Masters of Ink 13 - Ming Doyle Mistress of Ink

October 29, 2008

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By Jason Thibault

After going through Ming Doyle’s Live Journal page it occurred to me that she probably manages to create more artwork in between her pro assignments than I’ve pulled off all combined. Her passion is infectious and she’s a rising star in the new generation of illustrators. Her work is the perfect mesh of polished sheen colliding with raw textured inky badassery. The pieces leave her hands looking like timeless classics. At first glance I couldn’t tell what era they were created in.

First professional work (piece / year) and maybe a quick story behind it.

I was immensely lucky in that my first professional work in both comics and illustration basically fell into my lap. It was the winter of ‘06, I’d just graduated from college a semester early and was pondering how to start a feasible career in art. After a lot of intense introspection I realized I hadn’t the faintest idea, so I decided to put off any kind of meaningful decision and sit at home drawing superhero fan art all day for Dean Trippe’s costume redesign site, Project: Rooftop (http://www.tencentticker.com/projectrooftop/).

A month or so later I got an e-mail from a very talented and generous guy named Tim Daniel who wondered if I’d be interested in doing the art for a short story of his called “Loner” in the second volume of Popgun, a variety anthology published by Image. Since I’d drawn about as many pictures of Batman and Wonder Woman as I wanted to for that year I said yes, and I’ve since done several other pieces for Image as well as BOOM! Studios and various indie trades.

I’ve also gotten a lot of editorial illustration work as a result of my exposure from Project: Rooftop, the first, best, and bulk of it from Benjamen Purvis, an amazing art director who at the time was working for the Las Vegas Weekly.

Self-taught or formally educated? (or mixture of both, mentors etc…)

I earned my BFA with a dual concentration in painting and drawing from Cornell University and I definitely benefited from the life drawing courses there, but it’s my friends and colleagues who’ve inspired me to stick with art. My good pals pop culture artist Brandon Bird, comics hero Dean Trippe and master illustrator Daniel Krall along with many others have taught me a lot through their tenacity and drive. Having friends in the same field can be especially invaluable when you’re living the fairly isolated life of a freelancer.

Tools of the trade: Taking a quick glance over at your pens, brushes etc…what tools have you mainly been using over the last few years?

Speedball’s “Sketching” and “Mapping” pen and nib sets, Royal Taklon’s variety brush packs, mechanical pencils and countless Wite-Out pens. I’ll use the occasional Micron for tighter work on facial features, but I don’t like to rely too much on them. I think a lot of times they can kill the kineticism and energy of a piece.

Favorite brand of ink:

Any kind of India ink will do, but I’ve found that Higgins Calligraphy Ink Black Waterproof has a really nice smooth consistency.

Type of paper:

Strathmore’s smooth finish Bristol board for commissions and their sketch paper for everything else. I like the tooth on a lot of cheaper drawing pads.

Which artists or creators do you return to for a quick boost of inspiration? Who are the masters of ink?

I admire Jason Shawn Alexander, Dustin Nguyen and Sean Gordon Murphy for their fluent, expressive line work and Jae Lee, Leinil Francis Yu and Hyung Min-woo for their deft precision. And I’m crazy for Mike Mignola, but who isn’t? Whenever I’m feeling really stuck though I like to go back and look at Aubrey Beardsley, Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. You can’t lose with those guys.

Once a client has handed off an illustration job to you, how do you first tackle the job. Could you provide us with a quick overview of your process?

Because a lot of my illustration work has a really fast turnaround, sometimes of only a couple days, I can’t always run sketches by the editor or art director. I’ll do a rough pencil layout at full-size and put the final inks right onto that with no in between stage, then just scan the line art and color it in Photoshop.

Comics have a bit more of a grace period to them, silly as that may sound considering their often cramped deadlines. Still, I’ll at least turn in a rough version of the fully thumbnailed script drawn straight into Photoshop so I can cleanly and easily implement any edits, then I’ll print out the approved layouts and light box the final inks over those. It’s either a strength or a weakness depending on how you look at it, but I’m really not much for refined pencils.

What’s currently sitting in your mp3 / CD player / turntable?

Frank Black in all his incarnations is always front and center along with Andrew Bird, Robert Johnson, Led Zeppelin, Madrugada and Shiina Ringo. And my boyfriend has a band called Lemon Demon, so of course I’ve been listening to a lot of them lately!

What’s hanging on your walls and what is your favorite piece of art that you own (not created by you)?

Brandon Bird gave me a really arresting ink drawing a few years ago that I’m pretty fond of. It’s a portrait of Vin Diesel with a huge black wolf in a majestic forest setting. Aside from that I mainly have handwritten reminders to myself and failed sketches hanging everywhere. My memory can be truly awful, and I like constantly having some of my worst work looming over me as incentive to do better.

Last novel you read and last movie that you saw (that you’d recommend)?

I like to read Seneca the Younger’s Trojan Women every couple of months, but that’s a play. The last novel I read was actually Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I’m almost done with Goblet of Fire now. I’ve been busy?

