Michael has done a hero spotlight this time on Nez. Check it out here: http://www.plaidhatgames.com/news/413

Good places to start if you've still got your GM training wheels on.

Every year the Baltimore Comic Con has published a convention art book called 'The Baltimore Yearbook' that features a character or property, where that creator is a guest of the convention. Selected guest artists are asked to contribute a piece of fan art for the book to celebrate the creator and property. It allows us to play in someone's world, and offers a chance for attendees to meet new creators as they go around the show floor collecting autographs in their yearbook. This year's subject is Ben Edlund's The Tick! To the left you can see my finished art, and below in the blogpost I'll walk through my process. I started with a drawing of The Tick––and then started realizing how difficult it might be for me to include the sense of humor and parody to the piece. I looked up all the other characters that appeared in the comics and animated series, even thought of including characters from The Plotmasters...but none of those spoke to me. We are always encouraged to include our own characters into our Yearbook piece--to create a cross-over image that might not have otherwise happened. I'm always hesitant to add mice from Mouse Guard into these pieces, but it dawned on me that I could parody my own characters with a close-but-not-quite version called Vole Patrol. That's when the line 'No more Mr. nice mice' came into my head. I drew vole versions of my characters on copy paper along with the banner and digitally added them in to the pencils I had of the Tick and blocked in some colors. I then printed out the digital assembly above at 14 x 17 and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol board. On my Huion lightpad, I can see through the surface of the bristol down to the printout to use it as a guide to ink by. I used Copic Multiliner pens (mostly the 0.7 nib) to do all the inkwork. I debated inking in the balloon and text, but to make the original art more salable (available at the auction in Baltimore), I opted to ink it in. I kept Tick open linework mostly, only adding a little bit of weight/texture to the contour lines. The voles I inked like I'd ink my mice and the groundcovering became my dark anchor visual. With the inks finished it was time to start coloring the piece. I scanned the inks and began laying in flat colors. This part of the process is called 'flatting' where the color areas are all established with flat colors (no shading, no rendering, no textures, no effects). While the Tick's colors are closer to correct here, I flatted in false colors for everything else––sometimes having bold wrong colors helps you see that you're staying in the lines. In this step I also established all the color holds (areas where I want the ink lines to be a color other than black) like the text, banner stripes, lantern glow and fading the ground covering. After I quickly switched all the bold vole colors to the correct ones, the last step was to do the final rendering and lighting effects for the piece. I did this mostly using the dodge and burn tools and a stock Photoshop brush. This piece will be published in the Baltimore Yearbook later this month. That book will be available for purchase at the convention and through the con's website afterwards. The original inked piece will also be for sale in the art auction at the con on Saturday. Past Baltimore Yearbook pieces & blogposts: 2023: First Comics (American Flagg): https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2023/07/american-flagg-baltimore-yearbook-2023.html 2022: Scary Godmother: https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2022/10/scary-godmother-tribute-for-baltimore.html 2021: Halloween: https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2021/10/happy-halloween-baltimore-yearbook.html 2019: Blacksad: https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2019/10/blacksad-for-baltimore-yearbook.html 2018: Strangers in Paradise: https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2018/09/baltimore-yearbook-strangers-in-paradise.html 2017: Tellos: https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2017/09/tellos-baltimore-comic-con-yearbook.html 2016: Archie: http://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2016/08/baltimore-yearbook-2016-archie-process.html 2015: Mouse Guard: http://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2015/09/baltimore-comic-con-yearbook-cover.html 2014: Grendel: http://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2014/08/baltimore-yearbook-grendel.html 2012: Liberty Meadows: http://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2012/09/baltimore-comic-con-yearbook-2012-this.html

@hunterb2003 Many of the limited prints are available in my online store: https://t.co/EH2iJFHUlR

Back in March this photo of a baby weasel 'riding' on a woodpecker in the UK went viral. People shared it, made memes of it, photoshoped people/things in place of either creature...it was a big deal online for a few days. And many many fans sent it my way to make sure I'd seen it. And every time it would come across my digital desk, I'd think "If I had the time, I'd do a drawing of this to have some fun and let everyone know I've seen it". Instead of doing a drawing, I opted to tweet this. But it lead to some fans, who missed my joke, thinking they needed to show me the photo to prove that a drawing like that would be believable. So I pushed aside the work I was supposed to be doing to quickly pay homage to the photo, and have some fun with non-mouse characters who could appear in Mouse Guard (or perhaps a Legends type tale). I drew the woodpecker and the weasel on separate sheets of paper, but worked on the weasel while laying that sheet over the woodpecker sheet on the lighbox to help get the scale and pose right for the woodpecker's position. I scanned the pencils in to Photoshop to merge the drawings (though I tinted them to help me see each figure better) and resize it within a border so I could re-use the art later for publishing if I wanted to. I printed out that photoshop work-up and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series Bristol. On my lightox I could see the printout through the surface of the bristol to use as a guide while inking. For pens I used Copic Multiliners (the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs mainly) In both the penciling and inking steps I looked at reference for the European Green Woodpecker's feather pattern and markings (as well as anatomy & proportion). I opted to not include any back ground inking texture or marks to let the two figures really tell the story. Lastly I scanned the inks and colored the piece in Photoshop. Most of the rendering and effects were done using the Dodge and Burn tools over base color flats. This piece will be appearing in my 2015 Mouse Guard Sketchbook due out in July. 2015 Appearances: Motor City May 15-17 Denver Comic Con May 22-25 Heroes Con June 19-21 San Diego Comic Con July 8-12 Long Beach Comic Con: Sept. 12-13 Baltimore Comic Con Sept. 25-27 New York Comic Con Oct. 8-11 Art-Bubble Comics Festival: Copenhagen: Nov. 14-15

Study drawing and learn to draw out of your head. And also consider this – your art is like your personality, everyone is different. Try to find what it is that makes you different and put that into your art. It sounds trite but it really is very important and maybe a little risky…

Painted the Assassins Chinchilla a while back and thought I should post it. It is another character in the Rodent line-up. The other piece is a tribute to the anime series Claymore. Enjoy.