute little place right on a river [I don't know which so don't even ask].  It was about an hour away from Tawas MI. I know at least that much.  We arrived on Sat. just after lunch time and returned Sun. evening.  It was a short visit but turned out to be very beneficial. 

We love going to antique stores and there were a couple in town about 15 min. from the cottage.  We were practically rushed out of the first one because they were closing at 5 and we entered at quarter till.  Nothing quite remarkable in that store besides the large selection of antique farm equipment which Emily was drooling over.  The second shop had it's door wide open but the sign said it was also open until 5, at which point it was 5:08.  We inquired within and the gentleman replied "I'm still here so I guess I'm still open" and bid us to take our time.  It was at this store we came across the coolest thing we'd ever seen at a rinky dink little antique store.  And the best part was the price tag said $200.  We decided to sleep on it.  The next day it was the first thing we talked about and we both decided it was a MUST HAVE!  So after going to the beach in East Tawas we drove straight to the shop and made the purchase.  Anyway, here it is...
Pretty cool huh?!  We don't have a name yet but I'll let you know when we do.  This is our first BIG taxidermy purchase and we are loving it!  We just need a really good place to put it.

So here's one more image, a graduation gift.  Hopefully he doesn't follow my blog... :p  More fun with microns.  I had another pic I was going to put up that would have helped with the whole "tentacles and skulls" label but I was told I'd have to wait to post that.  So you'll be able to see a new T-shirt design probably after San Diego.  Which will probably be my next post. heh

Yesterday at the Antiquarian Book Fair

So by chance I remembered that there was an antiquarian book fair taking place yesterday at the Union at U of M.  I dragged my sister to it and proceeded to spend a little past what I was allowing myself to spend.  But can you really blame me [that's rhetorical].  I picked up a couple of books illustrating Napoleonic soldiers along with a couple of illustrated story books.  Of these last two, one jumps out and has indeed made itself my new obsession.  As far as illustrators go.  The book is The Brave Little Tailor and is illustrated by Olga Dugina and Andrej Dugin.  This duo has worked on only 3 other books, The Fine Round Cake, Dragon Feathers, and Madonna's the Adventures of Abdi.  There is also a large selection of illustrations from an Arabian Nights collaboration that I don't believe has come out yet, on their website.  Here are a couple of images from the Brave Little Tailor.


Inside the book it says that it took the duo six and a half years to complete the paintings that make up the book.  It's nice to hear it takes others a great deal of time to complete things as well.  This book has a lot of images that make me Extremely jealous and now I have to track down all the other books they have worked on.  I just wanted to share my find with you and encourage you to find this book and marvel at it like I do. 

June shows

So I finished the charity piece that will be up for auction at Heroes Con in a couple of weeks.  It's based off of a Hendrik Goltzius engraving from 1586 entitled Haratius Cocles, from a series he did of The Roman Heroes. 

original my sillied up version



I'm really looking forward to this show.  Last year I had really low expectations due to it was the first time I was doing the show and the fact that I was all alone.  My fears were completely unfounded and I had one of the greatest conventions ever!  So don't let me down Charlotte... ;]  This year I will also be doing the show solo but at least I have an idea of what to expect.  Olympian is still working on the added incentive Kickstarter poster, so I don't know if I will have any of those available at the show or not.  You can at least bid on an original Cursed Pirate Girl piece and help make next years show even better.  I believe I'll even be on a panel this year.  So you should definitely come to that and watch me be real nervous, I bet if you look closely enough you'll see my heart trying to escape the cavity of my chest just like a baby Alien. 

The rest of June will be spent working ferociously trying to make up for going to cons and then toward the end of the month the 25th and 26th Emily and I will be in Traverse City for C3 or Cherry Capital Con.  A couple of things that need to get done that weekend... First a trip to Horizon Books [to spend a bunch of money] and then we will need to find a theater so we can see the extended cut of LOTR Return of the King.  The 25th is also my birthday.  You should come just to say Happy Birthday.  You should also come because they're gonna have a bunch of great guests. Besides Traverse City is frickin gorgeous and tasty, what could you want more for a convention backdrop.  Hope to see you at either of these shows.

Cursed Pirate Girl chapter 4

So I'm really excited to be back working on the next book of CPG, I know I still owe a couple of people some con sketches, I haven't forgotten about you!  I just NEEDED to start the next issue.  So I thank you for your continued patience.  It will be quite a while before you see the next book laid out before you all printed up, soooo I thought it'd be okay to post a page or two along the way.  Mostly to convince you it will eventually happen and I will finish the story.  And no I don't need to convince myself, I know it will be accomplished. 

With that in mind here is the second page in Cursed Pirate Girl vol. 2 issue one -the Bright Star

                             Here are the steps that I take in doing pages. 
     -First I write out the script
     -then I break the script up into what I think will fit on a page
     -then I thumbnail out the script.  This I do almost literally, my thumbnails are 1 by 1 and a half inches and are very rough.  Some key dialog to let me know what I was thinking at that moment and usually just an idea of what panel structure I thought would work at the moment.
     -then I start working up a full size rough.  By full size I mean 6"x9" with a half inch border on the top and three quarters below and five sixteenths on each side.
     -then when I get the parts drawn up to what looks good I transfer the rough images to bristol.  With this page I worked up the main image then scanned it and adjusted the size of Haftu's head and then the whole figure.  I printed that out and worked up the fish on top of the print out.  I take a piece of tracing paper and trace it then transfer that to bristol.  I did it this way because of the minute details involved with the figures.  If there is an image with less complicated details I would have just lightboxed the print out.
     -once it's drawn out on bristol it's just a matter of inking. 
     -the last thing I do is erase any pencil I see and then put in the dialog.  While the entire piece is inked with a brush, I write the dialog in with a crow quill dip pen.

