Let’s see the Old Spice Guy try this!

This week we have a walk-through on drawing the male face, so get your supplies ready and get going on drawing along! If you like this and other posts, please leave a comment and remember to share with others. If you’d like to skip ahead, visit Isiah’s you tube channel! If you’d like to see more of his works visit his deviantART page!

Don’t forget, if you’re drawing along and would like to share your results, let us know!

Result: Mr. Scorpio

PUBLISHING ON THE AMAZON KINDLE:  MY EXPERIENCE

I’m not going to lie, I’ve been in somewhat of a writing rut lately.  Don’t get me wrong, I did finish a new story and am working on a new one as we speak, but this was a pretty nasty rut.  I was getting rejections for all of my short story submissions and I don’t care how many times you get a rejection or how used to it you’ve become, it still stings and can really leave you feeling unmotivated.  I think that was my problem for a while.  Sure, there’s the drive to write because I’m passionate about it and it’s what I enjoy doing, but feeling like I wasn’t getting anywhere with my submissions left a dent in my desire to write.

And then, it hit me.  I found out that Amazon has a self-publishing program where you can self-publish your writing exclusively for the Kindle free of charge.  Not only that, but you get to have more of a say when it comes down to pricing, something I was never comfortable with on my previous short story collection, Falling Apart.  I was proud of the book and all (and still am), but I was never comfortable with the pricing of it, which is why you don’t see me plugging it all that much.  Hell, I even think the Kindle edition of it is still nowhere near the price range I’d like it to be—and it turned out horrible looking (it’s readable, but it should’ve turned out a lot better).

That’s when the desire returned.

I decided I was going to give this new adventure a try.  What the hell?  I certainly wouldn’t be losing money on it like with my other self-publishing experiences.  I love the Amazon Kindle and I know a lot of people who now own one (you can also download a free Kindle app for the PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Droid).

IN DECLINE as seen on the Kindle

So, I have put together a new short story collection called, In Decline.  I submitted it to Amazon dtp (Digital Text Platform) once I had everything all sorted out.  At first, I thought this would be a small project, maybe consisting of five stories or so.  Then, I ended up having total of nine.  I was a lot more selective this time around than I was with Falling Apart, since that was more of a physical publication I felt like I had to make sure it was at a reasonable length.  Since this is an e-book, I really didn’t have to worry about how long the overall book would be.  There are stories that didn’t make the collection, but not because they aren’t good.  I just picked the ones that I felt went together well.

Keeping it simple sucka!

This week Izzy covers drawing lips. If you’re using this info to improve your work we’d like to hear from you, give us a comment to let us know about your progress & links to work are encouraged!  As always if you’re hungry for more visit his youtube channel to skip ahead. Follow him on twitter & deviantART while you’re at it!

This week Izzy gives us a quick run through of how he goes about drawing the human face. If you like what you see and would like to skip ahead, visit his youtube channel & be sure to subscribe! We’ll be posting his tutorials as they were originally posted and provide the new ones accordingly. Enjoy & leave comments!

Face Drawing Tutorial

From under my rock I can see quite a bit is going on.

Between comics-to-film news and revamps of iconic characters to sexy political intrigue perfect for a good story exercise; if you wanted “interesting” you’ve got it in spades.

The Russian spy scandal

First of all, yeah, she is not bad on the eyes even if she’s an alleged dirty, filthy, spy. Admittedly, I’ve been avoiding TV especially mainstream media for the last month or so, so I’m not well versed on the up-to-the-minute details of this story. On the surface however it has that classic sleeper agent spy story begging for a new post-cold war twist. It’s almost perfect timing  as Angelina Jolie’s flick Salt gears up with a somewhat similar plot-line. I’d be rather impressed if it was somehow a large guerrilla / viral-marketing  scheme (yeah, I know it’s not).

The BP oil spill debacle / environmental FUBAR

I don’t care who’s at fault, the damage is monumental and is on-going. This oil spill is disheartening! It’s killing already strained local economies as well as absolutely wrecking the ecosystem of the gulf. It’s so bad my kids (when I have them – go go gadget 2012 baby announcement / end of the world) will probably be in their 20′s before it can be said that the the impact on the environment has let up from this spill. Heads need to roll and the way we look at our energy sources needs a drastic overhaul. It’s wishful thinking at this point but from time to time I sing the praises of companies like Tesla Motors for trying to push alternative powered automobiles that don’t look weak as all get out. There needs to be more of these innovative companies pushing the status quo to the side in the name of true progress.  Maybe my kids will see that day.

Jim Lee, come on dude…

This one deserves a full article. Jim Lee was who I had patterned my drawing style from, I collected issues of X-Men & WildC.A.T.s and anything I could get my hands on studying the style. Now, after the Captain America thing (you let that HACK Rob Liefeld touch Caps?!) and this story, maybe the time away was for the best. While I’m quite comfortable with the idea of rebooting an iconic character like Wonder Woman (I was attached to the TV show not the actual comic), I can see the fuss that it’s making, and maybe they should have thought the revamped look through a little more. I’ll speak to that in that blog post for sure. Maybe even make one about imagery when it comes to established characters. Oh, the ideas these sorts of things spark…

DC Comic’s move into web / mobile distribution

I spoke of this a couple of years ago, the little guys are pioneering it and the big guys are going to catch on soon enough. With the emergence of apps centric mobile devices, and CDNs (Content Distribution Network) media is moving to a point of merging into a singular entity where your entertainment, communication and information channels are driven by the cloud and your stored preferences follow you everywhere. Devices like the iPAD while ridiculously named are just the transitional bits of technology necessary to get us to that future.