Ninja Mountain Episode #27 - Return of the King

This week sees Patrick return the conquering hero from San Diego Comic-Con (or SDCC or CCI or whatever the search engines prefer to find), with his blood stained booty sack crammed full of audio goodness! Jeremy and Socar take some time to tackle a question from a prospective client and... Patrick is back from ComicCon!

http://www.megaflowgraphics.com/NinjaMountain/NinjaMountain027.mp3

Subscribe on iTunes for free... It's FREE!!

The Show Notes

Todd Lockwood

Steranko - comics & book covers

Chandra Free
Chan at the Archaia panel with Zachary Quinto (she starts about 4:40)

Chris Burdett
(Who blogged extensively about the con, and even has pics of Patrick's seminar!)

Mu Young Kim

Nicole Cardiff (Thanks for the cookies!)

Alex Eckman-Lawn
(His Graphic Novel Awakening is on Amazon now!)

David Rodriguez - Starkweather: Immortal Graphic Novel is in Previews NOW!!
Pre-order it at your local comic book store asap!! Art by your friendly Ninja Patrick McEvoy.

Mark Smylie

Marv Mann
(Some New Kind of Slaughter is on Amazon now!)

Ninja Mountain Episode #26 - Love Hate Sleepy Time

It's that time of the week again. Set your ears to stun and tune in to the latest slice of happytime sugartaste goodness from Ninja Mountain!

We're back to a compact and bijou hour long show this week as the whole team were frankly exhausted.  In spite of their advanced state of fatigue another wonderful* show was wrung out of them drop by drop until the sonic cup verily flowethed over!  This week we take listeners calls once again, with two questions from the wonderful Christopher Burdett, and the fantastic Caroline Himmelman.  And in fact we even come close to answering some those questions!  The love runs free and its hug time for everyone.  

This week's questions:

Why are fantasy artists apparently so nice to each other when we're all in competition?

How do you cope with falling short of teh awesome?

Would you talk about a bad experience with an art director? On line? With friends? (We might not get round to answering the friends part in much detail since we got motoring on the online topic...)

Between the actual content there's a gold mine of actual singing, dancing and all the other things four freelancer artists do when they are too tired to know any better! This week's show is presented by Andy, Jeremy, Jon and Socar.  

We mention it in the show, but it seems appropriate to give a shout out to our other caller of this week, the mighty ATOM, who's call will feature on next week's show when we have our resident monitor expert back on hand to give some real information.  Thanks ATOM, we love you.   As ever you can call the show on Skype via jon.hodgson.

http://www.megaflowgraphics.com/NinjaMountain/NinjaMountain026.mp3

Subscribe on iTunes for free... It's LOVELY!!

The Show Notes

Christopher Burdett: http://www.christopherburdett.com/

Caroline Himmelman: http://www.carolinehimmelman.com/

(Caroline is also on the WIP Podcast (Good interview this month guys! I was cheering! Jon):  http://www.wippodcast.com/

*c'mon this is ad copy, what do you want?

A WIP/Tutorial from McHugh.

Hey All,

As many of you know, Art Order ( www.artorder.blogspot.com) is featuring a cover contest right now and, after deciding to give it a go, I figured it would be a great opportunity to put together a WIP/Tutorial.

The joys of not being locked into a Non-Disclosure Agreement. :)

This is a more detailed description of how I go about generating a finished illustration and it builds off of previous discussions on the show.
The article is in 4 parts---

Part 1: Rough sketch
Part 2: Detailed drawing
Part 3: Grayscale underpainting
Part 4: Painting

I hope some of you find it useful.
Thanks for reading!
---Jeremy McHugh

Ninja Mountain Episode #25 - Three Way Split.

Its a big one this week as three seperate Ninja Teams assemble to deliver a triple whammy in a joyously confused magazine format. First up we have Anne Stokes and Socar Myles discussing the topic of being an awesome female fantasy artist in what can appear at a glance to be a male dominated world.

Next up its convention talk with Patrick McEvoy, Ralph Horsley and Jeremy McHugh - get the fat ole skinny on what to do at your next convention attendance! Whether selling prints or selling your soul to every art director you can lay hands on, this crack team discuss it all.

Lastly Andy Hepworth, Ralph Horsley and Jon Hodgson discuss the work and influence of truly awesome historical and fantasy artist Angus MacBride.



http://www.megaflowgraphics.com/NinjaMountain/NinjaMountain025.mp3

Subscribe on iTunes for free!


Show Notes:

Angus McBride: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_McBride
Moar McBride: http://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/?p=77
McBride's work in Look and Learn: http://www.lookandlearn.com/cgi-bin/if.cgi?img=0&search=Angus+McBride&cat=all&bool=phrase
Characters of Middle Earth on Scribd.com (which we only recommend when a book is waaaaaaay out of print): http://www.scribd.com/doc/12510173/Angus-McBrides-Characters-of-MiddleEarth


NB:
I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that since this is the first time I've been let loose in the itunes/feedburner control room on NM I probably did something wrong in making the show work. So bear with us if the magic doesn't happen first time. --Jon

Update - Holy cow, it would appear to have worked! Who would have thought it possible?

Equipment drive

Hi loyal Ninja audience! We have a fun idea - Patrick and Jeremy would like to record some interviews with artists at San Diego Comic-con and GenCon this summer. But to do this, we'd need to buy a digital recorder, and we were wondering: is there any chance we could get you to pitch in? Sort of an "Equipment drive". If you're interested, just click the "donate" button on the left side of the page and send whatever you can afford; no amount is too small!

