Haunted Fire Studio :: Benjamin Hall :: Illustrator and Comic Book Artist


Friday, July 27, 2007

KNUCKLEJELLY COVER - COLOR


Here is the final image, all colored up in Photoshop and Painter.

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Thursday, July 26, 2007

KNUCKLEJELLY COVER - INKS


In this step, I print out the cleaned up Photoshop version and place the image in my projector and project the image onto a piece of Bristol Board so I can trace it with a pencil making any last minute changes, if I feel they are needed. I then take the pencilled version to my art table and ink the beast with an inkpot, brush, crow quill and Micron pens (cause I'm not good enough to draw circles with a brush or a crow quill without splattering ink everywhere or ending up with a peanut shaped circle).


Wednesday, July 25, 2007

KNUCKLEJELLY COVER - REPOSITION


This is a relatively new step in my process. The size of my scratch paper and the bristol board I eventually work on are drastically different in proportion, which caused me to make some hard and fast changes directly on the board in the past. Since then, I've wised up and created a correctly sized page in Photoshop so that my design is the correct ratio of the board when I print it out. Once I copied my previous image over to the right sized page, I realized I had drawn the main character much too small and decided to add some depth with a few tombstones in the foreground.


Tuesday, July 24, 2007

KNUCKLEJELLY COVER - PHOTOSHOP SKETCH


Here I've scanned the original sketch into Photoshop and cleaned up some of the sketchier elements. I gave the house some better perspective and cleaned up the character's face and hair and the wrinkles in his suit... I also gave him a pipe because I forgot to draw one the first time.

I don't like straight sketching in photoshop, (it takes me too long and I like to be able to turn the paper, something I can't do with my current Wacom tablet) but I do like working like this. It allows me to be very loose and messy in my initial sketch, which causes me less worry so I can just have fun and get the drawing started, knowing I can refine it in later without wearing out my thin little piece of paper. It also saves me time, which is something I REALLY need.


Monday, July 23, 2007

KNUCKLEJELLY COVER - SKETCH


I'm working on the cover to the first issue of Knucklejelly and thought I'd share my progress.

This is the initial sketch and idea, done in pencil on the back of an old piece of typewriter paper (I save all my printouts and draw on the backs of them).

This is very rough and just gives me something to work with.





Friday, July 20, 2007

MY GREATEST WORK OF ART EVER!



Marlena and I are pregnant and we got our first sonogram yesterday!

The baby is the size of a grape and has tiny little arms and legs.

It did a little dance for us on camera... I was astounded by the beauty of it all.

It's simply amazing.....


Thursday, July 19, 2007

SIMPSONS/FUTURAMA!


I heard that Bongo Comics is looking for Pencillers and Inkers, so I did a few pages to send their way. Drawing the Simpsons or Futurama comics would be a blast!!!

It took me a little but to get the characters right, and the pages seem a little flat as just pencils, they really need to be inked to give their thin little lines some life.





Wednesday, July 18, 2007

ODDLY NORMAL



Marlena and I did a pin-up for volume two of Otis Frampton's Oddly Normal series.

I believe the books are available now.

Inks my me, colors by Marlena



Monday, July 16, 2007

HALLOWEEN TREE


Here is a piece of art I did for one of the chapter breaks for my book Knucklejelly.



RSS FEED!


After much fuss and toil Marlena finally got my RSS feed up and working on this site!

So now you can sign up with your favorite RSS reader for a daily flow of art and stuff from me!

The internets are a strange and magical place.


Friday, July 13, 2007

iGOOGLE


No drawing today, I've been too busy playing around with my new igoogle homepage! I've always liked RSS technology, but was never satisfied with the reader I was using. Google's is much better and allows me to add a whole crap load of gadgets and stuff to my homepage so that I no longer have to surf the web, the web comes to me! It's cut my internet time by 3/4ths. And it's totally free! WOOT!

Here's a glimpse into just a few of the things I got going on.


Also, in case you are curious, there IS an RSS feed for this site, it's just not up and working at the moment. Marlena is working to have that up very soon.


Thursday, July 12, 2007

HORRIBLE DEATH 3!


Here is the third and final image of some poor girl blowing up.



Wednesday, July 11, 2007

BLACK DIAMOND #2 REVIEW


Here is another great review of Black Diamond #2 that highlights our back-up story over on the awesome Johnny Bacardi's blog... even if he intially called Marlena Marjorie, he later fixed it because, you know... he's awesome.


HORRIBLE DEATH 2!


More deaths of a horrible nature.



Tuesday, July 10, 2007

HORRIBLE DEATH 1!


Here is the first of three drawings I created for the gore scenes in an upcoming movie called "Johnathan Moon". The idea behind these is that right before the people explode in the movie, it switches to one of these drawings to give it a comic book type of feel.



Monday, July 09, 2007

MONSTER RUG!


Everyone always complains about animal fur, but no one ever bats an eye over the hundreds of monsters murdered every day for the sake of home decor.

What about their plight?



HALLOWEEN MAN!


A webcomic I drew a few years ago for Drew Edwards' "Halloween Man" will be published in October by Silent Devil as part of a larger graphic novel called "Halloween Man Super Deformed".

Here is an article about the book and here is the story that will see print.



Friday, July 06, 2007

HOOTERS ZOMBIE


Here is something I did while playing around in Painter. Just trying to keep things loose.



Thursday, July 05, 2007

BLACK DIAMOND #2


Issue two of AIT/Planet Lar's Black Diamond hits stands today!


Marlena and I have a 6-page story in the back which features the first published work scripted by Ken Lowery.

Here is a review of the first two issues that also gives our back-up some props... which originally included some funny typos that have all been fixed now... I really appreciate the kind words.


Tuesday, July 03, 2007

SIMON SQUARESKULL


Here is a sketch from a short story involving my character Simon Squareskull.

The story should see print sometime in December.




Monday, July 02, 2007

POP ART GIRL


This drawing is 100% digital from beginning to end. I don't work like this very often so I was pleased with how well it came out.



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