Response to Comment (Patreon)

   Responding to Jose's comment on the Hawkgirl pinup, I just wanted to be clear. I'm not saying that piece is badly done. Despite my wife's opinion that I am too harsh in my criticism of my own work, I believe I have an accurate assessment of my work: critical, but fair. I did a fairly good job on Hawkgirl, there. But it's a single image. I would not be able to apply that style to an ongoing, more realistically-drawn sequential story. It's just too different from the style I drifted into after years of humorous stories. Think of it like this(and forgive me if I've said this before): You could probably copy someone else's signature, given enough time; you might even be able to write a sentence or two in someone else's handwriting. But if you tried to maintain this over multiple paragraphs and page after page, you would inevitably revert to your own handwriting style. So, while I can do isolated images in other styles (in fact, in my fine art I use various styles, from cartoony to almost photo-realistic), when I try to do more realistic or "serious" styles, it just looks awkward. Curiously, when I started out I really wanted a style like early Chris Bachalo, from around his Death: "The High Cost of Living" period. You might see tiny elements of this in the first Deja Vu story...but I never allowed myself to study or duplicate other artists' styles (something I've since learned was a mistake), so it never happened.  

   Here's a perfect example of a good style misapplied. One of my favorite artists did a trade paperback of Bram Stoker's Dracula, which I purchased. No regrets, I just love looking at the artwork. However, his style is very cartoony, and to my eye does not go well with such a serious story. It just defuses the tension. Wonderful designs and line work, just not scary.  

   The image above is a teaser from an illustrated prose story I'm working on. Didn't want this post to be just a block of boring text. Cheers!