ROCKETFICTION

The Last Post...

2008-07-23T00:53:00.002-04:00

To all my loyal readers: I decided to stop posting here, and instead I've created a new, comprehensive site, for blogging and galleries and so on.

So, please adjust your bookmarks, and come over and visit me HERE!

Flight 5 Preview at Newsarama

2008-07-05T09:32:00.006-04:00

Continuing their series of previews of the Flight anthology, Newsarama has posted a preview from Kazu Kibuishi's story for the anthology, as well as one from my comic, which features that loveable flying misfit, Myles Preston Thackerly III...there's also a preview of Michel Gagne's story, "The Broken Path". And you can go here to read an interview with Kazu about the soon-to-be-released volume!

The Man in the Blue Suit

2008-07-03T23:15:00.002-04:00

A sketch of one of my favourite characters!

Well Worth Watching!

2008-06-08T21:53:00.001-04:00

JK Rowling's Harvard speech...

Thanks Barb!

Flight 5

2008-06-07T15:33:00.005-04:00

I've recently contributed a 10-page story to Flight 5, which will be published July 22nd. As the publish date draws closer I'll post more stuff from it. Above are a couple of shots of me hard at work, outlining the helmonautical adventures of Myles Preston Thackerly III...I'm inking on a series of horizontal cards with a few panels per card - sort of in Euro fashion (I've heard some European stuff is done like this?) I wanted to work very large so the detail didn't get all fiddly and I could let the inking flow more loosely, but drawing the whole page at once at a large size made the original art somewhat cumbersome. So this was the compromise, to draw the art in pieces and put it back together again in the computer...

Emigrants

2008-06-06T16:59:00.000-04:00

I may have posted this before, if so it's a repost! A painting I made in the 80's, so-called 'old school' via airbrush, ink, and acrylic paint, on a large piece of illustration board...not a computer in sight! The original is in grays--but later I colorized it on the computer, just for fun.

Atlantis Sketch

2008-06-05T16:55:00.000-04:00

This is a sketch from my time working on the Warners shows, a rough idea for the undersea home of Aquaman, Atlantis...I don't think it was used...

More New Frontier

2008-05-28T00:07:00.002-04:00

Another piece of art I did for the New Frontier DVD, an elaboration of Darwyn's establishing shot of the Las Vegas hotel/casino complex...

Memorial Day 2008

2008-05-26T14:12:00.002-04:00

Thanks to all those who served, and serve, and especially to those who gave their lives---for our freedoms.
God Bless America-beacon of liberty!

Just a Sketch

2008-05-21T15:25:00.004-04:00

Apropos of absolutely nothing...a sketch which has no meaning...a warmup from the void...

Sketches

2008-04-16T14:34:00.002-04:00

These are 3 exploratory character sketches from an animation project....

Linework BG Design - The New Frontier DVD

2008-03-21T16:07:00.000-04:00

These are a couple of examples of the completed final line versions of the previously-posted New Frontier BGs...the secret complex got quite, well, complex! As a key establishing shot it had multiple overlays, which of course you can't tell here.They started as line drawings with marker on paper, then finished digitally (cutting and pasting as necessary, cloning, perspective tweaks, etc).

More BG Design - The New Frontier DVD

2008-03-20T18:59:00.002-04:00

Here's a piece of final line art, from the sequence in the underground secret base...

BG Design - The New Frontier DVD

2008-03-10T22:26:00.004-04:00

A while back I did a load of design work for the recently released "The New Frontier" dvd, based on Darwyn Cooke's DC comic of the same name. It was a great project to work on; in consultation with Darwyn and Dave Bullock, I had the fun of doing treatments of the Batcave, The Daily Planet building, the secret underground base, and lots more, in addition to doing layouts for a good number of the final shots. Here are a few rough designs...

