This was originally painted in watercolor, and though Allan Harvey was kind enough to get me a scan from the original, I redid part of it digitally. I think I may have tweaked it a bit too much, but it is still an improvement over the original. This is one of my earliest paintings for the self published editions of A Distant Soil.

This was the original drawing for the first edition of the A Distant Soil graphic novel. It was originally published in color and has long been out of print. I also heavily altered the original drawing. I’m sure most readers never heard of A Distant Soil: Immigrant Song. Back in the day, graphic novels were often really short: maybe only 60 pages, so this GN only covered the first 60 pages of the A Distant Soil saga. The new edition (now entitled The Gathering) covers 240 pages. I do kinda miss seeing A Distant Soil in color, but our old publisher ditched the negatives, and frankly, the color was kind…

This is one of the earliest cover paintings for A DISTANT SOIL. Holy cow. Also, for those reading online, the complete chapter two of the digitally restored Volume I is now available on the site. Also, the book store is back in business! A DISTANT SOIL VOLUME I back in stock, as well as THE VAMPIRE DIARIES and the new Deluxe edition of OCEAN/ORBITER.

Pencil, digital, silver and handmade paper with oil emulsion.

Pencil and digital

Pencil and digital.

Pencil, handmade paper, oil emulsion, silver. Sorry this is late, I uploaded this under POSTS instead of as part of the comics page. Oops!

A pencil drawing with digital color.

This portrait of Kovar was used for a back cover. It is one of the few paintings I’ve done in oil. This is Genesis Oil, which is, technically, not oil, but it behaves the same way when you paint with it, except it dries at a fairly uniform speed when heated to 250 degrees. So it is much better for illustration. The drawback is varnishing is kind of a hassle. I love the gloss of varnish, and you can’t use traditional varnish on it. I’m surprised this paint isn’t more popular with illustrators, but I don’t know anyone who uses it.

Pencil, oil emulsion and handmade paper, digital.