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Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Not Forgotten Anthology Signings

The Not Forgotten public domain superhero anthology has shipped! San Francisco Bay Area folks are welcome to attend these upcoming signings:
Mission Comics, San Francisco
November 10th 6pm-9pm- ((THIS FRIDAY!!))
Flying Colors Comics, Concord
Saturday Nov 18th, 11a-7pm

Many thanks to Sinclair Klugarsh, Einar Masson and Matt Harding and Jared Rosmarin and Montana Manalo for helping me get in and get the work done. I hope the project is a smashing success for everyone involved.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Clearance Sale at Catahoula Coffee!


Animation Show of Shows @ CCSF

Save the Date!

This semester, the City College of San Francisco Visual Media Design department will host a screening of the 18th Annual Animation Show of Shows! Details below:

Friday, September 22
7:30 PM – 10:30 PM
City College of San Francisco
Ocean Campus
50 Phelan Avenue
Multi-Use Building (MUB)
Room 140

The event is FREE for students and faculty. Attendees must RSVP through the Eventbrite link below:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-18th-annual-animation-show-of-shows-city-college-of-san-francisco-tickets-36557943794 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
-Eugene

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Musewo Process (Archive)

Progress shots of the Gull Musewo
Back in the early aughts, Elfwood and Epilogue.net were without a doubt deeply instrumental in helping me to rediscover my love of science fiction and fantasy art. I recently discovered two old photo archives, one of which was used for linking images to posts on various online forums. My "mutant sex worker" series was based on the idea of a future where prostitution and gene splicing leads to a growing fetish for hybrid fantasy women. I called them "musew" and later "musewo". The first ones were large acrylic paintings done on illustration board and then peeled from the cardboard backing for easier storage and possibly scanning on a drum scanner. Drum scanners were a good option back then for large format scanning, but required that the artwork be flexible. That said, I had to make due with a cheap digital camera or tiling images in from a desktop scanner in Photoshop.

I was very fortunate to have incredibly generous models for this series. My designer friend Shiela volunteered to model for this sea gull-inspired musewo. Others included a cat, dragonfly, bat and fish. I was still relatively self-taught at this stage in my life when it came to painting. An acrylic glazing technique was briefly described to me by my ART 125A Basic Design instructor, Patricia Ancona back in the mid-90s at City College of San Francisco. To this day, it remains my preferred painting method in acrylics and oil.

Friday, July 21, 2017

In Pursuit of the Fourth "R"

"There Are No Straight Lines"

Mr. Constant was nearing retirement when I enrolled in his mechanical drawing class. I was a senior at Berkeley High School and the class figured into a college-track sequence that had me aiming for an engineering degree. (Though not entirely by choice. Blame it on UCO/MESA program's goal of getting underrepresented minorities to technical majors in college where the corresponding "minorities in technical majors" program would eagerly await our arrival.) I remember the classroom vividly. It had several drafting tables with working drafting machines,  a smaller adjoining blueprint room and an office where Mr. Constant often sat and graded assignments while we worked. He kept a small block of wood with two evenly spaced and numbered rows of holes held lead holders for each student. I don't remember if we could take home the textbooks or if they also lived in the classroom.

Our textbook was thorough and very technical in its explanations of orthographic drawing, how to use line weights, lettering, apply dimensions, and even how to hold the lead holder or pencil and twirl it as we drew a line. We also learned how to sharpen and condition the tip of our lead for construction, lettering and object lines. Mr. Constant came from a pre-CAD era where mechanical and architectural drawings were done by hand with a high level of skill and expertise. He was strict, and shared with us professional standards that could possibly serve us later in our working lives.

I distinctly remember a spark of competitiveness between myself and other serious students. My friends and I often aimed for speed and perfect scores and ranked ourselves according to who was furthest ahead with the highest grades. What I learned in that class stayed with me through later courses in engineering, descriptive geometry, perspective drawing, and then many years after that, through my first perspective for illustrators class at the Academy of Art University. At the time, the class was called "Drawing from the Imagination". Ironically, I concurrently taught a course with the same title at another art school for a considerably different population of undergraduates. It was very helpful for me to revisit perspective drawing in an illustration context. The online course included content from long-time AAU faculty Joko Budiono and Stephen Player. It was a tough class. Weekly assignments required a minimum of 15 hours of drawing time if you wanted to be above average. The bar was set high for us, and the course reinforced in me the need to trust and value an iterative process where thumbnails and roughs preceded detailed finals.

My first formal observational drawing and painting experience was with Ms. Macdonald's Design Orientation 1. It was an easy 'A' in that I just had to show up and do the work. One memorable assignment was to paint a still life using only combinations of complimentary colors. For another, we used white paint and ink on gray paper to draw/paint our non-drawing hand. These were good foundation-building exercises with minimal pressure. The following-up, Design Orientation 2, was taught by Sally Wolfer. Wolfer embodied the Berkeley hippie artsy type in that her assignments were as free and open-ended as the mass of frizzy white hair that covered her gaunt face and frame. In her class, structure and rules were anathema to creativity and expression. This 9th-grade exposure to such polar opposites in art instruction led me to believe that there was a "serious and hard" approach to art study and practice and a "soft and easy" one.

