Amity Ink

SAYING GOODBYE!!!!

2010-05-30T00:17:00.001-07:00

I have had this Blog linked to my website link so whenever I posted something here, it would appear on my site BUT this will be changing as of today. since I adore each and everyone of you I ask that you (you know who you are :) follow me to AMITY INK!!! It has undergone several changes as well as some wonderful improvements. So please stop by and sign up. It literally takes less then a minute to do and will be worth it. If you dont want to sign up thats ok to. just swing by and check it out!

Thank you so much

http://www.amityink.com/

just click the BLOG or READ STUFF button!

see ya there!

-Jesse

TWITTER? What the hell is that?

2010-05-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Since Anthony and I have been buried under book II: Fight for Amity, we haven’t had much time for much of anything else. So when our buddy Cory told us that we needed a Twitter account it seemed like one more thing for us to pile on our work load. However, Cory shrugged his shoulders and said, “Ill do it.”
It was that moment that I realized Corry was sent to us by God himself to make our lives easier.
So please check it out because he seems to be really into that stuff and will do a good job. Plus we talk quite a bit so he will have the scoop on things as they happen.
Thanks Cory!

http://twitter.com/beronaswar

-Jesse

A change is a come'n!

2010-05-27T10:31:00.001-07:00

You might have noticed some of the changes to our site. I know, they’re not big changes but changes none the less! My buddy jay was nice enough (as well as smart enough) to set it up so that we can add some changes ourselves without it taking an act of God.
First thing that is better is the NEWS page. We are now trying to keep that up to date as well as post as many events as we can that we think you may like to attend.

Second, we have added new character to the BLOG posts. I don’t know why but this is one of my favorite additions. It’s the little things isn’t it? So now the new posts have a range of about 13 different characters as opposed to 2. Again, this doesn’t change anything but since I am a man that works off of visuals …this totally makes me happy!

Third, we added new banners to the home page that will “randomly” change per visit…or if you just keep hitting refresh. Yeah, so! Who cares if that’s how I do it? I like to see the different banners! We posted several pictures from Berona’s War II: Fight for Amity. This will give you a nice little look into the next book. Plus we couldn’t really keep the add up that we had before because we are, for the most part, not selling the first edition anymore…sorry guys.

Another small improvement is the MEDIA page. We have the Zombie video as well as the original Promo video. Our plan for this page is to have it so once you click on this page it will give you options for videos as well as wallpapers and maybe some avatars. As far as the PROJECTS page goes, we have something special up our sleeve for this one that we will try to get to as soon as we can!

-Jesse

WOO-WHOOO!

2010-05-21T17:07:00.000-07:00

Our Preview Book is out!!! And though I'm sure there will be those out there who can’t wait to bash on our story (there always are), we are getting a lot of really good reviews! This is a SMILING point for us! We couldn’t be happier about all of the kind words that people have to say.

http://nerdiest-kids.com/between-the-panels-beronas-war-preview-book/

http://www.brokenfrontier.com/reviews/p/detail/beronas-war-preview-book

http://dantaylorblog.com/?tag=jesse-labbe

http://graphicpolicy.com/2010/05/17/review-berona’s-war-preview-book/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

http://www.previewsworld.com/public/default.asp?t=1&m=1&c=6&s=221&ai=94024&ssd=

http://www.suvudu.com/2010/05/take-a-side-in-beronas-hundred-year-war.html

http://popculturenetwork.com/article.php?story=20100419123259401

Also, tomorrow Anthony, Cooper and I will be at Heroes and Dreams (Flowood, MS) for the signing of the book. It is the first time that we will all be in the same time at once, so if you’re in the area from 1-5pm swing on by to pick up your signed copy as well!

-Jesse

Your Epidermis Is Showing!

2010-05-09T23:12:00.000-07:00

Back around the beginning of April, Anthony and I were discussing the anatomy (see April 9th post) of our characters. I wanted to be able to get all the dynamic poses out of the Cropones as I possibly could. I didn’t want to change the appearance of my characters but I did want to better understand them. This seems like a “no-brainer” but it did cause me a bit more trouble then I had intended. I know, I know…if I am the one who designed them, than should I not be the one to best understand them??? Well that would seem to be the obvious answer but as it turned out I had been drawing these guys to the point that I could do it with my eyes closed HOWEVER, I never really understood WHAT I was actually drawing. I was very aware of the exterior design but what lied beneath the Cropone fur was a mystery. So after a couple of days of drawing nothing but the frame of the character….I began to see what it was I needed to see while designing them.
-Jesse

Free Comic Book Day!

2010-05-03T15:09:00.001-07:00

Well the FCB Day has come and gone! I am happy to say that we had a good time and saw a lot of new faces. We got set up early at Heroes and Dreams Comic shop and started sketching immediately.

As expected, we quickly sold almost all of our “Premature Lunch Box” books. By the end of the day we only had a couple of books left. We were able to walk away from the table each with our own book. We are still deciding if we are going to produce anymore of these books.

It’s said that every time you turn a page, baby Jesus cries.

In Ele-Alta, there was stone. In Croponia, there was wood. This is what makes Amity so valuable. It’s where the green meets the grey! It contained wood, bone and stone. Most soldiers who fought in Amity bare this of badge of honor. Amity was the perfect find.
So we were happy to see that quite a few of the “Amity necklaces” found new homes.
So to everyone who showed up and showed some love…thank you! As always we enjoyed it and look forward to next year. Also, our Berona’s War: Preview Guide comes out on the 12th…so we will be at Heroes again the following Saturday to do signings. It will be Anthony, Cooper and I. The book is only around $3, so be sure to pick one up!

-Jesse

Slayers and Shaman

2010-04-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

Finally! We finished up two more stories blocking our paths of Book II completion. Anthony’s slayer story: Devotion and my shaman story: Denial. The shaman story (both written by Cooper) took me a bit longer than planned because my game plan kinda fell apart and began to take new directions after I started working on it. We wanted both stories to have somewhat the same feel to them and share a “darker” theme. We originally wanted them to have a Mignola feel, so we made sure to have lots of blacks and plenty of negative space. Anthony wanted to use several smaller panels over a larger image while I wanted more of a promotional poster look to mine.

