And all it's Green Lantern Parts...

Hal Finished Pencils

Sinestro Sketch

Spread Layout Sketch

Kilowog Sketch

Kyle, Soranik & Sodam Yat Sketch

Spread Pencil Linework

Green Lantern Spread Drawing Process
Green Lantern © DC Comics
By Corey Breen
Pencils

The Justice League Cards are HERE!

JLA/ Rittenhouse Archives Trading Cards
32 of 250 original sketch cards shown By Corey Breen
Pen & Ink & Prisma-Color Markers

After a long, long wait, the set is FINALLY out tomorrow, November 18th, 2009! Run, don't walk to your nearest comic & card shop to pick up a boxed set, and try to score one of 250 ORIGINAL cards done by yours truly!
Above is just a sampling of some of the cards I completed for the set. Below, you can find the original pencil sketches that I did in preparation of doing the finished cards. My process was pretty simply. I knew that completing 250 in a about a month would be tough, but came up with an assembly line type process that helped me organize and pace myself to complete.

I started with drawing mock ups of the size of the cards we had to draw on, which were about 3 x 4 inch cards. The drawing area was even smaller then that, about 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches. I drew about 8 boxes per page. I closely followed the guidelines of the project, because they were very specific in what they wanted on the cards. We were allowed to draw only the JLA characters listed in our contract, and only in costumes they've appeared in throughout the years, but NO alternate universe material. For example, we were not allowed to draw Batman Beyond.



JLA/ Rittenhouse Archives Trading Cards
Original sketch card sketches By Corey Breen
Pencil

After I had about 22-25 original pencil sketches, I bought some carbon copy paper. The cards for the set we were giving were 2-ply bristol, and pretty thick, where it would be tough to lightbox. Also, on the back of the cards were the logo for the set that took up all of the drawing area. Therefore if you did try to lightbox it, the image would see through, and you could not see my drawing to copy. So I decided to use carbon paper, and transfer the cards that way.

I wound up transferring about 7 or 8 versions of EACH pencil drawing onto the 250 cards! That took about an entire week, working about 4-6 hours a night after working all day. After I had all 250 drawn and transferred on the cards, it was time to ink and color them. I made it easy on myself and did each according to character. I took the 7-8 Green Arrows, for example, and inked all of them in a row. Then I took my Prisma-Color markers, and colored each one down the line, like a factory. I repeated that process for the rest of them.

If all of this sounds like it was monotonous, then you are totally right. But to make it more barable, I popped in my entire DVD collection of the Justice league cartoon to get me in the mood and pumped up to draw these characters and cards. It totally worked, because when I needed at least a little break, I looked up and watched some of the BEST cartoons EVER made. Then it got my inspiration back, and I forced myself to pump out the cards. I wound up doing about 14-18 finished cards a night, and was done earlier then even I thought, way above the deadline. It took a little less then a month to complete. I was actually originally commissioned to do 200 cards, but since I finished early, and some artists bailed on the project, they asked me to do 50 more. Did a couple more sketches and transferred them on to the cards, and finished them up like the other ones.

This was an AWESOME project to do, I had a GREAT time doing them all, and I'm really excited to begin to show you what I did. It was not easy, and VERY time consuming, and as anyone who does these types of cards know, it is very rewarding when it is done. I hope very soon, there will be more sets like this one, and I can be hired to do more. BIG thank you to all of DC Licensing Department for believing in me and some other of my coworkers (who were kind enough to recommend me) to work on the project!

There are a bunch of sites dedicated to the collecting, trading, and selling of the cards, and they are listed below:

http://scoundrelpublishing.com/spart/viewforum.php?f=9&sid=10debcf62a1626145dcb364697fbeaca

http://www.sketchcards.com/artists/

Hope you like!

CjB

Indigo Glow!

Indigo Tribe - Green Lantern © DC Comics
By Corey Breen
Pencil

If you are not reading Green Lantern and Blackest Night, then you are not a comic book fan. Ever since Green Lantern Rebirth, all the Green Lantern titles have been must read, steller comics. Geoff Johns and Pete Tomasi have been able to capture the most amazing blend of Sci-Fi, Horror, Action/ Adventure, Romance, and Super-Heroics into flawless entertainment.

I've been saying it for the past three or four years now, that Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corp and now Blackest Night are the best comic books on the stands today, and continue to get better! If you feel you are behind and that is the reason you are not reading, please go back and buy all the trades starting with Rebirth. Then get all the Green Lantern trades, and Green Lantern Corp trades. Then pick up the Green Lantern/ Sinestro Corp War trades and side stories (they're all worth it), and now finally, Blackest Night, and you will be all caught up.

The above characters are new to the universe, and they are called the Indigo Tribe. An alien race that we know little about... music to my ears, I LOVE them already! So many possiblities and Geoff Johns just keeps creating AWESOME characters out of his ears. I love me some new characters, and these guys are really cool so far, so I had to draw them! Love the main character Indigo-1, and the bird dude, the Salacious Crumb looking guy, and the wormy guy! Great stuff.

And I consider myself so lucky to work on these books on a daily basis, and when you see what is coming up in these Green Lantern books, you will NOT be disappointed! This book has been so well written, with Johns being so good at plot and character arcs, plus Tomasi being so good at pulling on your heart strings, what is coming up soon during Blackest Night will BLOW you away! I cried just a little reading the latest Green Lantern Corp issue, it is THAT good!

