Sagittarius!

I bet you thought I'd completely forgotten about the Horoscope pin-ups, didn't you? Well, for a while there I think I did. But now my work is all caught up and I find myself with time to finally finish what started a whole year ago! I'm a little ashamed it's taken me so long to get all of these done.

While this isn't exactly a holiday image it is the sign for December...at least until the 22nd. Aquarius is also inked and awaits colouring leaving me with Gemini as the last.

Putting together a sketchbook was mentioned in my comments and I'm really considering putting all of the Horoscopes into a book, along with the sketches that lead to each final. I welcome any thoughts you guys might have on what you'd like to see.

Happy Holidays, all.
j.

Sketches!

In between paying gigs I try to sketch from the plethora of "reference" material I've got. These drawings are from those sessions. The guy with the hammer is from the Taschen Physique Pictorial collection.

These guys were from photos found online. Usually I only have time for a few drawings, just enough to loosen up, before I have to start working on something "real" (meaning with a deadline and what pays the bills :)

And now I want to encourage everyone who hasn't already done so, to get the new collection of Harry Bush artwork "Hard Boys". I just got my copy yesterday and it is GLORIOUS! I love the care that went into reproducing his delicate shading...often you can even see the patches and taped over areas of the drawings where Harry would constantly revise his art. The bio info is also well put together. It's sad to read that someone with such beautiful artwork was unhappy in his daily life. He reminds me a little of ol' Alex Toth in his seclusion and grumpy correspondence.

Buy this book or put it on your Christmas list...you will not be disappointed!

best,

j.

My Fellow Canadians.

I had a request recently for a shot of Wolverine just hangin' out...with no shirt on. So this one's for Andrew S.
What I think is great about drawing Wolverine is that you don't necessarily have to show him with his claws popped or even draw him in costume for it to be Wolverine. He's all about the attitude and the hair.

j.

Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween! I think of all the holidays it's my favourite. What do I like most about Halloween, you ask? I like the decorations on people's lawns. All the skeletons, pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, giant spiders and cobwebs, bales of hay, ghosts, bats and all that stuff. And the costumes, the getting all dressed up and going out to Halloween parties. And I love the horror movies on tv. So many of them I can't watch any more than a few minutes of or I won't be able to sleep at night!! For example, I've never seen all of the Exorcist. Only bits and pieces throughout the years...all in spurts before I have to change the channel. That movie is too much scary for me.
I prefer the classics. The movies made before gore and fake blood got to be so real looking. The original Night of the Living Dead still scares the pants off me. The Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jr. is surprisingly scary for an older film. And of course I love the Frankenstein and Bride Of Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Creature From the Black Lagoon (all time fave).
Lately every Halloween I've kind of established a little routine...put on Sleepy Hollow (good creepy music by Elfman, and good creepy atmosphere by Rick Heinrichs (production design) and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (I looked 'em up), and I carve pumpkins. Then cook up the pumpkin seeds, dress up myself and my dog, and wait for kids to ring the bell for candy!

*sigh*

I can't wait for Halloween!

Hope you all have a good one! And feel free to share favourite scary movies or traditions. I'm always looking for some new old favourites!

j.

Fruitbat!

Here, finally, complete in glorious black and white is my own take on the old "Batman and Robin are gay" storyline. I originally presented the first page and coloured cover art on my blog back here. Well, I finally found photocopies of the original art and scanned it all in for you.
Once again I'd like to clarify that this is PARODY and rather silly parody at that. See my original post for my thoughts on the Batman/Robin cliche. I hope you enjoy this little tale of bondage and boyfriends.

P.S. Way back during TCAF I was interviewed by one of Mondo Magazine's editors, Owen. The interview is now online. You can check it out here, if you'd like. We actually spoke for quite a long time that day...mostly my fault. I'm a big digressor.

j.

IronJaw! Colours by HvH!

This is the coolest! I'm thrilled to post this drawing of Iron Jaw because it was superbly coloured by the immensely talented HvH! I love the fiery background and the textures on the ground and Iron Jaw's skin. The lighting on the axe, too, is great! I encourage you to check out HvH's blog (click his name and you'll magically teleport there) and also to pick up his portfolio and comic book "In the Blink of an Eye". You can get both through Class Comics website or your neighbourhood gay book store or gay friendly comic shop. I've loved HvH's stylish work ever since we found each other through the Blogoverse and I'm really honoured to have him colour one of my drawings.