The summer following my sophomore year in high school, I attended the pre-college program at the California College of Arts and Crafts. The two-week course included a week of foundations and a week on a focus of our choosing. I chose architecture. The program was my first exposure to a learning environment dominated by privileged teens and to the relatively high cost of art supplies (Although, I still have and use tools bought for that program, including a glue gun, metal ruler, utility knife and an Art Bin storage box.) It was probably my biggest dose of heuristic learning until enrolling in the school's BFA in graphic design program in 1999. I was eager to learn. There was basic color theory, drawing, painting, learning about figure/ground relationships, explorations of line, space and materials as well as collaboration and invention. My commute kept me more or less outside of the core group of students who lived on campus. I made only a few friends and grew to dislike the school enough to not want to study there after high school. It was a place where I intuitively knew I would never quite "get it". I was allowed in because my parents could afford the tuition, tolerated like a house guest, but never made to feel entirely at home. I think the optimism and progressive spirit of the late 1980s played a role in making my time there less alienating than it would be when I returned a over a decade later as an undergrad, and then as a faculty member. The pre-college faculty at the the time seemed at first surprised to see me and then surprised by my level of engagement. If there was another black male in the program, I have no memory of him.

One day, an attractive female student who I think was a senior in high school came up behind me while I was standing at a one of the vending machines, pulled me down toward her by my shoulder and gently bit me on the back of the neck. After a few seconds of shock and confusion, all I could think to say was "Oh no. I'm one of you now," recalling a scene from an 80s teen vampire movie. She just walked away grinning with her tall, lanky rocker-dude boyfriend. After that, I took an unexpected liking to short, curvy, bohemian brunettes with pale skin and curly hair... because art school.


Funky Fundamentals

Much has been written on the impact of teaching language arts and mathematics without a rigid structure that values right and wrong answers. Writing without concern for grammar and spelling is one example where self-expression and the potentially therapeutic impact of writing either supersedes or undermines English proficiency. Years ago, on various talk shows, I started hearing about how something called "New Math" had also done harm to students in the U.S.. But it seems that New Math was in fact created in response to the U.S. losing ground against the Soviet Union in math and science.

It is possible that I had some New Math curriculum before entering middle school. Even when I struggled to grasp the concepts, I found the topics fascinating. Project SEED for example, introduced me one evening to Boolean algebra which I believe was at the core of electronic logic circuits. What I learned about bases other than 10, matrices, vectors in pre-calculus and so on still finds its way into my current reasoning skills. Math concepts shape how I make connections and solve problems through my own creative process. (Teaching Adobe Illustrator for over a decade also keeps me excited about the hard math behind vector-based art.) I therefore harbor no ill feelings toward my own encounters with New Math-related curricula throughout the 1980s. (The handheld calculator was a bigger problem for me in how it undermined my ability to do basic arithmetic in my head.)

Somehow, in spite of years of getting 'C's in English, I managed to test out of a year of freshman English in the CSU system. Not bad for a slacker. It's fair to say that in spite of the countless experiments in pedagogy and educational tools I saw throughout my K-12 experience, my high school diploma was a good measure of potential and competency in multiple subjects. With enough revisions, effort and concentration, I can turn my thoughts into coherent, grammatically correct prose (including blog posts like this one). So what accounts for the cognitive fog I later developed through my undergraduate life drawing experiences.

Those "I Can't Draw!" Moments 

Here's the scenario: I would arrive at the open life drawing session in Kroeber Hall at U.C. Berkeley with a large drawing pad and board and whatever medium interested me at the moment. The model would disrobe, climb onto the model stand, and start a series of short poses. My hand would move erratically over the page, making marks, constantly restating them and questioning every move. Proportions were always the first to go. With my mind racing in so many different directions, it was easy to (literally) lose sight of what I was trying to draw.

The problem was that I was never taught a stable and sustainable methodology for drawing the figure. My first life drawing instructor used Nicolaides' The Natural Way to Draw for her curriculum. It was a mix of vague exercises, constantly changing mediums and experimentation. We were on our own, and yet the hours of pushing various media around did allow for some learning through doing. Looking back over years of drawing alone in my room or in front of the television during my favorite shows, it's fair to say that I was already in a mode of constant independent study and experimentation. My favorite subjects were superhero comics, sci-fi and fantasy art and I had no fear of drawing, painting or trying new mediums.

So, I easily took to the Nicolaides approach. It was easy turn off any judgement and just follow my instructor's cryptic prompts like "draw the weight". My scribbles surprised me at times in how well they described volume and the gesture of the pose. They were almost loose wireframes that recorded a journey around and through the figure. But there was a major problem: I could not control those spinning whirlwinds of marks. Hands and feet would disappear, as would the shape of the head. And yet, heads, feet and hands were important parts of what I wanted to record with my marks, even during the fast poses. Was that even possible? Why was my drawing akin to writing papers with bad spelling and grammar? (More on this in a bit.)