Snow Problem

2008-02-08T12:24:00.000-05:00

I'm not one to usually post photos, but here is something non-rocketfictional yet (hopefully) artistically interesting: the beautiful forms of fallen snow. Toronto's had a big snow-dump recently and we're still digging out...anyway this should revive the blog from its moribund state, we hope.

Cruiser Sketch

2007-12-02T12:42:00.000-05:00

This was a rough for a ship design, for the Legion of Superheroes cartoon...

SF Book Cover Rough

2007-11-26T11:06:00.000-05:00

Another from the ol' archives: a quick rough done in gouache, one of a series done for an SF book cover project...it's wide because it would have been a wraparound.

Waldoesque

2007-11-16T19:33:00.000-05:00

So...this is some art from a ways back...I think the idea was that they were to be printed for kids to color, on cheap paper placemats. The balloons must've had some kind of anti-drug messages...never saw the final product. The client request was to make it look somewhat like "Where's Waldo", ie very busy...the four images join up into one big one. Fun to draw.

Urban Legends

2007-11-15T19:21:00.000-05:00

This was one of a series of illustrations for educational publishing, dealing with various "urban legends"...

Childrensillustrators.com

2007-11-08T23:28:00.000-05:00

I've just taken out space at a web portfolio site named childrensillustrators.com, and here's a screenshot of my page. Some of the images may be familiar to my esteemed regular visitors, although many have been tweaked, nipped, and tucked here and there...

Please take a look, it's worth having a dig-through, there are lots of portfolios to visit if you go to the home page:

Satellite Rough

2007-11-03T15:44:00.000-04:00

A rough design for an illustration, done with pencil/photocopy/marker, with a light veneer of colorization added in Photoshop...

Walking Math Robots

2007-10-20T02:25:00.001-04:00

This was another piece of art done for educational publishing back in the 80's...for the Math Quest series of textbooks I believe. The publisher colored the art so I don't have that to post...

Elf Warriors

2007-10-17T15:41:00.000-04:00

Another piece of salvage from my art-past; this was some sort of spoof, done for advertising as far as I can recall...supposed to be some sort of sendup of over-the-top
fantasy art...

Dragon Boy #4

2007-10-16T12:39:00.000-04:00

Dragon Boy #3

2007-10-13T18:32:00.000-04:00

Another brush-n-ink illo from the the early 80's...Pentel Brush Pen, loaded up with real live india ink, brushed onto thick tracing vellum, then overcovered with fiddly bits of real live no-tech Zipatone! Stone age methodology, but fun!

Book Cover Rough

2007-10-12T15:21:00.000-04:00

This was a mockup of a book cover done for one of Byron Preiss' book series, cobbled together using a photocopier, gouache, markers, colored pencils, plus a few random bits of glue and baling wire...ah, the days before computer...

Dragon Boy #2

2007-10-11T15:03:00.000-04:00

Another element from the Dragon Boy set of illustration done for educational publishing...a few of the images showed the story, but many of them were part of a workbook for kids, hence were decorative elements integrated with text and other page components, such as this one.

Robot Band

2007-10-10T15:00:00.000-04:00

One can never have too many robot bands...a scan from a photocopy of a pencil drawing, since the original has long since scampered away...

Poster Rough #2

2007-10-09T16:10:00.001-04:00

Here's another one of those marker-doodle-oddity-roughs from the poster previously mentioned, for the Silver Snail Comic Shop...

Superman Cover Rough

2007-10-08T00:01:00.000-04:00

Here's a marker sketch for one of the Superman covers I posted...

Chinese Dragon Boy

2007-10-07T00:01:00.000-04:00

Here's another piece of illustration art from the 1980's, done for an educational publisher. The story (which I don't recall more details of) had to do with a Chinese boy and the Chinese dragon dance being performed...

Poster Rough

2007-10-06T16:19:00.000-04:00

More unearthed oldy-oddities: in preparing to do the Silver Snail poster in the early 80's, which I posted a little while ago, I first did a whole bunch of roughs, just odd ideas that didn't really go anywhere but were fun to draw. Some of them revolved around this pinheaded befuddled superhero...