Oh, and you should also check out Iron Jaw at the link because there are some gorgeous Neal Adams covers at the Atlas Comics site. And I just realized 'pon reading the site info that I actually have every issue of Iron Jaw published. There are only five so it's not that hard a collection to complete. :)

best,
j.

Follow the North Star!

There was a lot of Northstar talk all over the net last week or the week before. Mainly that his recent death inspired Novelist Perry Moore to write "HERO". I'm looking forward to reading the book eventually.

I'm an Alpha Flight fan but gotta admit that Northstar was not my favourite character. He was too much of a jerk. I much preferred Puck and Sasquatch (is hairy men a recurring theme here? :) They were more fun...although as written by Byrne they did have their dark sides. Puck was in constant pain because of his dwarfism and had to meditate daily in order to deal. And Sasquatch turned out to be a creature from another dimension who inhabited the body of Walter Whatsisname. One day I'd love to do an Alpha Flight story or two where the characters just have some good old fashioned fun! I think our Canadian Heroes deserve it!

And in my story Guardian wouldn't be dead yet!

j.

Play of light!

I had a drawing lying around and in a moment of unrest coloured it up in Photoshop. Usually I light my drawings really simply...you really can't get too complicated with flat colour :) And this is still simple lighting but I tried throwing the light from a lower angle. The background is more than a little lame but I hope you'll forgive me.

The drawing is referenced from a pose found in the Physique Pictorial collection. I love those books.

j.

Cro-Magnon Men!

I've been working on lots of work stuff lately and haven't had much time for personal drawing...but when I do, for some strange reason, I've been drawing cave men. Maybe it's because of the Cro-Mags in the Jett Vector free comic day story, or because of all the great cave men types drawn by fellow blogger Paul Conrad, or maybe it's because I've been watching my Flintstones DVDS. Whatever the reason Cavemen are on my brain and now they're here on my blog.

I tried to come up with a variety of body types and personalities for these guys just as a way to push my drawing a little. I tend to rely on a few standard head shapes, hair styles and bodies when sketching men leading to a sameness. Hopefully over the next couple of busy weeks I'll draw a bunch more thus creating a whole army of beefy cavemen.
While sketching I started picturing a Saber-toothed caveman and had to draw him. I always love drawing the big underbite jaw and this guy's is huge! He'd probably poke his own eyes out with those chompers!

j.

Jett Vector: TCAF part II

Toronto comic arts festival has come and gone. It was exhausting but completely successful. I sold a bunch of my canvases, a few t-shirts and most of my comic books. Eventually I'll make the Beefcake canvases available through my blog.
This was the coolest thing! A six foot tall Jett Vector stand-up for my display area. A bunch of the guys had their characters made into giant cut-outs as well and our room looked awesome! See below for my area. That's Rob Coughler of Butternut Squash fame looking through my portfolio.

And here's the real Jett Vector. Or at least his hair! This guy was tall and thin and I contemplated asking him to pose with my character...but you never know how someone will react to such a request. As it turns out I saw him again at the Queers in Comics panel later that same day. That'll teach me to just take a chance.

Thanks to those who made it out (sorry that all my American and European friends couldn't make it). I did one Jett Vector drawing the whole weekend...for Edward. Otherwise I was much too busy to sit and draw. Now I feel like sleeping for a week.

best,

j.

Jett Vector: Toronto Comic Arts Festival!

This weekend, August 18th and 19th, if you're in the Toronto area and love comic books you might want to check out the Toronto Comic Arts Festival! You can find all kinds of information here.
Finding me should be easy...I'm in the RAID room along with all of the Transmission X guys (a super collection of talented artists). I'll have a bunch of artwork on display and for sale. In fact check out the picture below for a glimpse into my little art sweatshop! There the canvases are printed, mounted on a frame and varnished for that professional shine! That's JETT VECTOR at the bottom of the image, waiting to be mounted.

I'm also doing a few panels on Saturday but all the rest of my time will be spent in the FUN room hanging out with my artist pals and meeting exciting new people! Please stop by and be one of those exciting new people!

best,

j.

Pride Guy!

In June I mentioned that I got a few pictures of some Pride hotties. This guy was especially delish! To me, anyway. He had that perfect combination of confidence, tight jeans and questionable sexuality that I like in a guy. And nice hair, too.

