RetroAero

More sketchy.

2011-08-26T14:46:00.002-05:00

'nother practice piece I did today. I have no creativity, so forgive the workout poses.

Sketches

2011-08-16T12:03:00.002-05:00

Did a little sketching the past couple days.

Fireworks!

2010-06-28T21:21:00.001-05:00

I took these over the weekend. Hope you all (ha!) like!

-j

Deadpool 896

2010-06-25T22:08:00.002-05:00

At long last, here’s a work post. Some pages from Deadpool 896, which has been out for a little while now. I hope you guys like these, because Shawn Crystal and I are going to be working together a lot, it seems. I’ll post more later.

-j

Pictures!

2010-06-23T21:47:00.003-05:00

I know it’s been a long time and I apologize…and I will be posting some work, but not tonight. For right now, I wanted to post some of the photos I’ve taken recently, now that I finally have a camera worth using. Hope all three of you that read this enjoy!

-j

Karaoke!

2009-04-21T22:18:00.003-05:00

I just did this today for a friend who does tech support on a karaoke site. I'm including the steps as well. Enjoy!

-j

Interview

2009-02-16T10:37:00.002-06:00

Marjorie asked me to do a short interview about my work on NYX and coloring in general. Check it out if you have a chance.

-j

http://www.marjoriemliu.com

New house!

2009-01-13T13:57:00.002-06:00

It looks like we're getting a new house. We'll be closing on the 2nd of March. For those of youwho are local, there will be a big ol' barbeque sometime this spring. Woot!

-j

Ultimate Spiderman Annual

2008-12-29T12:19:00.002-06:00

I'm not sure how I forgot to post this one, but I did. Here are some pages from the Ultimate Spiderman Annual #3. I hope you like them; it's one of my favorite books I've colored.

Written by Brian Michael Bendis, Drawn by David LaFuente, Colored by me.

-j

Wolverine: Manifest Destiny

2008-12-25T22:46:00.003-06:00

S0me pages from issues 2 & 3. Written by Jason Aaron, Drawn by Stephen Segovia, inked by Noah Salonga, colored by me.

-j

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T22:56:00.000-06:00

I made a video about choosing colors.

http://eraserx.deviantart.com/art/Color-Picking-Primer-Part-1-107327559

http://eraserx.deviantart.com/art/Color-Picking-Primer-Part-2-107328166

Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel #3

2008-12-23T14:24:00.005-06:00

I also colored this book last week. Here are some of my favorite pages...

Written by Kevin Grevioux, Penciled by Mat Broome, inked by Sean Parsons, colored by me.

-j

NYX Vol. 2 iss. 5

2008-12-23T14:07:00.005-06:00

This is one of the books I colored last week. It's always fun to do. I'm kind of bummed thinking that I only have one issue left.

Written by Marjorie Liu, Penciled by Kalman Andrasofzky, inked by Ramon Perez, colored by me.

-j

Hellcat #4

2008-12-13T15:56:00.005-06:00

This one's coming out right before Christmas. Make sure you pick it up. It's some kind of crazy, stream-of-consciousness, surreal, awesome, fantasy nonsense. You'll love it. I promise.

-j

Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel #1

2008-11-07T12:32:00.005-06:00

It seems like everywhere I've seen this previewed or reviewed online, my name was left out of the credits, but I did color it. Here's the cover and a few pages I colored. Written by Kevin Grevioux, drawn by Mat Broome, inked by Sean Parsons.

-j

More sketching...

2008-10-29T17:28:00.001-05:00

I did a little self portrait earlier and the old dude is from last night.

-j

Another doodle.

2008-10-28T09:28:00.002-05:00

I had so much fun, I did another.

PSCS3, +/- 35 min.

-j

Doodle time.

2008-10-28T02:07:00.001-05:00

It's been about 7-8 months since I've really tried to draw anything and I felt like scribbling tonight. This is in no way planned. The design just sort of happened along, so functionality is nill. Anyway, whatever...

-j

PSCS3, +/- 90 min.

The Great Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-22T15:07:00.005-05:00

We took a trip to "The Great Pumpkin Patch" outside of Arthur Illinois today and my wife took some pictures. We had loads of fun, bought 5 big pumpkins, 8 little decorative squash, 4 more squash for eating, and a maroon colored Mum.

-j

Video Tutorials

2008-08-28T10:59:00.003-05:00

I put two video tutorials up on my DeviantArt account. The first is just a demo of me coloring with the pencil and smudge tools. The second (with audio) explains my line hold process.

