CjB Productions

"52 by 1" - Week 3 - Green Arrow #1

2012-01-30T23:15:00.002-05:00

Green Arrow #1 © DC Comics

"52 by 1" - week 3

By Corey Breen

Pencil, Copics & Photoshop

This should have been LAST weeks cover, Green Arrow #1!

This weeks cover is Batwing #1, and I just need to do the tones and drop the cover logo's treatments in. That will be posted this week; on time!

Then it's Suicide Squad #1 which is almost completely pencilled as well, so that should totally be on time too, early next week.

Unless the NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS WIN THE SUPERBOWL, then I just may have to party for the next 3 weeks straight, lol!

GO GIANTS!

Only thing is, my Copics are getting real dry, REAL FAST! Uh-oh, because I don't have the money to get more...

:-(

I'll keep you updated on Twitter, so follow me there!

@CjB_Productions

Peace,

CjB

New Sketch Attack Art

2012-01-24T12:43:00.002-05:00

Minya vs. Hellboy © Tomoyuki Tanaka & Mike Mignola

By Corey Breen

Pencil, Copic Marker & Photoshop

This weeks assignment was one of the many characters in all of the Godzilla Movies throughout the ages. I choose the spawn of Godzilla, his baby, Minya. It just so happens to be Minya getting violently killed by little Hellboy!

I don't really like drawing monsters...

LOL

Enjoy. Don't know next assignment yet for Sketch Attack but will post when I do know.

Sketch Attack Blog can be found HERE:

http://sketchattack.tumblr.com/post/16354310329/minya-vs-hellboy-by-corey-breen

CjB

More DC Universe Presents Art

2012-01-23T09:58:00.004-05:00

DC Universe Presents #1 © DC Comics

By Corey Breen

Photoshop

DC Universe Presents #1 © DC Comics

By Corey Breen

Pencil & Copic Markers

DC Universe Presents #1 © DC Comics

By Corey Breen

Pencil Sketch

The Green Arrow cover is NOT ready yet, unfortunately, so I thought I'd make up for being late by posting more art from the DC Universe Presents cover. Here is the original sketch, the Copic Marker wash, and then I added the logo treatment just for fun.

Maybe I'll have time to "color" the wash next too.

The drawing for Green Arrow is done, just need a background, need to ink it and then color it.

CjB

"52 by 1" - DC Universe Presents #1

2012-01-18T21:45:00.003-05:00

DC Universe Presents #1 © DC Comics

"52 by 1"

By Corey Breen

Photohop Colors

DC Universe Presents #1 © DC Comics

"52 by 1"

By Corey Breen

Photohop Inks

DC Universe Presents #1 © DC Comics

"52 by 1"

By Corey Breen

Pencils

I know, I know, I'm already a little late and it's only week 2. It's gonna happen from time to time, so just cut me some slack on that. I will do the best I can to keep on schedule, and if I'm off I will let you know what week the latest cover is for. I WILL do all of them by December 31st, no matter what, lol! That is my goal!

So here is the second cover, this one is for DC Universe Presents #1!

The magic effect didn't come out as well as I had hoped. I like everything else, but I was trying to go for an ectoplasm look to the rest of his body, like he was exploding out of the chains as well as looking all magic-like. Oh well. Still happy with about 80% of the piece.

On to the NEXT one...

GREEN ARROW #1

CjB

PS- I will do a copic wash on this one too, just because I like doing it and it makes my art look cool. Be on the look out for that!

PPS- NEW Sketch Attack drawing is due next week too, so be on the lookout for that. This week's assignment is GODZILLA!

Batman & Robin Wash Version

2012-01-09T12:55:00.002-05:00

Batman & Robin © DC Comics

By Corey Breen

Photoshop

Here is the color file of the Copic Marker wash for this cover. What do you think, do you like it more then the straight up Photoshoped cover? Should I do all the rest of the "52 by 1" covers like this one above, or the one posted yesterday!

Let me know...

CjB

"52 by 1" - Batman & Robin

2012-01-08T19:08:00.007-05:00

"52 by 1" #1

Batman & Robin © DC Comics

By Corey Breen

Final Color in Photoshop

"52 by 1" #1

Batman & Robin © DC Comics

By Corey Breen

B/W Wash in Copic Markers

Here is the FIRST cover in the FIRST week of January, Batman & Robin #1! Every week this year I will be posting my version of EACH 52 comic cover! I hope you follow me on this adventure and I hope you like them all. Really, I just hope I am able to do see this whole project through to the end! Honestly, this is gonna be HARD!

LOL

So don't KILL me if I'm a day or two late some weeks, but I'll do my BEST!

So one down, 51 to GO!

Next up is DC Universe Presents #1!

CjB

The Full List

(if you missed it previously now with Due Dates)

JANUARY

1. Batman & Robin - COMPLETE
2. DCU Presents - Due 1/14
3. Green Arrow - Due 1/21
4. Batwing - Due 1/28

FEBUARY
5. Suicide Squad - Due 2/4
6. Hawk & Dove - Due 2/11
7. Animal Man - Due 2/18
8. Grifter - Due 2/25

MARCH
9. Red Lanterns - Due 3/3
10. Wonder Woman - Due 3/10
11. Red Hood & Outlaws - Due 3/17
12. Superman - Due 3/24
13. Aquaman - Due 3/31

APRIL
14. Captain Atom - Due 4/7
15. Batman - Due 4/14
16. Supergirl - Due 4/21
17. The Flash - Due 4/28

MAY
18. Justice League Dark - Due 5/5
19. Superboy - Due 5/12
20. Batgirl - Due 5/19
21. Deathstroke - Due 5/26

JUNE
22. Demon Knights - Due 6/2
23. Static Shock - Due 6/9
24. All-Star Western - Due 6/16
25. Batman The Dark Knight - Due 6/23
26. Stormwatch - Due 6/30

JULY
27. Blackhawks - Due 7/7
28. OMAC - Due 7/14
29. Legion of Superheroes - Due 7/21
30. Green Lantern - Due 7/28

AUGUST
31. Legion Lost - Due 8/4
32. Voodoo - Due 8/11
33. Detective Comics - Due 8/18
34. Teen Titans - Due 8/25

SEPTEMBER
35. Resurrection Man - Due 9/1
36. I, Vampire - Due 9/8
37. Mister Terrific - Due 9/15
38. Savage Hawkman - Due 9/22
39. Green Lantern Corps - Due 9/29

OCTOBER
40. Nightwing - Due 10/6
41. Swamp Thing - Due 10/13
42. Birds of Prey = Due 10/20
43. Justice League International - Due 10/27

NOVEMBER
44. Catwoman - Due 11/3
45. Men of War - Due 11/10
46. Frankenstein Agent of Shade - Due 11/17
47. Green Lantern New Guardians - Due 11/24

DECEMBER
48. Blue Beetle - Due 12/1
49. Batwoman - Due 12/8
50. Fury of Firestorm - Due 12/15
51. Action Comics - Due 12/22
52. Justice League - Due 12/29

Sketch Attack - Sherlock Holmes - FOR SALE!

2012-01-05T08:24:00.009-05:00

Sherlock Holmes © Conan Doyle Estates, LTD

By Corey Breen

Pencil & Copic Markers & Photohop

Over at http://sketchattack.tumblr.com/ our second assignment was to do any incarnation of SHerlock Holmes. I chose this weeks topic and I did the Robert Downey Jr./ Jude Law versions, despite still not having seen Game of Shadows yet, unfortunately!

This piece was done in a lot of different ways. I started with a pencil sketch like I always do, then I did some research on London streets and buildings. Then I drew the background on a separate paper. I was going to use the same process I used on my Game of Thrones pieces, and ink it and color it all in Photoshop. After not having liked where that was going, I went back to the now transfered pencils, and tried the Copics. It worked out the best as you can see.

Much like the Star Wars piece, this piece is FOR SALE below. Just hit it up on Pay Pal on the right!

8.5 x 11 (two pieces of) ART FOR SALE - $75
(SEE PAYPAL SIDEBAR TO BUY)

Receive a FREE PRINT of the finished piece with purchase of the original art!

CjB

Sketch Attack - Aayla Secura - FOR SALE!

2011-12-20T08:31:00.008-05:00

Aayla Secura Color Print © Lucasfilm

By Corey Breen

Photoshop Colors

Above is the finished piece done for the new Sketch Blog on Tumblr called "Sketch Attack" that I belong to along with current and past employee's at DC Comics! The original piece below was done in Copic Markers on Comic Board and is available for purchase right here on my Blog to the right through PayPal!

11 x 17 ART FOR SALE - $150
(SEE PAYPAL SIDEBAR TO BUY)

Receive a free COLOR Print of the piece with purchase of the original art!

CjB

A Tumblr Collective!

2011-12-15T10:20:00.012-05:00

http://sketchattack.tumblr.com/

So all these comic book artists seem to be forming these groups online and starting their own Blogs and Tumblr accounts. Friends and professionals are banding together and joining forces online to do weekly sketches and drawings for their fans, and they have all been fantastic!

For a long time, a lot of my coworkers and I having been doing what these blogs are doing in our office. For years in the bullpen and in lettering we would pick random characters and we each draw our version of that character. Now that al

l these Blogs are popping up doing just that, we decided it was time to jump in the on the fun online too, and post what we have been doing for such a long time.

So my friend and coworker, Pat put together a team of DC artists and letterers, past and present, and started our own Tumblr account. You all know how it works. We will pick a topic every other week, be it a comic book character, book, movie... anything really, and all the artists will draw their interpretation of it and then they will all be posted on the Sketch Attack Tumblr account!

Our "collective" of artists that make up our Sketch Attack Tumblr account are the following artists:

Patrick Brosseau - Senior Letterer

Dezi Sienty - Letterer

Corey Breen - Senior Pre-Press Artist

Steve Wands - Letterer

Carlos Mangual - Letterer

Harvey Richards - Editor

Fredrick Haynes - Designer

Jessica Ellison - Executive Assistant

Sal Cipriano - Managing Letterer

Travis Lanham - Letterer

Michael Sellers - Senior Pre-Press Artist

Marco DiLeonardo - Digital Pre-Press Artist

So come along for the ride, and I hope you Follow us on Tumblr.

FIRST ASSIGNMENT - STAR WARS CHARACTERS

I will be reposting the art from that site after it is published right here on MY Blog, and when I do it will be FOR SALE! I will post it to Paypal with the price, and you can purchase the ORIGINAL art!

Once again, follow the site and then check back here to see it and/or BUY it, as we tackle some of the COOLEST characters and themes you can think of!

Suggestions taken for topics too, so feel free to shout out!

The site again is:

http://sketchattack.tumblr.com/

Thanks everyone!

Corey Breen

PS- In OTHER news, 52-by-1 will START the WEEK of January 1st and will be ONCE a week for the ENTIRE year, following that. The reason it was pushed back:

Tyler Matthew Breen

Completely Random!

2011-10-04T14:02:00.002-04:00

Strawberry Shortcake © American Greetings

By Corey Breen

Photoshop

I decided to color this, lol.

Enjoy...

I guess.

CjB

Recent Commissions

2011-09-29T12:10:00.003-04:00

Supergirl © DC Comics

Commission

Pencil 11 x 17

By Corey Breen

Robin © DC Comics

Commission

Pencil 11 x 17

By Corey Breen

I think I posted the original sketches for these a while back, but here are the final commissions that were done for two clients!

I would LOVE to do more of these, so hit me up with some requests and I'll let you know about pricing and things of that nature.

Also don't forget to check out my gallery on Flickr to see what pieces are also available for sale.

Thanks, and enjoy!

Corey Breen

This One Goes Out To... A fan!

2011-09-19T09:26:00.005-04:00

Batman © DC Comics

By Corey Breen

Pencil

This was done for a fan of mine who has been hugely supportive of my work and recently purchased some really cool pieces of mine. So I drew him this Batman sketch in the back of my Art of Corey Breen 2010 book.

You too could own your very own sketch by purchasing the book (a link is on the front page of my Blog to the right), or by purchasing some original artwork from here here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cjb-productions/sets/

Thanks so much, Elliot, I hope you like the art you purchased and your original Batman sketch!

Now to continue drawing my "52 by 1" cover projects!

Corey

CjB Productions Art For Sale!

2011-09-01T11:44:00.003-04:00

© Corey Breen

I am currently having a sale on a lot of my original art!

If you would like to purchase any artwork you see in my galleries, please shoot me an email at -

cjbreener@yahoo.com

GREAT PRICES!

FREE "ART OF COREY BREEN" with your purchase of $50 or more!

PRINTS available too!

Check out my gallery here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cjb-productions/sets/

Thank you!

Corey Breen

VisionSOIAF ~ The Art of "A Song of Ice and Fire"

2011-08-28T23:20:00.004-04:00

http://visionsoiaf.wordpress.com/the-list/

http://visionsoiaf.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/corey-breen/

Just wanted to pass along a link to a WONDERFUL site that features some fantastic, amazing art based on the world of A Song of Ice & Fire. On the site you will find some of the most astonding artwork based on the books and TV series by professionals and fans alike.