(Except negative numbers - I guess that would be too small. So technically I lied, but hopefully you know what I meant in spirit..)

Thanks a lot! We'll let you know the results of the drive soon. As always, we really appreciate your support whether monetary or words of encouragement or simply downloading the podcast. We're glad you're there.

** UPDATE: We're doing GREAT on donations on this. I've already gone ahead and ordered a spiffy little recording device that will be here in time for San Diego, and a couple of other ancillary items. Thanks very much for all your generous contributions. Feel free to keep donating (as always!), but we just wanted you to know that this drive has been a rousing success!

PS - Keep an eye out for Patrick at SDCC and Jeremy at GenCon, with recorder in hand... They'll both be on the lookout for people to record for the show!


** UPDATE 2!: It occurred to us that perhaps we should give some much-deserved credit to those great folks who have donated - both to this drive and in general. However, we were also concerned that perhaps anonymity would be valued by some of you as well. So, if you would like to have your name trumpeted to other Ninja-watchers, (or if you wouldn't, either way!) please send an email to Patrick - contact @ megaflowgraphics.com Thanks!!

Summer Convention Funtime GO!

Hey there Ninja Mountain listeners!

Well, summer is here, and with it comes conventions. And the biggest in the US is the San Diego Comic-Con. Patrick will be attending, mostly hanging out at the Archaia booth promoting the upcoming Starkweather: Immortal hardback, but also giving a Digital Painting Seminar!

The seminar is now officially up on the SDCC Friday Programming page. Here's the text:

6:30-7:30 Digital Painting Seminar: Patrick McEvoy (Starkweather: Immortal) demonstrates the art of digital painting with Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter. Using examples from his work on the Marvel Style guide, a panel from Archaia's Starkweather, and a cover from BOOM! Studios' Fall of Cthulhu, Patrick will step through various techniques, starting from pencils and working up to a final rendering. Learn how to bring a fully painted look to your digital artwork! Room 30CDE

So, if you're attending the con, be sure to be at room 30CDE at 6:30 Friday the 24th, and give Patrick a little love.


UPDATE: Patrick's also going to be on an Archaia comics panel on Thursday:

2:30-3:30 Archaia/Roddenberry Productions: Days Missing— Archaia Studios Press is now simply known as Archaia! Learn about the sci-fi titles the publisher has in store, such as Titanium Rain (with creators Josh Finney and Kat Rocha), Robotika (with creator Alex Sheikman), and Starkweather (with writer David Rodriguez and artist Patrick McEvoy). Then meet the creative dream team behind Days Missing, the new sci-fi comic miniseries from Archaia and Roddenberry Productions, the legendary company that brought you Star Trek. Get a sneak peek of exclusive covers and art, and learn more about storylines for upcoming issues. Panelists include Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth from Roddenberry Productions; Archaia’s Stephen Christy, Mark Smylie and Rob Levin; Chris Burnham (X-Men: Divided We Stand); Ian Edginton (Stormwatch); Phil Hester (The Darkness); David Hine (Batman: Battle for the Cowl); Frazer Irving (Batman and Robin); and Matz(The Killer). All attendees will receive a free copy of Days Missing#1! Room 3

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In other news, Jeremy will be at GenCon in August. I know he's looking forward to seeing you all there, I hope he writes a little more about it here... :)

Ninja Mountain Episode #24 - Teh Awesome!

What is the quality of "awesome" that is the only sure way of getting work as a freelancer? How do you get it? Do any of us have it? Well, the only thing you can count on is this: you will hear the word "awesome" more times in one podcast than you ever thought possible! Jon is back this week, along with Jeremy, Patrick and Socar. Also, questions from listeners, a book report from Jon, and the world premier of Jon's acid house mix of Socar's "Like a Boss" tribute. Yes, it's nonstop mayhem in the Mighty Ninja Manner! You can't afford not to miss it - AWESOME!!

http://www.megaflowgraphics.com/NinjaMountain/NinjaMountain024.mp3

Subscribe on iTunes for free... It's AWESOME!!


Awesome Show Notes:
SciFiFantasyHorrorSpace_ArtShows

PS - yes, it's ep. 24!! Misprint fixed...

Hey! I never post artwork over this way. Except for today!

Couple of recent pieces - A new cover for the Magnum Opus Press reissue of classic Brit rpg Dragon Warriors:

(C)2009 Magnum Opus Press and Jon Hodgson

A quickie cover for my friends over at d101 games:

(C) 2009 Jon Hodgson

Cheers!

Ninja Mountain Episode #23 - Keepin' it Real

This time out we talk about how we keep up the interest in our work as the years go by. And lots of other stuff too, as always: Kieran Yanner returns from a long hiatus with a terrifying story of tragedy and survival in the face of overwhelming adversity, Jeremy relates to us the harrowing experience of a rogue ceiling attacking his studio, and Patrick can't think of anything to complain about at all. Wanker. And of course, DJ Jazzy Socar lays it down strong, yo.

http://www.megaflowgraphics.com/NinjaMountain/NinjaMountain023.mp3

Subscribe on iTunes for free! If you do it, Socar will rap for you. If you DON'T do it, Socar will rap for you 20 times.

Show Notes:

The Daily Monster

Like a Boss!!!

That "water drawing" thing we mentioned - Emmanuel Guibert.