Self-study: The Early Years
The solution, I later learned, was to slow down and look in order to "see". This academic approach meant pulling my effort and energies away from making a mess of marks that may or may not resolve themselves into what I want to draw. Anthony Ryder's book on figure drawing had just what I was looking for: a method for seeing proportions and recording them consistently. His approach gave me the means to see, remember and record with considerably fewer marks, and surprisingly, more time to evaluate the overall design as I worked under a time limit. A common criticism of academic drawings is their rigidity or "stiffness". Well, if the figure is in a rigid pose, then infusing your marks with something organic or expressive is definitely a viable creative option. But sometimes I like the challenge of recording the truth of that inherent rigidity without distorting the image. I had the convenient habit of defaulting to expressive mark-making because I never learned how to do anything else. I simply never mastered the hard academic fundamentals of drawing the figure accurately. This was akin to never learning how to spell, but being asked to write an essay or even poetry. Sure, vernacular English has its place in art, culture and scholarship. And it's important to get something down on the page even if your grammar and spelling need work. But I went from Sesame Street to Seuss to Shakespeare incrementally over the course of many years of study. My childhood pursuit of English literacy ranged from easy and fun to tedious and discouraging. What if my time spent learning how to draw had been similarly involved? No one let me avoid math, science, history, English, or any other hard academic subject due to a lack of "talent" in that subject. I therefore assert that drawing and painting have the potential for being similarly academic subjects in terms of rigor and content. Sadly, the modern mystique of "Art", or its detachment from intellectual pursuits, and its earned suspicions, keep it sequestered to the marginal realms of learning.

I was lucky to have access to "how to draw" books geared toward my age group and interests. Authors like Lee Ames and Ed Emberley made drawing from their examples a fun activity presented with clear steps and goals. Another example was Tony Tallarico's I Can Draw Monsters. And yet, even then, I wanted to go beyond the lessons and draw from my imagination. I also tended drew scenes that were alive with action. Preston Blair's book Animation is still in my library, but as a kid, the stuff was so hard to draw that just gave up on those Disney- and MGM-esque characters. And why was it hard? My guess is that it was hard due to a lack of certain design drawing fundamentals:

process - light, sharp pencil for construction lines; darker, pencil for object lines; tracing paper or a light box to finalize the art. As a kid, I just went for it. Sometime around middle school, I took my time more, but still had a habit of rushing forward to something that felt finished.
 
proportion - (or fidelity, verisimilitude) I could see how "off" my copies from step-by-step examples were. But with no one looking over my shoulder or correcting my drawing with a red marker, my temperament at the time allowed for a lot of "close enough is good enough" stuff. I should probably add "discipline" to the list.

structure - Those wireframe spheres and oblong organic forms that made up heads, limbs and torsos definitely made sense to me. They described how the subject fit together and held itself up. But I tended to draw them with a heavy line that undermined the whole process of going from construction to object lines. (Again, process!)

line control - this gets back to how to hold a pencil, how to sharpen it and move that tip around in ways the give me the most control. I learned and clung to an awkward left-handed "writer's grip" early in life. It would take another 15 years or so for me to be introduced to a proper artist's overhand grip.


Truth and Obfuscation 

I like accuracy in figurative art as well as expression and good design. In recent years, my tastes have shifted away from embracing the challenges to conventions in figurative art that characterized European Modernism (Daumier, Schiele, Cassatt, Manet).

Could there be a deliberate and systemic effort to disassociate drawing from its potential as a deeply analytical course of study? And if so, what forces have driven the practice away from the rational toward an intuitive/heuristic approach? Who exactly sold us on the idea that "academic" drawing had less value in the first place?

The majority of my students don't draw well, though most arrive with potential. They also tend to be savvy connoisseurs of art-driven genres including animation, comics, illustration and video games. Their desire to create and their love of visual media far outweighs any drive to master drawing for the creation of work that is on par with their favorite animated shows, comic books, fine art and illustrated stories. Some learned to draw independently from their imaginations or through copying or emulating a style. Others had private tutoring.

Why do so many students, even after taking basic drawing classes, continue to draw awkwardly, with a mix of fear and uncertainty, or with an over-inflated confidence that makes them considerably less receptive to constructive criticism?

The Fourth "R"
If reading, writing and arithmetic represent the three Rs, then let the fourth R denote rigorous realist drawing. I remember how words and pronunciations informed spelling and grammar.  Arithmetic informed algebra, algebra informed geometry, geometry and algebra informed trigonometry and so on. Where might a young person find a similarly structured curriculum for drawing? Maybe I was just born in the wrong part of the country. Somehow, the San Francisco Bay Area became a magnet for push for Modernism that disrupted and displaced any continuity of realist traditions in art education that may have existed in the early 20th century.

My guess is that many in art education resist the fourth "R" for multiple reasons. One of my pet theories asserts that discouragement from an adult during childhood is a common trigger. The story usually involves a child making an honest attempt at drawing something representational and having an adult crush their enthusiasm by pointing out their lack of verisimilitude. Today, children are encouraged to make marks as an activity from an early age. Current pedagogical theory might characterize these activities as beneficial to hand-eye coordination or even one's self-esteem. What's more is that students often receive accolades for participating in these activities which tend to be completed with relative ease by those without significant problems with vision, motor skills and other forms of human cognition. It is therefore understandable for students to develop a confidence in making marks without skill, and dismiss drawing as a worthwhile academic endeavor. There are no "right answers" to be had, and everyone's work is validated as successful based on participation and completing the activity according to one's own intuition and creativity.