My art is now featured there, and I feel very honored to be a part of this site.

Enjoy,

CjB

Love My Robin

2011-08-18T09:17:00.003-04:00

Robin © DC Comics

By Corey Breen

Pencil

Took awhile for this character to grow on me, especially since I grew up with Tim Drake as MY Robin, and Stephaine Brown becoming my FAVORITE Robin of all time (for two months before we freakin' KILLED her off, lol), but Damian Wayne has turned out to be pretty, damn, COOL!

I drew this trying to nail down a cover for the first in my "52 by 1" project. Not gonna use it; I came up with another idea, so I thought I'd share this one separately. I think that may happen here and there as I work through all 52 titles!

Hope you dig,

Have a good weekend everybody!

CjB

52 by 1 Fantasy Draft!

2011-08-11T09:32:00.004-04:00

DC Comics Logo © DC Comics

The order of which I am drawing all 52 covers has been drawn. I picked each title randomly out of a hat, and the order is as follows.

1. Batman & Robin

2. DCU Presents

3. Green Arrow

4. Batwing

5. Suicide Squad

6. Hawk & Dove

7. Animal Man

8. Grifter

9. Red Lanterns

10. Wonder Woman

11. Teen Titans

12. Superman

13. Aquaman

14. Legion of Superheroes

15. Batman

16. Stormwatch

17. The Flash

18. Justice League Dark

19. Superboy

20. Batgirl

21. Deathstroke

22. Demon Knights

23. Static Shock

24. All-Star Western

25. Batman The Dark Knight

26. Supergirl

27. Blackhawks

28. OMAC

29. Captain Atom

30. Green Lantern

31. Legion Lost

32. Voodoo

33. Detective Comics

34. Red Hood & Outlaws

35. Resurrection Man

36. I, Vampire

37. Mister Terrific

38. Savage Hawkman

39. Green Lantern Corps

40. Nightwing

41. Swamp Thing

42. Birds of Prey

43. Justice League International

44. Catwoman

45. Men of War

46. Frankenstein Agent of Shade

47. Green Lantern New Guardians

48. Blue Beetle

49. Batwoman

50. Fury of Firestorm

51. Action Comics

52. Justice League

I will stick to this order as much as humanly possible. And I SWEAR that Justice League came out LAST in the random draw. I did NOT do that on purpose. BUT what a way to end it once I get there, with the MAIN DCU book, JUSTICE LEAGUE! I think that just proves that this was fate and I was meant to do it this way, in this order.

So first up is Batman & Robin #1 cover.

Again, I need I HUGE jump start on this project so I can make sure that everyone following will get ONE cover a week for 52 weeks. So you wont see the first cover until I'm like 5-10 covers deep into the project. I will update you all on Twitter & Facebook on my progress.

WISH ME LUCK!

52... here I GO!

CjB

52 by 1 Announced!

2011-08-10T11:57:00.009-04:00

DC Comics Logo is © DC Comics

ALL 52 COVERS BY ONE ARTIST - ME!

I've been thinking long and hard about what I want to REALLY focus on with my art these days. Do I focus on Concept Art? Do I focus on trying to be a Cover Artist? Do I focus on finally trying to do some Interior Sequential pages? "What do [I] want to DO with my life?" LOL

Well, I came up with lots of ideas, and finally it really hit me. I really WANT to be a Concept Artist, and I really want to be a Comic Book Cover Artist. I do not really want to do interiors. I know thats not the best thing to say to editors or people in the industry trying to take you seriously as a comic book artist, but it's just the truth. I excel at the big Pin-Up and the Big Money Shot, such as a cover would be. So I decided to continue with my concept art portfolio, that is a MUST. BUT, I also came up with an amazing project to do that I REALLY excited about, that will hopefully prove that I can be a comic book cover artist.

I'm calling it 52 by 1! As you all know, DC Comics, my main employer for the past 11 years, is doing an epic relaunch of their ENTIRE comic book line in September! All DCU comic books are "rebooting" and starting over at #1! There will be 52 #1 issues! Suffice to say, I am REALLY excited about it! All new titles, new costumes, new stories! Thinking about all of it the other day, I pondered how COOL it would be if all the new #1 issue's covers were done by ONE artist. I was like, "man, wouldn't it be cool if one artist tackled all 52 covers for the relaunch?!". Then I was thinking, "wow, that really would have been cool. I wonder who they could have got to pull that off?!" Then, like a light bulb above my head, I thought, "hey, I should just do it myself!"

So here's what I'm going to do! I am going to draw/ink/color ALL 52 NEW DC COMICS' "The New 52". That's right! I am going to pretend I am the cover artist on ALL the 52 newly launching comics. Hence, "52 by 1". 52 covers by ONE artist - ME! I am going to put all 52 titles in a hat, pick them out one by one, and for 52 weeks, post the cover to each book! It's gonna be a HUGE project, but one that I can't STOP thinking about, and one I think I definitely pull off!

I am mainly going to do this to have a cover art portfolio. I am going to prove to myself and to anyone who notices (fans of mine and possible employers), that I can be an amazing cover artist. It's that simple. So I hope you agree that this is a really cool project to do, and to give me all the encouragement to do all 52 titles' covers!

I can't wait to get started, but first I have to write down all the 52 books, and then pick them out of a hat the order I will be doing them in. I will do that tonight, and post the results tomorrow!

Wish me luck!

CjB

PS- I am going to need a head start on this though, to make sure I produce one cover a week for 52 weeks. So I'm gonna have to work out the specifics on the deadlines and whatnot at some point before I start. Will most likely thumbnail all 52 covers before I start, then try and get about 5-10 covers in the can before I start posting them, so I have at least a month head start.

Let me know what you all think and some suggestions on how I should best tackle this project I made for myself!

Logo Design

2011-08-01T08:35:00.003-04:00

Logo Design - GreenHome Technologies

© GreenHome Technologies

Designed by Corey Breen

Illustrator

This was a logo I designed for an incredible company called GreenHome Technologies. Making your home more green using incredible technology to save you tons of money and conserve energy, making your home more green!

I wanted to thank all my clients at GreenHome Tech for the opportunity to help usher in this VERY important company that everyone should learn more about. GreenHome and I are very happy with how the logo came out, and I wish the company the BEST of luck, and can't wait to see the technology in homes across the globe!

CjB

Character Design - Head Shots

2011-07-29T08:11:00.004-04:00

Character Design - Head Shots

SaricH © Coery Breen

Pencil

Here are a couple of head shots done for my main creator owned character, SaricH ©. This character is anamorphic, as I'm sure you've seen many a previous post about him. I liken his story and property to be akin to Zelda.

Next post will be more freelance work I've done recently, specifically a company logo design!

Until Monday,

CjB

Freelance Family Portrait

2011-07-29T07:43:00.004-04:00

Freelance Work - Family Portrait

By Corey Breen

Pencil

11 x 17 inches

This was a freelance gig I just completed this past month. The client wanted a family portrait for her parents anniversary. This took about 24 hours total to complete. Never did this many people in one portrait before. My process for this is kinda interesting too. What I do is tell the client to send me high resolution photos of all the people in the portrait. I ask them for photos that they think the people they want look their absolute best. I also ask in advance what kind of portrait they want, so depending on specifics (ie- mostly standing people) I ask for specific types of photos. Then I make a collage of sorts in Photoshop combining heads to bodies and moving things around and messing with the size and shapes of everything. I mash up all the photos until I get a composition I like and I think will work. I also have to make sure we have a solid background that makes sense.

I then print out to size the final approved reference. Then I throw that down under an illustration board, and throw it on a light-box. I then draw the outlines, and finally start into the tones. The tones is what takes a long, long time. I focus mostly on making sure I capture the look and likeness of every person completely. That is the hardest part. Sometimes I just keep trying and trying until finally, I know in my head, YES that is what that person looks like! It's a weird feeling to describe, but when I get it, I just know.

Then finally, I just work on it until I finish, really. I like to only work at MOST 8 hours a day on it. It's always good to take breaks during then too, or put on a movie I know really well, so if I want to just look up for a minute and take a break or rest my hand, I have something I can just watch for a minute. Can't watch something new, because that is a distraction. Also, it's best to sleep on drawing (NOT literally, lol) because when you wake up in the morning, or look at it the next day, you see with more clarity, and can step away from the previous day's work to get a better sense of the drawing and things that are and aren't working.

I LOVE doing portraits for clients. I do people, pets, caricatures, babies. It's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun too, and comes easy to me. It's also VERY rewarding. To see and hear the reactions of the clients and/or the reactions of the people they give them to as gifts (ie- a portrait of a boyfriend or husband & child) is just so great. The feeling I get knowing that I made a special piece for a family or spouse really makes it ALL worth it. I'm glad I can be a part of that love that person wants to show and give to other people they care enough about to get a portrait done.

It's also MUCH more impressive to size and in person, to be able to see the shading at the right size is really something nice that a shrunk jpg just can not capture.

So thanks to this client, and I hope they all cherish the piece for a long, long time. It was a pleasure.

If you or someone you know would like a portrait done, please email me at

cjbreener@gmail.com

Thanks,

Corey Breen

CjB Productions

Character Design - Character #14

2011-07-28T08:07:00.004-04:00

Character Design

Commander Ezarat © w/ Eclipsor Guardsman © Corey Breen

Pencil

The leader of Rukrym ©. He is a very tall, intimidating presence. He is a major player in the politics of the allied planets, and the main inter-planetary government. But he is also the Commander of the terrorist organization trying to take it down. He is also a conflicted being, one who had once believed in everything the government was doing, and a huge proponent of peace throughout the galaxy. But something changed. He became jaded and saw the cracks in the system. He formed The Rukrym and allied himself with some of the most vile, deeply rooted terrorists in the galaxy.

Because of his money and power, he quickly grew into huge terrorist network under his control. Although he now has some regrets of it getting so big and now influential, he truly does believe in his new cause, he just sometimes wishes it didn't have to come about like this. He knows eventually he will have to result in major

, major violence and mass death and destruction, but he is hoping to diplomatically gather planets to his cause one by one. When that fails, he has the Rukrym, and his now massive army to make sure things happen his way, to install his new planetary order.

His elite guardsman is his personal security guard, and also the General of his growing army. The guardsman has his elite strike force as well.

But when the government starts realizing how big and how powerful this organization is become and has become, they create the best of the best in the allied armies, a team called Starlanders © to infiltrate, create peace once again in the galaxy, by destroying the Rukrym, and it's mysterious, unknown leader.

Ok! So that's it for now on the characters for Starlanders. Below

is some preliminary designs for some ships that are in the Starlanders universe. I have to do more fully detailed versions and cross-cuts of these now, since these are just some outlines and silhouettes.

Starlanders Ship Designs © Corey Breen

Pencil

Next up on the Blog, a couple of freelance gigs I recently completed!

Until then, hope you enjoy some of the first parts of my concept art portfolio creation!

CjB

Character Design - Character #13

2011-07-27T08:05:00.011-04:00

Character Design

Mistress Bauer © Corey Breen

Pencil

Evil personified! Mistress Bauer © is one of the most cunning, nasty, evil member of Rukrym © there is. She is fiercely loyal to the cause and to Prince Xerro ©. Or is she? Who is she really lovers with?

For this character I want you to think Mischa from Die Hard with a Vengeance. Just a nasty looking female protagonist, who you do not want to mess with, whether it be in person or in combat. And I want the feel of the character to be one that makes you think, "is it really her that is in charge of the entire organization?" She seems to be one step ahead of everyone, and all her plans always seem to fall into place. Even when things don't seem to go her way, she always has a plan B and always adapts to her environment.

I really like this character design, because I think I was really able to capture a sexy looking yet fierce looking female alien. Not easy to do. Hope you agree.

The next post will be the last of the character designs for Starlanders ©. It will be of the leader of the Rukrym, and his personal guardsman. So one more character design post. Then I have a couple of random silhouette ship designs, and that will wrap up what I have so far as the beginnings of the concept work I am doing for Starlanders. Then I also have a couple things from SaricH © that I did that I can post. After that it's back to work on the portfolio, doing some color studies of all these character designs, and then doing landscapes and level designs, and planet designs. Vehicles, weapons... all that stuff! Can't wait!

I also have the freelance portrait I did to post, which is safe to show now that the drawing has been given as a gift to the client's parents for their anniversary. Can't wait to show that too.

Until tomorrow,

CjB

Character Design - Character #12

2011-07-26T08:20:00.002-04:00

Character Design

Prince Xerro © Corey Breen

Pencil

Continuing our villains, we get higher up the commander chain, as I introduce Prince Xerro © from Starlanders ©. He is a prince of his planet, and one of the key cogs of the interplanetary terrorists know as the Rukrym ©. He is sly, cunning, and ruthless, and has a really nasty attitude about him. He is a whiner, and always wants his way, yet he does answer to the head of the organization. Is he planning to overthrow his own leader to gain control himself? Yes, yes he probably is.