I tried to capture all of those admirable qualities in my drawing...but since I feel like you might also like to see the real deal I'm including a few of the pictures I snapped. My first photo post (I think).

In other news, my trip to San Diego has come and gone. Lots of fun hanging out at the beach and the Comic Convention. Although the latter is insanely out of hand lately. The convention is tremendously huge making it near impossible to see everything. In fact I missed more than a few of my friends because I just didn't have the energy to navigate through the crowds. Fortunately most conventioneers know which bar to hit after the con and I saw my pals there. If you're ever at a convention where Phil Jimenez is a guest make sure to stop by and say "Hi" to him. Phil is one of the nicest guys in comics and I always love hanging out with him.

I also met Mark Andreyko, writer of DC's Manhunter. Also a great guy. I sort of announced during Darwyn's spotlight panel that I'm going to be working on Jett Vector after we finish with our final few issues of the Spirit. I'm pretty excited to be doing a creator owned project again and can't wait to unleash Jett on the publishing world!

Hope everyone is still having a great summer.
best,

j.

I'm a little late for Canada Day but I hope you guys won't mind me posting a few drawings of our famousest of superheroes. I wasn't a fan of Wolverine at all as a kid or a teen...not until Hugh Jackman did his thing in the movies did I ever even pay any attention to the character. And yet I didn't draw the Hugh Jackman Wolverine. I chose this costume because I used to have an X-Men colouring book and Wolvie was in the yellow and brown on the cover. I think I used Indian Red to colour his boots and gloves, etc. on the inside pages (and please forgive my referring to the old crayon colour label...I don't know what Indian Red has become but I'm pretty sure it ain't still called Indian Red).
Plus my brother had the Secret Wars Wolverine action figure...so it's really the only costume I'm familiar with.

Eventually I'll probably draw Wolvie in the costume Frank Quitely gave him for the Grant Morrison run. That particular outfit is very beefcake friendly! :)

Hope you're all enjoying your summer.

j.

Toronto Pride!

Hey guys, it's Pride week here in Toronto! And quite a few other places as well, by a lot of blog accounts. We've been having incredibly hot weather here...and I don't mind a bit. Actually, I do mind it because T.O. gets a lot of smog alert days and it's no fun riding your bike when the air is poor. But I much prefer the heat of summer to winter's bitter chill.

Last weeks Antebellum Toon Fetish gallery opening went swimmingly, according to those who attended. Aman kindly shared with us his coverage on his blog. Dronio also posted a link to his Flickr page of pictures. Thanks guys, for sharing those with us. Looks like the opening was lots of shirtless fun! :)

So Happy Pride, everyone. My next update might be photos if I get some good shots. I'm always on the look out for the Real Jett Vector!

best,
j.

Ape King: Part Two!

So, I'm in my very first big gallery show!

I was invited by Glen Hanson to contribute some art to the TOONFETISH exhibit at the Antebellum gallery. I feel pretty honoured to be included, to say the least. If you check out the list of contributing artists you'll find the talent level is pretty gee-golly high! :)

Rick Castro, the gallery owner asked for art work to be (preferably) explicit and in colour. Well...you guys all know about me and my "No Explicit Artwork" prudishness. And the only colour art I do anymore is on the computer...but for this show I really, really wanted the art on display to be an original and not a digital print out. So I went with black and white with an attempt to bring extra texture and juicy linework to my inks just to help the image stand out. Hopefully I succeeded.

I encourage anyone in the L.A. area to stop by the gallery and check out the art. I truly wish I could see it all myself but deadlines are more important than ego trips! On the 16th of June Glen Hanson is going to be holding some kind of "Naked Drawing Salon". If you want to go you must register in advance (check out the link to the gallery above). Frankly I wish I could be there for that, too. :)

If anyone does go to the gallery please write and tell us all about it.

One more thing...as I said before the Ape King looks like Damien Crosse to me. And the other little guy kinda ended up looking like Wolverine. In fact if I were to draw Wolvie I'd probably refer to this drawing here as my template.

best,
j.

Peter Parker: Househusband!

Oh gosh, like ages ago a funny comic book blog I check out had a thing or two to say about the ginormous amount of sexism in comic books today...especially in regards to its merchandise. The particular item in question was a statue of Mary Jane doing laundry (click here...warning female anatomy on display).