Lastly, the honorable thrust of current training for art educators thrives to make learning accessible to everyone. Equal opportunity means that we have to (try to) teach students who cannot draw. Until recently, I believed that anyone could learn how draw. While many can through hard work and quality instruction, achieve a noteworthy level of competency with drawing, I have observed those who cannot. It was hard to let go of the hope of "saving" some students with individual attention and creative adjustments to my course materials.

OWFs and the Old Girls Club
Let me start by openly acknowledging the Old White Females (OWFs) who encouraged, supported and mentored me throughout my formal education. The earliest ones fed my curiosity with classroom activities, field trips, concerts, performances, guests and more. I learned from them that the world is really big and full of songs and music and art that makes people who they are. They exposed me to rigor, high expectations and uncompromisingly high (but fair) standards. Some helped me to be come a better writer, reader and thinker. Others guided (or dragged) me through subjects that made me better informed. It was an OWF who first encouraged me to study abroad. Yet another pushed me to study at RISD when some in my own family preferred that I stay close to home and assist with elder care. These women saw my potential and encouraged me to pursue something great at critical times in my life.

Maybe what they offered as drawing instruction was exactly what I needed at those particular moments in my development, but I noticed a pattern. None of my instructors found inspiration in the superhero comics, science fiction and fantasy book covers that I loved. They did not read manga or watch anime. They had no significant connection to what drove myself and others to take the leap and enroll in art classes. Some even seemed either worn down or jaded by their lives as artist-educators. So, without a common reference point in terms of inspiration, I did my best to adapt, absorb and assimilate their notions of art and whatever life experiences, tastes and values they saw fit to share. 

Was anything inherently wrong with what and how these women taught me? Is it possible that the problem for me was merely a failure to research and pursue educators who would be a stronger fit for my goals. I had no one to guide me to artist-educators on par with a Scott Robertson or Donato Giancola because my teachers were mostly established fine artists with strong modernist sensibilities. This left me to do my own sleuthing about schools and programs while grappling with the fears and doubts that came with making such a journey alone. It seems that an all too common institutional inertia has kept the aforementioned structures firmly in place with little to no consideration of their impacts on the student success. Art departments like any other departments, undergo periodic evaluations from peers that are in turn reviewed by dedicated peers and administrators. And yet, every semester, I encounter the same pattern of students arriving unprepared for my intermediate-level courses and lacking the drawing and painting skill and vocabulary needed to succeed.

Choose Your Own Solution

I conclude with a simple suggestion: Students must be aware of the current state of undergraduate art education in the schools they either attend or hope to attend. They must gauge the quality of the student work and determine how much of it is a result of attending the institution vs. prior knowledge. They should also learn to distinguish expertise from the "cult of personality" syndrome where an instructor's reputation for being cool or edgy trumps their actual skill as an educator. And while it is important to be challenged, vague instruction only serves students who arrive with previously acquired skills.

Thursday, July 20, 2017

The North Pole Webseries Trailer

A trailer still with my illustration in the background
Here's a sprinkle of good news for an otherwise difficult summer. The first trailer for The North Pole, a comedy webseries about gentrification and "greenwashing" in Oakland, California is up on YouTube and the world premiere screening hs been scheduled for September of this year.
My maternal great-grandparents moved to Oakland in the 40s and had a house on the corner of Manila Avenue and 45th. It was an important place for large family gatherings on the holidays. My mother was born there in 1947 and other relatives have lived in East and West Oakland for as long as I can remember. I was born in Oakland during early 70s. Oakland was angry and unwelcoming place of extreme differences in wealth, culture and opportunity. It seemed drastically different from neighboring towns like Berkeley where did my K-12 schooling. And yet, I found myself imagining an cyberpunk-inspired story that took place in a future Oakland after attending my first WonderCon at the Oakland Convention Center in 1989. The newer gleaming architecture of the downtown area inspired me that year along with the excitement around Tim Burton's upcoming Batman film.
Fall Girl, Player X and Clean Sweep of Def Squad X


Sadly, the Def Squad X/Oaklanders story centered around tired themes of battling urban crime, pimps, drugs and prostitution and somehow turned out to share a similar premise with The Mod Squad TV series.













A number of venues and events kept me returning to Oakland after completing my BFA in graphic design. In recent years, an Oakland-based art group (created and run by young artists from outside of Oakland) was instrumental in connecting me to many invaluable opportunities to network and exhibit my work. I even gave the co-working thing a try in Oakland a couple of years back. In spite of this, Oakland's rapidly changing character due to the influx of workers from outside the area in the tech industry has once again turned me away from Oakland, along with an similarly alienating growth in elite identity activism with its own in-group/out-group dynamic, an explosion in public marijuana use, rudeness at eating and entertainment venues, and a lingering pastiche of the New York rap and hip-hop subculture currently embraced as "realness" and authentic.
Sure, I was born there, but I was never an Oaklander. And I probably never will be.
Even with this deepening drive to once again disassociate myself from the city of my birth, I decided to contribute some illustration work for one of the props in this first episode. The writing, performances and directing looks great based on the trailer and I even caught a split-second glimpse of my artwork in the background. Many thanks to Darren Colston for reaching out to me and to director Yvan Iturriaga for letting me help bring a tiny sliver of his vision to life.
Check out the link below to see the whole trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twITH7SxWOo


Saturday, July 8, 2017

Jedi Study-Sketch

Star Wars: Clone Wars turned out to be an incredibly ntertaining and character-rich animated series. It was one of my selections when I got my Netflix account earlier this year. Over time, I was able to set aside my general dislike of the wooden 3D characters, goofy cartoon humor and just enjoy the scale of the show as it unfolded. Ahsoka Tano ended up being my favorite character and I was happy to see a post-Clone Wars novel this year. Since Star Wars: Rebels has yet to stream on my current service, I will have to wait a while before I see her in action again.