Here are the individual pages involved with making this page.

first rough, full size
print out w/ penciled water and fish added
tracing paper contour drawing, ready to be transferred

That print... part 4

Well here it is!  Here is that piece you've all been waiting for... maybe.  So here is the full thing with a couple of details, I'm guessing it was around 3 months but it could've been a bit more.  Emily tells me I should get a chess clock so I can time myself more exactly. 


The whole story behind it is pretty much this- CPG has put on a pirate festival to be a distraction so that her pirate crew can sneak into a secret royal treasure trove held in the small island city of Cub.  As the royal marines are attacking though she disarms them with the music she is playing with her concertina, it frightens the evil from their minds and hearts.  Transforming them into innocent festival goers. 




It's funny what are my favorite parts are, like the shading under the skeletons boot and the texture of the snails.  This was a very challenging thing for me to take on and I'm glad I did.  So far the only challenges I have set for myself were just to come up with strange characters and strain the limits of my imagination.  While this is a good thing, this was a different kind of challenge and I have already seen an improvement in the pages for vol. 2 of CPG.  I have definitely raised another bar on what I expect my work to look like.  In interviews and conversations I've always said that I do Cursed Pirate Girl for me.  And I am extremely lucky that I can afford to do it that way.  I'm also extremely lucky that there are people out there who appreciate what I create.  So thank you very very much for putting up with the slow progress of my little story and being open to something new/old. 

I have mentioned before that this piece was created as an added incentive for those who were aware of and participated with the funding of the CPG trade on Kickstarter.  And I'm really happy that all of you will be getting a copy of this for free, and I'm really happy that Tom did offer to do it.  No matter how much I have whined in the past, it came out pretty ok and it was a good lesson to have learned.  And I hope it will pay off later when you're all waiting for the next issue of the comic to come out.  ;]

That print... part 3

Here are some shots of the previously mentioned left border figure.  These are from my phone so I know they are kinda fuzzy.  To show you a progression...



This was the first part completed.  So now you can see why I particularly liked this guy.  Some details you will not be able to see on these images include the nautical creatures on his cuffs and trim of his coat and the repeating fish pattern on his leather boots. Well you might be able to make out the latter a little bit.  I had fun doing that, it's the first time I've ever tried doing an Escheresque pattern.  And what Cursed Pirate Girl piece would be complete without a monkey.  Originally I wanted the two monkeys to be mermonkeys like in the comic and have their tales coming from out of the bottom of their ships.  That design just didn't make sense.

I have to say what really inspired this and it's opposing figure was the book Journey of the Imagination - the artwork of James Christensen, I was not familiar with Mr. Christensen until maybe a year ago.  I saw his book in Barnes and Noble and kept wanting to buy it but kept putting it off [I didn't have the $ and then when I did it was a destination too far out of the way... etc].  I'm glad I finally went out there and picked it up, it's really amazing.  Very wonderful and absurd, two qualities I hold in very high regard.  He also includes in many of his pieces floating fish.  Which is definitely something I wish I had come up with.  Anyway, you should gander at his site and search out his book, you won't regret it. Here's a couple of grabs off of the internet-


He reminds me a lot of Alan Aldridge, whom I believe you'll remember me talking about in an earlier post.

Speaking of amazing illustrators and artists of the fantastical, I don't recall if I've mentioned Kinuko Craft, who also has an art book out now Drawings and Paintings.  She is also one of my contemporary favorites.  We've picked up a couple of her illustrated story books, King Midas and Cinderella.  She's just as magical and magnificent as Aldridge, Christensen, Rackham, Dulac, Crane, Nielsen, Tenniel, and Ford.  To name a few... heh.  I hope some of these names are new to you, because then you've got plenty of exploring to do.  Here's a Kinuko Craft though, enjoy-

That print... part 2

So I'm again overdue, my apologies.  I was waiting to obtain scans of the finished product, my scanner is not that big and it's not the best for trying to get detail.  Tom has a good friend in Transmission Atelier who has an amazing scanner and it is from him I will be able to post images that will give you a decent look at what I have been up to.  He is still working on it.  I do have some of the surviving sketches I did in the creation process. So here they are-


The next couple are from the border. The first little one is a small sketch I did in one of my little sketchbooks and it turned out pretty cool so I decided to blow it up and use it as the top border that reaches from the two main figures that make up the sides of the border.  The second image is the figure that makes up the right side of the border.  The Cursed Pirate Girl on a merstag that I have posted earlier makes up the main figure on the bottom of the border.


What I could not find was the original sketch of the figure that makes up the left side of the border.  Which just happens to be one of the coolest things I've come up with thus far.  I really like him.  The figure above represents the "military might" the opposing force on the black waters of the Omertas.  At least after the first story arc of Cursed Pirate Girl.  The other figure represents the "Piratical will" on the Omertas.  The royal soldier above is capped with a giant key, I wanted that to suggest he is more of a wind up toy than he is a free willed character.

Hopefully I can get those scans soon and I will be able to show you some more.