I think we both ended up where we wanted. Devotion is a four page story consisting of larger drawings covered by smaller panels and Denial is a four page story being told through four different “movie style” posters, each representing the words on that particular page. And as always we each worked on our own rough layouts with our own characters and then passed them off for the other to do his character. Anthony draws all of the Ele-Alta and I all of the Cropones. My story wasn’t so bad for Anthony because I only had one page where our characters interact BUT as for Anthony’s story he had quite a few panels where he needed Cropones added. One of which is a HUGE group of zombie Cropones engaged in battle with a slayer…not something that particularly makes me glow with excitement.

I wanted to share a page from each story for your viewing satisfaction…enjoy.

-Jesse

SUNDAY DRIVE!!!

2010-04-18T20:01:00.000-07:00

Destination…Success

“The War” is the final story that is needed to complete the written part of Book II: Fight for Amity. It is turning out to be one of the tougher stories of the book because essentially it is also (in a since) our first comic. Thought Book II is composed of a bunch of short stories, The War is the same length as a comic (25-30 pages) so we are treating it as such…also we have hopes of actually putting out a comic or two (depending on the success of the first two books) so this could be good practice for finding the look we want for those books.
ANYWAY, Cooper is having some of the same problems I have come across when it comes to doing these stories…It can always be BETTER! After Anthony and I gave him our outline to The War, he immediately began to sink his teeth into it but after awhile he knew he could do better. After he made it better, it excited him enough to, once again, make it BETTER! But in doing so, he came across some problems in the story and needed to break through them.

The office with removable T-tops

That’s where THE SUNDAY DRIVE comes in. What better office then the 300zx? I dare to say there is one….no, no there is not! We jumped into the car and hit the road. Before too long we began to work our way through the story as well as work our way to other states…ooops.
We found ourselves entering Louisiana and started looking for somewhere to eat. The GPS was NO HELP AT ALL!!! At one point it actually said, “left in 1.5 miles. Take next right in 5…..where the hell are you?” I kid you not, it told us it had to call a friend and it would get back to us.

What did this thing just say???

We finally found a nice place to eat and later walked to a spot by the Mississippi River, with a good cup-of-joe and worked our way through the rest of the story. It made for a pretty good day.

Apparently everything closes on Sunday in this here Ghost Town. (Cooper)

-Jesse

More Bookmarks...

2010-04-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

With free comic book day right around the corner and our preview book “most likely” missing its release date (making me a disgruntled artist) I figured I might as well try to get something new for the event. I started small with the always easy Bookmarks! I gathered some of the art from Book II as well as from other projects (posters, games and such) and laid them out for a presentable little spot saver! Here is just a little look at the start of the project.
-Jesse

The Little Things

2010-04-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

It's the little things that make my day! So Jesse calls me the other day and tells me how he is working on some new drawings of Cropones. He is practicing drawing them in more dynamic poses to make sure they will be able to deliver all the expressions necessary for some upcoming projects...anyways, he mentioned how I was lucky that my characters had noses and more defined legs, cause that makes them easier to draw in all these different angles. So I took it upon myself to draw a little scene that popped into my head of one Cropone solving the problem his way. Needless to say, it made me laugh.

-Anthony-

Family-Alta?

2010-04-08T21:59:00.000-07:00

Here is the kind of guys we are….We are tight on deadlines, have a couple of books about to hit the shelves, working on concepts for spin off games and comics and still working on the completion of Book II: Fight For Amity. BUT we always seem to find the time to do stuff to screw with each other. Whether it’s a quick picture sent through the cell (one that may or may not directly blame MY characters for the fall of our book) or just a goofy idea that we want to see unfold before our eyes…we always find the time to make each other laugh!

Having said this, there was NO way I was going to pass up the opportunity to do this little gem of a joke! This is Anthony’s character from “A New Dawn.” When I saw it I couldn’t see anything but the following picture and giggled the whole time while working on it.

I'm not even going to explain it because if I did….you wouldn’t like it anyway.

-Jesse

Special Thanks!

2010-04-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

This is one post that I really looked foreword to! After the San Francisco Wondercon while hanging out in their hotel, Francisco and Humberto were nice enough to show us some love. They gave us a couple of quotes that we will be using on the Back of Berona’s War I: Field Guide. So having said that, I would be remiss not to say that Ramos’ “Art and Out” is also a must have!!! If you are familiar with his work (and you shouldn’t be reading this or any art blog, if you are not….SHAME ON YOU!) you would know all of his work is GREAT!

-Jesse

Ordinary meets Extraordinary

2010-04-06T13:15:00.000-07:00

This is a page from the three part story “Dawn of the Nance” from Berona’s War II: Fight for Amity. What Anthony and I like is the actual story was conceived on our last trip to Chicago. Its basically one FAT inside joke. The actual joke, I'm pretty sure, guarantied us our own personal timeshare in hell. But that’s not even the funniest part…I actually REALLY like the story our joke turned into. At this point the story has little to do with the origination of the joke but we will always know…the truth.
Oh yeah, one more thing. I'm pretty sure that…yes...yes…I'm pretty sure that those are NOT the words that go to the pictures. In fact I'm certain of it. Just having a little fun with my buddy. My buddy who drew his Ele-Alta without even thinking about it, while I spent TWO FREAK’N DAYS on the environment!

-Jesse

Adding Color to Our Day

2010-04-02T22:04:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to put down a page from another story from Berona’s War II. This is a story written by Opie and Colored by our buddy Wes. Not only does he take a lot of the stress off of ourselves by coloring these for us but we think he does a pretty good job as well! The R&D stories are going to be pretty funny (we think so anyway) and hopeful we will do several of them as sort of a running joke. So thanks Opie and Wes for sharing some of your talents with us!
-Jesse

A Broken Promise

2010-04-02T09:34:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the inked pages to a recently finished story. All that's left for this one is to have the color added, but first I'm going to jump on some other stories. Enjoy the preview.

-Anthony-

under COVER...

2010-04-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

Well here they are! Just to re-explain and to catch you up…Anthony and I made a small number of Berona’s Hundred Year War book to sell at conventions. The book sold surprisingly well and even more so, surprisingly fast. We joined up with Archaia and will be putting out a preview book (end of April). We wanted a new cover for the preview book. So what we did is (and here is where you have to keep up) gave the preview book our original Hundred Year War cover, since we would be changing that one as well. This way for all of you, who did not get a first edition book, it is a way for you to get something with the same cover.
THEN (if things go as planned in June) we will be releasing the second edition of Berona’s War (formally know as the Hundred Year War). We have given it a new cover and updated some of the pages inside…not to mention all the plot holes and endless field of grammatical errors.
The book we are working on, Berona's War: Fight For Amity, will be (God willing) finished by then and will be hitting shelves soon after (Aug).
We were excited about getting our new covers done and wanted to share them. So with no further ado….
-Jesse

ZOMBIE!