I took a break tonight to touch up a study-sketch started while I was deep into one of the later seasons of Clone Wars. You can see a bit of another influence in this Jedi concept coming from Captain Sarigar of Alien Legion from the Epic Comics imprint back in the 80s. It has been a long time since I have taken a personal piece all the way to completion, so hopefully I will find the time to finish this one up before the year is out.

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

The Mingling of Art


Another sketchbook comic with a splash of color. Sometimes I take my pen on a mostly harmless romp through the past just to look through a glass darkly. In this one, I collected a bucket of memories of eye-opening micro-events that forced me to reevaluate how I navigate social events held in the "New Bay Area". With a heavy lens turned toward on the negative, these pages were a workout wrought with dark reflections and musings.

Monday, May 8, 2017

Sketchbook Comic

Everything Is Intercourse Sketchbook Comic
Recently, I experimented with taking a long pose (15 minutes) from a life drawing session and integrating it into a visual narrative. I greatly enjoy any practice with live models, but sometimes a new and challenging approach is needed to make the sketchbook time more valuable to my learning.

Many years ago when I was an undergrad studying graphic design, a classmate shared with me one of her thesis ideas. She wanted to explore abundance of mundane, physical actions that may be in some way made analogous to sexual intercourse. I decided to revisit her idea using a series of symbolic visuals and a simple, monochromatic color scheme in reference to her red hair, and red as an occasional symbol of sensuality and eroticism.

This turned out to be a good exercise in exploring a visual narrative and a more detail and texture-driven style of inking. The panels take anywhere from 10-30 minutes to sketch and ink and I tried doing one a day during my downtime. This also turned out to be a good practice with using the 2-page spread for a complete study.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

How the Airbrush Changed How I See

© Copyright Eugene R. Young. Acrylic on illustration board.
I remember when airbrush art was my holy grail of realism in illustration. In the late 80s and early 90s, I discovered books and magazines on airbrushing. Artists like Olivia De Berardinis, Luis Royo and Hajime Sorayama used airbrushes and I wanted so much to paint like them. The airbrush itself at the time was a mildly expensive option. I first settled for a Badger spray gun that claimed to be able to spray down around a 1/4 inch. Figuring out the right paint to thinner ratio for my enamel paint model kit projects was tough enough. The cans of compressed were just barely enough to let me do a pretty good job of painting camo on a few larger kits. It wasn't until I bought my first dual action Passche VLS and low-wattage tankless compressor that things got really interesting. It was a beautifully engineered chrome unit with a bright red plastic handle. Part of the fun of working with it was the breakdown and clean-up process. You really got to know and respect your airbrush by taking it apart and maintaining it.

I worked in my parent's garage on paper and fabric. Sometimes I had the patience to carefully mask and plan out a painting, but that was rare. I admired the work of H.R. Giger along with anyone who could paint freehand with an airbrush and achieve near photo-realism. Eventually, not having a proper studio space and concerns about inhaling vapors got me to put it away. As I improved as a painter with acrylics and digital tools, the airbrush seemed less and less practical. That said, the experience of having used one still informs how I paint in Photoshop. It also led to an unexpected change in how I see things.

In order to paint with an airbrush, you have to see form as both structure and process. By structure, I mean values, edges, plane changes, hue, gradients and textures. "Process" refers to the step-by-step setup and execution of the painting. Airbrushing taught me to visualize how I might approach painting anything I saw as a series of steps that included masking, choosing the right paint, mixing the right color, possibly layering if working transparently, and drying times between layers. This way of seeing is always "on" when my eyes are open. I constantly scan and analyze things in order to remember how to paint them. I ask myself questions like "what color is that" or "is there a hint of color in the white surface".

A recent project as a freelance digital matte painter, has me returning to this "structure and process" model for rapidly organizing not only my layers, but also when to paint what and with what tools.

Learning how to paint is a life-long endeavor that should draw on the best of your formal training and constant reinforcement through independent study and practice. The learning extends well beyond the completion of homework and classroom assignments. It happens in the quiet isolation of a studio, in a noisy cafe with a sketchbook, or on a hiking trail with oils and a plein air easel. While it is possible to master a "thing" that gets you paid, my gut tells me that there is always something to learn and room for improvement.

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Jet Powers Tech Files: 01


As we wrap up production on the Not Forgotten Anthology Jet Powers story, Jared Rosmarin and I decided that it would be fun to start sharing some of Jet's tech on Instagram. There are more details to come, but for now, enjoy this weeks tech file!