Life Drawing

2007-10-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

Something a little non-rocketfictional for a change...unearthed from the gloom of the flat files, this was a life drawing of a friend, from 1990.

Man of Steel #84 Cover Art

2007-10-05T00:01:00.000-04:00

The last one!

Adventure Comics #563 Cover Art

2007-10-04T15:11:00.000-04:00

The third in this series of four Superkman covers...they were all designed to tie in together, in accordance with the "story arc" in that set of issues...

Action Comics # 749 Black and White Art

2007-10-03T17:09:00.000-04:00

Continuing on from the previous post, here's raw art from the second of the four Superman covers I did!

Superman 140 Cover Art

2007-10-02T00:35:00.000-04:00

Raw cover art, before computer work, from one of a series of 4 Superman covers I did...back in 1998 I think it was...

Robot City Rough

2007-10-01T23:40:00.000-04:00

A xerox & colored pencil rough comp for the logo design for the "Robot City" series of paperback books, done for Byron Preiss Visual Publications back in the 80's.

Heroes 4

2007-09-28T00:02:00.001-04:00

Last part posted, of the puzzle-heroes!

Heroes 3

2007-09-27T13:06:00.000-04:00

Heroes 2

2007-09-26T16:18:00.000-04:00

OK, I rejigged this a bit, thanks to commenter Benton. I reposted the first image, so that the total of all four of these images fit properly together into one. Here's the second image, two more to go...

Heroes 1

2007-09-15T22:00:00.000-04:00

This is a section from an illustration I did a while back for Nickelodeon Magazine. It was used quite small, as a kind of masthead...I had fun making up different costumes, which were supposed to be reminiscent of established heroes. (I'm running pieces of it because when the whole thing is shown as a jpeg it's hard to make out, since everything becomes tiny.)

Batman Beyond Rough Design

2007-09-14T21:55:00.000-04:00

This was a rough design, done in marker on paper, working out a location for storyboard.

Silver Snail Poster - Final

2007-09-13T20:27:00.000-04:00

Reader Jay Strange has kindly sent me a scan of the finished art for the Silver Snail poster I did, somewhere back around 1981 or so. I haven't seen it in a while; but looking at it brings back the memory of using an airbrush and frisket masking to create it. Photoshop is so much better and faster, but working with 'stone age' tools, as tedious as they were, certainly made for good discipline.

Black Moon - Paperback Cover

2007-09-05T23:02:00.000-04:00

Another one from the archive: a cover I did for the late Byron Preiss, for a "Black Moon" mystery, one of a series of paperbacks...I scanned this from what I could find, a color xerox...fixed up in Photoshop.

Batman Animated-design sketch

2007-09-03T11:57:00.001-04:00

From the archives: A scan of a photocopy I just dug up--of a design from "Batman Animated"---for a museum location. This was a quick sketch done in thin line marker--then blacks thrown in on top with a chunkier marker.

Silver Snail Poster Rough

2007-09-01T21:22:00.000-04:00

Dug up from the bin of oddity-oldies: one of a series of marker roughs I did for a poster commissioned by Ron Van Leeuwen, back in the early days of the Silver Snail Comic Shop, here in Toronto...this was the one chosen for the final piece. I don't have a scan of the final to post--I sold it long ago, before the days of ubiquitous desktop scanners...

Soft Boiled-The Rest of the Story

2007-08-29T12:52:00.000-04:00

I posted the first page of this old story below---now here's the rest of it. Interesting to look back on, I notice the usual mixture of things I cringe at and would change, plus things I now like better than I did at the time, having left the job too late and then having to rush it out at high speed...I also note how there's way too much text, which I could have ameliorated by lettering it at a smaller size. C'est la vie.
***IMPORTANT NOTE:PAGE SIX IS MISSING. I believe I sold it to someone years and years ago...I'm sorry I can't remember who. I'm trying to locate my copy of the printed comic but it's hiding from me in the bookshelves. If someone happens to have a scan of page six I'll gladly post it...or if by an even greater miracle someone out there reading this actually owns the page, I'd love to arrange to get a scan of it for my records, and also to post here!
**UPDATE: I found the missing page..so for what it's worth, it's all there!