He is very skilled in combat, much like Commodus was in Gladiator! He is a master swordsman, and sniper. He commands his own lethal guardsmen, too. Yet they are a little inept as far as being as highly skilled as Xerro.

Next up is his lover, and confidant, on tomorrow's Blog post!

CjB

Character Design - Character #11

2011-07-25T08:46:00.005-04:00

Character Design

Glosli © Corey Breen

Pencil

Every hero needs a rival in a story, and Glosli © is the rival to Daylum © in Starlanders ©. She is a witch-like alien who has strong ties to her opposite, Daylum. They are of the same race, a very powerful, feared race in the galaxy. Daylum defected. Glosli, unlike Prust © is not out to get Daylum per se. She is more into her race, planet and the Rukrym © cause them Prust is. She is a fierce fighter who uses strong "magic" attacks. Starlanders is much a universe where alien tech meats fantasy and sorcery, much like Final Fantasy combines the two so well.

Four more characters to unveil, so tune in the rest of this week to see! Then we'll wrap up part ONE of designing the Starlanders Universe!

CjB

A Dance with Jon Snow & Ghost

2011-07-22T16:54:00.005-04:00

Jon Snow & Ghost From A Song of Ice & Fire © George R.R. Martin

By Corey Breen

Final Colors in Photoshop

Quickly becoming yet another all time favorite characters of mine, here is Jon Snow with his direwolf, Ghost! Hope everyone is enjoying A Dance with Dragons!

Below is the process I used. This time it worked out doing both characters separately along with a separate background, but I must stop doing that!

Enjoy,

CjB

Snow Sketch

Ghost Sketch

Finished Pencils on 11 x 17 Letraset Paper

Digital Inks with Cintique

Character Design - Character #10

2011-07-21T09:27:00.003-04:00

Character Design

Prust © Corey Breen

Pencil

Prust © is one of my favorites. I designed him right after I designed Zephyr ©. Prust is Zephyr's main nemesis, and their rivalry is much like Snake-Eyes' & Storm Shadows'. Prust is like the Boba Fett of the Starlanders © universe. He is no joke, and is only with the Rukrym for his own benefit, and that is to get at Zephyr. He will help the Rukrym's cause to a certain extent, but he really cares more about his motives towards Zephyr then anything else.

CjB

NOTE: We will continue with the character designs on Monday, for tomorrow I want to Blog about my last Game of Thrones piece I just finished, Jon Snow & Ghost!

Character Design - Character #9

2011-07-20T18:06:00.004-04:00

Character Design

Quint © Corey Breen

Pencil

And now on to the VILLAINS!

First up is Quint ©. He is a weapons master, and a main enforcer for the villains of Starlanders ©, called the Rukrim ©. He is a Major in the terrorist organization, and usually leads a group of highly skilled elite guardsmen. He is never on the front lines, but uses his strike team to infiltrate and to take command of all his missions.

More villains all the rest of this week, so stay tuned!

CjB

Character Design - Character #8

2011-07-19T08:47:00.005-04:00

Character Design

Artemus © Corey Breen

Pencil

Finally we have our last team member of Starlanders ©, named Artemus ©. He is the field leader of the team, only answering to the man in charge of Starlanders, yet to be unveiled (or designed, for that matter, lol). Much like Cyclops is to Professor X, Artemus is to General Snyder ©. His is very intelligent, very quick, mainly because he and his species have two brains.

Ok, so that is the first batch of designs, the basic first wave strike team, called Starlanders. Next I will be showing you the "bad guys". I currently have about 6 or 7 of them designed to show you. Then we'll wrap it up with some simple ships I am going to design, and I'll talk about what my next steps will be in this whole project, for example, doing landscapes, and environments. So stay tuned!

CjB

PS- Also, right now, I am finishing up my last Game of Thrones piece, Jon Snow with Ghost. I am digitally inking it today, and should be done with the colors by Thursday! Can't wait to show it, it's gonna be my best one yet!

Character Design - Character #7

2011-07-12T14:18:00.007-04:00

Character Design - Byron © Corey Breen

Pencil

BACK WITH MORE STARLANDERS CHARACTERS DESIGNS!

Here is the REAL bruiser of the team, the BIG heavy hitter of Starlanders ©, Byron ©!

He is a real dangerous threat, but actually the nicer member of the team. He is kind to all living creatures and has a real Zen like vibe to him. He wouldn't hurt a fly... UNLESS that fly threatens ANY other flies or creatures! Then, look out, because you will NOT stand a chance.

He is also a chameleon of sorts where he can practically blend in by changing colors to his environment, which is a huge plus, because how else could you hide his enormous size? His armor is functional too, giving off light, and energy, where he amazingly fast and agile for his size too. A huge threat all around, with an innocent baby face and personality!

OK! ONE last member to team Starlanders to come! And the most important. The leader of the team. You'll find out who that is tomorrow!

CjB

Game of Thrones - Tyrion Lannister Pin-Up

2011-07-11T11:07:00.022-04:00

Tyrion Lannister © George R.R. Martin

By Corey Breen

Photoshop

In celebration of the release of George R.R. Martin's next novel in the saga of the Song of Ice and Fire, A Dance with Dragons, released TODAY, 7/12, here is my Tyrion Lannister pin-up!

I can't WAIT to go home and start reading the new book, and the next chapter in the saga! I'm so frakin' PSYCHED! I want to enjoy every SECOND of reading the new book, for this series has become my obession and now rivals my love for Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Mass Effect, and Final Fantasy itself! Hard to believe, but it is now that beloved to me!

I hope you like my version of Tyrion before he gets a little more scared up, let's say... for he is one of the BEST characters EVER created in fiction! AND, I can't even explain how much Peter Dinklage does him justice on the HBO show as well! He WILL win the Emmy for the role, and I can't WAIT to see how him play Tyrion in season 2, when he is basically the MAIN character of a Clash of Kings! He is gonna rock the boat (literally)!

Below is the process that I used for this piece, which turned out to be REALLY complex, unfortunitly, lol. I basically just drew the character first before any kind of background was thought of, and that got me in trouble right from the start. That's why it is NOT recommended to do that. To not even at LEAST think of the background you will do while you are drawing is a bad idea. If you do it separately, it will most surely not match the figu re you did separately. In my earlier versions of this piece, you will see how it made it a bitch to figure out how make a background work for the Tyrion figure I drew first.

So I had to redo the background, three times! Finally I nailed it in the finis hed piece, but you can see below what it was going to be, which obviously was a failure. The floating rock idea was just... well, DUMB! But I am so glad I went through the process, for it got me to where I was so happy with the finished piece.

To be able to critique yourself and admitt when you suck, is a BIG part of getting to a really good finished piece. I'm glad I was able to step back from it and fix what needed to be fixed, until I was finally really happy with the piece as a whole!

Hope you agree!

Enjoy the piece and ENJOY reading A Dance with Dragons!

CjB

The Process:

Pencil study for likeness

First pencil sketch of Tyrion

First pencil sketch of background

Pencil sketch of background revised

Finished pencil drawing of Tyrion

Pencil drawing combined in Photoshop - figure & background

Photoshop Digital Inks

Photoshop Digital Inks Final

More Starlanders © character designs coming this week, after this

SPECIAL BREAK!

Character Design - Character #6

2011-07-11T08:24:00.004-04:00

Character Design - Gunner © Corey Breen

Pencil

Gunner © is one of the two brute force characters I did for my Starlanders © character designs. He is also the weapons expert for the team. He doesn't do any of the tech involved, but he handles all the equipment and ammo and such. He is the main human character of the team besides Aster ©, yet nothing ever comes close to taking place on Earth (if there even is a Earth in Starlanders). Trying to stay as far away from Earth as we know it, in the future or not. He is just a human, much like Han Solo is human. Humanoid, let's say.

Stayed tuned for more Starlanders character designs and we round out the full team this week, and go into the villains!

Let me know what you think so far of the characters you've seen!

CjB

Character Design - Character #5

2011-07-09T17:51:00.003-04:00

Character Design - Garnett © Corey Breen
Pencil

To close out the week, here is character #5 of Starlanders ©, named Garnett ©. She has almost like a skeletal body and looks very mech, but she is not a robot. She is just a very weird looking synthetic being who is very deadly, yet also very regal and proper. She is royalty amongst her alien race, and is their top enforcer, hence why she qualified for the Starlanders team. She is very protective of her team mates, and teams them as if they were her own children.

A little break for Sunday, no character tomorrow. But more characters ALL next week, so tune in every day starting Monday.

I also finished injing and coloring my Tyrion piece, so I have that to post as well. Was going to post it this weekend, but I think I'll wait a bit so I can put more effort into hyping that one up, and promoting it all the web when I do, considering how much press I've gotten for the other Game of Thrones pieces I have done so far.

Now it's off to continue work on my next Game of Thrones piece, Jon Snow & his Direworlf, Ghost!

See you Monday!

CjB

Character Design - Character #4

2011-07-07T12:59:00.004-04:00

Character Design - Varrick © Corey Breen

Pencil

Day four, character #4! This character is the joker of the team, if you will. Very skilled, very tech savy, he is fast and elusive. He talks really fast, and creates all the real alien gadgets, knowing almost every alien tongue and language in the galaxy.

Tomorrow, character #5 who is the brute force of the strike team, Starlanders ©.

CjB

Character Design - Character #3

2011-07-06T13:50:00.000-04:00

Character Design - Daylum © Corey Breen

Pencil

Here is character #3 that I created. Her name is Daylum ©. I made her out to be elf-like in appearance to give off this aura of magic about her. I LOVE that hair style on female characters. Trying not to over use it, but it just really works for this character. I try to stay away from too much symmetry in the costumes, because I'm trying to be as original as possible with these designs. Hope you like it.

Another character tomorrow!

CjB

Character Design - Character #2

2011-07-05T09:03:00.008-04:00

Character Design - Zephyr © Corey Breen

Pencil

Character Design - Enk © Corey Breen

Pencil

Day two my character concept art. This character is named Zephyr ©, along with his pet, named Enk ©. Two for one deal today, lol. Zephyr is like the stealth, silent, "ninja" part of the Starlanders © strike team.

Character #3 tomorrow!

CjB

Character Design - Character #I

2011-07-05T08:54:00.006-04:00

Character Design - Aster © Corey Breen

Pencils

Here is the first character I'm introducing for Starlanders ©. Her name is Aster ©.

Next character tomorrow, and one to follow every day of this week and next week.

CjB

Introducing - Starlanders

2011-07-01T09:14:00.008-04:00

Starlanders © Corey Breen

Logo Design By Corey Breen

Illustrator & Photoshop

Starlanders © Corey Breen

Logo Design By Corey Breen

Illustrator & Photoshop

Starlanders © Corey Breen

Logo Design By Corey Breen

Illustrator & Photoshop

Starlanders © Corey Breen
Logo Design By Corey Breen
Illustrator & Photoshop

For the last month or so I've been working on my Concept Art Portfolio. I've been talking about it for a while online now, and I'm finally ready to start sharing what I've been working on. My idea for the portfolio is to basically create a video game as if I was hired to be the concept artist. I set out to create an original world with characters, environments, vehicles, weapons, logos and world maps.

I decided on a basic premise of a combination of Mass Effect mixed with GI Joe. The pitch is basically GI Joe in outer space! A strike team is formed of the best military aliens in the galaxy to quell a rising secret terrorist organization who is looking to usurp the allied planets government (that has been seeing more and more corruption in recent times).

The General of the coalition's armies decides he needs a covert team to take out the growing fraction of government rebels. It is done in secret so as not to tip off the ever increasingly corrupting allied government and the terrorist organization itself. The best military aliens are put together on a team to destroy this new organization as it gains steam throughout the galaxy.

So that's the pitch, and this past month or so, I have been exclusively working on character design first. I have designed about 17 all new, completely original characters for the strike team, code-named, Starlanders, and the terrorist organization, who call themselves the RukRym. I have just done pencils for them right now, and that's hat I'll be sharing first. I mean to ink and digitally color or tone some of them too before I start on doing landscape design next.

So for the next two weeks or so, I will be posting each character design I have done so far.

I hope you like it, and I hope to get your feedback on the characters, and my progress so far, so I can continue to make this a true concept art portfolio that I can really show off! What you are going to see is what I really love to do above and beyond all other things. I LOVE to come up with ideas, plots, characters, designs, fashions, and costumes. I am REALLY proud of how this is all coming together so far. Starting to really fall in love with this idea, and the characters I have created so far.

SO, get ready for a lot of character drawings coming up for the next two weeks or so!

I need a cool tag-line or the concept... I'll try to come up with something. It's gonna be a very political "game"/ concept, much like the politics in Star Wars or Game of Thrones. It'd have a LOT of backstabbing and betraying, where you have no idea what aliens are vying for power or REALLY actually belong to the terrorist organization or not. This game (if it was real and ever made) would be full of not being able to trust anyone, especially the character you would be controlling at any given time, which you would be able to choose or a specific mission.