Thursday, March 9, 2017

WE DID IT! Thank you!

Many thanks to the Not Forgotten Anthology team and the folks who pledged to our Kickstarter campaign! We ended just over $2000 the funding request.
As we approach the July publishing date, Jet Powers writer Jared Rosmarin and I decided to share weekly art posts on Instagram under the @jetpowerscomic handle. Expect to see art with Jet's amazing gadgets, characters and more done in the style of character and vehicle reference comics like G.I. Joe: Order of Battle from Marvel in the 80s. I will do my best to keep it up over the coming weeks as we continue to explore this fun public domain universe. Jared is also wrapping up a script for the second issue of Jet Powers! More to come! For now, enjoy a sketchbook doodle done in the spirit of #iamjetpowers … because hashtags. :P —Eugene


Sunday, March 5, 2017

Not Forgotten Anthology Kickstarter Final Week!

The Not Forgotten Anthology has just three days to go! Bring back Jet Powers!

"Save the dream!"— Saw Gerrera

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1430099002/not-forgotten-a-public-domain-superhero-anthology


Tuesday, February 28, 2017

North Pole Webseries Kickstarter: Final Hours!!


 

With just hours remaining, the North Pole webseries is just a couple hundred bucks away from being fully funded via its Kickstarter campaign. Last summer, I was invited to contribute a bit of illustration and graphics work to the project which got a nice write-up on KQED's website earlier this month. Shot in Oakland, California, the new seven-part comedic web series slated for release in early summer 2017 uses humor to raise awareness about the issue of global warming and gentrification.

My job was to create a poster with an example of a bioengineered oak tree the fictional GreenGos company plans to plant throughout Oakland, ostensibly as part of sophisticated clean energy program. It was a lot of fun putting my love of botanical watercolors and science fiction illustration to work in one piece. As a student at AAU, I loved being a part of collaborative film and animation production teams and seeing how these complex projects come together. Many thanks to Darren Colston for bringing me on board for the project, and best of luck to the rest of the team during these final critical hours in their Kickstarter campaign!

A poster advertising the Greengos bioengineering firm, captured on set during a shoot for 'The North Pole'.
Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1895822190/the-north-pole-a-comedic-web-series-for-the-people

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Aquatic Humanoid Character

Last Saturday's life drawing session led to a series of caricature and character design studies based on our model. It took close to 30 sketches ranging from 2-minute poses to 20-minute ones. I started the session with the usual ten small ink pen sketches, followed by four 5-minute ones. After two longer poses, I felt comfortable with playing with proportions and searching for a character design.

A key advantage to working small in my sketchbook has been the ability to take on the overall stance, proportions and other details multiple times during long poses.

This final design was completed in Adobe Photoshop using the original sketch as a foundation. Imagined her to be a muscular swimmer with plenty of insulation and buoyancy. Something about the model's profile and facial features made me think of someone proud and somewhat aloof. (That might also explain her nudity.) The name just popped into my head as I wrapped up the digital phase. Fun study.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Quick Draw SF @ F8

This month Quick Draw SF is a week later than usual. Join us on Thursday, February 23. The theme is "Love Beyond Valentine's Day," a look at what you hold most near and dear to you. 

At the event we will have a merch table with work from our featured artists; prints, zines, pins, stickers, original art, and more. We'll also be doing the raffle: prizes include SFMoma tickets, Flax gift certificates and other random/awesome prizes.

Featured artists include:
Brie Spiel
Zachary Sweet
Eugene Young (ME!)
Yesenia Gonzalez
Alexsandra Chelini
Dawline-Jane Oni-Eseleh
Jamaica Dyer
Matt Harding
Casey Desilets
Jaide Marchand
Jilliann Silva
Diego Gomez
Alex Sodari

Paint Pens Collective x Never Ending Radical Dude
present “QUICK DRAW SF”
Curated by Shayna Yasuhara and Jason Furie
Location: F8/1192 Folsom, San Francisco, CA 94103
Date: Thursday, January 19th 2017
Time: 6:00 - 10:00pm

Bay Area’s Paint Pens Collective and Never Ending Radical Dude present QUICK DRAW SF! A monthly live drink and draw event co-curated by Shayna Yasuhara and Jason Furie. Each month, ten artists are selected to come draw and sell their creations on our “art wall” available on the cheap. Everyone is welcome to come draw, so bring your sketchbooks!

Happy hour specials in full effect!
Music by DJ 11am
21+, **FREE EVENT**

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Not Forgotten Anthology Kickstarter is Live!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1430099002/not-forgotten-a-public-domain-superhero-anthology?ref=profile_backed

The Not Forgotten Anthology is now LIVE on Kickstarter. Please contribute what you can or help us to spread the word. Click the above pic to visit the Kickstarter page.

Monday, February 6, 2017

Not Forgotten Interview










Who are you? Eugene Randolph Young

What story are you working on for the book? Jet Powers: Ghosts From the Past by Jared Rosmarin

What history do you have with comics, both as a fan and as a creator?