Secret Cat-Digital Paint

2007-08-24T15:01:00.000-04:00

This is a section of an illustration recently done for educational publishing, to illustrate a children's story...I had the welcome request to do more images in the "painterly" style, after the art director saw some other images I'd done that way. I love comic-style work/line work, but also have an equal love of painting. But you can't focus on everything at once, so for most of my career I've tended to do comic/line style work. At any rate, inspired (as I mentioned before) by many of the current crop of digital magicians, when opportunity lends itself, I am trying to learn more about digital painting. I learn a lot from each attempt, I find, also frustrating myself somewhat in the process.

Vortex Cover

2007-08-23T14:44:00.000-04:00

I've probably posted this before somewhere, but another thing I came across over here in my pre-Fall Spring Cleaning: the cover I did for Vortex Magazine #8...very much inspired by Yves Chaland, especially his cover to the album "Adolphus Claar".
Posted for Daniel Lafrance, since he liked the Soft Boiled page I just posted.

Soft Boiled

2007-08-22T12:52:00.000-04:00

Here's a scan of the opening page for a comic short story I illustrated back about 1984, written by Bruce Jones for the comic "Alien Worlds". I thought I had no record of it, but just found an old fullsize stat of it buried in the rubble (remember stats?). Inked old school--I used Pentel Brush Pens on it...long before everyone discovered inking with Pentel Brush Pens!

Avalanche-Digital Art

2007-08-20T17:19:00.000-04:00

Hi folks--trying to get back in the swing of posting after a lot of recent hectic summer events! Will post more soon about TCAF, which was great--in the meantime, here's a jpeg of one illustration from a recent job--for educational publishing. The client request was "graphic novel style"--so I tried out all-digital this time, including the inking stage.

TCAF Midway...

2007-08-19T01:10:00.000-04:00

Here's the quick peek I promised at some new stuff I've been working on for TCAF and beyond. I've put together an updated sketchbook compiling some art from my earlier sketchbook, lots of new art from the blog, and unpublished drawings and sketches from some of my comics jobs. Here's the new cover, it's a smaller 6" x 9" format: I've also produced two "giclee" prints for sale in an 11 x 14" format--here is a jpeg of one of them: There's more stuff but I'll save that for another post! If you get a chance to come down to TCAF, it's turning out to be a great convention. There's one day left, today, Sunday the 19th...their web site with full directions is linked in my previous post.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2007

2007-07-24T19:57:00.000-04:00

If you're in Toronto August 18th-19th, please stop by the Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2007 if you have a chance. I've booked a small slice of space, and will be debuting some new artwork. They have a huge lineup of guests, so there's something for everyone. Their web site is here.

Hilltop House

2007-06-29T22:30:00.000-04:00

Hotel Design

2007-06-20T20:21:00.001-04:00

A line design from some work I did on the "Zeta" series.

Prison BG - Justice League

2007-06-19T11:22:00.000-04:00

This was a BG design for Justice League; a line drawing done in marker, scanned, then tones added in Photoshop.

More BB Design-Loading Bay Pan

2007-06-07T13:51:00.000-04:00

Another one from Batman Beyond!

Another BB rough

2007-06-03T23:04:00.000-04:00

This was a rough exploration of a BG design for Batman Beyond.

Page 8

2007-06-02T01:30:00.000-04:00

BB roughs

2007-06-01T14:02:00.000-04:00

Some linework design sketches, from Batman Beyond.

