Smars Comics

I've been trying to get through the last pages of the 1st chapter of Myth of Eustro, and I felt like I needed to rework one of the characters colour palette. Cid. I always planned for her to take off her cap from time to time, but I wanted to change her cape. I needed it to be less bulky and heavy looking and instead make it shorter and lighter looking in material so she would look faster and more like she could be out there on the plains of planet Ephon fighting monsters everyday. I mean... doesn't that cloak look really heavy? yah, it does, She used to wear a striped scarf a long time ago... of course that's also when she was a male character, not a female character Original Cid design. not a woman, elf, or cat. but I hadn't been really happy with her colours this whole time. they were based on an older palette, a place I wasn't in any more mentally. (using dark colours)  So I gave Cid back her scarf and started playing ar...

THE BEST BOOK EVER! While I was finishing colouring pages of Munch Chunky in between colouring pages of Goblyn, I was digging through my old boxes, and rediscovered my old Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia . it was a very awesome book that my mom got me and my sister when we were little kids. some how I still have it after all these years. it's great!  it's over 600 pages and has really good illustrations of all the animals, and their family groups, geographical locations, distinguishing traits... all sorts of stuff. it's built like a wiki, which makes sense, considering it's an encyclopedia. haha seriously tho... I've been going through it page by page every night before i go to sleep, reading about a new set of animals, and finding some of the most amazing and weirdest looking creatures. it has inspired me to just pic random animals from it, and from reader suggestions that I'm going to draw, in the style of a citizen of the world of Mun...

So after quite an uphill battle finishing the kickstarter video for my other comic Goblyn , I'm back on track and nearly finished colouring the pages for issue 2a of Munch Chunky. I've been broadcasting on my livestream while i colour the pages. every day from 8am to about 4pm EST I decided this is what I'll do with Munch Chunky from now on, as an effort to not always be in my cave like the bearded hermit I am. and just cause I thought it might be fun for you. I'll answer questions if anyone actually shows up. but considering the time frame. I'm not sure if anyone ever will. oh well. still gonna' do it! XD Watch live streaming video from smars at livestream.com you'll get spoilers if you care about that sort of thing, but I'm only colouring right now... not lettering. that comes last, and I will probably stream that as well. or part of it at least. I'm loving getting to draw all these animals. I love how str...

i was going to go on some weird dissertation about what my work week is like doing Goblyn, and how wednesday is this rough mole pocked hill to get over...  but I'm pretty sure that applies to anyone who works monday through friday. instead I'll write about how hard it is to keep from  over expressing yourself or over explaining your work while making a  Kickstarter video for your campaign. I'm making one... I've been making one since the beginning of the year. I had a few hurdles to get over.  i did, now comes the easy part. or so I thought. how do you talk about something, but don't reveal what it's about? my fear is spoiling what it's about for people who already read, but want to contribute to the campaign. and explaining it to people unfamiliar, who might want to become more familiar, and also want to contribute. i don't want to sell it short, by simplifying it, but i don't want to over complicate it either. ...

what can I say... there will be a million articles, tributes, and artistic out pourings at maximum velocity  for the next few days at least.  and I understand. Jean Giraud better known by his pen name Moebius was one of my core artistic influences, and has consistently been a source of inspiration for me time and time again. you can see smatterings of Moebiusesque (it's a word) ideas, and concepts though out my works, and through out thousands of other artist.  he influenced and inspired  artists and art lovers across the U.S., Europe,  & Japan just to name the major comics centers of the world. i was honestly just rearranging my collection of Moebius books yesterday. I can say though,  I aspire to contribute such a wealthy body of work to the world  and inspire for generations as he has, and surely will continue to do...  even in his absence.  that's the least I...

