Scott Hallett's Sketchbook

Evil Genius

2010-01-22T16:52:00.005-05:00

I really tried to avoid all the Evil Genius cliches for this Drawer Geeks entry, but I'm sure I hit on at least a few. I love the idea of a tiny little man piloting a giant robot, very fitting.

I haven't had too much in the way of free time this year so far, but I'm hoping to at least develop some sort of steady art output. To be continued...

Some Traditional Ink Work

2009-11-27T08:04:00.004-05:00

Here's some more recent ink work I've been doing in the spare moments on my lunch hour. The first is a failed attempt at a design for a longer story I had planned for Popgun a while back. Never came to be, and may end up finishing it someday.

The second one is a small character that fits into a world I had always pictured as a graphic novel, but there's holes in the premise I've yet to be able to adequately fill, so it's always been on the back burner.

The final one is a character who fits into a story that's almost fully fleshed out in my mind. I'd love to tackle it after my current obligations are complete, but we'll see where things are then.

I had planned out a tutorial on preparing line work for coloring in Photoshop (at least the method I use), but I'm afraid I just don't have the time to give it the proper attention at the moment. It's on my "to do" list though.

Spirits, Monsters & Wild Things!

2009-10-26T21:28:00.007-04:00

I ran into some technical snafu's in the past month or so that made getting art completed and posted a bit of a challenge. Hopefully that's behind me now, so I'm posting some things that were completed recently. I'm also brainstorming on ways to add more content to this blog with or without new art to show, but I'll have to iron that out a bit more first.

First up is this week's Drawer Geeks, "Frankenstein":

I wanted to show a bit more of the messy business of stitching someone together of disparate parts. My Frankenstein is falling apart at the seams, literally.

Next up is another Drawer Geeks from the previous round, in honour of the film and book "Where The Wild Things Are".

Played with a whole new palette for me, as well as colouring directly on the pencils and skipping inks all together. Relatively happy with how this turned out, even if it wasn't anything like I pictured initially.

Finally, this is a pencil drawing of a duo that figure into a larger story brewing in my head at the moment. Not ready to talk about it yet, but I like the design enough to show it around.

Site Updates & New Gallery

2009-09-19T12:39:00.003-04:00

After sort of dealing with the proprietary flash gallery on the site for a few years now, I've decided to re-vamp it and write my own from scratch. It's actually been up for a couple of weeks now, but I keep forgetting to write a post about it. It is done using only javascript and XML, forgoing Flash all together. I did all the coding from scratch, by hand, except for a few re-used libraries that weren't worth re-doing (i.e. Date formatting, mobile browser detection). You can check it out at the illustration link at the top of the page.

After putting all that work into the gallery, I'm thinking the site may have to be re-designed again. It's functional, but it's not exciting to me any longer. We'll see.

Spider-Man, Spider-Man...

2009-08-12T21:40:00.006-04:00

...does whatever a spider can! Not my usual thing, but a fun departure. Broke out some of the stronger crayons in the color palette as well for this one. Just trying new things all around. This was for Drawer Geeks.

Design a Deity - Akamushi

2009-08-12T07:38:00.008-04:00

This is a character design I did for the "Design A Deity" blog. The idea is to throw a bunch of deities at each other, and see who would be left standing. Mine is named Akamushi, which means blood worm in Japanese. Here's my description:

"My Deity Akamushi is the best because for decades, he's been enslaving a vast army under the guise of the two-tailed mermaid. Soon, he will wash a flood across the lands; a tidal wave of those coffee-conquered souls, all willing to destroy anything in their path, all in his name."

There's some great talents with more deities on the way, so check it out!

The Monkey King

2009-07-31T07:23:00.002-04:00

This week for Drawer Geeks the topic was "Monkeys", so I decided to draw Sun Wukong, The Monkey King. I've been so heavily focused on inking these days, it was nice to dust off the coloring side of my brain. Enjoy!

iPhone and So Forth

2009-05-16T11:16:00.004-04:00

Man oh man, I have had a roller coaster of a time these past weeks! I've been working on art, just not anything I can show. So what can I show? Well, for you technophiles out there, you'll now be able to hit this site on your phones and get a nifty little mobile version. It relies on some fancy javascript though, so for now it will probably only work on iPhones, or any other webkit enabled smart phone. I'll have to address that in the future, but it'll do for now.

Here's some art while I'm at it. These were all Drawer Geeks entries, some of which I didn't even get a chance to finish and submit on time. Thems the breaks as they say.

Comics! Comics! Comics!

2009-03-13T10:31:00.009-04:00

Alright, now that I've got some life changes tidied up, I'm back in the game! I've been working away on "Don't Get Sucked Under the Escalator", and I think I just drew the best page I've ever done. Hopefully I'll keep saying that as the pages keep coming. Unfortunately, that's going to be a ways off until anyone can see that book in finished format.