Page 13-color

2007-05-31T09:51:00.001-04:00

The color version of the black and white page which I previously posted...

Louis Cyr-Page Roughs

2007-05-30T13:32:00.000-04:00

Some roughs from a spread in the Louis Cyr project...the ruled grey lines are a template I made for the pages, to keep everything aligned as I assembled the panels and type in Photoshop.

Louis Cyr Art

2007-05-29T14:08:00.000-04:00

Here are a few more pieces of artwork from my "Louis Cyr, Champion of Strongmen" graphic novel project. The first one is simply a test piece to work out the look of the character and rendering. The type was not final; on the actual book the cover type was different, done by the art director...I just added it for fun.

Here's the linework alone:

A page of rough scribbles working on designs for some villains during the time Cyr was on the police force:

The final art for page four of the book:

Digital Tomfoolery 3

2007-05-28T18:05:00.000-04:00

Painting practice on a rainy Toronto afternoon...

Louis Cyr Inks

2007-05-27T15:12:00.001-04:00

Here's a jpeg of the inks for page 13 of the graphic novel which I did for Scholastic Canada's educational division, about famous French Canadian strongman Louis Cyr. It was done as part of an early reading package, for Grade 3. You can see the book listed here on Scholastic's order page; unfortunately for anyone interested in obtaining a copy, it appears you may only order it as part of a set of 6 books...why they don't release it to the general market, I really don't know.

Tonal BG-Mall

2007-05-26T23:58:00.001-04:00

Hallway Rough

2007-05-25T16:49:00.000-04:00

From Batman Beyond, a rough BG design sketch.

Line Art for BG

2007-05-24T22:09:00.000-04:00

This was line art for a background design for Batman Beyond, with blacks filled in but before the tones were added.

Digital Tomfoolery 2

2007-05-23T00:13:00.000-04:00

More from the digital test lab...messing around with Photoshop.

Digital Tomfoolery

2007-05-22T12:13:00.000-04:00

Alien

2007-05-21T18:01:00.001-04:00

A sketchbook drawing, done with ballpoint...

Biker Art

2007-05-16T16:47:00.000-04:00

A piece of some comic bookish presentation art I did some years back...not posting all of it, just some portions...

Gotham Mall

2007-05-15T23:02:00.000-04:00

This was a design from my work on Batman...

RedShip

2007-05-02T16:35:00.000-04:00

A portion of an old acrylic painting, never quite finished....done at a time of fascination with the work of Ron Cobb, McQuarrie, Chris Foss...

Another Lab

2007-05-01T10:18:00.001-04:00

Ad Art

2007-04-17T01:00:00.000-04:00

In between doing work that qualifies as 'rocketfictional', I've done lots of ad art....this is an example of a more finished type of piece, a presentation comp for an ad campaign for Trimark, done for Grey Worldwide.

Lab Design

2007-04-16T16:59:00.000-04:00

A rough design from my work on Batman Beyond:

Night Operations

2007-03-09T15:56:00.000-05:00

Deco Party

2007-03-02T18:28:00.000-05:00

Something a little different and decidedly non-rocketfictional: an illustration for the Design Exchange, for the invitation to their opening...this was pencil, ink linework, some airbrush, plus whiteout...

Salvage Ship

2007-01-17T14:49:00.000-05:00

AlienDoodle

2006-12-30T16:25:00.001-05:00

Doodle81-1

2006-12-28T19:42:00.000-05:00

Decoration

2006-12-27T18:49:00.000-05:00

These were some decorative elements I painted some time ago, for a children's textbook. Pelikan ink and airbrush.

City Doodle 2

2006-12-21T17:15:00.000-05:00

X-Men Storyboard Pages- Part 3

2006-12-19T22:33:00.000-05:00

Pages read from the bottom up!

City Doodle 1

2006-12-16T23:56:00.000-05:00

Recently unearthed from the Vast and Yellowing Archives...an old doodle of an unknown city.