I want a game where you have an RPG like system, but no one main character. You form your team VERY early on for the most part, but as you go on missions you get to choose what main character you want for that mission. As you play you make decisions and fight in battles that effects people deflecting to the other side, or coming over to your side, or dying, even. That's why I wanted to design a majority of the characters as "shady" looking, where you think they may be a good guy or bad guy, but really, you have no idea. So keep that in mind as I unveil the characters. All are suspect as to their true intentions. Are they working for their own race, are they infiltrating the government by being on the strike team. Or are they legit enforcers who will stop at nothing to stop anyone from exciting anarchy in the galaxy?

I'll explain more as the weeks go on!

CjB

Game of Thrones Facebook Fan Page Props

2011-06-30T10:14:00.007-04:00

HUGE shout out to the people at HBO and The Game of Thrones Facebook page for posting my pin-up of Khal Drogo and Daenerys Targaryen! I can not thank you enough, the response has been AMAZING and I am very grateful for the exposure!

Thank you to ALL the fans who "liked" it and all the fans who commented on it!

Corey Breen

Game of Thrones Season Finale!

2011-06-15T11:18:00.006-04:00

Khal Drogo & Daenerys Targaryen

Game of Thrones © George R.R. Martin

By Corey Breen

Photoshop Colors

So here is my next piece in my series of Game of Thrones pin-ups. I got such AMAZING feedback and compliments from my Eddard Stark drawing on the Official Game of Thrones Facebook Page and the makinggameofthrones.com Blog, including the requests by many to do a version of Drogo and Dany! I thank everyone, especially everyone at HBO and @GameOfThrones on Twitter for them featuring my drawing on their sites, and linking to my Blog. I thank everyone who commented on the piece and for your suggestions on who to draw next from the series. Everyone wanted me to draw the Khal & Khalessi, and Tyrion. I decided to do the former first. I have a drawing done of Tyrion, so that one will be next.

I hope you like, and below is the process of the piece. I first did separate sketches of Drogo and Daenerys. Then I scanned those in, and combined them in Photoshop on how I wanted the final piece to be drawn. When I was happy with that, I printed that out on 11 x 17 paper. Then I put it on a light-box and did the finished pencils on my favorite paper, Letraset Marker Paper. Then I scanned that in and did the inks digitally. Then I went straight to colors in Photoshop.

Hope you like it, and next week, Tyrion Lannister!

Enjoy the season finale this Sunday on HBO and HBOGO.com!

Can't WAIT to hear everyone's reaction to the fate of Drogo and what happens to Daenerys at the end! People are gonna go NUTS who haven't read the book!

Until next time,

Corey Breen

Khal Drogo & Daenerys Targaryen

Game of Thrones © George R.R. Martin

By Corey Breen

Pencil Sketch

Khal Drogo & Daenerys Targaryen

Game of Thrones © George R.R. Martin

By Corey Breen

Pencil Sketch

Khal Drogo & Daenerys Targaryen

Game of Thrones © George R.R. Martin

By Corey Breen

Pencil Sketch Layout Done in Photoshop

Khal Drogo & Daenerys Targaryen

Game of Thrones © George R.R. Martin

By Corey Breen

Pencil Drawing on Letraset 11 x 17 Marker Paper

Khal Drogo & Daenerys Targaryen

Game of Thrones © George R.R. Martin

By Corey Breen

Digital Inks in Photoshop

Khal Drogo & Daenerys Targaryen

Game of Thrones © George R.R. Martin

By Corey Breen

Final Digital Inks in Photoshop

My Eddard Stark Drawing Featured on HBO-Making Game of Thrones!

2011-06-13T20:01:00.003-04:00

CHECK IT OUT HERE:

http://www.makinggameofthrones.com/

Such an honor!

Thank you HBO, and Making Game of Thrones! Thank you especially to @gameofthrones over on Twitter, and to everyone who commented on the piece and "LIKED" it over on the Game of Thrones Facebook Fan Page!

Now, just wait until you see my Khal Drogo & Daenerys Targaryen Pin-up, coming

THIS WEEK!

Until then,

Corey Breen

UPDATED Eddard Stark Upon Fan Request!

2011-06-08T18:14:00.004-04:00

Eddard Stark - UPDATED

By Corey Breen
Photoshop

Eddard Stark - Game of Thrones - SPOLIER EDITION!

2011-06-01T10:46:00.047-04:00

By Corey Breen
Photoshop

Once I heard about HBO adapting Game of Thrones for TV, I was like, "cool, but what's Game of Thrones?" I did some research, and was told by a good friend of mine from college (thanks Ryan!) that is one of the BEST fantasy series ever written! That it was four books, soon to be a fifth this summer. So, seeing some commercials on HBO about the show, that it looked like a Lord of the Rings for adults, I ran out and picked up the novel, Game of Thrones. I had thought that the book as thick as it was, contained ALL four of the novels to date. Lo and behold, it was ONLY the first book of the series, which is called A Song of Ice & Fire. I was like, "whoa, this is gonna be daunting." The book is HUGE, and then they're are four more! But I was determined to give it a shot.

Well, fast forward about 3 weeks now, and I'm well into the second novel, A Clash of Kings! Suffice to say, I am in LOVE! Game of Thrones was the BEST book I have EVER read, period. HANDS DOWN! I'm not kidding! I flew through it. And now I can't get ENOUGH of it! The show, the novels, anything! It's actually been REALLY cool too, watching the show, because it's like it's been INSTANTLY adapted as I read it. It was great to read the book and just tune in every week and watch it unfold in live action, all over again, just like it was in my head.

It's so GOOD too! The casting is SUPERB, especially Eddard Stark and Tyrion Lannister! WOW! They are BRILLIANT! But... now I am ahead of the show by FAR! So I know what's gonna happen on the show, since it's been pretty much word for word the same. Some parts have been added that weren't in the book (which have been great), and some parts kind of rushed on the show, that were longer in the book (as with any adaptation). But all in all, I think the rest of the show is gonna play out exactly like the book did. So in that sense, I know whats coming up, and that's why this is a COMPLETE SPOILER for anyone who has not read the books and is just watching the HBO show. Yes, Eddard Stark is not long for Westeros.

This was a tough call. Should I post this or not? I decided that the books have been out there for like over 10 years, so it's not REALLY a spoiler. I'm sorry if this ruins the show for some of you, but real fans of the show should read the books first. Seriously, READ more. Reading is AWESOME! LOL Anyway, if you want the spoiler, highlight the above paragraph and the below paragraph! Anyway, Eddard Stark is doomed. Now he is gone. And I am so UPSET about that! Eddard Stark has now become one of my FAVORITE all time characters, right up there with Snake-Eyes, Batman, Blacksad, Starman, The Rocketeer, Luke Skywalker, Hunter Rose and Cerebus. So I wanted to do a drawing of him, in honor of him, one that I felt was good enough to do him justice. For if ANYTHING, he deserves JUSTICE! Let me tell you, when his fate played out in the book, I had to put the book down, and take a moment to compose myself, I'm not kidding. It was THAT powerful to me. I don't know HOW I'm going to face watching it adapted on the screen this weekend. Although, who knows, maybe it's not even this upcoming episode titled "The Pointy End". What if they decide to CHANGE the book completely and keep Eddard Stark on the show, because they love what the actor, Sean Bean is doing with him. COULD THAT BE?! Highly doubt it, because so much is predicated on his death, but I guess we will find out together this Sunday or next!

So, as for the piece itself, I can't tell you how HAPPY I am with it. I think it's one of my BEST pieces yet, and I'll tell you why. Firstly, it's because I really feel I nailed the character, the pose, the posture, the mood, the Throne of Swords, the blacks, the colors, and the textures. I really think it just all comes together as one, when sometimes my pieces wind up becoming very flat with inks, then just cartoony and too colorful with colors thrown on top not really matching the style. I think this piece really captures what my art can be.

But mainly, why I'm so happy with this piece is because I feel I have now really nailed down my process. My favorite process, I should say. First, I sketch out the piece on 8.5 x 11 laser color copy paper (it's real slick like heavy duty copy paper). I like real slick surfaces to draw on where the mechanical pencil just glides like ice onto the smooth surface. When I'm happy with that, with usually means I have to add on other pieces with tape if I go outside the size constraints of 8.5 x 11. So I wind up with this piece meal poster, all taped together. It looks pretty pathetic actually, but it's just how I do it. Everyone who see's it, is like "why don't you just draw on bigger paper?" Because this is hoe I freakin' work, ok?! So sue me! LOL

Then I throw that on a lightbox and draw a very detailed, very TIGHT line drawing onto Letraset Marker Paper. This paper is AMAZING! It is so SUPER thin, that you have to be careful, but it's like the most AMAZING paper I've ever drawn on. It was like MADE for me, that's how much I LOVE it! I'm doing ALL my concept art portfolio work on it, by the way. After I do a complete line drawing, I scan that in at 600 dpi. I mess wit the threshold and levels, getting the pencils to be a nice darkness, where I can finally bitmap the image. That is the start of my "digital inks". Then I zoom in, clean up all the line work, making sure nothing closed up on me, and I didn't lose anything like line weight when I played with the values of the grayscale image. Then I start filled in blacks, and redraw things and lines, getting nice crisp lines and fills. After that, I begin to color it. I LOVE to just use the pencil, at a opacity of 55%, on multiply. This let's me give a flat color off the bat, but when I go over, it darkens that color EACH time. SO it starts to look layered like I was painting. I LOVE this look. You just have to be careful it doesn't get muddy, especially reds.

Then I clean up those colors, making sure I didn't color out of the lines, as they say, and TA-DA! My finished piece! I am REALLY happy with this process, and I think it shows in this piece. But as always, let me know what you think! PLEASE! And do yourself a favor and go read Game of Thrones, and then the other books in the series like I am. Don't just watch the show. I am SO happy I'm reading them all now. I'm sure I will be drawing more characters from the books and show in the future.

Here is the process of the above piece, step by step:

Eddard Stark
Game of Thrones © George R.R. Martin
By Corey Breen
Pencil Sketch 11 x 17 cleaned up in Photoshop
Pieced together by four 8.5 x 11 Laser Color Copy Paper

Eddard Stark
Game of Thrones © George R.R. Martin
By Corey Breen
Digital Inks Final

PS- I LOVE stories where the hero dies, and dies early. I don't know why, I just do. Makes them a martyr I guess. Proves that the story is SO serious, and that ANYTHING can happen. That there is a lineage and a progression. It establishes a history, and a time line, that it's not just a story of the month, like, "this month, Spider-Man fights Doc Oct." I really like when you get SO invested in the characters, especially who you THINK is the main character (who can NEVER die, right?!), and then all the sudden, they DIE! FOR GOOD! And then you get this progression of who the next hero is, but you're weary because now you know they can die at any time! Hey, just like life, unfortunately. That's just good writing, if you ask me!

Now, off to continue reading A Song of Ice & Fire!

CjB

PPS- One of the GREAT things about working digitally, is you can quickly tweak ANYTHING! For example, if you notice, in the digital inks stage, I actually moved some of the skulls downward, and then extended his right boot, for it looked way too short in the pencil stage. Looks much better now, right? Also, in the final color stage, I felt I drew the piece a little thin. As in, the chair and Stark himself were kinda skinny looking. So I just free transformed and stretched the piece just a TAD to give it more girth. I think that really helped too. GOTTA love using the digital aspects as just another drawing tool! The amount of work it would've taken to fix stuff like that before? Unimaginable!

It's a BOY!

2011-05-28T15:03:00.003-04:00

The Adventures of Pregnant Kristy © Corey Breen
By Corey Breen
Photoshop

UPDATED!

My wife and I are expecting a beautiful baby boy come October 15th!
So EXCITED!

Gotta go, gotta work on finishing my son-to-be's mobile using my old Star Wars vehicles, as my wife's cries in the corner! HAH HA!

Have a GREAT Holiday everyone, spend it with family if you can!

Corey

Some Freelance Logo Work

2011-05-25T08:26:00.005-04:00

These are two logos I completed for a client who is a DJ. If you love yourself some great spins, check out his Fan Page on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/pages/Bodega-Brad/253845208558

My process for logos is to work out some ideas through thumbnails. Then I choose the best one out of like 10 ideas, and sketch that out. Once I do that, I redraw it over a lightbox and make it as good and clean as possible. Then I ink that. I scan in the inks then clean that up in Photoshop. Finally I bring that into Illustrator and change it into a vector drawing. That gives it all the points I need. I zoom in and really clean it up. That takes a long time, making all the lines perfectly straight, and all the curves flawless.

I like doing logos, but they are NOT as easy as they look. Even though a logo's final image may look very simple, the process to get it that way is usually pretty tedious in Illustrator.

For the Drunken Monkey logo, that was a little more fun to do. I was given this reference:

Then I just sketched some ideas, and went with a classic super-hero type pose, drinking his beer and ready to pounce. That one was a lot of fun to do. I really LOVE the beer bubbles in the DMC letters, whhich was Brad's idea. REALLY happy with how that came out, and very cool looking.

Client was really happy with both of them, so that's what matters, and that freelance gig was a wrap! Thanks for the work, Brad!