I understand completely the problems some might have with that little chunk of resin. Especially the thong. And especially, especially the Pearl Necklace ("Tee hee! Giggle! MJ's got a pearl necklace! You know what that means, right?") SO for Rachelle's enjoyment I turned the tables and drew up this...

Now, if Marvel ever decided to do a statue of Peter doing his laundry in a pair of underoos you wouldn't hear so much as an eye roll from me. I'd maybe even buy it (if the art it was based on was decent, that is).

One more thing...the brown things on the floor are clothes pegs...not dog poop. They kind of look like dog poop with the image all shrunk down so I'm just telling you they're clothes pegs.

hugs,

j.

Ape King!

This here is a portion of a bigger piece just completed for the Toon Fetish gallery show going on in L.A. in June. The piece is being framed even as I write this and I only hope I'm able to get it down there in time. Fingers crossed it'll go over well. I'm in with a super talented group of artists so I'm more than a little nervous about the whole thing. So, the King kind of reminded me of someone although I didn't intentionally try to render a likeness...but I think his eyes and brow remind me of adult film star Damion Crosse! :) I confess I dig Damien's look although I have never seen one of his films...scout's honour!!

Also, check out this bit of awesomeness! Thanks to Jared for the terrific job and to Francois for linking me up with the link!

best,

j.

Jett Vector! Free Comic Book!

This past Saturday was FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! This post really should have been put together oh, I dunno, last week! Shame on me! If you've got a good comic shop maybe they'll still let you pick through the stack of free comic books made available by all the comic publishers. I contributed to a book called the COMICS FESTIVAL 2007 EDITION. It's a little two page Jett Vector story which I'm thrilled to finally see in print!

If you can find a copy of the book I highly recommend picking it up because of the other artists...guys like Darwyn Cooke, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Steve Manale, Michael Cho, Ramon Perez, Cameron Stewart, Chip Zdarsky and many more. Also, pick it up because it's FREE!

I've just learned that the Beguiling here in Toronto, will eventually make the book available as an online download. Sorry folks. I hope you're able to find the book eventually because it really is full of wonderful.

Ah, Jett Vector. How much do I love drawing thee. I look at his thumbs up pose in the last panel and wish I'd fixed a few things before inking it but otherwise I think I did a not-too-bad job!

best,

j.

Rod and Reel!

Gentlemen and ladies (sure, there're ladies here. And why not?) I present to you Pisces. The fishman earlier presented in the January 10th post is in fact Capricorn. Half goat half fish a Merman seemed the obvious drawing...but then I read some more and found out that the fish part of the sign is antiquated thinking. Apparently Capricorn was considered to be a water sign and so the goat was depicted with a fish tail. Modern Astrology labels the tenth sign of the Zodiac as an Earth sign...so my water drawing is kinda wrong. That'll teach me to do more research before drawing.

Onto other things...I encourage you all to check out Meatcute 's latest entry. The site is always a great source of new (and old but new-to-me) beefcake artists. I was asked to contribute some thoughts on style and inspiration and am ashamed to say I failed to deliver. Eep! Work and personal "situations" are my only excuses for not finding the time to contribute any more than a new piece of art. Happily Meatcute's owner and operator included me among the three other artists who DID provide commentary. Thanks, Meatcute!

And finally, here is Dark Taurus again now with background. Blog visitor Zpeedy wondered where this "snapshot" was taken and so I created a background. No pride parade here...just a good old fashioned Ranch with husky cattle rustler.


hugs,
j.

March Madness!

This month has been crazy! Not a day went by where I didn't think about my poor neglected blog and you my Blog-friends but pressingn work kept me from it and you. Happily, this morning saw the wrap-up of back to back gigs (though I still have more to ink, the deadline is not until much later in the month) and freedom to blog again.

So today I give you "Dark Taurus"! Oooh, scary!

I really, really didn't want to interrupt the Horoscope theme with a non-Horoscope post but the sad truth is I am not done all of the signs of the Zodiac yet. This guy above is a re-working of the existing Taurus drawing done for a friend. This particular buddy, who I've referred to in the past as "saucy", much prefers his men closer to if not completely naked. While I don't disagree with him on the fantasticness of the undressed male you all know by now my own Code of Prudishness! Dark Taurus is as nearly naked as my COP allows. And he's still technically a Horoscope so I haven't broken the line!