-j

http://eraserx.deviantart.com/art/10-minute-coloring-demo-95793822

http://eraserx.deviantart.com/art/Line-Hold-video-tutorial-96296201

Recent covers

2008-08-28T10:07:00.003-05:00

I colored these over the past few weeks. I hope you enjoy!

-j

Hellcat #3!

2008-08-28T10:04:00.003-05:00

Next up is Hellcat #3, drawn by David LaFuente, written by Kathryn Immonen. Like I said before, this is one of my favorite books I've ever worked on. It's such a refreshing read. The art is great and it would be an awesome book with any schmuch coloring it, but thankfully, they picked me.

-j

New Universal: Conqueror

2008-08-28T09:56:00.003-05:00

This book was pretty fun to do. Eric Nguyen laid down the lines from Simon Spurrier's script, and I colored it.

-j

X-Men Manifest Destiny "Karma"

2008-08-28T09:50:00.002-05:00

This isn't out yet, but I always enjoy coloring David Yardin's art and wanted to show a few pages off.

-j

NYX: No Way Home #1

2008-08-28T09:15:00.004-05:00

This is another book I'm pretty proud of. It's in stores already, so go pick it up if you're a fan of the original stories or just enjoy more street level, character driven stories. I think it's really good and so does everyone else who's not an idiot. So, check it out!

Lines are by Kalman Andrasofszky, story by Marjorie Liu, colors by me.

-j

Patsy Walker: Hellcat #2

2008-08-28T09:05:00.002-05:00

These are from Hellcat #2, which I actually colored a month or more ago, but never got around to posting. I love this book and I usually hate the things I do. Guys, this is the book you need to pick up to get your girlfriends into comics. The great thing is that you'll probably like it yourself but won't have to admit it!

Anyway, these were AMAZINGLY drawn by David LaFuente from Kathryn Immonen's crazy, crazy story. My colors, as usual.

-j

Teen Titans: Year One #6

2008-08-28T08:58:00.002-05:00

This was the final issue. It was kind of bittersweet, even though my tenure on the book wasn't *that* long. This was my first and last series at DC for a long time, now that I'm exclusive with Marvel. I don't regret the decision for a second, but I was pretty proud of the work I did with Karl, Serge, and Amy, and hope we'll get another chance some day. Anyway, here are some pages I colored/painted from the final issue of Teen Titans: Year One. I hope you enjoy them!

-j

Update Time!

2008-07-09T14:34:00.004-05:00

Update time...
Here's some more Teen Titans: Year One from iss. 5. I'm a little bummed about this issue. The art came in late and the ship date had already been moved back a few times, so when it finally was all ready to color, I only had several days to do my part. Because of the rush, I got a couple things wrong in the colors, which happens sometimes and isn't a big deal, because the editor would catch it and let me know to fix it. The problem this time is that production sent the messed up files to print rather than the new corrected ones. It's not their fault. I'm sure they were scrambling just like the rest of us to get the book off, but it bums me out that not only did the book print late, it printed late with mistakes. *sigh*

Here are a few pages the way they were supposed to look. Apologies to anyone who bought the book and wondered why Kid Flash kicked himself in the head or why Wonder Girl was tearing down blank posters in her room at the end.

Pencils by Karl Kerschl and inks by Serge LaPointe. Colors by me.

Next up is Superman Batman #50. This book had several artists involved, but these pages were drawn by Ian Churchill. Again, colors by me.

And one more for fun, drawn by Justin Copeland, colored by some dude named me.

Patsy Walker: Hellcat

2008-06-11T15:53:00.002-05:00

Funny, quirky, over-the-top story by Kathryn Immonen with amazing cover art by Stuart Immonen

Beautiful, beatiful lines by David LaFuentes.

Colors by John Rauch (ME!)

If you like what you see, go say so at Newsarama! And if not...well, you can say that too. Any press is good press and criticism can only help us improve.

http://www.newsarama.com/php/multimedia/album.php?aid=18258#comments

-j

Mayhem!

2008-06-07T14:47:00.003-05:00

It rained last night. A lot.

-j

Planche

2008-05-28T00:27:00.001-05:00

Here's the cover to a French graphic novel I've been working on called "Planche". Drawn by Olivier LeDiscot, colored by me, obviously.