Talk soon everyone, next post should be a popular one, and one I'm REALLY proud of and happy about!

Til Then,

CjB

This One Goes Out to the One I Love!

2011-05-24T13:08:00.003-04:00

The Adventures of Pregnant Kristy © Corey Breen
By Corey Breen
Photoshop

My wife Kristy is now 20 weeks pregnant, so to celebrate that and the learning of what the sex is on her next appointment on Friday, I drew her this cover. It features my beautiful wife, of course, along with our three wonderful cats, Calla, Sebastian, and Jasmine! Jasmine LOVES to play fetch for hours, and JUMP! She jumps like 5 feet in the air to catch her ball, I kid you not. That's why she is flying in the air in the piece, lol. We have to film it and post it, and like send it to Animal Planet for their Cats 101 show or something!

Well, anyway, just wanted to share, and tell my wife that I love her, and she is beautiful and I really appreciate all the hard work of carrying our child in her. Half way through, baby! I hope the rest of this trimester and the final one bring you no more nausea, or sickness!

I'll be sure to let everyone know if it's a boy or girl this weekend!

Corey B

Here's the process of the cover:

The Hunger Games

2011-05-23T09:00:00.003-04:00

Katniss from The Hunger Games © Suzanne Collins
Entertainment Weekly

Here is a drawing of one of my FAVORITE new characters, Katniss from the Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins. Been meaning to draw her ever since I read the AMAZING books. Finally got around to it after Entertainment Weekly posted the first pics from the upcoming movie. So psyched for this movie, it seems they are doing everything RIGHT, including the casting of Jennifer Lawrence! Wow, does she look the part or WHAT?

I recommend these three novels more then you can possibly imagine. Great writing, great characterization, and a fascinating page turner, and one of the best series I've ever read! Hope you like, I tried two different facial expressions on this one.

Corey

Supergirl Revised

2011-05-18T18:39:00.005-04:00

Revised Color
By Corey Breen
Photoshop

Wish I Could Fly Like Supergirl!

2011-05-18T13:55:00.013-04:00

Pencil

Was just killing time, and decided to redesign Supergirl. I wanted something more retro, so I went with a VERY simple yet padded body suit. Much like my Superman redesign, I picture the Superman Family to have outfits that are sleek like The Flash and like swimmers in real life. The cape is the only thing that should be flowing from Superman or Supergirl. As cute as her mini-skirt is, and as much as I love drawing heart a hint of panties (heh he), it just doesn't make sense. Neither does the bike shorts under the mini-skirt. That is just dumb. She's not playing field hockey. lol

I always think too, that the more clothes on a female character, the sexier they are; I dunno, I just do sometimes.

So, hope you like it. Couple last notes on this though. One, as you can see, I did the inks digitally on my Cintique. Two, while coloring it, I played around with different hairstyles and then completely flopped the head horizontally. I think that works better. Let me know what you think!

Corey

Here is the other version, with her head the other way, just in case you want to compare:

Robin & Batman

2011-05-17T19:16:00.004-04:00

By Corey Breen
Pencil

Robin has always been a character that has been near and dear to me my whole life. I grew up loving Robin, ever since I started following Tim Drake in the 90's when he found out that Bruce was Batman. I always wanted to BE Robin, and like a lot of kids, found it very plausible. So I always get weary of how they handle him in the funny books, even though I realize now that I can never be him (anymore at least).

That's why I thought I would HATE this NEW Robin, Bruce's son, Damien. BUT, much to my surprise, I think he is AWESOME! Love the character, love his attitude, and love that he still needs to redeem himself, and also make up for ALL his parents' faults, including Ra's Al Ghul.

So he is just a quick sketch of the new Robin... LOVE the hood too, nice touch!

Enjoy

CjB

THOR!

2011-05-06T10:33:00.004-04:00

Thor © Marvel Comics
By Corey Breen
Photoshop

This is a piece I did a long time ago, but just decided to color it in honor of the Thor movie coming out in theaters today! I hope to hit up Free Comic Book Day tomorrow and then the movie but it all depends on how the wifey is feeling, being pregnant and all.

Hope you enjoy the movie if you see it, and definitely hit up the comic store, and support Free Comic Day!

Corey

A Big THANK YOU to Our TROOPS for This Day & Everyday!

2011-05-02T12:15:00.003-04:00

5-1-2011
USA Navy Seals
By Corey Breen

Nuff SAID!

Thank you, troops!

Corey Breen

"Here's your pan, here's your frog."

2011-04-20T10:58:00.004-04:00

Disney Time Line

Finally got around to see Tangled, bought it on Blu-Ray. I absolutely LOVED it. I definitely miss the old Disney hand drawn style, but this was their first movie that had that feel of those, and that cartoony look, just done in computer generated style too. I think it worked. I loved the Broadway feel to it, I hope they make a musical out of it. I loved the story too. Just a really great movie. So much like all the things I watch that I love, I did a drawing of Rapunzel! Hope you like it!

I also included a pin-up I got in I think EW, that is a time line of EVER Disney carton. Perfect for a record of all their films, and great reference of them and when they came out.

If you haven't seen it yet, rent, or better yet, BUY Tangled.

Until next time,

CjB

PS- Happy 4th Birthday, Finley! Hope it was a good one, and have fun in Disney World!

Go Go Gadget DO OVER!

2011-04-08T20:26:00.005-04:00

By Corey Breen
Pen & Ink & Marker & Photoshop

So this is more what I had in mind when I said I wanted to try to do a cool Noir Inspector Gadget. Still not as dark and moody as I was hoping for, but now you kind of get the picture.

At least you can see two different styles of mine, and some of my process. Let me know what you think, please.

Thanks,

CjB

I just had to share this!

2011-04-01T12:22:00.005-04:00

Last night I was working on my Concept Art portfolio, coming up with new characters and costumes and the like, when I took a five minute break to look at some reference and to get some inspiration. What I read, I just HAD to share today. This one artist put into words my WHOLE philosophy of comic art and design.

I do a lot of photo realistic work for freelance and for different clients, but for my comic work and now video game experimentation, it's hard to explain my "style". Probably since college, I have been trying to put my philosophy into words. SO many times I would get critiqued, and not that I didn't appreciate it, but a lot of times, the reviewer just didn't understand my style, my exaggerations and my reasoning behind a lot of my art. I got a lot of, "oh, an arm wouldn't do that in real life", or "draw more 'realistic' comic book heroes". I finally found an artist that explains EVERYTHING I truly aspire to. He did it for me, and I have to THANK him for that.

The artist is Skottie Young, and this quote came from his OZ PRIMER book published by Marvel Comics. Please read this, and know that I am forever in his debt for putting into words what I could not. Much like Skottie, I am not saying this is how everyone should treat their art, but this is exactly what I do, and why my art is what it is.

Questionnaire: Do you think your style lends itself to the kind of evolution it has gone through, more so then it would for a more "realistic" artist?

Skottie Young: Well, I can't really compare because I've never been able to draw in that other way. I'm not a representational artist. I consider myself a cartoonist. Rather then draw what the world looks like, I prefer to draw want I want this other world to look like. The good news about that is it gives me a big playground to work in. I can stretch the mouth to look like an inner tube, or just make it a little line. SO in a way, it's not whether or not it's easier to evolve, it's just whether or not I can push a little further.

When I was younger, I heard the term "too cartoony" thrown around a lot. It made me nervous that I needed to tighten up and refine my work. The times I tried that I felt very limited. I mean, my hat's off to the guys that can do that. I'm not trying to say what I do is better. It's just that this is what I'm capable of doing. When I've tried to draw more realistically, it wasn't fun. Instead of imagining things, I felt I was trying to mimic things.

So within the frame work of what I do, it's about challenging myself to see what else I am capable of. And there are a lot of failures that people don't see. By no means does every new thing I try come out great.

Thank you Skottie Young, I could not have said it better myself. You were a HUGE inspiration to me before I read this article about you, but now, even more so.

Thank you for letting me share.

Now, back to work,

CjB

DO DO DO DO DO, Inspector Gadget...

2011-03-31T11:37:00.004-04:00

Inspector Gadget © DIC Entertainment
By Corey Breen
Pencil

I intended to try and draw an Inspector Gadget that was a realistic, Noir re-imagining, but this is what came out. My style crept in and took over, and I was no where near the dark, Sin City-esq piece I wanted to do. Now that I have drawn the character, I may try again. But I do like how this piece came out, and it was a lot of fun, so not a total loss. And it was just a quick warm up piece, so can't really stress about it.

Hope you like it none-the-less!

CjB

Let me take another shot at this!

2011-03-21T08:58:00.002-04:00

Superman © DC Comics
Redesign by Corey Breen
Photoshop

So after talking with Dezi and some other coworkers on my redesign, we started playing with the costume even further. Above is what we came up with. You see, I wanted to create more of a jump suit for superman, much like the Flash or Aquaman has. Superman should be like a swimmer. He is super fast, and should look like a red and blue blur that zips by. He has no need for boots, or freakin underwear. If what they say is true, much like the fast, he is so fast, that if he stood still, it would be hard to even focus on him. Superman should be sleek and regal.

I think he looks that hear. Although, if this suit was translated to live action, please don't make it "plastic-y", lol. Thinking about it more, maybe it's "too much blue" in hear as well, we all know now what that could look like.

Let me know what you think,

CjB

Swipe File? LOL

2011-03-18T09:03:00.005-04:00

The Rocketeer © Dave Stevens
By Corey Breen (left) & Alex Ross (right)

Did Alex Ross SWIPE my Rocketeer drawing?! Well, no, I highly DOUBT it. But I saw this today, and had to do a side-by-side comparison just to see. It is kinda eerie, but in NO WAY do I think it's a swipe, at all. I mean, for one, there is probably no way in hell he's ever seen this piece of my work before, and two, it's not exactly the same anyway. It's not a direct copy at all.

This happens sometimes in our field, where one image is slightly like another. I mean, there are only so many positions to draw these heroes in anymore after 75 years, you know? I actually got accused once by a Top Cow editor of swiping a position. But honestly, I didn't. I was in college at the time, and I have never seen this promo image that circulated months after I drew mine. It was only similar anyway, no where near the exact same. You could totally tell both were drawn from our heads. Both done around the exact same time as well, so there was no way either me or the artist knew of the others' drawing. It happens sometimes. Nothing you can worry about.

REAL swipes are the blatant tracings of other people's drawings or photographs. Not something like the above, where it's a classic pose and the two pieces are just similar in nature.

Well, there you have it,

CjB

Video Games are Better then Movies!

2011-03-17T08:45:00.002-04:00

They just are, sorry.

Just finished Mass Effect 2, and it was AMAZING! Star Wars slash Battlestar Galactica slash Final Fantasy! This game just blew my mind. No doubt I am late to the party on this one, since it was first Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 for the XBox, but I have a PS3 and it didn't come out for PS3 until about two months ago. I spent 70 hours on this game, and I wish it was even longer. One of the few games where I want to collect ALL the trophies, AND/OR play it ALL again. I don't usually have the time or effort to ever do that, but with this game, I REALLY want to. Even my favorite games (Zelda - Ocarina of Time was the only one I've ever played completely through twice, I think).

Mass Effect 2 was SO inspiring and SO motivating to me, it's beyond words. Can't say enough about this game. It has really elevated my brain as I go deeper into creating my own world, as I have discussed I am working on.

So enjoy my very quick (half hour) sketch of Liara from Mass Effect 2 or in other words, my VIDEO GAME GIRLFRIEND, lol. [My wife HATES that I have a video game girlfriend.]

Now it's off to working on my creation, and also begin playing Dragon Age 2, which is like Mass Effect 2, but with Dragons and Medieval Times! So psyched.

Until Next Time,

CjB

Superman Redesigned!

2011-03-16T08:47:00.007-04:00

As we usually do at work, my coworkers and I started arguing about comics and comic book movies. When the Superman Movie news came out the other week, we started arguing about how the new movie could be better then the Bryan Singer version. It spilled over into a conversation about comics and I mentioned that I hate Superman's costume, so the movie and the comics should start there. My coworkers said, no, no, you can't change Superman's costume because it's classic and that's what it is. I came back and said, fine, it really shouldn't be changed, but can we at LEAST just get rid of the underwear?! I HATE superheroes with the underwear on the outside of the costume. As Karl Pilkington would say, "get rid of it!".

I couldn't convinced my friend Dezi that I could make it better just by getting rid of the underwear. He said prove it. Draw it up, and color it (he didn't think the colors would work if you got rid of the red undies).

So here ya go, Dezi. In color!

I like it, I think it works. Makes him look regal, and still has all the elements of the classic Superman costume, just no belt and NO UNDERWEAR! He actually looks his age, not some silly boy scout, campy loser. I like the pointed shoulders too, like a military general's tunic. Makes him look government-ish, without losing the freedom of the classic look.

Let me know if you agree!

Until next time,

Corey Breen

Color Makes Old Things NEW Again!