I have been a (very) casual reader of comics from around age seven. My first comic book was an issue of Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery. The cover had a guy with a rifle riding a motorcycle and shooting at a flying red dragon! It probably painted in oil like the old pulp fiction novel covers. Other early favorites included Ghosts, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Shogun Warriors, Avengers, X-Men and The New Teen Titans. As a kid, I frequented the 7-Eleven on 37th and MacDonald in Richmond back when it had a full rack of comics from Marvel, D.C. and a couple of other lesser-known publishers. My picks were random, often based on cover art or an interest in discovering a new character. Avengers King-Size Annual #10 encapsulates what drew me to superhero team and villain stories. It had crossovers, subplots and a lot of drama between the characters. The pencils and inks were the best! They had weight and grit and made the most of a limited color palette. Books like that one taught me how to “read” the many nuanced, symbolic cues used in comics to denote everything from movement, light and shadow to depth, emotions and cosmic energy. I was into the art more than the stories. Focusing on reading was always hard for me, and the all-caps format made reading comics even more frustrating. So, I was happy to just skim the pages, especially when the text got too dense.




The title that held my attention the longest was G.I. Joe. I started reading Larry Hama’s epic sci-fi military adventure comic at #17. The first page of that issue had the Joe leader, Hawk, bleeding from the chest while a H.I.S.S. tank sped off into the distance. Cobra Commander held the smoking gun. Hama, being an Army veteran, brought a lot of authenticity to the story’s use of weapons and jargon. He also had a futurist’s eye for envisioning new technologies and military hardware. G.I. Joe had the most culturally diverse roster characters I had ever seen in a mainstream comic.

Comic Relief in Downtown Berkeley was one of my favorite haunts through the late 80s. There, I discovered McFarlane’s work on Spider-Man, which impacted my interest in styles that deviated from the Marvel/D.C. house styles. During the 90s, rising prices and a greater emphasis on splash pages, T and A and eye-candy pushed me toward manga and titles from other companies. Mark A. Nelson’s work on the first Aliens mini-series from Dark Horse was an example. Painted stories like Wolverine and Havok: Meltown got me thinking differently about how a comic could look. Steve Epting’s run on The Avengers in the early 90s because the style and writing reminded me so much of the Avengers in the early 80s.

Around 1988, manga and anime were quickly becoming hugely influential and more accessible. The art was what hooked me more than anything else. Translated issues of Appleseed (Masamune Shirow), Outlanders (Johji Manabe) appeared sporadically. My late teens and early 20s led me to the work of European artists including Milo Manara (Click, Little Ego), Alex Varenne (Erma Jaguar) and Elutri Serpieri (Druuna). Comics from Europe and Japan raised my standards for realism, imagination and design in storytelling.

I worked on my own space epic The Convoy Battles from around age 8 up through my senior year of high school. It included substantial number of characters, locations and vehicles and over a hundred pages of illustrated story. By age 15, I had also written and illustrated the first pages of my urban cyberpunk concept Def Squad X (later “The Strong Oaklanders”) after attending my first Wonder Con at the Oakland Convention Center in 1989. Def Squad X earned me a regional ACT-SO award for drawing from the South County chapter of the NAACP, which let me compete at the 1990 national convention in Los Angeles. The experience taught me that my work and interests were an awkward fit for such a traditional, socially conservative and deeply Christian organization. They celebrated work focused on faith, history, identity and culture. Superhero comics were at the margins of all of those things. Fine art drawing and painting had to fit mainstream art market and educational trends.




In 1993, I collaborated with writer Perry D. Clark on his creation Guila: The Dark Stranger. We independently produced a four-issue mini-series in black and white. The work was reduced and photocopied onto tabloid sheets, folded and saddle-stitched into letter-sized booklets. In 1995, I redid the first issue and released it as a standard-sized comic with digital colors and lettering. While I was happy with the results, I lost interest in creating independent comics because of the tedium and the amount of work involved.



Around the same time, I became an editorial cartoonist for The Guardsman at City College of San Francisco. At CCSF, I took graphic design classes while still leaning toward illustration as a possible career choice. The cartooning gig kept my gag writing and cartooning skills sharp. I often got the assignment late in the evening and had to delivered the next morning. The hard work earned me two awards from the Journalism Association of Community Colleges (JACC).


In 2013, I was invited to curate A Show of Power: Africans and African Americans in Science Fiction at City College of San Francisco. The African American History Month exhibition included a selection of comics, books, prints and toys from my private collection that featured black characters and themes related to various aspects Black Experience. I was nearing the completion of my MFA in illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and slowly finding my way back to my old love of superhero comics.


What attracted you to this project?

Jared Rosmarin had already shown me two scripts before Jet Powers: Ghosts From the Past. We collaborated during the summer of 2016 on his ten-page short story Just Push the Button, a story focused on a dysfunctional single mother-and-son relationship and a rigged game show. I learned from our first project that Jared is a keen observer of human behavior and well-versed in the mechanics of a good storytelling. He is a dedicated writer with a strong interest in exploring comics as a storytelling medium. His knowledge of classic and contemporary film is also impressive.

I am also a big fan of early comic book art from the 50s. Their craft and beauty happened under strict technical limitations. From an early age I tried to emulate that style, and to some extent, I still do in my current work. My goal is to bring some of that brush and ink look and feel into the art and the limited color palette from the before the mid-80s. Montana Manalo’s inks really bring my pencils to life and I’ve been really lucky to have her on board.