-j

X-Men Legacy 211

2008-05-16T15:26:00.004-05:00

Out this week, X-Men 211, featuring the return of Xavier. I colored 8 flashback pages drawn by Brandon (Brando!) Peterson. The blank white areas indicate where the other art team had a panel leading into the flashbacks. Unfortunately, I didn't get files of what they did, so you just get to see what Brando and I laid down. Pick up the book if you want to see how it all plays out.

-j

X-MEN: Divided We Stand

2008-05-02T22:13:00.001-05:00

I noticed that Newsarama was showing some pages I colored this week, so I thought I'd show them here as well. These are from X-Men: Divided We Stand 2. The story is written by C.B. Cebulski and drawn by David Yardin. My colors, of course.

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=155758

Teen Titans: Year One, IN STORES TODAY!!!

2008-04-30T18:26:00.005-05:00

Sorry for the sporadic updates; I've been working on a bunch of new things over here. Some I can talk about, some not yet. Here are some of the former...

Teen Titans: Year One #4
My first issue working on this series and it's in stores today. These were written by Amy Wolfman, drawn by Karl Kerschl, inked by Serge LaPointe, and colored/painted by John Rauch (me).

Next up is Gigantic #1, written by Rick Remender, drawn by Eric Nguyen, and colored/whatever by me.

Last up is another new book, NYX volume 2. I'll be coloring 6 issues of this, written by Marjorie Liu, drawn by Kalman Andrasofzsky, and colored by me, of course. That's it for today...hope you enjoy!

Rex O'Bannon

2008-03-19T22:30:00.001-05:00

I colored this a couple days ago. Lines by Chad Hurd.

-j

Vents d’Ouest

2008-02-29T09:20:00.004-06:00

Some more pages from the French GN I'm coloring. These were brilliantly drawn by Olivier Le Discot. Hope you enjoy!

-j

Wanna be like me?

2008-02-13T17:41:00.005-06:00

Well, now you can be one step closer and it won't cost you a thing. I just uploaded my newest custom Photoshop brushes to DeviantArt. Enjoy!

-j

Photoshop Brushes

CAPTIVE

2008-02-12T22:03:00.001-06:00

I'll update once I have the version with logo and text from Simon.

-j

It's been a while...

2008-02-01T14:36:00.000-06:00

...since I've posted any work I've colored from other artist's drawings. So, here's some of that. I thought all of these artists did a fantastic job and I'm thrilled to have worked with them.

Lines by Olivier Discot.

Drawing by Andy MacDonald.

Drawing by Khary Randolph.

A couple things...

2008-01-31T21:33:00.000-06:00

Finished these the past couple days. I'll update once I get the logo & taglined versions from Simon.

-j

Wrong Day, Wrong Guy.

2008-01-24T03:29:00.001-06:00

I just did a quick sketch before bed and figured I might as well post it. This started out as a self-portrait and ended up being someone who actually has muscle tone...lol. Most of the stuff I've worked on lately has had to be super precise and accurate and I just wanted to scribble around and not give a damn, so that's what this was. Hopefully it doesn't suck too much.

-j

It's a Kraken Attackin'!

2008-01-07T20:23:00.000-06:00

Did this a little while ago. I can't say what it's for just yet, but hopefully soon.

-j

Nine Have Tried...

2007-12-16T12:39:00.000-06:00

and Nine Have Died. I was going for a little bit of Bradstreet style for this one. I posed for the shot, myself.

-j

Bringing the weird.

2007-12-13T23:17:00.001-06:00

Don't ask...

Channeling Templesmith

2007-11-22T04:50:00.000-06:00

So I bought "Tommyrot", the Ben Templesmith art book last night and decided to steal his style for this poster job. Not sure if it worked or not...

-j

Another new pin-up.

2007-11-19T04:33:00.000-06:00

I finished this one last night. It's pretty different for me in a number of ways. For one, I got to test my chops at painting without any underdrawing on the bottom panel. That was kind of liberating. Hope to do it again soon.

-j

What happens in Vegas...is pretty screwed up.

2007-11-15T13:35:00.001-06:00

Another pinup. This took a ridiculous amount of time to do. Hope everyone digs...

-j

So I'm back to real work...

2007-11-13T01:40:00.000-06:00

but it hardly feels like it. This thing was an absolute blast to make. I can't say what it's for, but I think it's gonna be cool.

-j

Connor and Speedy

2007-11-08T23:56:00.000-06:00

Yet another fanart. Connor Hawke has always been one of my favorite characters. Speedy, on the other hand, I know very little about, but I thought I'd include her anyway. Hope you enjoy!

