Thursday, October 28, 2010

New Hades Page: The Wrath of Demeter

Way back in June, I shared some doodles from my sketchbook of an enraged Demeter and now I thought I'd show you the finished page they ended up inspiring. This is the final black and white, though I have not yet added panel borders or such. Enjoy!


My favorite bit is the last panel, where the assembled Olympians react in surprise to Demeter's attack on Zeus. Specifically, Hera's expression, as another one of Zeus's machinations has turned on him. Her dialogue in that bubble is a simple resigned "Oh, Zeus..."

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Another Poseidon



For your viewing pleasure, another Poseidon. I must be getting warmer, because I like this one quite a bit more than yesterday's.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

warm up: Poseidon





Don't know if I've actually announced this anywhere officially, but volume 5 of the Olympians of going to be dedicated to the god of the sea himself, Poseidon. As a result, I've been spending a lot of time in  my sketchbook getting used to drawing the old Earth Shaker. I'll be posting a lot more sketchbooky goodness so check back often.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

My Cartooning Classes at the Park Slope Y are filling up fast!






I teach two courses on Tuesdays at the Park Slope YMCA Armory, Cartooning (for 8-10 year olds) and Graphic Novels (for 11-17 year olds). A new session starts up in a couple of weeks, sign up now!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Atlas and the Pleiades

I share a studio with a bunch of other comics artists in Brooklyn, and we have a daily sketch blog where we post warm-up sketches on a certain topic, like "monkey" or "Wonder Woman". Today's topic was "Pleiades", the constellation named after the daughters of Atlas, so I drew this.






In Greek Myth, the Pleiades were the seven daughters of Atlas, the Titan who held aloft the sky, and Pleione, a daughter of Oceanus, the Titan of the ocean. They have always been associated with the constellation, and for the most part play very little role in mythology. The exception is Maia, who is the mother of Hermes and the namesake of the month of May. The other six daughters are Taygete, Elektra, Alkyone, Sterope, Kelaino, and Merope. The seven daughters (and their two parents) give their names to the stars that make up the constellation. There are many stories of the seventh Pleiad becoming hidden or invisible-- out of shame for having married a mortal, or in grief over the loss of a child. There is not a consensus on which Pleiad it was that went into hiding, but I pay a nod to that story by having poor Merope partially concealed by her father's arm.

I'm staying at my family's place for a week with no ink and only remedial imaging software, so I banged this out with a sharpie. I'm pleasantly surprised at the result, but man, I got a headache from wicked sharpie fumes.