HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

...from st michel, which may or may not be 100% cursed.

hint: the answer is yes. it's always yes.

i did a second pic that i also really liked, and between you and me (and 1,041 other people) it came out fantastic. but i'm going to save it for another time... here's a sneak peek!

day 27 psylocke

i'll be honest, she's not my favorite character... i guess at the time there were just a lot of asian ninja lingerie models running around comics, so she didn't make much of an impression on me. but it looked ridiculous when i tried to draw wolverine in the outfit, so...

8x11", pencil. $40 if you want it.

the secret of landscapes

quick color studies for an upcoming comic. just trying to nail down certain summer and autumn environmentals...

maybe more later. a lot of this stuff is being kept secret for now #hahanevergetsold

day 26 magic

8x11", pencil. $40 if you want it.

day 24b bonus doodle from nycc... dipper pines

8x11", pencil. $40 if you want it...

day 25 captain hook and tigerlily

you're a crook captain hook!

judge won't you throw the book

at the pirate king?

8.5x11", pencil. SOLD.

days 23 (bucky o'hare) and 24 (nycc catwoman)

hi all!

still catching up from nycc stuff, 2 more daily doodles:

8x11", pencil. $40 if you want it.

8x11", pencil. SOLD.

ps - i didn't forget day 22, just want to post it with its own commentary, but don't have the time/energy right now...

nycc 2013 and other updates

hi all! been crazy but wanted to catch up with a few things. first off, i've been getting a lot of questions at the con, so i thought i'd put some of the answers here for general convenience:

1) yes
2) yes
3) probably not, it depends on the hunting license
4) yes, but "if". it's a big "if".
5) texas, but you'd never guess it, right?
6) early next year.

now for some arts!

commission, ink/marker 9"x12"

and daily doodle 21

8x11", pencil. SOLD.

more KORRA art

sorry, too tired to write anything. enjoy!

day20 joker

8x11", pencil. $40.

daily doodle 19

can't remember when or why i restarted the doodles from zero, but apparently i did, and this is the nineteenth since then! anyway, i really missed doing these -- i've been drawing plenty, just not much i can post. hopefully this will continue tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow (in a petty pace, no doubt).

anyway, always loved the 80's x-men, really weird and not as cool as they later became. anytime you have a new-wave dixie flirt, a shy jewish teen with a pet dragon, and a mohawked punk from africa, good things are going to happen.

hope i'll see some of you at new york comic con, i'll be at table D6!

cheers!

8x11", pencil. SOLD.

NEW YORK COMIC-CON

howdy all!
its that time of year again, when a young man's fancy turns to cons! and once again i'll be at the NYCC artist alley -- table d6, if you really need to know. and yes, you really do need to know! i'll have the usual swag: all all seven (yes, seven) sketchbooks and the misfits manual color book, tons of original pages from batman beyond, big barda, the classics and dare, plus some prints.
as always, i am open to commissions; as always, it's best to hit me up ahead of time, since i'm keeping a fairly limited number of spots open.

hopefully i'll be posting more soon -- i certainly have a lot to talk about -- but i've got lots to do today and my good-for-nothing infant can barely letter. and mrs ben c won't let me fire him, because apparently rampant nepotism is a-ok in the caldwell household.

cheers!

LEGEND OF KORRA BACKGROUND ARTS

howdy all!

earlier this year i did a ton of backgrounds for a korra spinoff, "republic city hustle", following the early misadventures of mako and bolin. the first of the 3 web episodes is up now at http://www.nick.com/videos/clip/legend-of-korra-republic-city-hustle-episode-1-cd3.html

anyway, it was a lot of fun to do, here are some of my favorites:

i'll post more as more episodes air. oh! i also did a bunch of storyboarding, i'll post some of that eventually.

cheers!

new (and old)books for sale!

hi all!
been a while for this blog, to be honest i can just keep up with tweeting, but between work and domestic stuff there hasn't been a lot of down time. hopefully i'll make some time to post some notes to recent projects etc soon.
in the meantime, i have 3 new(ish) books available to order!