So back when I was trying to do Munch Chunky as an animated series, all by myself.  (a foolish endeavor if ever there was one) I had created an actual musical score to run in the background of the episodes. Most of them were each of the main characters themes Bojo's theme, Turtles theme, & Diddles theme, or remixed variations of those. but then I realised i couldn't do the animated series the way I wanted in the time allotted to me. but I still had the soundtrack, and the need to express Munch Chunky in music. when I see this art I hear songs, and I've been building a little library of those songs for a few years now. I'm not proud of them all, but most make me very happy, because they capture the spirit of Munch Chunky 100% from Munch Chunky issue 2b on, with each new half issue  ex. 2b, 3b, 4b, 5b , and so on... I will add a new track from the Munch Chunky OST collection on my Mobal Sute Bandcamp page.  you can listen to them an...

Trongo Bots. I've been drawing these goofy looking mech suits for so many years. I'm a big mech, super giant robot enthusiast. seriously. I spent a huuuuuge chunk of my childhood reading watching stuff like Voltron , Tranzor Z (or Mazinger Z if you want to be a purist about it) and yes... of course, Gundam .  but of all the mechs and robots out there i say that i was most influenced by Shirow Masamune's Appleseed  manga series when i was a kid, which was filled with all these wonderful personal sized mechs he called landmates. Shirow would used these really great organic shapes that often reminded me of insects, and that just pulled me in further into his magic. seeing smaller, one man, personal mechs was a revolution to my mind, and I immediately was drawing personal mechs in everything I created. with Munch Chunky i wanted to continue with that tradition, but since MC is a lighter more fun story i didn't want the designs of the mec...

just sharing a couple of designs for some of the secondary background charas in issue 1b of Munch Chunky. (they're fairly loose sketches, but still comprehensible i think) the tryout sequence is full of lots of random animals driving around in big hulking robot suits. i did think for a while to have everyone's suits reeeeeally customized and unique, but it quickly became a headache.  i still slip into fantasies about how much fun it would be to have a bunch of cool designs and weird shapes for all the different suit. but then i snap out of it with the reality of how frustrating it would be to keep up with all those varying shapes. so i standardized the base shape of the Trong Bot suits.  and from there, they can be customized by the individual as they see fit.  So i still get a good bit of variation, while still being able to not lose myself in the details. i'll show some of those different yet similar Trong bot designs next...

ignore that title... all except the insanity part. i had to get a screen grab of one of my favorite images from this coming weeks Goblyn issue 20a it's of Archer (Master of Books) on his knees in the middle of the ceremony hall, kackling like a mad fool. but this image resonated with me so much, it was familiar some how. i had to comb through my brain all day and into the next morning before i arrived at a possible answer. it's a scene from the 1984 David Lynch adaptation of Frank Herberts Dune . i know a lot of people don't like this adaptation, because it's just not very faithful. but i tend to disconnect and just treat it as a random scifi film. and so i actually like it. and watch it quite a bit. i love politics... IN SPAAAAAAACE!   XD anyhoo... the scene is pretty close to the end and it depicts Paul Atreides ' little sister Alia Atreides standing in a sand storm over a pile of bodies with a bone dagger in her hand (at least i think it was a bone dagger)....

♦ PRIMARY CHARACTERS  ♦ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Major Primary Characters   Bojo Diddle Turtle Minor Primary Characters  The Mints Rory ♦ SECONDARY CHARACTERS  ♦ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Major Secondary Characters   Mr. Bittermint Kimodokin     King CoCodile      Mango Tango         Minor Secondary Characters     Martyn   ♦ TERTIARY CHARACTERS  ♦ ♦ INCONSEQUENTIAL & UNNAMED CHARACTERS  ♦ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Jyandwidile Gronoss  Horacio   Unnamed Baboon Headhunter Koba     ♦ ORGANIZATIONS  ♦ ---------------------------------------------------...

      PREVIOUS    ♦  archive   ♦     NEXT  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  in this sketchbook is a ton of never before seen development work from Goblyn and the entire Triple Five series before it even officially started. original concepts, redesigns, from Goblyn issue 1-5, and little chunks of story yet to be seen.