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

I updated all my programs to CS3 this week. I am now up to date with the cutting edge of super awesome graphics programs.... and I don't know how to use ANY of them. So I'm still working in Photoshop CS until I feel comfortable that I'm not going to royally screw something up.

I'll probably have it figured out just in time for CS4 to come out.

My digital inking is picking up speed though, my new chair/computer desk combo is working out well. My digital Ink lines are much sharper and more flowing than when I was sitting on the couch and I've even updated my custom brushes to speed up my work flow (Photoshop is a lot easier to use if you ACTUALLY learn how to use it). And yet I'm still slower than I want to be. Maybe I'm taking to many breaks or I look up at the TV too often, but even though I'm forcing myself to draw on a regular schedule, I'm still not producing work as fast as I'd like. At least I'm happy with the quality now and that is really important. Maybe speed will factor in later on.

The folding chair I'm now using is incredibly uncomfortable... that may also have something to do with it. I have an awesome Spider-man pillow for my butt that sort of helps, but when I eventually get up, there is a rush of feeling and pain straight to recently numbed tailbone. I'd like to get a comfy rolling chair, but there is just NO ROOM for it in our house. Every square inch of floor space that is not for set aside for walking has some sort of space eating baby apparatus in it. Maybe in a few months when our son starts walking we can store some of this stuff but until then all of my art will be brought to you by severe butt pain.... and the letter "F".

In any case, work on Filthy Habit is rocketing on and Thomas is turning in his pages so fast it's making my head spin. I will keep up!!!!! I must keep up!!!!!! The book is looking really great though! I'm super excited about it.

ON THE WEB

Hey look some news about actual comics came out of Comic-Con. I thought it was all about movies now. Well, What do you know?

It appers Dark Horse is starting up the horror magazine Creepy again. This isn't reprints either, it's all new stuff!!! I really hope it turns out as good or better than the original!

ON THE SHELF

Here's some cool stuff scheduled to hit stands today:


I've never read Little Nemo before, but I've always been facinated by the art.


I'm not as excited about Scorchy Smith as I am about Noel Sickles. If you have never heard of him, his illustrations are mind blowing.


I found some issues of Journey in a quarter bin as a kid and really enjoyed them, I looking forward to learning the whole story.

Popgun is an anthology of the newest talented folks in comics. The first book was really good, but I would have enjoyed more self contained stories. I'm not a fan of using your five pages in an anthology to give me the first five pages of a series that may or may not ever come out. Tell me a whole story dammit! Hopefully there is less of that in this one.

Things are going well for me, I'm knocking out some pages, losing sleep and having fun.

I'm still trying to get all the kinks worked out of working digital... I have the tools now, just not the space. I have these awesome little tables that pull up to the couch so I can be with my family in the front room while I work, but the tables are not completely stable and every little tremor causes my digital ink lines to quiver a little. To fix this I'm working really big and shrinking the image down, just like a real comic page, but I think I need to move my wacom back to a real desk to completely solve it because I find myself drawing the same line over and over again trying to get it right. I guess this marks the end of couch drawing for me... at least no more "inking".

ON THE WEB

The webcomic Ugly Hill sums up exactly how I feel about comics. If you are not reading Ugly Hill I vastly recommend it.

Entertainment Weekly does some of the best video interviews with Bruce Campbell I've EVER seen!! Hilarity ensues!

Brandon Graham is posting the second book of his Eisner nominated series about everyone's favorite Cat Master, King City, on his blog for free... Tokyo Pop completely dropped the ball on a stateside release. Please put your eyes on it... I think you'll thank me.... At least you should... This stuff is amazing.

E3 and G4 provide a look at one of the new Ghostbusters games currently in production and I gotta say I am completely blown away that the designers put this much care into the design of a property they don't own. I have been dreaming of playing this game since 1984. Is it sad that I have an Xbox 360 just for this game?.... yeah... It probably is.

ON THE SHELF

A Sparrow box set is scheduled for release this week collecting the Sparrow art books of Ashley Wood, Phil Hale, Kent Williams, Shane Glines, and Phil Hale.... Glorious!

GENRE-XPLOSION

Genre-xplosion is a short, spoiler free introduction to some of the strange and obscure movies and comics that I enjoy. Some of them are brilliant masterpieces... some of them aren't. All of them are entertaining.
FEAST (2005)
Horny, Hungry Monsters
Directed- John Gulager
Written- Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton
STYLE: ****
SUBSTANCE: ****
BLOOD/GORE: ****
NUDITY: ****
Scale built on quantity, not quality.
A group of strangers find themselves stuck in a bar fighting for their lives when a bloody man, carrying the head of some type of creature, bursts into the establishment and starts barking warnings about a group of murderous monsters that are headed their way.
Considering the monsters motivations you may find it surprising to learn there's no real nudity in this picture. There is, however, a lot of monster wang, monster spooge and enough breasts almost spilling out of shirts to qualify. While it's not the goriest movie I have ever seen, the uncut DVD features enough blood, guts and maggots to satisfy the most serious of gore hounds.
THOUGHTS:
This is a beer and pizza movie of epic proportions. Part of HBO's Project Greenlight series where they find, fund and follow the production of an independent feature, Feast is a flick that will satisfy hard core splatter fans for years to come.

The characters in Feast are fairly insignificant since they are basically cows lined up for the slaughter... EVERYONE in this flick is up for grabs. To drive this point home, each character gets a stat sheet at the beginning of the film listing their generic label, a fun fact about them and their characters' usual life expectancy in a movie like this. Considering that, the film makers lined up a pretty impressive cast, including Henry Rollins, Judah Friedlander, Veteran Actor Clu Gulager (also the director's father), Krista Allen, and Jason Mewes as, believe it or not, himself.

The most engaging thing about this picture is it goes way out of it way to be over-the-top and play with the usual worn out, cliche horror movie plot devices that you would expect in a film like this. In fact, some scenes are so over-the-top, even I was offended... and then later impressed that they actually offended me without putting me off the movie completely. It's a very tongue-in-cheek film that takes itself just seriously enough to keep the suspense rolling in. Much of the taboo comes from the monsters which only have two motivations: humping and eating. These things are either going to kill you or violate you (or sometimes both) and there's nothing you can do to stop them, short of running away or killing them.

All in all, Feast is a movie that I had very little hope for when I popped it in the DVD player, but ended up being glued to the screen the entire time with my jaw firmly on the floor. If this sounds like your type of movie, I suggest you check it out.