2011-02-10T10:36:00.003-05:00

By Corey Breen
Photoshop

Finally got around to coloring this piece. It always looks so much more vibrant on my cintque and when I'm coloring it then it does when I finalize it andd post it. I gotta figure out why that is. Either way, I hope you like it.

Still working on the Tron piece, but kinda hit a low in motivation these past two weeks, so you'll have to wait a little longer for that. I am working on SaricH right now, so that's good news!

Doesn't look like I'll reach my goal of having a book out for it by the convention in October, but I should at least have a six page preview completely done. I did the thumbnails for that, and now I just have to draw it. It's a cool little introduction to SaricH and his world, so looking forward to jumping into that. After the six page preview, i will be doing working on the entire design of the characters and world before I go into making the book for it. I want to treat it as if it was going to be a video game, and design it all from the ground up. I want to get it to a point where you see everything like in the Art of Books of a video game, for example. It's gonna be fun.

Until then,

Corey OUT!

Vote Derezzed!

2011-01-19T09:11:00.003-05:00

The winner is... #5! And also #6. Wait... WHAT?! How can two images win? Well, I am changing the rules. I thank everyone for voting, and I will be inking AND coloring image #5 of Quorra. BUT, I am also going to ink and color image #6 of Sam Flynn as well. I decided to take the winner of the contest and the runner up image and combine them into one piece, and ink and color that. I most likely will be throwing in a light cycle and/or some kind of background to the finished piece as well!

I thank you all who voted, and I can't wait to get started on the finished piece. I will keep you updated! Thanks everyone!

CjB

PS- I am back on DCU Online. We all got the game at work, and I am playing on the PS3! I tweaked my character just a little bit, but his name is still Zaidin! You can find me on the servers "Birthright" and "The Killing Joke". If you play, befriend me! See you online!

DC Online Beta Character Zaidin
By Corey Breen
Pencil

The Masssive Tron Vote!

2011-01-14T11:03:00.005-05:00

Here they are! All 6 of my Tron pin-ups. To the right side of my Blog, you will see a poll where you can vote for the drawing you would like me to do as a Full Color finished piece. The number next to the image corresponds to the numbers in the poll.

The poll will end 12am on Wednesday, January 19th.

Can't wait to see which one wins out! They all look kinda cool together, no?

CjB

The Five Days of Quorra V

2011-01-14T07:58:00.003-05:00

Quorra From Tron © Walt Disney Pictures
By Corey Breen
Pencil

So here it is, the LAST Quorra pin-up! This was actually my third attempt at Quorra, and probably my favorite. It's a more subdued, classic standing super hero pose, and yet a very elegant one. It's a little less stylized then the other ones, and more so then I usually draw, but I think that's why it works so well. Sometimes it best to just be a little more realistic in your anatomy to make a character stand out as a real person. A little bit more boring then the others, maybe, but I think the finished pencils really make her pop and give her an sense of weight.

Below is the initial line drawing. No changes on this one, I just went right to finished pencils.

So that's it! That's the last one. Later on today I will post them all side by side with numbers one through five, and post a poll right on the Blog to the right of my page, and you can decide which one you like best, and which ever one wins, I will do in full pen and ink and color!

The poll will end, let's say... Tuesday, January 18th at 10am!

Can't wait!

Hope you enjoyed this character study, and that if you haven't already, go check out Tron: Legacy movie!

One last note on these before I sign off. One of the best things I got from this, was that if you draw one character lots of times, you really get the feel for that character, and you can draw them in any pose or angle. That's REALLY important, especially when you need to be consistent on the look and mannerisms of who you are drawing. I know that's one thing animators do so well, like Disney artists and the like. I know that if you asked me, I can now draw Quorra at any time, without any reference! Cool beans.

CjB

PS- Is it me, or does Quorra (Olivia Wilde) look a LOT like Catherine Zeta Jones? Look it up, you'll see what I mean! LOL

The Five Days of Quorra IV

2011-01-13T08:54:00.002-05:00

Quorra From Tron © Walt Disney Pictures
By Corey Breen
Pencil

Day four of the Five Days of Quorra! Here is today's pin-up of Olivia Wilde as Quorra in Tron! More of a profile shot on this one. This piece was actually the second drawing I did of the five.

Below are the line work drawings I did for the piece, and much like the previous pin-up from yesterday, I redrew her arm. I couldn't decide if I wanted it down or up. For this one, it just worked much better going up to her head, both in composition and coolness factor.

I hope you like it. Only one more to go. Tune in tomorrow for the last of my five Quorra drawings. I will also post a poll where you can vote on which Quorra you would like me to do as a finished piece!

Until then,

CjB

The Five Days of Quorra III

2011-01-12T10:46:00.005-05:00

Quorra From Tron © Walt Disney Pictures
By Corey Breen
Pencil

For the third day of Quorra pin-ups, I have a little bit more of an action shot. This was actually the first one I sketched out, out of all five of the Quorra pieces this week. I remember I had started drawing this one, but it wasn't sexy enough, or so I thought. That's how the ball started rolling on having so many pin-ups of this one chatacter. I was trying to draw a REALLY red hot image of her ala J Scott Campbell. NOT as easy as he makes it look, let me freakin' TELL ya! But, I wound up going back to this one and finishing it, because I actually like the pose and twist of her body a lot.

Below is two different versions of the sketch that I did for this one, because I originally had her left am up in the air, holding her disc. I went back in before the finished drawing and changed her arm to be down by her side more. I just think it worked better as a composition.

Again, let me know what you think, and I hope you like yet another Quorra pic! Two more to go, then you can vote on which one you want me to do up in inks and colors! Maybe I'll even add in a light cycle behind her and a sweet Tron-like background!

CjB

PS- Mass Effect 2 for PS3 doesn't come out until Tuesday, January 18th! Ugh, got all excited for nothing yesterday. Now I need the 18th to hurry on up and get here already!

The Five Days of Quorra II

2011-01-11T08:13:00.003-05:00

This is day two of the five day Quorra pin-up week, image number two! Tune in tomorrow for image number three!

Very similar to the first one, just kinda zoomed out a bit on her. I think with these first two, I made her lean a little too much. With the female figure, I always want to capture that nice curve in their spine, give them a J Scott Campbell kind of look. Sometimes I wind up over-exaggerating that too much, though, so I have to be careful. It's a fine line between being dynamic with a pose, and just breaking the characters back, losing all sense of reality of a character. One thing I do love about the character is her hair. Had a TON of fun drawing her hair in each of these.

They get better as the week goes on, by-the-way! Saved the best ones for later in the week. Although, I want you to decide in the poll on Friday, which one of the five you want me to do in ink and color!

See you tomorrow with more Quorra! TRON RULES!

CjB

PS- MASS EFFECT 2 for PS3 comes out TODAY! Oh YEAH! Thank God for left over Christmas Gift Cards, LOL!

The Five Days of Quorra!

2011-01-10T09:03:00.005-05:00

Quorra from Tron © Walt Disney Pictures
By Corey Breen
Pencil

So, I told you more Tron pics were coming! I have drawn five (yes, FIVE) pin-up's of the super hot character of Quorra from Tron. I don't know why I drew five of them, but it was a great exercise in trying to hone my skills on the female form if anything. Also, I started to just have a lot of fun drawing the character. Tron was AWESOME!

Each of the pin-ups are all a classic hero-like poses, so I gotta try like a crazy action shot with her after these five.

Starting today, I will release one a day until Friday. On Friday I will put up a poll on the Blog, and you can vote which one you would like me to do as a finished inked and colored piece! It'll be fun!

So today is the first pin-up of Quorra, of the five. I hope you like it. Tune in tomorrow for pin-up number two!

CjB

Corey Goes to the Movies Part II

2011-01-05T08:52:00.010-05:00

By Corey Breen
Pencil & Photoshop

Much like Avatar December 2009, Tron was flat out AWESOME! I'm not a huge fan of the original, cause I didn't really grow up on that. I had seen it, forgot how and when, but it was no where near Star Wars to me growing up. Heck, I didn't really get into Star Wars until Return of the Jedi. So Tron was nothing special to me. I have co-workers and ex co-workers who are all about the original, but to me it was just something I missed out on.

But I was PSYCHED to see this movie! An it did not disappoint me! My wife actually really liked it to. There is just too many things to write about why I liked it, so I'll just make one tiny criticism of the movie, which is more just me nit-picking then anything else. I just wish there was a little bit more of a hero's journey for Sam. Most of the movie was just flat out super cool visuals and action scenes, but at the end, I wanted more of an epic final battle scene. I think that really would have brought it all to a nice crescendo. It had cool heroes and cool villains, and although I really LOVED the ending, I wish there was a huge spectacular fight scene instead of the aerial battle. Don't get me wrong, I thought the aerial battle was super awesome, but after it, I wish Sam would have had to fight "Rinzler" hand to hand again.

It's like they built up the villains so much that it was inevitable that they would clash at the end, and one would be the victor, but that just didn't really happen. It happened with Flynn and Clu, true, but not with Sam and Rinzler. It would have been so MUCH better if Rinzler's actions came to fruition in a fight with Sam before the showdown with Clu happened.

In action movies, when you introduce such bad a$ villains, then you would hope it all comes down to an all out brawl between them in the end. I just felt that was kinda a missed opportunity for the film. The best example of this is in the Princess Bride, where wait the whole fim for Inigo Montoya to face the six-fingered man, and when he finally does, it's an epic battle! I wanted that between Sam and Rinzler. Maybe in the sequel!

Despite that, I thought the movie ROCKED all kinds of AWESOME! I saw it in IMAX 3D, and I highly recommend it. Much like Avatar, I think this movie will have long reaching sci-fi standing, and I know I will enjoy watching it over and over and over again. Expect to see a lot more drawings of it in the future from me.

CjB

Corey Goes to the Movies Part I

2011-01-04T10:35:00.004-05:00

I'm a big fan of Darren Aronofsky, especially The Fountain and also Requiem for a Dream and he doesn't disappoint in The Black Swan. Just love the look and feel of this film. He always does a great job of capturing an eerie, dark side of life and questions about the human condition. The Fountain was such an AMAZING film, that I think a lot of people missed, so if you haven't seen it, please do yourself a favor and go out and rent it, or even buy it, because it is such a great film that will stay with you and make you think for LONG after it's over. I still refer to that film whenever I think about the meaning of life and religion and that film really makes you feel like the answers are really on the tip of our minds.

The Black Swan is more about one person's personality and how someone tries to reach for perfect in life, yet it's such a fine line between living and crossing the line, and how powerful the mind really is. So again, Aronofsky is just so amazing at getting those feelings and ideas out in his films, that they are such a marvel to watch and think about long after they are over. Those are some of the best films in my eyes, the ones that really go so much deeper then the surface. Such a good film, so check it out.

Hope you enjoy the pic, too!

CjB

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2010-12-31T14:17:00.003-05:00

How to Train Your Dragon © Dreamworks, Inc.
By Corey Breen
Pencil & Photshop

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!

All my best to you and yours, and let's hope for a wonderful, prosperous, and most of all, joyful

2011

Corey Breen

DC Online Beta

2010-12-28T13:07:00.006-05:00

DC Online Beta Character Zaidin
By Corey Breen
Pencil

DC Online Beta Character Zaidin
By Corey Breen

DC Online Beta Character Zaidin
By Corey Breen

So...

I can't even tell you how EXCITED I was just a couple of weeks ago because I got invited by work to join the DC Online PS3 game early, in their Beta testing phase. The game does not come out until January 11th, 2011. It took a while to get it up and running, but once I did, it reminded me a lot of Final Fantasy XI Online, which to this day I regret having canceled my subscription. So take it from me, this is a game you WANT to play if you liked FFXI Online!

I spent a LOT of time creating my character, because that is the most important part of a Massive Multi-Player Online Game (MMOG) to me. I came up with an AWESOME name, Zidian, and then choose his "mentor" to be none other then Batman himself (who else?)!

I gave him a techy outfit, and Batman's awesome spiked gloves! Then I changed his colors to be black and white. I love this outfit, and even though in-game you upgrade and change outfits (which I love), this first outfit is really the one I like the most, and would draw him in, as I did above! The in-game photos above are some of the costume changes he has gone through already in the game! I LOVE his mutton chops the best, by-the-way! LOL

Now that I am currently at level 8, the game is really getting cool because Zaidin is getting a lot more powerful. It is a very hard game though, to my surprise! Right now I'm really having a difficult time beating the Scarecrow! I want to make friends with some people online to try and help me complete the mission, but I don't even know if that is allowed on this mission. I think the game would be a little better if I was able to form parties like FFXI Online. I actually have NO IDEA how to befriend people, so they have to make that clearer.

Otherwise, I like the game a LOT, obviously, and I hope to continue to play, despite a $15 a month subscription starting a month after purchase.

I do love my character though, so if you are playing the Beta, send me a note in game, or if you know how to friend me, do and fill me IN on how to do that! Again, like FFXI Online, I wish they had a place you can go that has a registered developer that can answer your questions.

In the meantime, I will be right back as I try to figure out how to make friends in-game, and beat the Scarecrow! Think I get to go to Metropolis after this Gotham mission! AWESOME!