So what can you take a gander at? How about Popgun Volume 3? That's right, I have a short story in Popgun! It's a small one titled "The Last Voyage", and lettered by the always awesome Thomas Mauer.

I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say it plants some seeds. Here's the cover (by Tara McPherson, who I've always enjoyed):
Here's the absolutely staggering in a "How the hell did I end up a part of all this awesome" sort of way, list of creators:

Alison Acton
Joshua Agerstrand
Laura Allred
Anjin Anhut
Kris Anka
Amanda Becker
Peter Bergting
Patricio Betteo
Danilo Beyruth
Sam Bosma
Dan Brereton
Olaf Brill
Dennis Brown
Antonio Campo
Dominique Carrier
Celor
Jim Charalampidis
Bobby Clark
Ryan Cody
Dave Collinson
Dave Curd
Mike Dawson
Ben DeRosa
Michael Dialynas
JEIK Dion
Juan Doe
Becky Dreistadt
Nathan Edmondson
Ulises Farinas
Ray Fawkes
Gary Fields
Fonografiks
Frank Gibson
Vassilis Gogtzilas
Zac Gorman

George Gousis
Paul Grist
Scott Hallett
Jason Hanley
David Hopkins
Jason Ibarra
Joëlle Jones
Janet Kim
D.J. Kirkbride
Nic Klein
Adam P. Knave
Peter Krause
Edward Kwong
Erik Larsen
Robbie Lawrence
Johann "Ullcer" Leroux
Maximo V. Lorenzo
Thomas Mauer
Derek McCulloch
Sam McKenzie
Tara McPherson
Alberto Mielgo
Robb Mommaerts
Paul Montgomery
Chris Moreno
Matt Moylan
Ralph Niese
Anthony Nixon
Josh Parpan
Jeff Powell
Isam Prado
Justin Randall
Stephen Reedy
Jamie S. Rich
Rachelle Rosenberg

David Rubin
Matteo Scalera
Douglas E. Sherwood
Guillaume Singelin
Eric Skillman
Mark Andrew Smith
Eric Stephenson
Alisa Stern
Amy Stern
Chris Stevens
Frank Stockton
Andre Szymanowicz
Gregory Titus
Ron Turner
Christian Ward
Daniel Warner
Connor Willumsen
Brian Winkeler
Michael Woods
Derek Yu
K.I. Zachopoulos
Tonci Zonji
Jim Zubkavich

edited by
MARK ANDREW SMITH
D.J. KIRKBRIDE

cover by
TARA MCPHERSON

I've set up a new section on the website for comics. You can just click Comics at the top to get to it. I'll be posting to links to the books I've done, where you can get them, and any other information I can scrape together. I may also look into getting some other cool things in this section.

Finally, while we're on the topic of comics, do yourself a favor and check out Mark Andrew Smith (also writing "Don't Get Sucked Under the Escalator") and Matthew Weldon's New Brighton Archeological Society.

It's a kids graphic novel, and it's exquisitely done. The story is full of adventure, and the art is phenomenal. It never once talks down to the audience, which I think is the way to go for kids comics, making them open to all audiences. A great book, and well worth your time.

Alright, I think that should about do it for comics. For now...

Classic Video Games!

2009-01-16T15:24:00.005-05:00

The topic this week at Drawer Geeks was "Classic Video Games", or anything that came out before 1985. I actually did 3 pictures for this one (one isn't scanned, and I'm not too happy with it). There was a big break over the holidays so I sort of chipped away at it here and there. I have always been a big video game fan, ever since I first played Super Mario Bros. on display at a K-Mart when it first came out.

First up is a re-design for Mario from Super Mario Bros. Sort of a grounded in reality, practical design. Not 100% sold on this one, but a good learning experience.

Next is just sort of an homage to the NES in general. I wanted to put a positive spin on the act of blowing dust out of the NES cartridges every kid who had one is probably more than familiar with.

New Year, New Site Design, Etc. & So On & So Forth

2009-01-13T14:28:00.004-05:00

I've just recently seen proofs for the letters of a short story I wrote and drew, coming out in an anthology from a publisher I totally geeked out to as a teenager. I've also recently finished colors on a two page spread I think is the best work I've done up to this point, for a graphic novel I'm working on, with a writer whose work I admired long before getting the opportunity to work with him.

I love comics.

Giant Monster Redux and a Goblin

2008-12-12T16:57:00.003-05:00

I had started this picture a few weeks back for the topic "Giant Monsters" at Drawer Geeks, but never got around to finishing it. Sort of plugged away at the inks over a few lunch hours recently. Came to some interesting conclusions about my art and where I'd like it to go after completing this one, but we'll see what happens with that later.

