Wednesday, May 30, 2012

2012 Comicpalooza Commission Reference Sheets


As I've mentioned elsewhere, with the blog's fifth anniversary coming up, and several times more money to spend than in previous years, I planned to go boffo with this year's commissions. Ultimately, I revisited the 2010 reference sheets for four pieces, while 2011's were only useful in three. I wasn't happy with a lot of those images, so I added new reference in abundance for this year.

Attentive readers may have noticed that I've added a fair amount of new biographical entries this year for the Martian Manhunter's friends and foes. Behind the scenes, a lot of that work was coming together with art reference in mind. I had to rush a number of these out at the last minute though, so they're incomplete or cluttered, purely to make sure the artists had a reliable basis for designs and color schemes to work with.

Since none of the printers in the house have color these days, I took a flash drive down to FedEx Express (Detective Comics Comics?) to get copies. The glossy stock and vivid color were a huge improvement over my old material, although the paper seems thinner and less durable. What's really nice is that I didn't hesitate to fill the page with somebody else's ink, making for big bright reproduction. Perhaps best of all, for some reason I got most of my copies for about twenty-nine cents. I went back the next day to finish up some scraps, and with tax that price was doubled.

About half of these pages relate to commissions I picked up this year, but I didn't get all of my reference back with the pieces, so not everyone is represented across these three years worth of images. Also, a number were taken directly out of comics provided to the artists, of which I only lost one. Amateur sleuths should have all they need here to make educated guesses, and I will point out that many of the ponies are already out of the barn across individual blogs/tweets/galleries/etc. For now though, I plan to start posting about one piece a week through September, probably on Wednesday. Do come back for those, won't you?

5 comments:

Omega Agent1 said...

Did you say your blogspot made money? Compadre I need that. How is it done?

Diabolu Frank said...

Sorry, but I make a point of NOT making money on this blog, since that would infringe on DC copyright. However, I think there's a "monetize" option in the Blogger dashboard that might make you some coin.

Omega Agent1 said...

copyright infringement is Not good. I'm really feeling like blogging everyday for a living would be Heaven though. Wouldn't it be cool to talk about superheroes all day and get paid to do it?

Diabolu Frank said...

There's always journalism. Hit up Comics Alliance/Newsarama/CBR. I'm not sure it's a living, but it could be a nice supplement.

Omega Agent1 said...

Thanks for the insight. I didn't think those guys let novice (unskilled) writers put pen to paper on their sites. Either way I'm going to peep at it and see.