Hope you like the Pin-Up, and I'll see you soon in the funny books!

Cor

Just One More Walk on the Wild Side!

Where the Wild Things Are © Maurice Sendak & The Sheldon Fogelman Agency
By Corey Breen
Pencil

I'm 'Around the Net'!

Seems like I was all over the internet yesterday. My "weekly" column over on http://masterdigitalcolor.com/ got worldwide recognition! In my column I wrote about the process we here in DC Comics' Pre-Press had to go through to remaster Watchmen for the Absolute Edition, and all future reprints! Below is the link to the column itself, and also where it was featured all around the comic book internet world! I was very proud and honored to be featured on Newsarama especially, for I have been a follower since almost it's inception. To be able to be recognized on that site has always been a dream of mine, and I'm glad I got the chance thanks to columnist David Pepose! Thanks David!

Original Article:

http://masterdigitalcolor.com/2009/10/who-cleaned-the-watchmen/

Newsarama Feature about my column:

http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/11/04/who-remastered-the-watchmen/

Other links to my column on various sites:

http://www.collectedcomicslibrary.com/2009/11/03/collected-edition-blog-brow
sing-on-tuesday-afternoon-5/

http://www.downtowncomics.com/events/event/show?id=1973330%3AEvent%3A16265&p
age=1

UPDATED: Now on The Beat, (by Hedi McDonald, old coworker) as well:

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2009/11/05/kibbles-n-bits-1152009/

Hope you like the column, and realize how much work we put into Watchmen to make it look the BEST it can. All of us who worked on it are really proud of it (me, Aaron, Emily, and Hank), and hope you learned something you didn't know about what went into producing the new reprints including the Absolute Edition!

Before I go, I do have art to show, but it's not MINE! It is a piece my wife drew for one of her classes. She is taking a drawing class, and a design class this year, and although I'm trying to teach her a lot myself, and help her, as you can see below, she doesn't need much help at all! This piece was for her design class believe it or not, and it is an illustration of the classic "Hanged Man"! Hope you like it, and let her know what you think!

The Hanged Man
By Kristy Breen
Pen & Ink

VERY PROUD of you Kristy, GREAT job!

I will have more stuff to post soon, including another drawing of Max from where the Wild Things Are, and a drawing of my favorite clan of new Lanterns, the Indigo Tribe, from Blackest Night, later this week!

Until Then,

CjB

Where Are the Wild Things?

Where the Wild Things Are © Maurice Sendak & The Sheldon Fogelman Agency
By Corey Breen
Pencil & Photoshop

Carol © Maurice Sendak & The Sheldon Fogelman Agency
By Corey Breen
Pencil

Max © Maurice Sendak & The Sheldon Fogelman Agency
By Corey Breen
Pencil

Even before the movie came out, I knew I wanted to do a drawing of the characters from the new movie, Where the Wild Things Are! Just the look they achieved from the original trailer with the amazing acoustic version of The Arcade Fire's hit song, "Wake Up". I thought the trailer was amazingly well done (as are most trailers theses days, which actually turn out better then the movie themselves), and stayed in my mind for a long, long time. I didn't get around to actually doing the drawing after the trailer, and waited until after I saw the entire movie.

I wont go into a full review of the movie, except to say I recommend it. I thought it was very well done, and the characters were all flawlessly translated to film from the original book. It was actually uncanny in this aspect, if you go back and look at the art. The use of actual costumes and puppetry, mixed with minimal CGI, really worked here. When done right, it proves once again that you can still do a movie with puppets, and still have it look incredible (someone please tell George Lucas that, please). As for the movie itself, I think it will be studied for a long long time, in not only film classes, but even more so in child psychology classes. The movie was very deep, and stays with you for a long time after the viewing. So much so, that you don't really know if you actually liked the movie after seeing it, til much later, when you've had a chance to think about. That's the thing with this movie, because it was not really a movie that was all that entertaining. It's a movie that makes you think about various aspects of a child's mindset, and what makes a child act or be the way they are. What aspects of a child's psyche can you most identify with, and why the various aspects of Max's mind were represented the way they were, are what you really start thinking about after this movie. I can see this film being studied for years, especially from someone like my wife, who is a 1st grade teacher, who absolutely LOVED the movie.

I definitely recommend the movie, and think in time it will be considered a classic. As long as you keep an open mind going in, and let the ideas overtake you, and let your emotions be involved in the film, you will really like the film. The casting was great (the voice-acting), the kid was perfectly cast, and I have to admit, was almost brought to tears in some parts. It made all audience members really feel like you are Max, or have been at some point in your life, and in that aspect, this movie really succeeds.

Look at that, I said I wasn't going to review the film, and I did. Ok, I'll shut up now...

Until next time,

CjB

PS- A LOT of stuff I gotta buy, and you should too (thank god XMAS is on the way!):

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan DVD
Star Wars: Clone Wars Season 1 DVD
GI Joe Cartoon 2 DVD
GI Joe Resolute DVD (BEST GI Joe EVER made!)
GI Joe: The Movie DVD (I know it kinda sucked, but it's GI Joe, & I must own it)
Haunt #1, #2 by Image Comics
The J Scott Campbell 2010 Fantasy Calendar