Thea Stilton #5 out NOW!

It's finally here!  Papercutz presents Thea Stilton #5 - The Secret of the Waterfall in the Woods!  This was what I spent a solid 2 weeks on last summer, coloring night and day.  I am SO PROUD of how beautifully this book came out!  It's so satisfying to hold a copy in my hands after all that hard work.

Thea has much more detailed shading than when I colored the Power Rangers.  You can see the different Photoshop brush textures I used in the pine needles, trunks, and rocks.  Lots of nature scenes in this book, which has an eco-friendly message.  The five Thea Sisters of Mouseford Academy solve mysteries, and this episode features saving a family of bears in the woods.  There's danger, deception, teen angst, cuteness, and more!

One of the challenges in coloring this book was the sheer number of characters - lots of crowd scenes like above, with many pages having around 30 characters each!  When you're coloring 46 pages on a tight deadline, that adds up.  Luckily, I was able to get a flatter (Matt Herms) to help with half the pages.  Delegation gets stuff done.

I'll be at the IPG booth doing signings and sketches for Papercutz at C2E2 in Chicago!  C2E2 is March 18 - 20, and I'll do a signing each morning, as well as be at my artist alley table i16a the rest of the time.  I'll do a separate C2E2 blog later.  So much going on!  But that's a good thing.

Speaking of books, this Daily Misfortune was inspired by my mom.  Yep, last month is was just her and the librarian.  A die hard mystery novel lover.

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers 2 is Here!

The Power Rangers book I colored this summer is out now!  "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Vol. 2:  Going Green" can be found on the Papercutz website (and probably comic stores soon).  Just in time for the Christmas/Hannukah/holiday season! 

Here's a sneak peek at some of my favorite pages!  This 2-page spread battle scene took FOREVER to color, but it came out awesome with the rainbow color scheme adding more pizazz.  For battle scenes created in Photoshop, the penciler can copy, paste, resize, and rotate all the little army men, but it doesn't really work that way for coloring - you'll spend a lot of time just trying to get the shapes to match up.  I tried it both ways, and it's just easier to paint the shapes in like normal.

This is the story Mighty Morphin Power Rangers fans have been waiting over 20 years for—the untold story of the origins of Tommy—the Green Ranger! How did Rita Repulsa choose this teen over others to wage war against the Rangers? This is the only place to find out.

I gotta say, even though Rita Repulsa is the villain, I REALLY LIKE HER!  She's so funny and awesome!  This is a well written story that even a 30 year old like me can enjoy.

Note to fans: This graphic novel takes place right before the classic Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episode “Green with Evil.”

Coincidentally, I had chosen to color the monster green before I knew the story was to be called "Going Green," referring to Tommy being the future green ranger.  But hey, the more green the better!

Coloring water effects are hard!  Papercutz had these 2 pages ready for me to color early on, and I spent lots of time playing with layering and gradients and stuff to make the water look believable and cool.  Came out pretty good!  But then they sent me a lot MORE pages with water (nooooo!).

I'm very excited the new book is out!  And this time I colored the WHOLE 50 page story!  The last story I colored, Megaforce Vol. 3, was divided into 2 stories, of which I colored one 25 page story. 

Please get a copy soon and enjoy!

400 Daily Misfortunes!!  WOOHOO!!!

Another reason to buy online instead of going to a mall.  The Bronx Terminal Mall was designed for people with cars, NOT walking.  uuuugggghhhh and it was raining hard today too.  The thing that confused me the most was the 2 street levels.  Upper Manhattan and the lower Bronx had to be built all crazy because the landscape is very rocky and not level.  Well, now I know.

DeadPool Max

Some of you have been telling me "I want more AER HEAD!"  I know - I do too!  My freelancing has been picking up lately, which is great news for me, but it also means that AER HEAD takes a back seat for a bit.  When I was making a page every other week back in the fall, I was also unemployed :/  I wish I could work on AER HEAD full time and somehow get paid for it, but in the meantime, I'll keep trying to find a good balance between work projects and personal projects.  But I'm excited to say that I'm getting comic and animation work:

Recently, I became a colorist for Marvel!  I'm an assistant to Kyle Baker, who draws some of Marvel's comics.  I just colored DeadPool Max #8, which should be out next month.  (#1 is shown above.  All DeadPool Max characters © Marvel 2011)  It's so crazy - I never thought I'd be working for Marvel because our styles are so different.  But I can color in any style!  Kyle draws in Photoshop and sends me the files, and I do the "flats," which are the solid colors.  Then I do some shading, send it to him, and he touches it up with his personal flair.  You can see an example of a panel I colored here.

I've also gotten an animation gig, animating the end credits for Heart of a Doll, the film I was an art assistant for (see last post).  One thing leads to another :)  I'm so glad things are finally starting to come together for my career, after a year of being in NYC.  What will the future hold?  Only Aeryan knows ;)