2010-03-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

This is a simple little slide show that was created just for fun. There is nothing fancy about it...it just shows some of the zombie characters from the first Book, Book II, convention posters and miscellaneous undead projects. I just wanted to share it and hope you like it as well. The one that I am looking forward to is “La Femme Cropone”...it's gonna be good! We started discussing the layout of that one last night and it's promising. That one will take awhile before its ready to be posted because it's not just a slide show with some music, its going to be way more layered and complex. BUT until then...enjoy Croponia's Zombie Horde!
-Jesse

Ladies of Croponia!

2010-03-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

The Ladies of Croponia is something I started the other day. Basically all it is, is a collection of some of the female Cropone characters. I was originally going to make a convention book out of them of maybe even a mini poster with the collection of females. What I am REALLY hoping I can do is a little after effects project with them…not sure if this will happen but it’s a thought.
Anyway, here are 3 of the 16 ladies I have designed (so far). For the most part all of them are fairly different from each other. They come in several different colors, some with spots and some without, as well as different head pieces. Some of them are from Croponia others from Krite, Condyle and Jackdaw.
The 3 I have here are Krite, Croponia and Condyle.
If I end up NOT doing anything with them, I will post them all later…
-Jesse

R&D Page

2010-03-13T10:49:00.001-08:00

Here is one of the pages I just finished inking for the R&D story. Next, onto the colors.
-Anthony

Give me some SKIN!

2010-03-11T16:46:00.000-08:00

My new best buddy from Cali asked us to undertake to task of doing some iPhone skins. So after a quick debate Anthony and I decided to each do a fan favorite…Slayers and Zombies. It was a tough call because we have quite a number of characters to choose from. I guess no matter who we chose, some one will always want someone else. I figure we might as well do someone WE enjoy. The other two skins were some I did at last minute just playing around. The one of Dawn is one I really enjoyed but Anthony said it was gay of me to do a “chick” skin and then he beat me severely…so I will not be using that one. I'm still not sure the final result for this little project but we think it might result in some skins for sale at the next con!!!
-Jesse

Read the Signs!

2010-03-08T21:17:00.000-08:00

As I was working on an iPhone Skin, I started to play around with several different designs. One thing lead to another and I had the idea to do signs. Though I couldn’t come up with too many that I really liked I did get a couple. Zombie Crossing is not an original idea. However, I do think that the bloody Cropone hand does add its own unique touch to it. It was a small challenge to replace the typical human print with that of a four fingered Cropone. I think it came out fun and adventurous and I believe it should be mounted on my wall….somewhere.

The second idea that I had was probably one I enjoyed the most. The basic zombie silhouette could have easily been used as a Zombie Crossing sign as well BUT by adding a little pizzazz (and by pizzazz, I mean a bullet through the head) to it, it gave the whole sign a new feel. After all, who didn’t smack their friends in the forehead when driving past a Stop Ahead sign? This sign was just begging for some alterations. Next we just got to look into getting these babies done!

-Jesse

Book II: Storylines

2010-03-06T15:45:00.000-08:00

Here is a list of some of the stories that will be appearing in Berona’s War Book II Storylines. Some of these are working titles and will have been changed before the book is finalized. And just to be clear…when I say that these are some of the “stories,” what I mean is that these are some of the TITLES is Book II. Some of them cant really be called Stories because they are so short. R&D for example is a 3 page joke as well as several Armor-Krios skits are only one page each. We have some of these titles broke down into something you might see in the Sunday Funnies while others have a “far Side” feel to them and then there are the ones that are written comic book style with panels. Anyway, I just wanted to put some of what we have been working on to give you a look into some of the titles from the next book.
-Jesse

1. The War
2. R and D
3. Bigger game
4. Troop 82
5. Denial
6. Armor Krios Intro
7. What’s in a Name?
8. Ruthless
9. Dawn of the Nance
10. Dune Dog Saints
11. Whatever it Takes
12. Broken promise
13. A New Dawn
14. Flag Bearer
15. Self-Les
16. Slayer
17. Fallido
18. Stronger, Faster, Young
19. How Kurt Almost Died
20. Dawn and the Dead

1st vs 2nd!!!

2010-03-01T15:59:00.000-08:00

As you know we’ve been working on getting Book II ready to hit the stores but what you might not know is that we are also revising the first edition as well. Berona’s Hundred Year War (the second edition) will also be hitting shelves across the nation this year.

When Anthony and I were first working on it there were several things that we wanted to change or tighten up before we printed it, but because we were short on time we had to go ahead and send it off to the printers. But now that we are published and are re-releasing it, we have the chance to go back and do the things we wanted. For the most part the book will be identical but there will be subtle changes throughout the book.

There will be a lot of names added to characters without them as well as some character changes every now and then…not to mention ALL the grammar corrections!!!
You can see from the picture above some of the changes that were made. Not all the pages (not even a quarter of them) will be this drastic of a change. But come on…that Cropone looks like a fuzzy potato! SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE!!!

-Jesse

Zombies and Blue jeans (things that will never go outta style)

2010-02-28T16:27:00.000-08:00

panel from How Kurtrell Almost Died.

“How Kurtrell Almost Died” Is done. The 4 page story is done and for the most part turned out the way I hoped. It’s fun, funny and all about the zombie hoard! What more can you ask for?
Did the 3 Alarm Illustration Gathering yesterday and had a pretty good time. Got to see a couple of guys I enjoy sketching with, so that’s always a good day for me. Another good thing was I had the opportunity to sell several “Knowing Your Zombie!” posters. They sold better than I thought they would.
The next step for me will be to start on the next story…Denial (story of the Shaman)

-Jesse

just goofing off at the table.

Wade and I with our mummy.

Kurtrell Presents: Zombie Knowledge

2010-02-25T15:53:00.000-08:00

From the Mouth of Kurtrell comes ZOMBIE KNOWLEDGE! Kurtrell has become my face of the undead. He’s an expert on the subject. I needed one so I went ahead and drew one. Why? Because that’s how my world works! I, like many others, am a fan of the Zombie so I whipped up a little goofy character who can share my geekism of the subject. I present to you Kurtrell. The ultimate Farmer…the Ultimate Foe! These are his words, not mine.
Anyway the character is based after a friend named Kurt, who, believe it or not, loves zombies too! Little Kurtrell is featured in the first book as well as holds a couple of pages in book II, Storylines.
This weekend I will be attending 3 Alarm’s Illustration event and wanted to bring something new to the table so I spent some time designing something I thought might be appreciated by others. It’s an 11X17 mini poster, “Knowing Your Zombies!” It will be a full color poster printed on cardstock and also come in a Toploader protective case. I will be selling them for $10. If they sell ok, Anthony and I will probably design a matching poster, “Know Your Local Slayer!”
-Jesse

One Step Close

2010-02-23T11:33:00.000-08:00

Thought I am still working on stories that are not quite done and stories that NEED to be done, I am finding myself going back and forth from story to story making sure they are all up to par.

I have recently revisited "Bigger Game" which is done but needed proper word balloons as well as proper text. Once doing those corrections I realized that the cover was not done yet….ooops!

I had Cooper reach into his bag of goodies and pull out some prologue text for the cover page and I finished up the illustration. So what you see now is the (hopefully) final look for the cover to “Bigger Game.” It’s a 12 page short story from Berona’s War Book II Storylines.

I will try to get a list of stories that we are expecting to be in the book as soon as we lock them down…which shouldn’t be long!

-Jesse

Dawn and the Dead color.

2010-02-21T19:53:00.001-08:00

We are still trying to get a lock on exactly what stories as well as their page amounts for Book II. While we are doing that we are also still working on the stories we have written and are ready to go to the next level.
The problem that we came across and never expected to have is we actually have too much for the book. I remember at one point we thought we would never have enough to fill it up…wow, I wish!
We just cut four or five stories from the line up because it went over our page limit. We are not trashing the story altogether but rather putting them on a back burner to be used in a future project; maybe for the Blog or an online comic…we could even put them together to do a spin off comic. Who knows? But as for now we are still pushing forward with the stories we KNOW we will be using. I finished inking Dawn and the Dead quite some time ago but needed to add color to it. I have recently done just that. It was not a fun or even pleasant experience BUT I did it and am happy to say that I don’t think it turned out bad at all. I wanted to share a couple of pages with you and hope you enjoy it.
-Jesse

At the CON!

2010-02-03T23:52:00.000-08:00

I’ve just returned from a long and fun weekend in Dallas, TX for the Comicon. It wasn’t one of the largest cons we’ve done but I have to put it up there with one of the more fun ones.

We sold some originals, which is ALWAYS HARD FOR ME to do!!!! I know its good money but damn, I hate to see them go!
There were some “interesting” lines this year which led to some great sells. Not only did we sell some originals we sold a good amount of books as well. We saw some old faces from previous cons and also made some new fans….which is what we LOVE to do.
We also met up with one of the guys (Kraig) from our publisher. We had a chance to goof off for a little while in-between selling some books. We always enjoy handing out with him!

And on to OUR FAVORITE part of the con… Sean Patrick Flanery. When things started to slow down we had a chance to talk and get some pictures. We took one in particular that we all seem to love!
-Jesse

DALLAS COMICON!

2010-02-03T23:28:00.000-08:00

With the Dallas Con right around the corner, a friend (Brian Thompson) and I tried our best to get a Necklace design locked down before the opening day. Anthony and I had been playing around with a few designs, trying to get one made that resembled the ones from the book.
After about the first two or three hours or drilling, sanding, cutting, crimping and tieing we felt like throwing the drimmel through the wall. We stepped back, took a breather and finally came up with a good design that we all liked. So the plan is to try to get several of these done before Wizard World Chicago. This would normally be an easy task except that we have a serious deadline for getting out our second book, Berona’s War Book II…not to mention making corrections to the second edition of the first book (Berona’s Hundred Year War) before its release. Here's to hoping!
-Jesse

Wrapping It Up!

2010-01-28T12:50:00.000-08:00

I finished all the clean-up drawings for the Fallido story and have moved onto coloring. It’s one of the easier stories to color so I should be done with the whole story (all seven pages of it) by the middle of next week.

I would be finished sooner with the process but we have the Dallas comicon this weekend and I will be heading to Anthon’s in TX for the weekend. It’s all good because we don’t get too much time together to actually work on our projects….other than through Skype. Anyway, before I go, I wanted to post a page from Fallido so you can get a taste of the look I'm going for. It’s a fun, simple, funny story that I hope you will enjoy as much as I do.
-Jesse

Fallido

2010-01-21T11:53:00.000-08:00

On to the next! This is the story of Fallido (foul-eh-dough). This story has a bit of a funny background. I wrote it about 10 years ago. If I remember correctly I had written it on an old piece of scrap paper and it had sat on my art room floor for a couple of months and was pretty much lost in the art shrapnel that was strewn about. Then one day a buddy of mine (Shawn) was over doing some sketching with me when I heard him laughing. He picked up the story and said “This is great!” I had somewhat forgotten about it and had to re-read it to see what he was talking about. I have to admit, I did think it was pretty funny. If it werent for Shawn pointing it out to me, it would have probably been scrapped.

Since then I had posted it on my website and even went as far as making a little book out of it (kinko style). I got some really good feedback from it (plus Im pretty sure its one of my mom's favorites...so I guess I had to do something with it) and always wanted to do something with it. Berona’s War, Book II is my chance. The original story was about a paranoid dog, since that wouldn’t work for Berona, I had to do a little improvising. Its now about a Cropone soldier.

It’s only going to be 6 or 7 pages but I'm pretty confident it will bring a smile to your face.
I am illustrating it in a very simple looking style…bold colors, cartoony character, simple background, etc. I think it will match the story much better that way.

-Jesse

Whatever it Takes

2010-01-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

I took a bit of a different approach on “Whatever it Takes,” I just didn’t want to use the same look I have been using for the other stories I did. I wanted to give it more of a messy feel…Its more of a “controlled messiness” but messy none the less. I can see people liking this story a lot, at least I hope they will. Its only seven pages so I can’t show too much of it without giving it away, but than again, the two pages I do show makes it look like the most boring story EVER! Take my word on it…you’re gonna dig it.
-Jesse

Dawn and the Dead

2010-01-04T11:40:00.000-08:00

I finished the pages for Dawn and the Dead and will be coloring them in the near future but since this is a three part story I want to have all three done before I start coloring them....so the style doesn’t accidentally change halfway through. I did want to go ahead and post a few of the pages (even though they aren’t colored) so you can see the look of the story. I really enjoy these characters.
-Jesse

High Ho....High Ho....

2009-12-29T11:23:00.000-08:00

Well Christmas is over and its back to work we go! I was playing around with some sketches for a friend’s project and started goofing around. At this point it always seems to make its way back to these little guys! I'm not complaining or anything but I often wonder if when I am done if I will be able to draw anything other then a Cropone….haha.
-Jesse

The Clean Up

2009-12-04T02:52:00.000-08:00

Here is the video of me cleaning up the previous sketch.
-Anthony-

Working Process

2009-12-03T22:32:00.000-08:00

I got a new screen capturing software, so I've been itching to test it out. This first video is me roughing in one of the panels on pg. 3. The next video will be me cleaning it up. I'll post that when I finish, which won't be too long. Sorry its small, I should have zoomed in more while drawing. I'll get it right next time. Still learning the software.
-Anthony-

Dawn of the Nance...

2009-12-03T10:15:00.001-08:00

We have quite a few stories in the pipeline for Book II and some of them are easier then others. However, one of the stories that I have been looking forward to the most has got to be “Dawn of the Nance.”
The idea is broken into three tiny skits that tell a little about a creature living in darkness and feeding off the souls and flesh of others. What’s not to love?
Our two main bad guys (or girls) will be Dawn and Nance…actually they are both the same character. One (Dawn) became so cruel and ugly on the inside that she literally pushed out her physical appearance and became what she really was (the Nance). From that point on Dawn basically became a “Siren” calling all passing travelers into her pit of hate.
My favorite part to the story is that everyone sees Dawn for her beauty and it ends up costing them their lives. However, the only one to “see” her for what she truly is…is the one Cropone (Yaunt) who can’t see at all. Irony…I think so! Anyway, I'm getting a kick out of it, haha.
Anthony is working on a short called “What happened to Flight 82?” which a bunch of flight squadron soldiers get separated on a mission, each branching into a new story in the book. One of the soldiers, Coffey, will lead to a Dawn of the Nance storie. This one will be a bit different to handle because both Anthony and myself will have our hands digging into it. We’re not too sure how we will do it but most likely we will each have about a 50% roll in designing and drawing the story.
Anyway, I just figured I would go ahead and post a little bit of what I got. It’s still rough but you will get the point.
-Jesse

1...DAWN of the NANCE

Rumor has it that there is a creature so cruel and malevolent that simply approaching it would wipe your existence clean from this world.

It is called the Nance and it is living proof the misery indeed loves company. It devours anyone and anything that it can lour into its reach.

It does not feed to satisfy hunger but rather trying to fill an endless pit of anger, trying to make all others as miserable as itself.

But not to worry because after all…it’s just rumor.

2...DAWN of the NANCE “A New Dawn”

The Nance, thought once to be a Cropone, was known as Dawn. She possessed an overwhelming beauty that was able to get her what she wanted when she wanted it.

But her beauty was only skin deep, for what was beneath, was truly foul and repulsive

She in fact became so cruel and ugly on the inside that she could no longer keep a grasp on her physical appearance.

Her true self, became the Nance and isolated itself in the cold confines of a cave while Dawn, a representation of her former beauty, was forced to roam the nearby area. Neither of which were who they use to be. The Nance, being the ugly face of hatred and Dawn having nothing remaining but her beauty

The Nance, so feared and repulsive, sent out such a bad vibe that most would avoid the area totally on gut instinct. However Dawn, who possesses more beauty than the eye can even acknowledge, had no trouble leading more than enough victims to Nance’s cave.

3... DAWN of the NANCE “Dawn and the DEAD”

One by one, farmers, workers, lost soldiers, children and stragglers of all sorts found themselves in Nance’s grasp.

It seemed there was no denying the temptation their eyes delivered once settling on Dawn.

Most of the time we do not wait to see past the thin shell of ones appearance. Beauty is skin deep, and unfortunately, “skin deep” is all Dawn needs.

Something called a...a..."Board Game?"

2009-11-28T02:03:00.001-08:00

Well, awhile back I mentioned that I was working on a game and since then I have had quite a few emails asking about it. I can now tell you that the prototype is DONE! Yes, it’s all done. Why a board game? Well as you may have seen in my last post, I'm just trying to get a little something back from my childhood. Who didn’t love Fireball Island, Torpedo Run and Hero Quest?!?! Many of hours were lost on those games and I wouldn’t change it for the world…

As for our game, it has been played over and over and over, trying to get out all of the kinks. I believe that we have got rid of all of them. For the first dozen times it was played, I basically sat back and watched as other players had at it. After awhile I began to play it as well. I can honestly say that I really enjoy it.
It is different every time it is played as well as there is different ways it can be played. It can be played solitaire, two, three or four players. It can be played everybody against everybody or played with teams.
We ordered pizza and stayed in and played. With the amount of times that we played, we came up with the rough average of game duration to be around 10 minutes per player. So 1 a player game will last 10 minutes and 4 players will have about a 40 minute game.

A little bit about the game…the goal is to make it from point A to point B. Each player chooses 1 of the 6 playable characters, put there pawn on a starting zone and roll to move.

2 of the 6 Player Cards

Along the path (whichever one they choose) they will travel trying to get to the FINAL FIGHT space. Whoever gets there first rolls to see which one of the 6 Bosses they will fight. But on there journey to the Final Fight, they may encounter a countless number of events that will alter the game…some good, some bad.

Players can have an unlucky encounter such as rockslides, lightning strikes, enemy attacks, animal attacks, or dangers inspired by fate. All of which can send you back to start. However, if things go well for the players, they can gather weapons and to make their travels a tad more comfortable, and with around 30 different weapons and items to acquire (each with different abilities) each game will differ from the last.

a few of the Weapons and Items

Also, players not only get their share of good and bad events BUT they may also may have the pleasure of traveling with any COMPANIONS that they may come across. Once a player picks up a companion their game will alter once more. Each companion (8 in total) that players travel with have a direct effect on the player he is traveling with as well as other players.

Some Companion Cards

All in all, I think that this might actually be a pretty enjoyable game for fans to play. Now whether or not it ever sees light of day, I don’t know but worst case scenario…me and my friends have something to play over some pizza and beer…haha

Randon Events Book

Everything layed out

-Jesse

No Movable Parts...and still fun!!!

2009-11-27T14:19:00.000-08:00

I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before! For some time now I have been making and selling bookmarks with my art work on them. It was something that was fairly easy to do and I could sell them for a cheep price.

When we started working on Berona’s Hundred Year War, I made some more book marks with characters from the book on them. And they sold right along with the books.

Well this week I was working up a new design for some business cards and then it hit me…the whole backbone behind the book and characters is simply, for me, to recapture my childhood. It seems as though all the things that I loved growing up has been completely stripped from me.

I was obsessed with Transformers when I was younger and have never stopped loving them HOWEVER its so hard for me to continue loving them the way I did when every time I turn around someone is making the comment, “Oh you must have LOVED the movie!” or “my son, little Jimmy, watches his Transformer dvd over and over. He’s a fan too.”

Michael Bay…I slap you!

You know what…Stop including us in that abomination of an attempt to recreate my past!!! Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the move, I really did but in my opinion one thing had nothing to do with the other. There was the transformers that “we” grew up with, and than there is today’s transformers.

G.I. Joe…uhg, don’t even get me started because I'm not even going to dignify that Helen Keller production. Stephen Sommers must have rolled out of bed one morning and said, “hmmm, GI Joe… I seemed to remember hearing that name before. I think I will make a movie about it. It’s about giant mosquitoes right? There weren’t any giant mosquitoes? Oh well, Ill just put a bunch of other crap that I think will look cool.”

Stephen Sommers…I slap you!

Sorry about my rant but you see where I am going. It seems as all the great things that we grew up are being stripped right out of our hands. Toys are being RE-made, movies are being RE-made, TV shows, games, books….all RE-made! Stop it already. If you want to be inspired by something, that’s GREAT, and that’s what its all about but don’t go around taking something we loved and ruining it…because you think it will make you lots of money!

Not EVERYTHING HAS TO HAVE MOVABLE PARTS, it doesn’t all have to have a USB port, it doesn’t all need batteries! There is a little thing out there that I like to call, an “imagination.” I know it can be scary to use it but once you get the hang of it, the options are limitless!

So in closing, please try to use your “imagination” and leave our childhood alone!!!!

Oh yeah, the bookmarks, haha…Here is something that I thought might be fun to have saving your place in your book and also give you a little flashback to what we use to love.

-Jesse

More Speaking....more Signing :)

2009-11-25T14:22:00.001-08:00

Ok, nothing big, but I wanted to put up another post here and say a little bit about what we have been up to. We made another trip to Dallas, TX to do another book signing…this one was a bit more of a “special guest” kind of thing. We were set up in a large college class room to speak to some students on the process of the book, as well as the actual book itself. A LOT more people showed up then I was expecting. It defiantly made the whole drive to Texas worth it. This was all done through a Bunch of Short Guys. http://abunchofshortguys.org/ Thanks Guys!
We got to share a little bit about Berona’s War Book II with everyone. We are just as excited as everyone else to get that one in your hands, as well as ours!
I really enjoyed this one because everyone was inquisitive and seemed very interested in what we had to say. We got a wonderful response to the event. Both Anthony and myself enjoyed it.
And to all of you who attended…we wanted to thank you for getting a book, after all it is people like you that we made it for.
Thanks Guys!
-Jesse

Berona

2009-11-18T08:36:00.000-08:00

After being asked the question AGAIN…I’ve decided to go ahead and make my next post about the name Berona.

The email received….
“Just wondering how and where you came up with the name "Berona" since it's my last name. I guess I need to read the book.”

My Response….
“You are not the first person to as this question, However you may be the first to ask that actually had the name Berona.
I REALLY wish I had some great inspiring story involving the name Berona, but I don’t. But since you asked....
The original idea was a calendar we called the "One Year War." But like ideas do, it grew into something more. After working on it for a short period of time the calendar idea turned into a book. We could no longer call it the “one year war” so we went with the "Hundred year war."
So we worked on the story for nearly a year and in that year we were asked a couple of times if the story had anything to do with the actual Hundred years war, from the 1337-1453. We, at that point saw the title being a problem. However, we had been calling it that for so long, we couldn’t see ourselves changing it.
SOOOooo, Anthony and myself were sitting in a coffee shop and I suggested that we add a name in front of the title. After a short moment of thinking, I RANDOMLY spit out the name “Berona.” The name of the land at war as well as the character who is responsible for the book is called Berona.
To be honest, I didn’t even know it was a real name and on top of that, I don’t think it was suppose to stick. But just like the original title…it stuck. I'm glad it did because we both like it a lot.
And will most likely continue using it in any future “Berona” related projects!
I hope that answers your question
And yes, you need to read the book! :)
-Jesse

BIGGER GAME

2009-11-17T23:35:00.000-08:00

I'm done with the next story in Book II, “Bigger Game.” This one gave me a very large headache but I can say that I am very happy with it. I went ahead and put the levels of work that went into this one. Unfortunately it didn’t flow as easily as Stronger, Faster, Young, but that was because I had to do a lot more struggling with the actual layout of the panels. But here is a look at one of the pages and the stages I took for “Bigger Game!”
-Jesse

On to the next....

2009-10-31T10:21:00.000-07:00

Now that I finished up “Stronger Faster Young” I am working on another story for book II. I actually started this story first but dropped it to work on the “Young” story. I am enjoying this one because it is more comic style. BUT that is also what makes it more difficult for me. I am not too familiar with paneling. However, for the most part this has been pretty enjoyable to work on.
I don’t have a working title for this one yet but it involves some of my favorite characters from the first book, the Condyle (my favorite being the Krite). The Condyle warriors are the savages of the land. They suppress there blood lust through their hunts. This is the story of one of those hunts. I have to admit that when I started out wanting to do a Condyle story, I wanted it to be more of a action filled hunt. However, it did not turn out that way at all. I was struggling with it for awhile and then a friend got a hold of it. Opie Cooper had a little fun with the story and took it in a whole new direction. I ended up liking his take on it WAY more than mine. So that’s what I went with. I added a little bit to it here and there but for the most part…its his story.
I will post a little bit more later on the layout of one of the pages but until then, Here it the cover picture to the story.
-Jesse

Stronger Faster YOUNG

2009-10-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, so as we’ve mentioned before, Berona’s War, Book II will be a compilation of short stories and moments from the first book. The first story I started working on was inspired by a pictue I saw years ago by Skottie Young. At the time I didn’t realize that it was Skottie’s picture but I knew I loved it.

After getting waist deep in the project, I showed him some of the pictures and told him a little bit about it. I wanted to get his approval before I got too far into the story…why you ask? Because the main character is based after Mr. Young himself. He had no problem with it what so ever. In fact I even think he liked it!!! Woo-Whoo!!!

The story is about a character who is inspired by stories he hears about a group of Ele-Alta slayers. These stories inspire him to return to his overrun village to seek revenge. His story in turn inspires others to follow in his footsteps as well.

I enjoyed working on it and wanted to post a piece of it for you to see. Here it is in no particular order. As usual, Anthony did all the Ele-Alta characters and I did all of the Cropones. Enjoy “STRONGER FASTER YOUNG!”
-Jesse

DEAD @ 17 Pin-up

2009-10-20T15:16:00.000-07:00

Ok, as you can see below, Anthony and I were asked to do a Pin-up for Image and Josh Howard’s Dead @ 17 comic. It was a nice little break from Berona’s War "Book II". Its been so long, I was starting to think I forgot how to draw girls. This should have been easier than it was….Geez, I almost gave up. Not really Josh…I wouldn’t let you down! But it did give me some problems. What made things even worse is I was at Anthony’s place when he started his piece.
All I remember is he started doing a rough sketch and then the pizza man knocked on the door…by the time I paid him and went back inside….Anthony was done!!! REALLY ANTHONY??? God, I hate him sometimes.
Some how he manages to come up with the concept, do the rough, clean it up, add color and do the background…all in the time it took me to walk four feet to the door and back. I just don’t get it. But what makes things even worse is that I had a sketch that I really liked I had done the night before. But after seeing his picture, I had to throw mine away. Oh well, I guess that’s the price we pay for working with greatness.
So anyway. I had a few ideas in my head of what I wanted the outcome to look like. After playing with some sketches for awhile, I came up with the pictures you see now. I was very close to going with the first one with just the two girls. I was worried that the third girl in the foreground would be too much and cover up a lot of the detail of the other two girls. But by the time it was all said and done, I think the composition ended up working out just fine. I'm actually happy with the way it turned out. From our understanding, Josh likes them and frankly….that’s all we needed to know!
-Jesse

Pinup Art

2009-10-18T21:04:00.000-07:00

Well this doesn't have anything to do with our next book, but while we are working hard on book 2 we still enjoy getting to whip out a nice piece of fan art every now and then. We were honored to be asked to contribute to Josh Howard's Dead@17 pinup section. Josh is working on his next compilation of books with Image Comics and he asked if we would like to draw up some hot girls. Honestly, who could resist? Thanks again, Josh.

Storyboards

2009-10-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

Here is an idea for a short animated piece we were wanting to do. Jesse mentioned wanting to do some short simple animated pieces and as he was explaining his idea to me this is what I was envisioning. I went ahead and drew up a rough storyboard. It still needs some adjustments, but here is the first pass. Its definitely longer than what Jesse was thinking, but I think it would still be cool to do once we have the time.

Borders Signing Texas

2009-10-13T10:01:00.000-07:00

Ok...so it wasnt REALLY this bad but what a great photo huh? haha

After the 3 Alarm signing, I ended up traveling home with Anthony and stayed with him for the week. We had another Borders book signing the following weekend and it just kind of work out for us with the traveling. I got to visit with my buddy Brian Thompson britown.com and we had a pretty good time hanging out. He helped me develop the Berona’s War Game. The idea was semi developed but Brian really helped me hit it home. If things go well I can say we have a pretty good chance of getting a solid board game out. It will have a nostalgic D&D feel with good old school board game fun. The trick was making it so it was fun and versatile enough to want to play again and again but at the same time not making it SO complex that it was a headache trying to figure out how to play...and though we are at the beginning stages, I really think we might have figured out how to do that. More on that to come :)
So on to the Book signing…You know its weird, if you actually ADVERTISE a book signing, it goes over a lot more successful. When we showed up it was almost like they didn’t have any idea we were coming. Not to mention that they didn’t put ANYTHING on their website. When I asked them about it they said, “We sent the information to corporate…I don’t know why they didn’t post it.” REALLY??? God forbid we DORVE 6 HOURS to get there!!!! HOWEVER, having said that, we tried to make the best of it (we usually do) and figured “screw it!” we’re here so lets do this!

I'm glad we stuck with it because it actually ended up turning out pretty good. We sold WAY more than we thought we would. We can thank the crowd that showed up towards the end of the signing. I kid you not, when we got there…there was like four people in the store and three of them were about 90 years old! Fortunately we had a D&D crowd show up as well. Yes, you heard me correctly…a Dungeons and Dragons Roll playing group showed up! I guess they have a scheduled game night or something. Anyway, it worked out for us. Come to find out, they seem to be a target audience! HA!
So to wrap things up, again, we had a pretty good time and got a good bit done on Book II.

-Jesse

3 Alarm Signing

2009-10-13T09:37:00.000-07:00

Book Signing on the Coast!

the 3 Alarm Exclusive Sketch Poster

the Hard Rock

Sorry for the stupid amount of time away from the ole Blog…been a bit busy. Don’t be too hard on me because Anthony has already smacked me around!
We are still working on Book II and are pretty happy with what we got so far. We had our book signing at 3 Alarm comics the other weekend and had a pretty good time. Got to hand out with the owner Scott as well as Mitch Byrd…two really cool cats we enjoyed hanging out with!!! We not only had a good time but also got to sell a few more books as well as some posters. We put out a 3 Alarm exclusive poster and sold quite a few. We only had 100 so we didn’t think they would last too long. After the signing we headed out to the Hard Rock and got our grub on! All in all we had a good day…Thanks 3 Alarm!

-Jesse

It's Why They Fear the Water...

2009-09-03T13:52:00.000-07:00

I’ve been working a lot on some of the possibilities for the next book and though, for the most part, we have a good solid game plan, there will be some figuring out to do for the last section of the book. The first part (possibly the first 3/4th of the book will be stories of Berona’s War, the end of the book will pose as a possible new treat.
Anthony and I haven’t really figured out any exacts to what we want to do with the over-all look to the third party but we know we want it to be 30% fun mixed in with 70% scary! Maybe something a bit different then the characters from Berona’s War. But what we do know is that it’s going to be a challenge for our little heroes.
The Ele-Alta and the Cropones have plenty of experience with destroying one another but the challenge will come when they are faced with a new foe…An enemy with far more firepower and superior technology. It will be their challenge!
I am a huge fan of the classics. Black and white monster movies, you know, the Evil Alien Brain From Planet X, kinda stuff!!! Godzilla, War of the Worlds, Jason and the Argonauts, anything where you have one who triumphs against many!
Having said that, I love the idea of combining the Ele-Alta’s sheer brute force with the cunning intelligence of the Cropones…and at the end of the day, it’s still not enough! So how will they overcome? Hell if I know, but it’s gonna be good!!!
-Jesse

these are just a few Coffey Shop sketches, trying to figure out a "feel" to the new threat...

In the Works!!!

2009-08-31T12:30:00.000-07:00

Even though we are still pushing the book we have out (Berona’s Hundred Year War) we want to keep the momentum going and have already began work on a second book as well, not to mention possibly trying to get out some designs for our “Army Men” type collectable characters.
First things first…The second book, if things go as planned, will be done in the same fashion as the first one except it will be more “story” based. We have been calling it a Tale of Two Runners but the odds are that it will end up being something different. However the content will be the same.
The book will consist of a bunch of short stories about the characters from Berona’s War. Since the first book is a bit of a tease (a beautiful tease, but a tease none the less) we thought we would go ahead and slap the readers with a bit story…actually put them with soldiers in the battle. The feel of the book will be the same as the first because we will be doing the stories with a bit of mixed medium. Some of the stories will be done in the comic style paneling while others will be a few pages of text followed by a picture or two, then we will have a few one page type story (this will be done in a Far Side manner). So the plan is to give a nice mix of story telling. Again, this is the plan and as we all know, plans do change!

Up coming interstitials. Well that’s what we’ve been calling them! However, that’s probably not the right term but you know what….I don’t care! I’ve wanted to do a fun little project in After Effects for a long time now. I ran an idea by Anthony and he said “Lets do it!” So I guess we’re gonna do it :) If we actually get them done, we will post them on our site and they will be short little scenes from the war. We are doing them for no other reason then just to do them and because we think they will be fun.

The Army Men! In the back of “Berona’s War” there is a page of our character in the classic army men poses. We also had this design on our t-shirts (which ended up coming close to selling out). So we figured why not? I admit we know very little about doing molds and such but we are learning and we both feel good about creating a bag of our little heroes! The plan is to have a bag of three Ele-Alta soldiers as well as a bag of three Cropone soldiers. If that works out, we might actually try creating a bag of “Slayer vs. Zombie Pack”

-Jesse

The proto type

On To Borders!!!

2009-08-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

We left from there and headed over to Borders where we did more of the same. We were scheduled to be there from 5-7pm but ended up staying until 10pm. We stayed busy the whole time and were both VERY happy with the support we received from fans, friends, family and co-workers…not to mention all of the strangers who just walked up and liked what they saw.
We needed to sell 20-25 books to hit the “High End” list so we can get into the other Borders book stores. At the end of the night Catherine, the store employee, walked up to us and gave us the total. 104 books!!!
At the end of the night we all headed over to Chilies and filled up on sustenance! While eating, Anthony and I continued to talk to about the possibilities of book II, a Tale of Two Runners (working title…haha). We are excited about the possibilities.
-Jesse

Heroes and Dreams Book Signing!

2009-08-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

The book signing weekend is over! Anthony and Our friend Brian traveled from Texas to stay the weekend. They arrived late Friday night and we immediately began sketching in some of the books to get a head start for Sat. We knew we pre-sold 40 books to Heroes and Dreams, so we had to get to work on putting sketches in them.
Saturday morning we woke up and continued sketching in the books before we headed out to the comic shop and book store.
We got to Heroes and immediately began to set up and pass out books. We stayed there around 3 hours and stayed busy the whole time. The time went by pretty quickly because they’re a pretty good group of guys there and we always enjoy hanging out with them.

-Jesse

Book Signings

2009-08-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

This weekend Anthony will be heading down to Mississippi to join me in a couple of book signing events. First from 1-4 on Sat.22nd we will both be attending a “Meet and Greet” at Heroes and Dreams (http://www.heroesanddreams.com/) where we will be handing out the pre-ordered books as well and signing any new books bought! PLUS we will be selling a limited number of shirts there as well.
After that we will head to Borders in Flowood to do a book signing there too. That signing will be from 5-7pm…also Sat. 22nd
After that we will (traditionally) go for a much needed bite at a local Applebees.

-Jesse

Wizard World Chicago 2009

2009-08-18T13:06:00.001-07:00

Anthony and myself just returned from the Wizard Convention in Chicago where we released our book to the public for the first time. We had a pretty damn good time! Not only did we have a good time hanging out with some of our favorite artists, we sold out of all the books we brought.Oddly enough we sold our first book in the plane terminal…who would of thunk it? We were over weight on our luggage so we had to start pulling out books so we could just add them to our carry-on. The lady doing the check in saw the books and wanted one. Not to mention the girl checking us in our hotel wanted one as well. Two books gone and the convention hadn’t even started! Sorry to say we only brought three boxes of books. 75 books in all!Personally the highlight of the con for me was getting the “Skottie Young Seal of Approval!” http://www.skottieyoung.com/Skottie is a hell of a guy, busy as can be…but one hell of a guy! Its one thing when a fan comes up and tells you that they love your work but when someone that you admire tells you they like what you do….its a whole new sense of triumph! Thanks Skottie!So after the rubber band war in the hotel, stupid amount of pizza consumption, selling out of books and shirts, laughing till our sides hurt…I would say we had a great weekend!!!

-Jesse