1) all the misfit manual preorders are done, so anyone who missed out on the kickstarter can order the book directly from me! it's hardcover, full color, 60pp of art and notes on the world's most defective detectives, their friends and foes, and more!

$25 + shipping

2) there is also the first volume of my daily doodles, 80pp b/w softcover!

$15 + shipping

3) and finally, i reprinted the uberfolio. this is a compendium of the first 4 dare sketchbooks (3, 5, 7, & 9) rescanned, resized and with bonus pages. 126pp b/w softcover. this book supplements a lot of the background and history in the misfits manual! i didn't print up a ton of these, so i don't know how long they'll last.

$25 +shipping

as always, email me ben@daredetectives.com to order any books, commissions, etc. i accept checks or paypal; checks are slower, paypal will include a small fee. other book and ordering info is in this post.

also, i won't be at any cons this year except maybe NYCC, so if you want any of the books, online is the most direct way to get them. ok, breaking into my house is the most direct way, but that didn't work last time, DID IT CHAD? so ordering from me online is the reasonable alternative!

stupid chad.

WW tattoo

this was a commission for a tattoo sleeve of everyone's favorite anachronistic indo-iranian monarchist, wonder woman!

no anarcho-syndicalist communes here!

this was a lot of fun and i'm pretty happy with the results, although i think i might have to shrink the head down a smudge. finishing up one other big commission tonight, i'll post that if i can fit it into my scanner...

EDIT!

hi all!

i have some more daily doodles to post, but first... when i posted/tweeted the "sangster" picture, i said it needed work, and someone asked why. which is an excellent and very important question. one of the fundamental jobs of any artist is to look at what they've done critically, and decide what worked and what could be improved.

in the case of the "sangster" picture, there wasn't anything wrong, it just isn't as strong as it could be. the main reason is that it's supposed to be a action-filled pose, but it has too many breaks in it.

pictured: boring

the way i draw, the sweeping lines of my high-energy drawings (even if it's just a face) are the same as racing on a road -- the more breaks there are, the more stopping and starting there is. that kills the action. and that is what i want to fix in the "sangster" pic.

pictured: thicker lines! that must be important!

so a more fluid and energetic pose might look like this.

but there is never one solution for anything, so another option that has the same sweeping lines could be:

and that's that!

catching up...

hi all! 

crazy few weeks, and blabby blah blah. here are my recent doodles...

 feeling impatient for summer...

still feeling impatient for summer. also been reading a lot of manga lately, including "umi no misaki", not to mention working on the new (tropical) dare, so here is sarah kincaid on the beach. i feel that my recent art has lost some of its fluidity, possibly because i was doing some comics work where "cartooniness" was something to be avoided. 

hoping to get it back!

under the influence of "bakuman" (i told you i was reading a lot of manga) i decided to do some speed tests, in this case seeing how fast i could pencil a page in this particular style. the answer is 39 minutes. having said that, the backgrounds are nothing to write home about, and there isn't anything extremely challenging about these particular poses or expressions, so i'll have to push myself harder the for the next test!

testing to get looser.

definitely need to get better!

threw open my daily doodles to suggestions, then jammed 3 of them (dracula, marty mcfly, and monkey a la "journey to the west") together. i think it could have been hilarious, this picture is... okay.

just wanted to do a high-octane pose. this is maria dare, undercover in the fictional punk band "sangster". originally her skirt was going to fly around more, but that didn't look... right. this is another one where i like the overall concept and pose, just think it could use some work.

well that's all for now, i have work to do!

here we go again... daily doodle 1 big barda

going to get back to daily doodles, just had a lot going on this winter.

8.5x11", pencil. SOLD, i think.

day106 aquagirl

$0 if you want it

105 bikini punk storm

uh... i guess the title pretty much sums it up.

8"x11", $40 if you want it.