-j

The Dark Knight Returns

2007-11-06T20:13:00.000-06:00

I had another day off and decided to do some Dark Knight Returns art. Hope you enjoy!

-j

Star Wars: Dark Times (unused pages)

2007-11-03T10:09:00.000-05:00

I colored these several months back, but the editor decided to go a different direction with the colors, so they never saw print. Regardless, I was pretty happy with them, so I thought I'd show a few here. Hope you like!

-j

Family Photos

2007-10-22T12:11:00.000-05:00

Well, my wife, kids and I took a trip to Allerton Park on Saturday to get some fall pictures with my sister, her husband and daughter. We left thinking the trip was mostly a bust, but it turns out some of the shots were useable. Here's some of the shots I salvaged. Hope you enjoy!

-j

Epic turncoat manuever (new old colors)

2007-09-29T09:40:00.000-05:00

These were done towards the end of 06, but I wasn't allowed to post them at the time. The first two are from a card game called "Spoils" and I was not told who drew them. The third was drawn by Bob Rivard as a promo for a "Fused" book he was working on at the time. All three were colored by me.

The Gig: Step, by Step, by Step.

2007-09-13T10:31:00.000-05:00

This isn't something I do very often, but I knew this was going to be a fun gig from the beginning, so I decided to save my steps as I went so I could show the process. Hope you enjoy!

The first step, after discussing the job with the client was to provide a rough sketch of what I wanted to do. He had the characters already in a very specific style and wanted something that felt epic. I was asked to design a poster image that could work with either a horizontal or vertical layout. Right off the bat, I knew it would be easier to plan for a wide image and crop it down for the vertical layout than vice versa. I didn't know a lot about the characters yet at this point and hadn't seen much reference material, so I took a stab in the dark. This was my first sketch to be submitted:

After discussing with the client, his initial response was great, but he ended up having some changes to reign the image in closer to the source material, which I still hadn't seen. So, at his request, I made some minor changes and submitted an updated sketch.

While I was making the revisions, the client had been thinking more about what he wanted to see in the poster specifically. At this point, I was given much more reference material as well as a general idea of what he wanted to see. He wanted a city in the distance with a robot destroying it, and the characters on a circular hovercraft. This is also when I found out the scene did not take place on earth, but rather on something similar to a Stanford torus. I was provided some reference material for this and looked for some of my own online as well. Then I submitted my third and final rough sketch.

The client liked the sketch, but thought there was a little too much curve to the ground, so I was allowed to proceeed, but keeping that in mind for my final image. This is when I started into the actual art that would be seen in the finished product. First came the background/environment. The portion nearest to the "camera" was painted in Painter Essentials 3, then saved as a PSD to be opened in Photoshop CS3. After this, I looked online for a non-specific Sketchup model of a city to use as a starting point. Turns out, there were plenty to choose from. I picked one without much detail to keep it from fighting the style I was using for the piece. Then, in Sketchup, I made some minor changes like removing buildings here and there and moving a few to suit what I was looking for more closely. Then, I exported a 2d image to Photoshop and did some distorting to fit the cartoony curve of the image and masked it into my scene. After that, I painted in some clouds from a set of stock photos I took a while back and hinted at the Stanford torus in the sky to make it look a little less like earth.

Next, I finally got to start on the characters and the hovercraft. The hovercraft was created totally level to my canvas, then distorted to achieve the funky perspective seen here. Also, the characters faces were all but traced from the style guides provided to me by the client. No one *likes* tracing, but they had what I needed already and I wanted to make sure the likenesses were spot on. This is also when I added the robot to the background. This might have been the most fun part of the entire job because of the mandatory mechanical and laser sounds you're required to make while drawing.

At this point, the image was just about done. All that was left for me to do was polish it off. Here, I added the spiraling trail behind the hovercraft, the leaves being blown off the tree in the foreground, and some last minute color adjustments to unify my color scheme that up to this point had been pretty generic. Following that, I signed my name and sent it off to the client for approval.

Well...that's that! I hope this was helpful to you in some way or at the very least, insightful.

Hot naked chicks!

2007-09-12T14:35:00.000-05:00

Just kidding...I just wrapped up a little character design gig and thought I'd show it off. Basically, the girl has the ability to change her appearance, but keeps the demon/angel theme.

