Zombies for Zombies: Cover Design

Aint she a beaut? This my friends is the single largest preoccupation of my time for the last year made incarnate. Zombies for Zombies: Advice and Etiquette for the Living Dead was written by on of my oldest and dearest friends David Murphy. It's the worlds first self help book for the recently bitten. It's a terrific book and you all owe it yourself (and me) to buy a copy

There are over 30 interior illustrations done by yours truly, but today we are going to focus on the cover design process. It was lengthy, exhaustive and clearly worth it. It looks the way it would've looked in my head if I was a genius. So yeah you can say I was happy with the results. Lengthy Applause Breaks go out to the folks at Sourcebooks Inc for letting me not just illustrate, but layout and design the cover (and for the best use of glossy embossing since the mid 90's).

What follows is a selection of rough designs, refined sketches and finished paintings that created this my finest book cover to date. So make with the clickety.

Click to read more ...

COMIC BOOK TATTOO Wins the Eisner Award

  This weekend COMIC BOOK TATTOO won the Eisner Award for Best Anthology. The book is the 480pg interpretation of Tori Amos' song catalog.

  Editor Rantz Hoseley picked me to draw writer Seth Pecks' adaption of the hit single Cornflake Girl. It's the longest story in the book checking in at 17 pages. That would make me "1/28th Eisner Award Winning Artist Daniel Heard". Right?

BUY COMIC BOOK TATTOO!

You'll put food on the tables of about 80 starving artists.Please, think of the artists.

These are my two overall favorite pages from the story. Drawn and finished with everyone's favorite pencil, The Prismacolor Col-Erase Blue.

Wolverine Redesign

Well so much for keeping this under wraps for the big reveal. The results are up at Project: Rooftop for the "Look Sharp" contest and this time . . . I ah, didn't do so well. 

Looks like Project: Rooftop's first real upset contest with the majority of the finalists being new faces. Which is great. Yup. Just a mere bag of shells Alice. I had em, and I lost em. Easy come, easy go.

You can read all about my inspirations for this design here, and see the preliminary sketches here. It's a modular costume design. The Sleeves/Hood are attachable to his vest, allowing for multiple looks that are reminiscent of his comic book and movie costumes.

Happy Birthday Tesla

Abundant renewable wireless energy. Whatta kook.

From the MAD SCIENTIST HALL OF FAME by Daniel Wilson and Anna Long.

Out this Week: PHONOGRAM & OUTLAW TERRITORY

Wacky. There are two("TWO!") comicbooks with your's trully doing a spot of coloring.

PHONOGRAM v2.3

This time I am but the humble colorist for the great Leigh Gallagher. The story called for two styles. The Realistic and Pop Comics. It was fun as hell. Thanks go to Jamie for teaching me how to "trap the blacks".

(I hope the above sentence doesn't bring the wrong element in off of Google Search)

OUTLAW TERRITORY v1

This is a fantastic Anthology coming out from Image Comics. Hardcore Westerns with the fan's of Deadwood in mind. Thanks go out to Ivan Brandon and Andy MacDonald for letting me play with textures and a limited color palatte. I think it turned out looking brilliant: