OTHER DRAWN STUFF

2007-07-22T06:17:00.000-07:00

No Orlando Con for me

Sad, sad news.

I haven't posted a blog in a long time.

More than a month ago I had to quit Ace Comics because of business disagreements. Or lets say how business wasn't handled.

So that means I can't go to the Orlando Comic Con.

I wouldn't say that my time with Ace Comics was all bad. I had a lot of fun designing logos, designing characters, doing pages and promo art, talking to artists, getting feedback from great guys in the business. I definately learned a lot.
Hopefully I will find another gig soon and can go to some cons next year.

So to wrap things up here is all the stuff I drew during my Ace Comics days.

2007-02-28T08:15:00.000-08:00

Ace & Vegas Girl, Orlando Comic Con oh my...

I am working on the new comic book "Ace & Vegas Girl" , and oh boy I'm getting more and more hyped up about the project every day.

"Ace & Vegas Girl" is the brainchild of Brian L. Byrd, the author and founder of ACE Comics (and one of the coolest guys in the 'verse). Like me he is new to the game and we are busting our butts to get this thing airborne.

But it's getting better.
We are going to be at the Orlando Comic Con.

The Con is being held at the Caribe Royale in Orlando Fl. September 21-23, 2007.
We will have a booth and an artist table set up all three days of the Con.

I will be flying in from Austria to be there and do sketches and signings.

For more info about Brian L. Byrd and ACE Comics check out myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/ace_comics_inc
For more about the Orlando Comic Con:
http://www.myspace.com/orlandocon
or
www.orlandocon.net

Hope to see you there

Berny R B

Here is the first promopic for Ace & Vegas Girl.

2007-01-23T17:59:00.000-08:00

2004-2007: The Making Of Skeletor

Jep I'm back and I've got something old and new.
Back in 2002 I was all hyped up about Masters of the Universe. I tried to get my hands on everything I could find back then. I drew so many stuff related to that series it was quite insane.
In December 2004 i started drawing this picture of Skeletor.

I looked at a lot of sketches, drawings and studies of Leonardo Da Vinci
and I had the toy standing next to my drawing board. Like Emiliano Santalucia (the artist on the MotU comic book) i tried to nail down every detail the toy had, the sculpt had tons of them.
then something unfortunate happend...the drawing fell behind a closet...
damn! I stayed there for a long time and somehow I forgot about it.

December 30th 2006, I was showing my girlfriend some sketches and drawings I did a few years back. Suddenly, I remembered the drawing again, moved the closet away and found the unfinished Skeletor.
On the next day I reworked the drawing, even inked the figure and the basic background.

I thought I was finished with it.

January 10th 2007, I picked the drawing up again and felt that I was NOT finished.
So I started working on the background.
I was looking for more mood, darkness and depth. C'mon, after all, Skeletor is the overlord of evil. Since the "dark hemisphere" of Eternia is not overgrown with plants and basicly rock and lava, I could play with some different techniques and go crazy with details. I took me some time. Two days ago I finished it.

And here it is the last revision with full background.

Hope you'll enjoy it.

Take care.
Cheers

B

2006-12-31T03:12:00.000-08:00

Whose side are you on?

Ok here is another Spidey drawing.
I made the black and white drawing of this for my girlfriend a few weeks ago.
And I finished the coloring yesterday.

Happy new year.
Cheers
B

2006-12-28T12:04:00.000-08:00

Spider-Woman (and her amazing Hair Helmet)

Yesterday I did something with a dry brush.
Today I tried something with a wet brush.
Well actually that's not true. I drew most of Jessica (hehe) yesterday, and went crazy with the wet brush today ( i don't know what overcame me).
Again, nothing big and special just trying out some techniques.
The cool thing about working with a wet brush is that the coloring is damn easy.
Too bad I screwed up with the hair.
But I will keep practicing.

Cheers
B

2006-12-27T12:53:00.000-08:00

Something new in a very very long time

Ok just to say that I'm back I made this quick little Wolverine.
Nothing special. Just trying out some brush technicques. Improving my black spottings and stuff. I've been doing a lot of practicing lately. I want my stuff to look better.
He is maybe one of the biggest Marvel flagships and in almost every book that Marvel publishes. I don't know why I like him as well but he is just a fun character to draw.

Happy New Year
Cheers
B

2006-11-19T18:04:00.000-08:00

MEMORY LANE
or: How To Keep My Blog Up To Date With Old Stuff

Gawd it's been more than a week and I haven't put up new stuff because I wasn't drawing anything special.
Yeah, I know I'm a damn lazy bastard. So I decided to fill in todays episode with something special.
Ok this is a very fond memory and basicly my first ever finished sequential page.
It's maybe two years old. Maybe older.
It was for an artbattle in a German Masters of the Universe Forum (on wich I'm not a member anymore, here we go again I must seem like a Masters and Spidey buff here-damn).
I picked Snake Teela (because I love to draw chicks) and I had to battle some fancy variant Snake-Hunting-Something-Blabla-Crap-Action Stratos (Mattel liked to put these variants out instead of new characters).
If I knew then what I knew now about storytelling, pacing and framing I would have done it completely different.
But basicly for a first try it was pretty good.
The Battle was only 2 pages long but I wanted a little more mood, mystery and epic feel to it.
Hey most of the guys drew their character in weird poses striking off the enemy's head. Which is in my opinion not very in the spirit of the series.
When I look at it know it feels more like a Rob Liefieldish page. Lotsa rubble.
I basicly drew this comic with the toy in my hand.
I colored the page flat and added some special effects.
Like the storytelling itself I did not know hot to do it right.

Stay tuned for Page 2
Enjoy
B

2006-11-09T14:49:00.000-08:00

ANOTHER VENOM

This time I made a far more detailed version. Basicly to practice my inking skills. I'm quite happy with the results.
Don't worry guys. The women are on their way.

Cheers
B

2006-11-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

OLD FAN ART
Part 2: The Evil That Women Do

A friend of mine requested that I should draw something more kinky. And I had a real blast drawing it because he had no idea what I was up to. I think I let him post it on some German Masters of the Universe Forum.
Again flat colors in Photoshop, small format with a pencil.

Enjoy

B

2006-11-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

OLD FAN ART
Part 1: Teela

I just shuffeled through my old drawing folder and found some old fanarts.
Jep it's Masters Of The Universe stuff.
Again as usual i used a kinda small and unprofessional format.
I guess it's about a year old.
The flat colors were done in Photoshop.
Enjoy
B

2006-11-02T13:16:00.000-08:00

BLACK COSTUME-A-RAMA
I talked to my girlfriend (I lover her so much) about the black Spidey costume and made these two sketches for her.
I colored them in Photoshop.
Hope you like them as much as she does.
I'm using a bigger sketchpad now.
The old one was like drawing and not drawing at the same time.
Take care and thanks for the comments (they kept me going)
B

2006-10-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

DIGITAL INK PART 2
The Bat.

I decided to do a little step-by-step/tutorial of how to ink with illustrator.
Note that working with vectors is not the Bob Ross method of doing it, and compared to great inkers it will look quite shallow. But if you want to do some key illustrations for merchandise material it's a good and clean way to go.

First of all let's start drawing.
I did this quite quick sketch of Batman with my beloved sketchpad.
Scan it an place it in Illustrator. Set the opacity down to about 50% and lock that layer.

Create a new layer below the scan so you can always cross reference between the drawing and your inks.

Just do the lineart. Don't mind spotting blacks or shading.

When you are finished (this complex drawing took me about an hour for the linework) you can start cleaning up.

Cleaning up means that you connect some of the loose ends and reconfigure the layers.

Next step is spotting blacks (and whites) . When you have done your job well in the cleanup process you will have no worries.

Some people stop at this point and think the picture is finished. But that's not the case. See how stiff some lines look. They are not fluid enough to convince you.
the key to a good drawing (even if it's a simple one) is line weight.