See you Online,

Corey

I'll Give YOU a War on Christmas!

2010-12-23T13:32:00.004-05:00

Santa The Barbarian
By Corey Breen
Photoshop & Illustrator

Santa The Barbarian
By Corey Breen
Pencil & Illustrator

Santa The Barbarian
By Corey Breen
Pencil

HO HO HO! Merry Christmas!

I kinda banged this out just in time for Christmas, and I'm glad I did! I LOVE doing Christmas Cards. Every year in the media they claim this "War on Christmas", and that kinda stuck in my head, so I had this idea of Santa "mad as hell, and not gonna take it anymore", and fighting back to get Christmas back to where it was, whatever that means.

So here is Santa, the Barbarian, with sword and axe in hand, ready to defend Christmas! My wife thinks I'm disturbed! I just think I like to draw super-heroes and like my friend, John said, "Santa rules! lol Especially when he carries a BIG sword!" Could not have said it better myself!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! Hope you get a TON of comics, video games and movie to enjoy and inspire! And I hope you get the chance to spend it all with love ones, friends, and family, because THAT is what it's all about to me!

Corey Breen

Dr. Who Commission

2010-11-03T08:42:00.004-04:00

Dr.Who Commission
By Corey Breen
Pencil

Here is a commissioned sketch of Dr. Who for a customer who bought my Twenty-Ten - Art of Book, right here on the Blog!

Be sure to buy yours TODAY, and let me know who you want me to draw for you, and one of these original drawings could be YOURS!

Big thanks to John, for this one, a Dr. Who sketch, a character he has really gotten me into. John is a HUGE Dr. Who fan, and I've gone to him numerous times to try and improve my knowledge of the show and it's history. He's better then Wikipedia!

Thanks, John, I've been wanting to draw this character since I began watching the show, and I was really glad that I was able to draw him exclusively for you!

CjB

More Creator Owned Work

2010-10-26T10:37:00.003-04:00

Efron © Corey Breen
Pencil

Here are two more drawings, one of SaricH, and one of Efron, both creator owned characters.

I actually started drawing the SaricH one at NYCC, but didn't finish it until now. I drew the Efron drawing last year, but here it is posted for the first time, since I introduced him last post.

Let me know what you think of both characters!

Corey

Last of the Con!

2010-10-22T07:53:00.004-04:00

NYCC Exclusive Drawings
By Corey Breen

Above is the second exclusive drawing I did at New York Comic Con. The first was the TMNT drawing as posted earlier this week, that you can see side by side with this second one. This one is a creator owned character I came up about 2 years ago, named Efron, from an idea for a book called Sunburn.

I really like this elf-like character I created, and I hope I'm able to do something with him sooner rather then later. Since most of my time will be devoted to bringing the SaricH Graphic Novel to life throughout this year, I won't have too much time to devote to other ideas such as Efron and Sunburn. Maybe I'll make him the focus of next years NYCC, and make him the cover character to next year's Art of Corey Breen book. I like that idea, so we shall see.

Well, I think that about wraps up the NYCC completely on my end. Again, I had such a great time, I meet so many great people and fans and contacts, that I am still floored by the positivity and great responses to my work! I can't wait to do it again next year, and I look forward to this year being my best as far as getting my work out there to the public, and getting a lot of work publish!

Wish me luck,

CjB

Art of Corey Breen Book for Sale!

2010-10-21T08:00:00.003-04:00

Front Cover to Art of Corey Breen Book
SaricH © Corey Breen 2010
$10.95

To the right of this very Blog page, you can purchase your copy of the 36 page "sketchbook" that I premiered at New York Comic Con! It is $10.95, with free shipping, and you also get a FREE sketch in the the back! When you purchase the book, please email me at corey@cjbpro.com and let me know what character you would like me to draw as your free sketch!

Thank you so much for your support, and I hope you purchase a book! Email me with any questions, concerns, problems with ordering!

Corey Breen

NYCC Nightcrawler Sketch for Fan

2010-10-20T08:09:00.003-04:00

NYCC Exclusive TMNT Sketch

2010-10-18T08:36:00.003-04:00

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were by FAR and away the most popular request made for prints and sketches over the entire weekend at the New York Comic Con. Here is an exclusive sketch I did for the show of Raphael! Next year, I gotta remember that NOTHING tops the Turtles in fans minds, and I will be doing a ton more drawings of them throughout the year!

CjB

New York Comic Con Part II

2010-10-15T08:50:00.009-04:00

NEW YORK COMIC CON PHOTOS

Me Drawing!

CjB Productions Comic Con Table

Kyle Raynor Sketch

Ken From Street Fighter Sketch

Red Hood Sketch

Gambit Sketch

Eradicator Sketch

Elongated Man Sketch Card

The Dark Knight Sketch Card

Muppet's Beeker & Professor Honeydew Sketch

Black Adam Sketch

TMNT Sketch Cover I

TMNT Sketch Cover

Snakes Eyes Sketch

Rogue Sketch

Neon Spider-Man Sketch

Green Lantern Sketch Card

Greetings from NYCC!

I have to say this was an INCREDIBLE experience! I was floored by the amount of awesome fans and guests at the show, and their support of my work! I sold a ton of prints, note cards, and Art of Books, and did about 30 original drawings for people! Above is only the ones I was able to take a quick pic of. I wanted to get them all documented, but that was near impossible, there was just too many.

Off the top of my head, I know some other sketches I did that I wasn't able to take pictures of were about 4 or 5 more TMNT sketches, Edward from Twilight, Nightcrawler, Rot Lop Fan Green Lantern, Barney Rubble beating up Barney the Dinosaur, Neytiri Sketch Card, and a Spider-Man & Iron Man commission, and many, many more! I wish I took pics of those, but I was just so busy!

I have to give a BIG thank you to everyone who came by to say hello at my table including my boss, Dan Didio! A big thank you to all the industry people who introduced themselves to me, some old coworkers, and some fellow current coworkers! Big thank you to all my other fans who stopped by, and all the news ones I got. Also anyone who purchased anything, and all those that I did a sketch for either in their sketchbooks or my Art of Book, THANK YOU!

Finally, a BIG thank you to my wife who helped me out on Saturday, thank you sweetheart, I love you!

I have two more EXCLUSIVE drawings I did just for the Blog to show you that I did exclusively for the New York Comic Con, and I'll probably post those starting on Monday. One is of a NEW creator owned character of mine that I'm ready to introduce, and one of the MOST POPULAR & requested character of the show, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Making a comeback, oh YEAH!

Thanks again everyone, can't WAIT for next year!

Corey Breen
CjB Productions

New York Comic Con Part I

2010-10-06T12:20:00.005-04:00

New York Comic Con Part I

So it begins! The countdown to NYCC! Can't tell you how EXCITED I am! I got so much stuff to show, and sell, I hope I can fit it all in a suitcase to bring to the show. I will be drawing sketches to all those who buy an Art of book, and if I sell out of those, I will continue to do sketches through out the con. In fact, just below, you can see the flier I have made that gives a run down of all the services I will be providing at the show.

The main part of my show will be focused around my Art of Corey Breen Book. I will be selling my Art of Book for $10, and if you buy that you will receive a FREE sketch of any character you want (reference may be necessary) in the back of the book on one of the blank pages. The Art of Book is 32 pages in full color, even though most pages are gray-scale versions of some of my more popular colored pieces. I want to give a sense of a sketchbook, even though these are all "finished" pieces on their own.

Next up, I will be selling FULL COLOR 11 x 17 inch Prints of my more popular pieces. These will include the SaricH Art of Corey Breen Cover, my pieces of Grendel, Neytiri, Green Lantern Corps, and Darksiders, among others pieces. Those will be $10 each as well, and I will sign them and/or personalize them.

Next I will have 4 x 5 inch note cards that were a big hit from last year. There are a lot of these of MANY different pieces, so choose your favorite TWO for $5. They are glossy, card stock note cards, and they look REALLY great, I love them. Put them on your fridge! LOL

Comics I have worked on or in can be bought for $5. Also, the two VS. Series trading cards I did for Upper Deck/DC are available, and you can by both of them for $10. LIMITED SUPPLY on the comics & cards though!

Next I will be selling a MAJORITY of my ORIGINAL ART! All the pieces you have seen n my website and Blog WILL be for sale! Most of the pieces are 8.5 x 11 loose leaf drawings. Those will range from $25-$50. Other pieces are random sizes and range in price. I will be selling full 11 x 17 drawings, but they are more expensive, in the $75-$150 range. Double page spread drawings are the most expensive at $300, i.e. the Green Lantern Corps Spread and the Darksiders piece.

I will also have order forms on me to fill out if you want more then just a 5-10 minute sketch in the back of the art of book. I will be taking orders for full on commissions at the show that will be completed starting after the show in the order that they were taken. The Prices are $50 for 8.5 x 11 pieces, and 11 x 17 pieces cost $100. MAX 2 characters per piece. The shipping and handling will be FREE to all those you order.

I will also have the SaricH Statue on DISPLAY for all to see the amazing job Amos Hemsely did with it! Very proud of this, so be careful, and DON'T TOUCH! LOL Amos still has the mold of the piece, so if you do have the money and want a statue of my main dude, SaricH, then I can order one for you. The cost is $250. That I may need shipping help on though, lol. Kristy and I will also be wearing EXCLUSIVE CjB Productions T-Shirts (men's & woman's), so if you would like to order one of those, I can make that happen too, for $15! The T-Shirt's are very cool, actually.

Finally I have some fliers to give out, and business cards of course. BUT, depending on how the show goes, I look forward to offering some really COOL deals, and possibly some really GREAT free swag!

Like I mentioned above, ,my beautiful wife, Kristy will be there on Saturday taking orders and giving out a lot of info as I keep busy with the sketching. Say hello to her, treat her nice, and let's do this!

I can't wait to meet all my fans, and get a TON of new ones! VERY EXCITED ABOUT THE SHOW! Hope to see you all there!

Corey Breen
CjB Productions

NYCC Table Assisnment Announced!

2010-10-04T09:38:00.003-04:00

The seating arrangements for New York Comic Con have been released, and I am sitting at Table E-18! I will be there the entire show.

Show Hours
Friday, October 8th: 10AM – 7PM
Saturday, October 9th: 10AM – 7PM
Sunday, October 10th: 10AM – 5PM

All this week I will be posting all the incredible things I will have at the show to see, look at, buy, and talk about! I can't wait for the Con as I hope to meet, see, and draw for a lot of my fans! I think it's going to be a wonderful show and hopefully I will get a lot more fans into my work!

Hope you all are as excited as I am!

Corey Breen

Return to Avatar!

2010-09-15T08:30:00.008-04:00

Colors by Chris Beckett
Art by Corey Breen

Neytiri from Avatar © 20th Century Fox
Art & Color by Corey Breen

I get an amazing sense of accomplishment and fulfillment from other professionals who want to either ink or color one of my pieces. All artists are quiet modest about their work, so when another artist likes your work enough to want to work with you on a piece, it is a real honor for me.

One of my ex-coworkers here at DC has gone freelance and who is primed to be the next big name in coloring, liked my piece of Neytiri, and asked if he could color it. I gave him the file, and almost had forgotten about it, just because I have been so busy getting ready for NY Comic Con. But yesterday, Chris surprised me by sending me this incredible new color version of the piece! I absolutely LOVE it! The tone, the gentle palette, and the mood Chris was able to capture with his colors here, really added so much to the drawing!

Chris said, " I mainly really wanted to use pink cause I never get a chance to. :)" Well said, Chris, and I think it really makes Neytiri pop here, and I think it just looks really pretty!

Below Chris' amazing rendition of the piece, is another version by me that I did exclusively for the NYCC! I will have note-cards and posters to sell at the show of this version. I have tweaked my colors for this piece like 100 times, but I kept coming back to this all blue approach, and I think it really works better then the previous full color version I did before. It's no where NEAR the quality or wonder that Chris was able to achieve, but hope you like it just the same.

Thank you Chris for the piece, and I hope we work together on other stuff REALLY, really soon! I mean it!

You can follow Chris on Twitter, @TheHappyBucket

Lots more announcements to come as we draw oh so much closer to NYCC! Woo HOO!

CjB

Grave Soldiers Cover Revealed!

2010-09-13T09:25:00.006-04:00

Grave Soldiers Pencils
By Corey Breen
© Jeffrey Marvin, Jeffrey Zacholl, & Ben Soreff
Pencils & Photoshop

Grave Soldiers Color sans Logo
By Corey Breen
© Jeffrey Marvin, Jeffrey Zacholl, & Ben Soreff
Photoshop

I finally get to reveal the first of two top secret pieces I completed recently.

Months ago I was contacted by Cave Drawing Ink to do a cover for a special project called Grave Soldiers. Five artists were asked to do covers introducing four characters for a multimedia concept. Check out Cave Drawing Ink's Blog for more info on the character I was asked to draw, Arnold Yates, and all about the project at

http://cavedrawingink.blogspot.com/

Press Release by Jeffrey Marvin

"It's been a while since I posted anything mostly cause I was working hard on a new project I'm hoping will be completed within the next year. This is one of 5 kick ass comic covers made by the finest artists I have had the great privilege to work with. Over the next week I'll be posting each cover for your viewing pleasure with a brief blurb about the issue. Your comments are encouraged, so feel free to let us know what you guys think! Enjoy!

He's smug, he's arrogant and he is a total bad ass. Arnold Yates has it all good looks, a perfect bod and the best job as a contractor...in Iraq. This guy is the top of his security team and if you find yourself staring down his MP-5 you aren't going to be long for this world. Yates is under the belief that he is untouchable, but karma is a bitch and sometimes it sneaks up on you when you least expect it."

This cover was a lot of fun to do, and I was really happy with how the final version came out. I kinda cringe when asked to do military type pieces, but I think I nailed exactly what Jeffrey Marvin wanted with the piece, and I can't wait to see where the project goes from here, whether I'm involved further with it or not.

Thanks to Cave Drawing Ink for the work, and I'm really happy to have contributed to any kind of success that comes your way with the project of Grave Soldiers!

CjB

PS- Hopefully soon I can also reveal the second top secret piece I mentioned.

Head Games!

2010-08-30T14:59:00.005-04:00

Here's my guy again. I wanted to do a little head shot of SaricH, kind of like a logo or patch of him that I can use for things. I thought it would be cool to have like a Hellboy or Savage Dragon type of "logo" for him that I can use on things, and something to put on the spine of his books I do in the future.

Get used to this character, because this guy is gonna be my thing for the next year or so as I work on my first Original Graphic Novel with him. I creating his whole world from the ground up, so it's gonna be a long strange trip!

CjB

PS- Here it is in silhouette!

PS- I am also using him as my NEW Fantasy Football Logo too! Go 56'ers!

What, You Thought This Was a Democracy?!

2010-08-24T09:16:00.004-04:00

So here it is! The final front and back covers to my 'Art of' book that I will be selling starting at the NYCC in October! I thank you all for your votes on the Blog and on Facebook and Twitter, for helping me decide what cover to use. As you can see, it is not the one that won out in voting. I will not be using the Neon Spider-Man pin-up as the cover. I know it was the clear cut winner, but I had to over rule that, unfortunately. I know a lot of you really like the Spider-Man cover, but I felt it wasn't the best idea to go ahead with that one.

I personally voted for the SaricH cover, myself mainly because I want to feature him heavily at the con. I have a statue for display and for sale of him, I will have postcards made of this image, and more, and now I have him featured on the cover to my first "book". I not only wanted to use him for those reasons, but I always was worried that if I went with the Spider-Man piece, I was using a character I did not create, for the cover. As was stated in the original post, using a character that is copyrighted by someone else, in this case, Marvel Comics, was definitely frowned upon by other artists who make sketchbooks and art books for the cons. I talked to a bunch of people in the know-how that starting at his con, companies could possibly be going after people who do, or people who feature their characters for more then 1/4 of their books. I didn't want to ruffle any features here, and I just felt it was much more of an ideal situation to feature my creator owned character on the cover anyway. It's ok to have pin-ups of Marvel and DC characters on the inside of the book, which I have, including the Neon Spider-Man pin-up that will not be the cover. It's just not as kosher to have a non-creator owned character on your cover. SO hope that makes sense.

I thank you all for voting and for your valued input! It really means a lot to me to hear from you, and know that you all are reading and at least enjoying everything I'm working on. I'm REALLY glad you loved the Spider-Man cover, and I hope you still like and possibly purchase my book at the con or after the con, now featuring SaricH on the cover instead. I can't WAIT for October, and I can get these into your hands! Thank you again for all your support!

Now to get this book to the printers! More info to come on that!

All my best!

Corey

PS- Notice that I got rid of the sun in the SaricH cover, and also moved his tail to the back of him, and up towards the top! I think it works MUCH better now! Thank you to my love, my wife, Kristy on helping me make it better! She is my greatest critic, and the best art director an artist can have! Thank you, sweetie!

You Decide!

2010-08-20T09:36:00.012-04:00

By Corey Breen
Photoshop

So I now have this dilemma. I am currently making a "Art of" book to sell at the New York Comic Con on October 8th-October 11th, and I was just about ready to print when I decided that I wasn't sure about the cover to the book. The cover I was about to go to print with was the Neon Spider-Man pin-up I just did recently. I laid out the image with the text I wanted, and I was REALLY happy with how it looks. The title of the book is called '2010- Twenty-Ten', the 'Art of Corey Breen'. Everything was all set with the cover and the interiors showcasing my favorite pieces from 2009 and 2010, with some other favorites thrown in there as well. At the last minute, I thought about it more, and decided to try and do a alternate cover to the book featuring one of my own creator owned characters. I was just going to attempt to do something cool, but since I loved the Spider-Man piece as the cover, knew it really wouldn't trump that to be considered for the cover.

Then I actually drew this really kick a$ drawing of my main creator owned character named SaricH, that I'm sure you all have seen before. He is like my company mascot you could say, but also a character that I plan to do a Cerebus type of book on someday soon. Because the piece came out so good, I went right into digital inks on it, and then fully colored it, using my process I have been showing off to you these past two weeks. I now have this process down so well, that it's really helping me crank out some really nice pieces. So now I have this image that I really love now, that I am caught in a dilemma of deciding whether I want to keep Spider-Man as the cover to my Art Book, or replace it with my creator owned character, SaricH, above.
There is pros and cons to each one. I have heard around the industry that selling sketchbooks at conventions or on the web, or even to feature them on your website, it is ok to use. You can draw Spider-Man even though it is copyrighted, if you just make sure to include the copyright info. But is kind of frowned upon to use a copyrighted character that is not your own for the cover. They say companies give you a free pass when using their characters in sketchbooks, as long as you don't use them on the cover. That's what they say...

If I wanted to use the Spider-Man piece, it is not my character, so it may be considered a little bit of risk. That may give me more notice, and people would be more likely to buy something with Spider-Man on the cover then say one of my own characters, but I also feel that having one of my characters featured on the cover is more a representation of what I want. I want my character to be showcased at the con, and I having him on my Art of Book would do just that. I will be featuring, and selling a statue of SaricH at the con as well, that you can see if you stop by my table at the con. The statue was made by my ex-coworker and friend and amazing sculptor, Amos Hemsley. You all have seen it if you read my blo, but if you haven't do a search for it, and check it OUT! NOW! I'll wait! Good? Good.

So I leave it up to my fans. What do you think I should do? I love both images and I want to use both images. I rather not make a 50-50 split on the covers, because I'm not sure how much that would cost. I will look into that. BUT, in the meantime, post a comment on here, or my Facebook page of CjB Productions Facebook page, or on Twitter, and let me know what you think I should do. I'm leaning towards SaricH, but I want to get your opinion's as fans of my work, and see which one you and other fans at the convention will buy.

Below I have images of how both covers would look with the cover text and everything!

YOU DECIDE!

CjB

Cover A

Cover B

The Dark Hawk

2010-08-15T15:44:00.009-04:00

Darkhawk © Marvel Comics
Final Color
By Corey Breen

Darkhawk © Marvel Comics
Photoshop Color Flats
By Corey Breen

Darkhawk © Marvel Comics
Digital Inks w/ Cintique
By Corey Breen

Darkhawk © Marvel Comics
Bitmap File
By Corey Breen

Darkhawk © Marvel Comics
Scanned Light Boxed Pencils on 11 x 17
By Corey Breen

Finished Pencil Drawing
By Corey Breen

After my friend, coworker, AMAZING artist, and all around good guy, Steve Wands finished inking my drawing of The Comet a couple of months ago, he made a request for what the next drawing for him to work on with me should be. He requested Tom DeFalco and Mike Manley's Darkhawk from Marvel Comics. Not the new War of Kings Darkhawk, but the old school, 1990's Darkhawk! It was an odd request, but one that I was happy to do, since I too liked the old Darkhawk, but even more so because it was yet another chance for me to work with Steve.

So after a couple of weeks of procrastinating not doing the piece, I finally laid out a really cool pose for us to do, and then looked up some reference of the character. I decided not to change anything about the costume, and just do my best to try and capture it. It is not an easy costume to draw. After I figured out some elements of the costume, I completed the pencils, and was very happy with it. I threw it on a light box, and much Like the Neon Spidey and Grendel pieces, scanned in a basic line drawing. I gave the original art to Steve for him to ink.

I told Steve to do what he does best, even though the line drawing is kind of a paint-by-numbers kind of thing. One of my favorite pieces Steve has inked and colored for me was the Hellboy piece years ago. That was also done using this process I've been using, and I tried to mimic that this Darkhawk piece.

While Steve is off still inking this piece by HAND, I decided to ink my own version digitally on the cintique. It took me all all about a half hour. No joke. It was so easy. Just bump the threshold way up, bitmap the file, zoom in, fill in some missing or dropped out line work, then fill all the blacks. So cool. LOVE this new process. Gotta love the Cintique!

Then I threw some colors on for flats, and colored the piece much like I did Neon Spidey. I LOVE how this piece came out, and I can't WAIT to compare the digital inks I did with the MANUAL inks Steve is doing. Once I get the piece from Steve, I will post it up side by side and show you all. I think it'll be really cool to see. Not just to compare digital inks with inks done by hand, but also to show you how GOOD Steve is at inking, and what he brings to the piece instead of my inks with are so straight forward, simple digital inks. Steve brings style, and energy and a cool factor that I kinda lose sometimes. That's why I love working with him, because he makes my art have way more life then I usually can make it have.

So when Steve is ready, I will post up his inks, but until then, I hope you dug this inside look at the process of how I work in creating the pieces you've seen this past week or so. It was really cool to show all of you how I work, and what I've been doing as far as combining hand drawn and digitally hand drawn art. I think the computer is JUST another tool, and as you can see, can be a really awesome one to use to make some kick a$$ comic book art.

Enjoy, and until next time,

CjB

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose!

2010-08-12T12:47:00.008-04:00

Pencil Sketch
By Corey Breen

Reference
By Matt Wagner

Finished Pencils
By Corey Breen

Pencils over Light Box
By Corey Breen

Thresheld Digital Bitmap-ed File
By Corey Breen

Digital Inks with Cintique
By Corey Breen

Digital Inks with Red
By Corey Breen

Flats
By Corey Breen

Sorry for the little delay on the Grendel piece here, but I tried a couple of different things with the colors, as you can see. I think this piece came out even better then I thought it would, and a lot of my coworkers agree. They said it's "looser" then my usual style and they think the blacks really make it stand out from a lot of my previous pieces. I wasn't able to REALLY capture the extreme perspective that I originally wanted to for this piece (see the sketch), but it IS on a slight angle, so close enough.

Only other thing I think about this piece I wanted to mention, is that I wanted to make it really dark and eerie, and scary (much how Grendel should be), but like most of my colored pieces, they come out kinda bright and colorfully happy looking. Go figure. So I wasn't able to do that, but oddly enough, it kinda works, so I'm very happy with it. I hope you like it. I also hope you like the process of getting to the top, finished piece. I wont show the process for every piece I do from here on out, but felt these last few pieces were worth showing. I really like this process though, and I will most likely continue doing this in the future, even if I don't post it that way.

Last up we have DARKHAWK from the batch of work I've done recently! It'll be up soon, don't know when, because I may wait for Steve Wands to finish his inks on it. I will still do my process like above, but this Darkhawk piece will be special because Steve will be inking a version of it too! YAY! Can't wait to show you, cause it's a cool piece too!

Until then,

CjB

Leftovers!

2010-08-09T12:57:00.006-04:00

By Corey Breen
Manual Inks

By Corey Breen
Pencil

Before I get to the next piece (Grendel), I just wanted to share the MANUAL inks I did for the Neon Spider-Man pin-up. Last post I mentioned I was going to ink this piece by hand as well as digitally. I wanted to show the difference (if any) between manually inking something and the digital inks I did previously. In this piece, I used pen & ink, and for the green & yellow colors I just used highlighters. I'm not the greatest inker, as you can see above, so I was more happy with the previous digital inks! There isn't much difference though. It really now becomes whether or not I want a physical copy of the inks. If you do digital inks, you don't have a physical copy, obviously. That could hurt any chance of selling the work in the future, because it only exists digitally.

One of the other reasons I inked this both digitally and manually, was that I wanted that physical piece to send to a fan who requested a commission. So, I hope he appreciates the extra time spent inking this piece by hand when I already had the inks I wanted, all done by a Cintique! Hope you like it, Cody Williams!

The second drawing is just yet another of the sketches I did in preparation for the Spidey piece that I forgot to include in the last post. Again, didn't go final with this pose because I just wanted something way more dramatic.

Oh, and by the way the manual inks took twice as long as the digital inks, as I thought it would. So will I ink everything digitally now? Not sure, but I follow this process I used, it looks to be the best way to work. Now I just need a Cintique for my home, not just here at work!

CjB