Design

2006-12-14T11:28:00.000-05:00

A design drawing from my work on Batman Beyond...

Strangeman

2006-11-23T22:44:00.000-05:00

An odd little sketch from the dark ages: 1980. The radial lines around the figure are an accident: the result of using Pelikan colored inks on thin layout paper!

X-Men Storyboard Pages- Part 2

2006-11-14T10:09:00.000-05:00

More TV storyboard pages, from a few years ago, done for Film Roman.

Animatic Art

2006-11-13T02:22:00.000-05:00

Another side of things, for no particular reason---a frame from an advertising animatic I did a few years ago.

Remembrance Day 2006

2006-11-11T13:10:00.000-05:00

It's Remembrance Day here in Canada, the day we honour the heroes who fought and those who died to preserve our freedom in the face of relentless evil.

It's a rainy day here in Toronto, appropriately mournful. These are a few photos from our local ceremony at the cenotaph in the park. There were many older faces and a heartening collection of younger ones; all stood patiently. There were prayers and bagpipes and some hymns, and the man on the accordion played tunes such as "Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag" and "The Colonel Bogey March" and you could see the older faces smiling, remembering also the happiness of days gone by. There were two minutes of silence at 11:00 am, broken only by the random wailing of babies in the crowd too young too understand--but no one minded since the parents obviously cared enough to bring them there and try to begin their education as to why this matters.

Wreaths were laid, speeches were made, and finally the veterans marched out again and it was over, and the young ones' fingers could go get warmed up in the welcoming houses...warm houses, secured by the bravery of our soldiers, the USA's, Britain's, and all the other countries who unite against evil and totalitarianism, then and now.

Heartfelt thanks to all those known and unknown, who stepped up and answered the call, yesterday and today.

X-Men Storyboard Pages

2006-11-09T22:15:00.000-05:00

These are from a few years ago, some pages from an X-Men storyboard...directed by Curt Geda. It was the same sequence I was doing designs for, as shown in the previous post.

Alley BG

2006-11-07T02:11:00.000-05:00

A BG design done a while back for Film Roman, for the X-Men show...

Moonlight

2006-11-04T20:15:00.000-05:00

Louis Cyr Screengrab

2006-11-04T09:52:00.000-05:00

A piece of a panel from my Louis Cyr Graphic Novel:

Ratty X Rough

2006-10-20T00:02:00.000-04:00

A ratty ol' marker rough from Mister X days, which I posterized a bit, just because...I could.

Louis Cyr Graphic Novel

2006-10-11T00:50:00.000-04:00

I recently completed work on a 30-page graphic novel for Scholastic Canada, aimed at grades 2-3. The project had begun as a regular children's book, but I was brought in to write and draw it as a comic. It's a docudrama-approach look at some highlights of the life of Louis Cyr, a French Canadian strongman from the end of the 19th century, who is still reputed to be the strongest man who ever lived...

Posted are page 6, then pages 10 and 11 as they'd appear in the book. Why those ones? No particular reason...

It was a very challenging project, notably because of the amount of research involved even to draw the simplest things (eg. what did a factory foreman wear in 1888?...etc etc)

Project:Romantic

2006-09-01T20:36:00.000-04:00

Project:Romantic is the last of three successful comic anthologies published by Adhouse Books, the first two being Project:Telstar and Project:Superior. They're both highly enjoyable anthologies, with a widely varied mix of stories and styles.

Shown is a sample spread (pages 9 and 10) from my 12-page story for "Romantic", entitled "The Romance of the Skies". It's kind of a lighthearted commentary on male/female viewpoints, taking place in an imaginary world I've been working on for a while now, a world I'm using as a backdrop for more stories...anyhow, to see this complete story and many others, please order a copy of Project:Romantic and make Chris Pitzer a happy man!

Adhouse Books' web site is here.

Treasure

2006-08-30T00:08:00.000-04:00