With line weight you can suggest where the light is coming from and really make the character pop off the page.
Select a Path and go to "Object">"Path">"Contourline" (maybe it's called different in English. I just translated my German menu)

Now you can make the line thicker and thinner to suggest a brush stroke.

After that I rendered the character a little more. Changed a few things like the belt and...

Here he is.

Took me about 3 hours in total.
So in the words of the Great Director Lloyd Kaufman:
MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN VECTOR DRAWING

2006-10-12T17:57:00.000-07:00

A WAR STORY

I found some old drawings of mine on my external hard drive.
They are from 2002 when I was in the Austrian army. I was lying in the sick bay at the moment and dreamt up some fantasy characters (I was very Masters of the Universe influenced at that time). I wanted to make a comic book with them but then I realized that they really are just a rip off. And I visited the Top-Cow studios before getting drafted and tried to be more Silvestri in terms of style.

This was the main character as a grown up and a child. Like Conan the Barbarian he was just a kid who was forced to grow up in an violent environment. Some part of him refused to grow up. He had a special ability, he could bring old statues to life who thought him the ways of an ancient fighting style.

The main character again. I had a thing for fur.

Your typical Evil Lord arch villain. At some point I planned that he is the future version of the main hero who returned back in time to seek world domination.

A creature of the woods. Also a product of the future send back in time. I must have been insane. Look at the creature's fur.
It's also a good example of overdoing stuff. I drew every detail and yet the picture looks very flat. Don't be afraid to make things simpler.

That's all folks!

2006-10-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

SKETCHPAD

I love my sketchpad. When I'm working I like to doodle some stuff.
I have to sit long hours at the computer and do outrageous design tasks for a huge softdrink company.
Some would say I'm lucky and I should be grateful to have that job, but it was not what I planned to do.
So sketching helps me to keep my energy flowing. Plus moving elements around on screen do not improve my drawing skills.

I like to sketch on a very small format (4.13x5.85 inch, that's DIN A6) because I don't go into much detail.

Why does this guy look so familiar? hmmm....

2006-10-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

DIGITAL INK

Ok here is an example of Digital inking.
I like to place a picture in Illustrator and "ink" it there.
I have total control over line thickness and can go over the picture as often as I want to.
The bad thing is it's only good for pinups because it takes a awful lot of time (which I don't have).
Here is a little example.
I sketched this very Milleresque drawing.

And after a few hours in Illustrator...

As you can see I changed the hair and made it more detailed, changed the hand, the gun, the smoke...
But the drawing stayed the same.
Hope you all like what you see.

2006-10-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

Howdy.
This is my first time...so be gentle.

Lets talk abot a very special friend of mine...INK.
Not a day goes by when i'm trying to ink something and it goes terribly wrong.

Back at Graphic School (around 1998) we had to do lots of stuff with ink during the first two years.
Someway "simple" yet hard stuff.
We had to do a grid. Frist draw a fine 0,39 inch spaced grid with a pencil on a 11x17 inch board and then ink it with a brush.
This is really good for beginners to seize control over their tools and learn to work their way through a very repetidive task.
Before even think of inking Cap America or anything else-practice this.
But that's where I discovered my "curse".
I was almost finished with a quarter of the paged inked and decided to made a break.
I left my bottle of ink open and was rocking on my chair (bad idea-you all know what comes next). BAM!
After cleaning up the mess i made it was starting over time.
I made a new grid and started inking when someone was passing by my desk. BAM!
Huge brushstroke. Basquiat would not have minded it.
So i had to do the whole thing again at home.
I knew i had to use something to keep me awake because i was a "little" behind scedule.
A good cup of coffe placed far away from my drawing board should do the trick.
At two o' clock I fell asleep and woke up an hour later...
with a grid on my face.
In the end I could finish it without any major screwups.
I got better but i always make some mistakes when i'm inking.
And I guess everyone does.
Grid coming tomorrow.