The last movie I saw, and I can’t say that I recommend it, was Atom Age Vampire. The last thing I saw in theatres and genuinely enjoyed was The Dark Knight, oh shock of shocks!

Current and upcoming projects.

I’ve recently wrapped up art for several upcoming sequential projects, among them actress Keiko Agena’s story in the “Asian American Superhero Anthology” Secret Identities, Eric Calderon’s piece in an issue of BOOM!’s Zombie Tales, and Chad Kinkle’s yarn in Image’s Outlaw Territory. I also illustrated Rantz Hoseley’s tale in the recently released Tori Amos-inspired Comic Book Tattoo. Next up, I’m going to try developing some original story ideas.

What would you tell an aspiring artist who is working his ass off but still needs and wants to break through to the next level?

A lot of people have told me to never do anything for free, and I agree that’s a great philosophy to hold if you already enjoy a certain stature in the art community. However it’s a discouraging fact in this industry that sometimes you have to do a lot of work for no to little dough before anyone will give you the time of day. Try to pick or create projects that you know you’ll at least enjoy and think will offer you the greatest range of visibility as well as the most opportunity to improve your craft. That way when some really plum paying gig finally comes along you’ll be in a good position to knock it out of the park and impress, thereby landing more high profile work.

It’s a slow climb and I’m certainly not that far from the bottom rung myself but dedication and an almost fanatical work ethic count for a lot, and they’re the very least you need. The rest is just luck and good manners, so keep your fingers crossed and your socks clean.
For more further reading on Ming head over to:

Her site - http://www.mingdoyle.com
Her sketchblog - http://users.livejournal.com/_ming/
To read the first 12 Masters of Ink interviews head on over to the Jacen Burrows piece.

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Wicked Intent does some custom vinyl recreations of OpWound artwork

October 28, 2008

Back in mid-October, one of our long-time MySpace friends, Dell contacted us. He has a custom art shop under the name of Wicked Intent in Santa Rosa, California. They specialize in custom guitars, custom painting existing guitars, refurbishing old guitars but what we’re concerned about here is custom vinyl graphics. He thought some of my artwork would translate well into vinyl which happens to be one of the mediums that he excels at.
If you head on over to his MySpace page and take a look through his galleries you’ll see he’s quite accomplished with that craft and many others.

I was blown away with the results that Dell came up with. I asked him to detail his process. This is what he said:

The process for vinyls around here is to first find or make an image you like. You then need to make sure that the image is “vinyl friendly”. Vinyl is very versatile but does have its limits. Too much detail in the image and they are almost always difficult to work with. Most vinyl machines simply work as a plotter. The razor plops down and cuts the outline of the image into the vinyl. Some are more fancy, but I am not that lucky. In the case of the Optimum Wound images, the issue was trying to keep as much detail as possible as to not lose the reflection of the original work. It needs to look like the original image after all. Once the image is revised enough, its off to the cutter for a test. The only way to know if it will work is to cut it out.

Next, one has to peel away the unwanted sections of vinyl to reveal the image. This is why massed produced vinyls tend to not be very detailed. Too much detail is hard to work around with removing extra material. I do not mass produce. I am therefore willing to take a little extra time to work with the material removal. During this process, an exacto knife will be your best friend. Its great for lifting corners and holding down small sections you want that are surrounded by material you don’t.

Once the image is done its time to put on the application paper. This allows you to remove the vinyl sticker from its backing and apply it cleanly to the surface you are working with. Next, clean up the edges in a paper cutter so it looks all neat and pretty and off they go to whoever wanted it in the first place.
It’s a good to have talented friends.
Here are five pictures of Dell’s creations followed by 2 of the pen and ink pieces that he based them on.
-Jay

VINYL CREATIONS BY DELL OF WICKED INTENT

PEN AND INK DRAWINGS BY JASON THIBAULT

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Richard Serrao’s new online graphic novel, Silent Scream.

October 16, 2008

It’s been a long time since one of the core OpWound creators has launched a new webcomic. The wait is now over. Richard Serrao’s new online graphic novel is now live. It will update with 3 new pages every Thursday over at webcomicsnation.com.

The goods.
Silent Scream is about a stripper named Bouncing Betty who goes on a kill crazy rampage taking out mobsters, pimps, hit men, pedophiles and any other low-lifes you can think of and along the way she becomes partners with a two man kill team who teach her a thing or two about hunting and killing two legged prey.

I got Rich to write a few words on his new story.
The original idea only involved her and it was called 13 the Hard Way and was about her time working for the Triads as a hitwoman. The other part of the story involving a hitman and his partner was originally pitched to Marvel comics as a very dark and violent Punisher mini story about 3-4 years before Max was created and of course it was rejected for being too dark and too violent. So…that left me with all of this material finished and no one wanting it. That’s when I decided to have a bit of fun with the stories and mix them together and see what happened.

I wanted to do a revenge story that I wanted to read, very reminiscent of the grind house films of the 70’s and 80’s. At the time Punisher Max didn’t exist and most of the comics out there were pretty tame with the exception of Preacher. I didn’t want to pull any punches so I made it with an over the top level of insane violence, sex and peppered it heavily with foul-mouthed dialogue and finally stirred it with a film noir sensibility.

