Kevin Mutch

Portrait of Melissa as a Mexican Movie Star

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:54:00 +0000

I haven't posted any paintings in a while, so here's a new one, "Portrait of Melissa as a Mexican Movie Star." It's based on a digital image I made back in the 90's, which in turn was based on a "lobby card" for an old Mexican movie which I bought at a thrift store in LA. The painting is about 30 x 40 inches, acrylic on canvas. (Apologies for the crappy camera phone picture!)

Rough Pearl Page 27

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:28:00 +0000

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Moon Prince Page 112: Ridiculum!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:04:00 +0000

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A Process Post: Fantastic Life Page 5

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Here's another pile of my dirty laundry, also known as a process post. In this little animation, you can see me struggling to improve my stiffly posed and badly proportioned drawings for the fifth page of my graphic novel Fantastic Life (buy it HERE! I've got a basement full!).

I started with a pencil drawing on a 16 x 20" sheet of 100 lb. bristol board which I scanned at 300 dpi (I wrote and drew these pages at the same time, so there are no separate "thumbnail" sketches for them). Then I added a lot of contrast using a color correction Curve, and used other Curves (controlled via Layer Masks) to "dodge" and "burn" various areas so as to clean them up a bit, all in the vain hope that this would result in a "finished" page. Eventually realizing that I'd never be happy with the sketchy results, I decided to "ink" the pencils on a new Layer using the "Pencil" tool (ironic, right?). Then I finished the page (or so I told myself) by adding color ( a Layer set to Multiply) and lettering (in this case using a font made from my own hand lettering).

But... still unhappy with the drawing, I returned obsessively to the page many times over a period of months and reworked the "inks". One trick I used repeatedly was to "flip" the page left to right (Image > Rotation > Flip Canvas Horizontal) which helped me spot some of the many glaring deficiencies in the proportions and anatomy of my drawings. By the way, flipping the page (or rotating it in 90 degree increments) is "non-destructive" in Photoshop because pixels are square - the program doesn't have to "interpolate" the image by guessing what values the pixels will have - so you can do it over and over without degrading the image.

Another trick I used was to smoosh my drawings around using the Liquify Filter. This is a fantastic way to refine a drawing which completely removes the distinction between working "loose" and "tight". Try it and see! The only drawback is that if you do it repeatedly (which I do) the lines will "soften" and you'll need to periodically sharpen them back up (I use the Levels Command for this, forcing the white and black points close together in the center).

Finally somewhat satisfied (or maybe resigned and exhausted would be a better way to put it), I promised myself to leave the page alone for awhile. Then I went back and reworked it some more once it came time to publish the book. Total elapsed time from start to finish for this page: about three years!

Rough Pearl Page 26: Don't I Know You?

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:40:00 +0000

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Moon Prince Page 111: A Desperate Situation

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:26:00 +0000

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Seventeen Kevins and Three Melissas

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:50:00 +0000

Here's a little animation showing how Page 101 of The Moon Prince was made. As usual, it starts with a scribbly pen sketch on a sheet of typing paper. Then I make a photo-collage combining pictures of actors (in this case, it's myself - seventeen times! - and my wife Melissa as the pirate queen) with simple 3D renderings of the various airships. From this I make a black and white drawing in Photoshop using a Cintiq monitor to draw on, and then I add color, tones, gutters (the panel outlines) and word balloons, all in good ol' Photoshop.

Stay tuned for page 111, coming Friday!

Your pal, Kevin

Rough Pearl Page 25: Pitch Black Nothing

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:04:00 +0000

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Moon Prince Page 110: A Small Matter of Payment

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:45:00 +0000

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MoCCA 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:45:00 +0000

If you happen to be in New York City this weekend I hope you'll drop by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival at the 69th Regiment Armory at 68 Lexington in Manhattan. I'll be there at the Big If/Blurred Books table signing copies of The Moon Prince and, as an extra special treat, Max, Molly and their momma Melissa (the Pirate Queen) will be there in the flesh on Sunday afternoon selling their very own comic books they made themselves! Here's a sneak preview of Molly's comic The Vampire:

Rough Pearl Page 24: Doooong!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:44:00 +0000

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Moon Prince Page 109: What on Earth?

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:39:00 +0000

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A Rough Pearl Process Post

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:33:00 +0000

Here's an animation showing how I finished up the pencil drawing for the first page of The Rough Pearl.