And speaking of nudity I encourage you to check out the recent sketches posted by Belasco over on his blog. His newest drawings are almost animated in style with a gorgeous fluid line and terrific graphic shapes. I love 'em! I've been working on revising my Jett Vector style to something similarly stylized and absolutely hate that Belasco does it with so much pinache! :)
(By "hate" I mean "am jealous of").

best,
j.

Supersize It!

Tipping the scales in today's Horoscope is Libra! This is one of those signs that keeps popping up in my life (no puns intended). More often than not when I'm really getting along with someone new I find out they're a Libra. Perhaps it's the level headedness and ability to veiw things from more than one side. I don't mean to play favourites so I'll just say some of the nicest guys I know are Libras.

I also get along well with Scorpio and Cancer...and, surprisingly, other Leos.

j.

All Hail the Jungle King!

The mystery is no longer mysterious...the secret is out! The last six posts have been Beefcake interpretations of the Signs of the Zodiac. The first was Scorpio, then Virgo, Capricorn (not Pisces as was commonly thought...more on that when Pisces is done:), Aries, Taurus, Cancer and now Leo. Being my sign I really wanted something special, not that I feel I've shortchanged anyone on the other signs...I mean that I took into consideration what I would want to hang on my own wall!

Salutes to Carlos and Francois...heck, you've all been asking for more flesh and here it is :)

Incidentally, Leo was one of the first images I came up with which led to the idea of drawing all the Horoscopes. I pictured the King of the Jungle with a big mane of hair and necklace made of teeth. He's maybe not leonine enough when it comes right down to it. But I believe there will be other versions of this "character".

best,
j.

Sunshine Day!

This guy was tough, let me tell you. I drew him first with a lot less clothing...but the anatomy was awkward. I tried to fix him a few times but in the end the best solution was to use clothing to hide the mistakes (hopefully their hidden). I actually really like the t-shirted version more. I think it's more colourful.
I know how much you guys like skin so I'll post 'em both and let you judge for youselves whether the addition of clothing was a good thing

Yee haww!

When I draw I like to listen to music that fits the image on which I am working. Usually that means pulling out a few soundtracks from movies with a similar theme (last post's barbarian was inked to the Conan soundtrack, and a collection of old movie music called Now Playing). This cowboy called for a different sort of music. Thanks to Mr. Paul Dini I was introduced to Bob Wills and the song Roly Poly which I stuck in the player alongside Loretta Lynn. I capped off the music selection with a heaping helping of my personal favourite country music star Miss Dolly Parton. Boy howdy, I love Dolly! :)

I think the background to this one would have looked more natural as a brown or tan. But there was so much brown in the costume and lasso that I went with blue. I have yet to go through all of the finished pieces to this ongoing theme but I think so far blue is the most common background colour.

Y'all come back now!
j.

Viking! Hammer!

This one is one of my personal favourites in the continuing theme. Mainly because I love John Buscema's Conan artwork which I looked through when drawing this. Also because I inked with a brush instead of the Pitt pen (whish is how all the rest were inked). This one needed to be brush inked because I wanted more roughness and texture in the fur and muscles (read that as mus-Kulls, like how Popeye would say it). I especially like how the Hammer looks...imagine getting cracked on the noggin' with that hefty piece of stone? This guy is truly a God of War! ;)

best,

j.

Anthropomorphic!

This was a tough one. When I set out to draw the s**** of the ****** I didn't want to draw anything anthropomorphic. My own little rule proved challenging when tackling this entry...so I opted to ignore it. And why not! I used to love drawing mer-people when I was a kid. Clash of the Titans was (and still is) one of my favourite movies and this guy's lower half reminds me of the Kraken. I also used to watch the Hercules cartoon and drew a lot of centaurs and satyrs. I suppose this guy could have ended up half goat...

best,
j.

Adam!

All right...this is THE closest to nudity you're probably gonna see on this blog! I know that more of Adam's bits and pieces should be visible but you won't see it here so please don't ask. :)
So this is image number 2 in the continuing theme. I think everyone already knows but I appreciate the fun of prolonging the "mystery". As a hint...this is Adam before the fall. That means he still a virgin!

More to come!
j.