Most of the comic scene has changed during the length of time that it took me to do the work for this GN but I still feel like no one has really touched on a story exactly like this one…Silent Scream pretty much wrote itself. For me the hard part was trying to get into the head of each character in order to understand how they would think and speak and still be able to walk away afterwards without losing who I was. It was sort of like method acting, immersing myself so completely into each character. It became a bit scary for me at the time because I was on Morphine in the Hospital hooked up to an IV unit. I was not allowed to eat for almost a week as tests were being run on me. Needless to say, writing when you’re hopped up is quite an experience to say the least.

New pen and ink drawing by Richard Serrao.

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Nekropolis has been cancelled, change of course for OpWound

October 15, 2008

We’ve done a lot of hard thinking around here and made some big decisions. Plans have changed slightly.

King of Nekropolis is cancelled
The orders numbers came in from Diamond on King of Nekropolis and they were not large enough to justify printing the book. The reception was only about half that of our first book, Rex. Either people weren’t as jazzed about K.O.N. or we were the wrong publisher to put it out. Either way, we’ve killed the project. We will definitely continue to push Rex though. The webcomic continues to get a lot of readership which is encouraging. We’re extremely proud of that book.

Silent Scream starts on Thursday, Oct 16th.
We’ve got a new online graphic novel starting up this week, Silent Scream. It’s Richard Serrao’s first new work since Memento Mori. It’ll update on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the rest of the year and beyond. It’s another gritty crime revenger brought to you in glorious black and white. This is a wet one with plenty o’ bullets.

Build Your Own Comic Empire
We’re starting up the “build your own comic empire” blogs again. They’ll be similar to the ones we did last year on MySpace, but updated and will go into much further depth. There’ll be tutorials, reviews, interviews and tons of other info-packed blog posts that will help new creators further along in their journey. Oh yeah…and there’ll be videos now as well.

Optimum Wound Volume 1.
We’re going back to our original plans to put out our creation under one roof. This was where our heads were at back in 2005 and ’06. The plan is to drop a 160-200 paged affordably priced bomb on you every 3 months. Something that takes a while to finish, doesn’t empty your wallet and will leave you thirsting for more every new season. We started off as a group package and I feel I’ve let down our original fan base by veering off into other publishing endeavors. I spent a whole year worried what the comic mainstream thought about us when the whole reason we launched was to be another alternative to the status quo.
You’re going to be served up a steady diet of edgy and sometimes dangerous fare again. I feel our original voice has been lost and now I’m ready to bring it back 120%.

We’re putting together Volume 1 right now and will have it out in the Spring of 2009.

Hitting the ground running.
You’ll be seeing this blog update a lot more often. There’ll be commentary, Q&A’s and new artwork posted regularly. You’ll have a reason to keep coming back.
Thanks for sticking around this long. We’re just getting started.
-Jay

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4 books to help inspire you to get off your ass and create something

October 8, 2008

When I’m up against a creative brick wall or need a little push I’ll often return to a core group of books that have inspired me over the years. They’re not heavy on tech or even “how-to” chapters. They get straight to the heart of the matter. Breaking through resistance, procrastination, summoning the muse, remaining consistent and achieving mastery.

On Writing, Stephen King
I first listened to On Writing in the audio book format, but I own a copy of the paper back as well. King takes you back to his rather humble beginnings. If this book doesn’t inspire you to chase after your dreams then I don’t know what will. He climbed over seemingly insurmountable obstacles, worked every shit job you can imagine, had a family to feed and still managed to find the time to write Carrie. Oh, and he wrote this particular book while under immense physical pain while recovering from a hit and run. What’s your excuse?

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, Steven Pressfield

You may know Pressfield as the author of The Legend of Bagger Vance or Gates of Fire. Michael Mann was trying to bring G.O.F. to the big screen but Frank Miller’s 300 beat him to the punch.
The war of Art is a quick read. Hell some of the pages are only half full, but it’s powerful stuff. This was the first book that I read out of this bunch and it’s the one that I’ve returned to most often.
Whenever I’m about to enter a new creative phase in my life I give this little tome a quick spin.

Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment, George Leonard

This one caught me off guard. I was skeptical when I pickup Mastery, but he had me in the first chapter. Leonard uses his experience in mastering Aikido to illustrate the long process of mastery. Maybe you’re an artist who doesn’t feel like you’re progressing or are endless plateau. This book takes you through those phases and explains what they are, what they mean and how to ride them out until the next break through. I particularly enjoyed the chapters where he covers the traps that we can fall into that distract us from our original goals. It’s all about the journey.

Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life, Robert Fritz

I took this book with me on a weekend retreat to the gulf islands this past summer and couldn’t put it down. This was originally published in 1984 but was later revised in ’89. Fritz has created a process that moves you quickly from imagining a goal or outcome to actually achieving it. He works on removing out inhibitors, so that you’re on a path of least resistance.

To break it down, do what you love, remove the hassles involved and get on with it. This one is the strongest of the bunch, but they’re all worthy of belonging in your library.

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