Stephen Silver

So the big exciting thing that I have been wanting to share has been doing some work with the amazingly talented Stephen Silver...and to show some sketches that he has done.

I have been doing a little bit of work on a project with Stephen, and in return he is doing some design work and sketches for Captain Capitalism.

Stephen is an amazingly talented, and extremely nice guy. Which is a rare combination...especially in this industry.

I have been a big fan of his work ever since we worked on Kevin Smith's various Clerks projects at Powerhouse. Stephen did the design for the original television series, which I have always loved.

As I told Stephen, and as I have talked about a little on the blog a bit...I have been in a design rut. I feel like I have fallen into using crutches and symbols a bit too much.

I have tried to loosen up by doing some caricatures, and by trying to draw straight into flash with the wacom to break things up. I am horrible at it, by the way. I hope that I can get my hands on a Cintiq one day...but I digress.

Anyway, after drawing various versions of the same character for 6 years, at varying skill levels you kind of fall into patterns even when trying to change things up. I thought it would be great to see what someone who really knows character design would do with the character...

And who know more about it than Stephen...

So enough with my incoherent babbling, check these out:

It is going to be a lot of fun seeing how I can incorporate these ideas into the next cartoon. I am very excited about getting into the next cartoon.

So thanks a bunch, Stephen. That is all for now folks...

Getting back on track...

Sorry about the lack of posts recently. The last couple weeks have been trying.

Some great things have happened and I have wanted to write about them, but unfortunately some not so great things have also happened... which has prevented me from doing so.

Work has been really busy, which is great, but I have had some late nights in the past two weeks. A few of these nights involved trying to regain 2 years of sent and recieved e-mails that I lost in an Outlook crash. The stress level has gone up a bit with the amount of work we have, and I have actually needed some time to decompress a bit in the evenings.

My grandmother also passed away this last weekend. She was 89, and has been sick for some time, but I come from a very big extended family and she was the center of it. It hit pretty hard.

I am trying to get back on track this weekend...so hopefully this entry is the first of a run.