What public domain characters are you using in your story, and what did you like about them?

Jet Powers is straightforward character without the cynicism and nihilism I’ve come to dislike in mainstream popular culture. I don’t mind a little social critique and political commentary here and there, but frankly, Jet’s a breath of fresh air. I like the guy. He is focused, mature, a brilliant inventor, worldly, and loyal to country. He also finds himself vulnerable in this episode, so we get to see his cool and calculating side. Without giving too much away, he has a bit of his world turned on its ear in these fast eight pages, so I am excited to see how his hard stoicism evolves in future stories. Jet Powers is a classic hero vs. villain story with lots of potential for fun storytelling on Earth and beyond.

Monday, January 23, 2017

Not Forgotten Public Domain Character Anthology

Last fall, I had an opportunity to contribute to an upcoming public-domain comic book superhero anthology entitled "Not Forgotten". Writer Jared Rosmarin wrote the 8-page story for Jet Powers, a character who appeared back in 1950. I kept the original look and costume design for Jet and went with a bold, simple and high-contrast Golden Age style of pencils. Coloring Montana Manalo's inks was a lot of fun. Her inking really brought out the spirit of Jet Powers and his amazing world of gadgets and intrigue. Montana was also responsible for the preliminary image research that made the job of designing Jet's gadgets a lot easier for me. You can follow Montana on Instagram.

A Kickstarter to promote Not Forgotten launches in February. Editors Matt Harding, Einar Måsson and Sinclair Klugarsh have over 20 stories on tap for the project. Here’s a peek at the pitch:

Heralded by the success of Superman and Batman, the world of superheroes exploded in the late 1930s with a litany of colorful and often bizarre heroic characters, creating what is revered as “The Golden Age” of comic books. They defeated evil wherever it reared it's ugly head, whether it be bloodthirsty Vampires from Pluto, repugnant Nazi jerks, or the mysterious and deadly effects of Atomic Radiation! These heroes sold books by the millions and ushered in an age of unprecedented JUSTICE. But soon, these ring-a-ding-ding good times came to an end at the close of World War 2 as the heroes fell out of favor in the eyes of a giddy and spoiled public. It was curtains for the heroes, as the once successful publishers now faced bankruptcy and took to the giggle juice while their creations fell into the shadow realm of PUBLIC DOMAIN, a place where anyone, anywhere can use them for whatever nefarious deed their sick minds could concoct. GADZOOKS! No longer protected under the shield of copyright laws, these characters were buried and lost to the cruel hand of father time and the machismo of modern entertainment as evil ran unencumbered through our streets! BUT FEAR NOT, true believers! These heroes are back and better than ever! Re-imagined by top creators in the industry, this anthology collects over 20 short stories paying homage and tribute to some of the greatest heroes and heroines lost to time with brand new, never-before-seen, exclusive tales bringing these amazing creations back to life! But don't blow your wig, Johnny. This book is within your grasp! Get in on this here clambake and help show the world that these characters might have been buried under layers of dust, but they are NOT FORGOTTEN!

Featuring work by James Harren (Rumble, B.P.R.D., Conan), Eric Esquivel (Lego DC Superheroes, Vertigo Quarterly, Adventure Time), Ryan Cody (Doc Unknown, Heavy Metal Magazine, The Phantom), Jerry Gaylord (Bill and Ted's Triumphant Return, Fanboy Vs Zombies, Ghostbuster/TMNT), Matt Harding (Doctor Mordrid, Popapocalypse, Styx, Madefire Studios), Rodrigo Vargas, Josh Krach, Angela Ahlers, Nathan Shorts (Toejam and Earl: Back in the Groove), Vincent Kukua (Image Comics), Saeed Arjumand (The Haunted Detective), Evan Limberger (Madefire Studios), Matt D. Wilson (Copernicus Jones: Robot Detective, Supervillain’s Handbook), Rodrigo Vargas, Josh Krach, Ashley V. Robinson (Jupiter Jet, Editor at Top Cow), Morgan Beem, Rica March, Jeffrey and Susan Bridges (Pendant Audio), Leonie O’Moore, Derik Hefner, Anne-Marie Webb, Andrew Steers, Edwin Lopez, Bobby Trauma, Esther Pimentel, Greg Menzie, Zakk Saam, Omar Morales, Joel Cotejar, Paula Goulart, Jaymes Reed, Paul Plale, Andres Olveras, Gabriel Moore-Topazio (Wrought Comics, Asylum), Einar V. Másson (Bay Area Comic Anthology, Bruce the Angry Bear), Edwin Lopez, Kristian Bay Kirk, Sandra Rós Björnsdóttir, Kevin Cuffe (Oathbound), Ricardo Lima, Jason Inman (co-host of DC All Access), Nick Robles (Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials), Casey Desilts, Malcolm Johnson (Styx, Ultrasylvania), Kevin Buckley (Madifire Studios, Cyberwulf), Jeff Leeds, Marco Maccagni (Archon, Vampblade), Jared Rosmarin, Eugene Young, and Dave Harding.


An early sketch of Jet Powers (digital)