First we see the "raw scan" of the drawing, then we see it once contrast has been added, followed by some "dodging" and "burning" to clean up graphite smears in some areas and punch up lines and shadows in others. I never use the actual "Dodge" and "Burn" tools in Photoshop - I use color correction Curve Layers (one with the midtones pulled up to brighten, one with the midtones pulled down to darken) controlled by Layer Masks.

Next I manipulate the drawing to fix compositional and proportion problems. I always flip the page (Image Rotation > Flip Canvas Horizontal) as this helps me spot the areas that need fixing, then I usually use the Liquify filter to smoosh the areas around until I'm happy with them. Sometimes, as in the case of the woman's face on the computer monitor in panel one, I select individual areas and resize them with the Transform command. I also frequently draw in new details in Photoshop - for example, in panel three I needed to extend the image to replace a thought balloon I took out after deciding it made Adam sound too angry and misogynistic (he's only slightly angry and misogynistic).

Finally, I add color and refined lettering. The color is on a Layer set to Multiply and is controlled by a Layer Mask where I brush certain areas out to lighten and emphasize them.

Rough Pearl Page 23: Question Mark?

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:44:00 +0000

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Moon Prince Page 108: Splat!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:22:00 +0000

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Another Process Post: Captain Adam Page 1

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:36:00 +0000

I just realized that this is the (eek!) 20th anniversary of my narrative collage, Captain Adam, which was made by cutting up various old comic books and magazines and combining the resultant pile of panels to make a new "story" which I re-drew so as to impose a modicum of legibility.

Captain Adam was printed with the help of an arts council grant up in my native Canada and wound up being distributed to comics shops (and even newsstands) all over North America via Vortex publishing, so literally hundreds of people probably picked it up, thought "what the hell is this? Is this supposed to make sense?" and put it back down. Ah, well.

On the left we see the final art for the first page of the story (with grey tones added digitally many years later when it was reprinted in Blurred Vision 2. On the right is the original collage. You can see higher rez versions of the whole story HERE, or if you're interested, you can actually buy a copy of Captain Adam HERE.

Rough Pearl Page 22: Stuck

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:21:00 +0000

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Moon Prince Page 107: Bolt the Door!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:13:00 +0000

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Another Process Post: Page 61

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:50:00 +0000

Here's a little layout showing how page 61 of The Moon Prince (from May 20th last year) was created. This time, instead of making an animation, I just put four different versions of the page next to each other in a grid so as to make it easier to compare them all together.

On the upper left we see the scribbly “thumbnail page” where I wrote and roughly designed the page, then to the right of that the “collage” page where I combined photos of the models (in this case it was just me, and the pictures were all taken with the camera on my phone) and 3D renderings of the “aether ship” made using Google's free Sketchup software. The “aether ship” is based on different pieces (a zeppelin, aircraft parts, army furniture) which I downloaded from Google's fantastic “3D Warehouse” and combined and modified in Sketchup. Below them is the drawing based on the collage (which I made in Photoshop using a Cintiq monitor to draw directly onto) and the final colored version with the word balloons, also all done in Photoshop.

Stay tuned for the next pulse-pounding episode of The Moon Prince, this Friday!

Your Pal,

Kevin

Rough Pearl Page 21: Stupid Smug Sexist Shit

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:32:00 +0000

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Moon Prince Page 106: Alone in the Woods

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:35:00 +0000

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Europa

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:55:00 +0000

Here's a digital collage from way back in 1995. It's Titian's Rape of Europa composited with an angry native American from an old men's magazine illustration from the 1960's. I always disliked Titian's composition in the original painting and I thought this helped. Also, I liked the way the horse's eyes related to the bull's, the way the putti's bows and arrows related to the native American, and of course all the obvious political and ethical complications.

Rough Pearl Page 20: Time To Go

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:56:00 +0000

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Moon Prince Page 105: Grooooo!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:29:00 +0000

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Miss Twin Volcanoes of Boob Island

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:49:00 +0000

Just for fun (and certainly not for any promotional purposes whatsoever) I like to post things which relate to my recently published graphic novel Fantastic Life (now in stores! or buy it HERE!). The main character, Adam, is an art student slacker type, so I needed some paintings to put on his studio walls. Out of laziness I used my own work from back in the 80's/90's. Here's a piece that figures fairly prominently in the story, "Miss Twin Volcanoes of Boob Island", which was based on a photo still from an obscure porn movie. Below it is a page from the book where it makes an appearance.