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Thanks Mobu!

beautiful piece, he's a good subject. if you draw him again you should work in those roses.

also, you reminded me of this piece

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/57/163666249_ca76f63934.jpg

I didn't know Fujitani worked for Hillman. That's funny because I assumed you wouldn't know about Fujitani when I gave you that MLJ link, so it's cool you know about him.

I love Fujitani's style back then before his stuff got really straight in the 60s when he was doing stuff like Solar Man of the Atom. It would be interesting to see how he handled a war comic since his MLJ stuff looks so odd and sinister, more Graham Ingels than Joe Kubert.

I wonder what it must've been like for a cartoonist who was half-Japanese during wartime? I don't remember if Fujitani did the same kinds of stereotypical depictions of the Japanese in his WWII era stuff.

Here's his Lambiek listing:

http://lambiek.net/artists/f/fujitani_bob.htm

There's also a nice Flying Dutchman page if you scroll down.

Did you ever get a chance to check out those MLJ links?

I like the image, I like that you're relying less on cross-hatching but it would be nice to see you do some full figures rather than just portraits. A portrait doesn't really do a character like this justice.

Thanks Shane! Love that painting! Is that Pyle or Wyeth?

Thanks Jed! Sorry I haven't gotten back to you about those links! There's a lot of info there and I wanted to take my time on it.
This period in history is so interesting!
Um..You may want to skip this week, it's all portraits!

Nothing against your portraits, just would like to see you stretch a little. You have a kind of formula for faces--so do I, it's a handy thing, especially when cartooning or doing a crowd--but figures are more of a challenge. Also you're doing superheroes. That's all about the costume. Since this whole exercise is to--I assume--work on your chops, I'd like to see you step out of your safe formula.

On a related note: I always liked Ogden Whitney's Sky-man. That might be a good character to try.

Thanks Jed. I really have to disagreement with your assessment of my work. Please keep in mind these are taken from my sketchbook, if you'd like to see my finished work it is available on Amazon or book stores.

You may have misunderstood me. I don't believe your work is formulaic, I just meant that most illustrators and cartoonists do have a kind of style in which they draw faces. I said "formula" but I didn't mean that in a negative way. No more than Maurice Sendak has a formula for drawing faces, or Mike Mignola, or many many others. It's part of your vocabulary as a storyteller.

If you're going to draw a character and you want that character to look the same from page to page, relying strictly on photo reference is probably not the best way to go. You need to use your imagination. Most of us, when doing so, access a kind of vocabulary of symbols that we tend to use when we draw. I have a kind of method that i use to draw noses. You have a method to drawing eyes. Lately I've been doing the dots for eyes thing, and if that's not a symbol I don't know what is.

When cartoonists rely on too much photo reference in their work--and I'm talking cartoonists and not illustrators, people who make comics and picture books principally--it tends to look stiff and I don't think it flows particularly well. It's harder to identify with the characters as cyphers. I think you use a good mix of both reference and symbols.

So in these portraits, all I'm saying s that you're approaching them from a confident place. I think there are artists who specialize in this kind of thing and do it well and with novelty and variety. Renee French is one. But she has her way of drawing eyes, of drawing noses, you can call it a formula or a vocabulary of symbols or whatever you like.

So, as graceless as I may have presented the idea, all I was suggesting was that you try something different in these sketches. But that doesn't mean that they'll be better drawings, or that in doing these portraits you're not doing interesting work. I just thought it would be fun to see you do these characters as full figures, but the way I presented the suggestion was as if there were something lacking in your work, and that was not very helpful.

Please don't worry about it Jed! What I was trying to say is that these are fast sketches done for fun and shouldn't be taken too seriously. I wasn't offended but I wanted to be clear on these sketches.

I understand your point now.

Sweet sketch! I may actually have a couple of Air Fighter Comics in my collection. I was heavy into WW II comics as a youngster...

Thanks Bruce! A lot of my father's brothers fought in World War Two and I grew up with those stories so these characters have a deep resonance with me now.

Yeah, I hear ya. My one grandpa flew in a B-17 and was based in Italy (I actually got a chance to see one of the places that he bombed) and my other grandpa was a model maker for the warplane manufacturers and between the two of them there were/are a ton of great stories. So, I had that same resonance and still do. I always wanted to put those stories into pictures somehow.

Totally sweet !

Thanks Scott!