This was a character sketch I did after reading a friend's comic treatment. I'd love to be involved in this, but I have to be true to my prior commitments.

Witch

2008-11-20T22:01:00.004-05:00

This is for the topic "Witch" over at Drawer Geeks. This was part of a challenge with an artist friend (Steve Ogden). The challenge was to finish the piece in an hour. I drew the original drawing in about 1/2 hour, then about an hour on the photoshop grayscale. So I guess I succeeded on the drawing, then failed in the Photoshop. One step forward...

Giant Monster!

2008-10-24T11:16:00.005-04:00

This is for the topic "Giant Monsters" over at Drawer Geeks. Probably the first time I've slammed together colors without looking back and nitpicking. Not that I'm saying it's perfect, but it was a good experiment. Done with brush pen, pen and colored in Photoshop, in about an hour or so.

True story, I got the idea to give this monster piercing blue eyes after hearing Stephen Harper described that way. I'm just sayin'...

Amazing Joy Buzzards Pinup

2008-10-11T11:23:00.003-04:00

This was a pinup I had originally started to enter into a contest on the Satellite Soda forums, but I didn't get it completed in time. I liked it enough to finish off. Amazing Joy Buzzards are copyright Mark Andrew Smith and Dan Hipp.

Absentee Blogger

2008-10-09T09:51:00.003-04:00

I've been extremely swamped at work and at comic creating, so you'll have to bear with me while I get things in order. In the mean time, this short web comic is very odd and very moving at the same time http://www.sugarboukas.com/X/DCFM/wDCFM00.

Yeti

2008-08-21T14:50:00.004-04:00

Yeti. Drawer Geeks. Check it!

Genie

2008-08-07T16:05:00.003-04:00

May?!? I haven't posted since May?!? Well time to dust off this site a bit and post some new stuff! I meant to do a full write-up on my vacation to Italy this summer (summary: it was awesome!), but I haven't had the time. I've been putting the finishing touches on a story for a major anthology (more soon), and working on about a billion other projects. Hopefully I'll have more to show soon. Until then, this week at Drawer Geeks the topic was "Genie". I may have put too weird of a spin on it for that to come through. C'est la vie!

Zombies!

2008-05-30T14:58:00.004-04:00

This week at Drawer Geeks... Zombies! Anybody that knows me knows that's a topic I couldn't pass up!

Etc., etc., etc.

2008-05-17T07:57:00.006-04:00

Here are some of the things I've been working on. Character designs for a short story:

And a very quick color test for that same short story:

The last two Drawer Geeks, "Lone Ranger" and "Dinosaurs":

Fablewood Update

2008-05-04T07:31:00.003-04:00

I keep forgetting to mention that you can now order Fablewood online, as well as at your local comic shop. You can get it at Amazon.com (sorry, none at Amazon.ca), although their stock seems to fluxuate a bit. You can also always snag a copy directly from the Ape Entertainment online store. Also, here's another review from Sequential Tart.

The Story So Far...

2008-04-19T11:20:00.003-04:00

I've been very busy in my spare time (still got that day job), so I haven't had a chance to post much. I've got a few different things on the go right now, but the biggest one is a book called "Don't Get Sucked Under the Escalator" with Mark Smith (Amazing Joy Buzzards, Aqua Leung). Pretty exciting, and a great story. Here are some promo pieces I put together recently to sort of introduce the story.

Here is my entry for this week over at Drawer Geeks. The topic was "Triplets".

Samurai

2008-04-04T08:58:00.005-04:00

"Samurai" was this week's topic at Drawer Geeks. I haven't had any real time to draw anything just for myself (which is actually an awesome thing... more on that later), but I couldn't pass up Samurai! That being said, I tried quite a few new things in this one, some successes and some not so much. Interesting experiment none the less. Enjoy!

Tarzan

2008-03-07T12:00:00.003-05:00

"Tarzan" was the theme this week at Drawer Geeks. I really tried to push myself this week. I took my time, and really tried to get down exactly what I had in mind. I'm happy to say this is relatively close to what I had in mind, a few happy accidents aside. I know as an artist I still struggle with putting down on paper what I had in my head.

Fablewood Is Out Now!

2008-02-21T20:46:00.004-05:00

Fablewood is available in better comic stores everywhere! I have a copy myself and it looks great. It's still very surreal to see my little story published, let alone along with so many talented artists and writers. Here's hoping it's a sign of great things to come. Thanks so much for everyone who supported the project, and to William Ward for all the hard work he put into making this project a reality. Here are some more reviews:

Wednesday is My Sabbath
Ain't it Cool News
Comics Bulletin