KrakenHeads

2007-09-10T23:01:00.000-05:00

As some of you may know (I doubt it), the book I've been illustrating, This Hollow World is for a company named KrakenHeads. Aside from THW, I was also asked to create a logo. I went through two basic ideas, both provided by Nick, the owner. My first one didn't fly for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with it looking phallic...ok, maybe just a little. I don't like the second one quite as well, but I do think it probably works better for what it is. The idea is that someone will animate it and it will be the kind of thing you see playing before a movie starts. Anyways here are both versions as well as a simple version of the second.

-j

Twenty-five

2007-09-07T14:24:00.000-05:00

'nother page.

I probably post too many pages already, but...

2007-09-06T04:15:00.001-05:00

This is one of, if not my favorite page yet in the book so I'm posting it anyway. I hope you enjoy it!

-j

Some THW

2007-09-03T04:12:00.001-05:00

A couple pages from this past week. Hope you enjoy.

-j

Marvel colors.

2007-09-01T22:41:00.001-05:00

It occurred to me tonight that I colored a lot of Marvel stuff the end of last year/beginning f this year that I never did post anywhere, so here's some of it. Hope you dig!

First up is the X-men Annual, vol. 2. Pencils are by Mark Brooks, inks by Jaime Mendoza, colors by me.

Next up are some pages from a four issue mini I colored called Supreme Conflict: Hyperion Vs. Nighthawk. These were drawn by Paul Gulacy and colored by me.

And last up is a card I colored for Upper Deck that was drawn by Jonboy Meyers.

Magic.

2007-08-25T14:11:00.001-05:00

Something I did a while back just because.

Fear Agent

2007-08-24T14:57:00.000-05:00

Drawn by Tony Moore, colors by me. I hadn't used Painter in literaly years and only a couple times then, so I've been itching to give it a try again since my Cintiq came with Painter Essentials. It's always fun to flip things upside down now and then and try something out of the ordinary.

Tabitha Kwan

2007-08-21T06:30:00.000-05:00

Yeah, she's hot. This is from the page I'm working on right now.

More Graffiti!

2007-08-16T19:48:00.000-05:00

Yeah, well...it's something.

More graffiti

2007-08-14T01:13:00.000-05:00

I managed to sketch up some more things in the Graffiti app on Facebook the past couple days. I was hoping that doing quick little stuff just for fun without any pressure would help get the artistic juices flowing...not sure if it's working all that well. Hopefully someone will atleast get a kick out of these and my entire life spent trying to develop my skills won't be in vain.

-j

Pinup colors!

2007-08-13T01:13:00.001-05:00

Here are some various pinups I colored, but did not draw.

-j

Sequential Colors

2007-08-13T01:03:00.003-05:00

Here are some comic pages I colored, but did not draw. Hope you enjoy!

-j

This Hollow World pages

2007-08-13T00:46:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to have some pages from This Hollow World posted. This is the graphic novel I've been illustrating for the past several months. All art by me.

Pinups!

2007-08-12T14:30:00.001-05:00

These are all pinup images I've done over the past year or so. Enjoy!

-j

Fight!

2007-08-12T14:17:00.000-05:00

These are some sample pages I did a while back to hopefully showcase my sequential abilities of superhero type action. The story is a spoof of the fight at the end of Matrix Revolutions and it features Thor squaring off against Stan Lee with a guest appearance by Joey Q. and Galactus at the end. Because of the fact that I was working on these in my spare time, there was a considerable amount of time between when I finished the first two pages and the last three. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I feel like there is an obvious difference in my abilities after page two. I hope it's not too distracting.

-John

Angel

2007-08-11T13:49:00.001-05:00

I did these in '05 or '06 trying to get a gig doing covers for the IDW Angel and Spike comics.

-John

And his mighty steed!

2007-08-11T13:45:00.001-05:00

I don't even know what to say about these...I designed this character last year and I'm not entirely sure why, except that it was fun. Hope you enjoy it.

-John

The Robot Chronicles

2007-08-11T13:38:00.000-05:00

The Robot Chronicles is a graphic novel I've wanted to create for years now and have built up a cache of notes, character designs, etc. One day when I'm independantly wealthy or living in a Maytag box without any other work, I'll devote some time towards actually getting it done. In the meantime, here are some sketches and whatnot.

-John

Huzzah!

2007-08-11T13:10:00.000-05:00

Seems like it's time to finally get this thing going. So, just to set the tone, I'll be dropping some finished art, concepts, and sketches right off the bat. Some of you may have seen some of it before, but that's ok. New stuff will be coming soon as well. The images in this post are all concepts from 'This Hollow World', the graphic novel I'm illustrating.

-John