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Creative Community: Participating in the Six Fanarts Challenge

Fan Art Frenzy: Diving into the Six Fanarts Challenge

I’m a little late to the Six Fanarts Challenge. What’s the Six Fanarts challenge you might ask? Well, it’s an art challenge put out by Visual Artist Melissa Capriglione on her Twitter account. The challenge is for artists to ask their followers/fans/friends for six characters to draw.

The artist then draws the six characters in a template of portrait boxes that Melissa Capriglione created and shared on Twitter. The fan art is done in the artist’s style. I do love a fun art challenge, so you know I have to participate too. I learned about the Six Fanarts challenge from other artists posting their work on Instagram.

I asked my followers on Instagram who I should draw, and these are the characters they suggested.

Alucard
Anne Shirley Cuthbert
Aelita Schaeffer
Batman (Michael Keaton)
Gekko Kamen
Kratos

Thanks to everyone who suggested these characters. I had fun drawing them.

I Conquered the 30 Characters Challenge!

I Conquered the 30 Characters Challenge!

In the month of November 2009, Tyler James created an awesome opportunity for creative minds to unite. He put forth the challenge of creating 30 characters in 30 days, 30Characters.wordpress.com. I of course answered the call. It was also answered by over 25 other artists.

Here are my 30 Original Characters.

Every day for a month I’d set down and try to come up with a new character. It was a really fun challenge. I don’t think I’ve drawn so many characters since I was a kid.

This blog post was originally published on my former website, Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Artist Blog.

24 Hour Comics Day 2009 – Santa Fe, NM

24 Hour Comics Day 2009 – Santa Fe, NM

This year I participated in the annual 24-Hour Comic. The challenge is to create 24 pages of a comic book within 24 hours. This was the second time I’ve done it. I really had a great time doing it too. At times it felt like I wasn’t going to finish, but I did…..with 3 minutes to spare (WhaZa!). It has been a very popular and fun exercise for both writers and artists. The idea is to come up with no preconceived notions of what you’re going to create, and make a 24-page comic!

So here it is, my 24-Hour Comic entitled “infiltration” written, penciled, and inked by me Ralph Contreras in 24 hours and 57 minutes on October 3rd to 4th, for the 2009 24-Hour Comics Day! I did my pages with widescreen panels, I think it adds a significant element to the storytelling.

This blog post was originally published on my former website, Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Artist Blog.

24 Hour Comics Day 2009 – Santa Fe, Part 2

Ralph Contreras inking a 24-hour comic page

24 Hour Comics Day 2009 – Santa Fe, Part 2

The Half-Way Point!
Participating in 24-Hour Comics Day. Here I am 12 hours into the challenge. Not as far ahead as I had planned. But still having fun. I originally planned to have the comic done within the 1st 12 hours. I’m actually on pages 6 and 7 at this point. Not even the halfway mark. I honestly didn’t think I would finish, but I knew I wasn’t going to give up. (I did finish the 24-hour comic, at exactly 11:57 am…. with 3 minutes to spare. Shazam!)

As I started to fall back on the pages and the time was moving forward, I thought what can I do to catch up and finish? I decided to work on pages very similar to Marvel Comics’ new format of widescreen comics. That’s where you place your panels stretched out through 2 pages. Like several widescreen shots. Marvel’s title Dark Avengers is very well known for this.

Once I decided to use this technique I was able to catch up. It gave me a great opportunity to create some very dynamic angle shots. Once I gained my confidence that I could finish the comic the story just flowed out of me. It’s full of action and fight scenes. It was really a fun comic to do. The story ends up with soldiers, ninjas, villains, and even a giant monster.

My progress was posted on a few sites during the event. On both the local and national 24 Hour comic blog sites. Here are the links to these sites. 24 hours from New Mexico Blog – Hours 14 through 18 from New Mexico Official Nation 24-Hour Comic Book Blog – Hours 14 through 18 from New Mexico

This blog post was originally published on my former website, Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Artist Blog.

24 Hour Comics Day 2009 – Santa Fe, Part 1

*Ralph Contreras drawing a 24-hour comic page*

24-Hour Comics Day 2009 – Santa Fe, Part 1

This year I participated in 24-Hour Comics Day again. It was held from October Saturday the 3rd to the 4th. I had such a blast with it last year that there was no question I would do it again. The goal is to create 24 comic pages in 24 hours. It’s a very challenging exercise. You come to the table with no idea of what you are going to write and draw, and from there you create a 24-page story.

Last year there was a place to participate in 24 Hour Comic in Santa Fe NM (that’s where I live right now), but this year the closest place was in Albuquerque, NM. I decided to stay home and work on the 24-hour comic on my drawing table. I was committed to participating no matter where I did it.

The first few hours were tough, the year before I created my 24-hour comic with the help of my girlfriend as my inker. This year I was working completely solo. I was finding it hard to find a fast rhythm. I was really digging what I was coming up with, but I was just a little slower than I originally wanted to be.

My girlfriend helped me out by updating my Twitter, Facebook & Flickr pages. One of the Twitter updates caught the attention of the group in Albuquerque. They were updating their blog dedicated to the 24-Hour comic and told me to send them some photos of my stuff. You can check out the 1st of 2 posts showing my work progress during the event. 24 hours from the New Mexico blog (Hour 13 1/2 from New Mexico). What was cool is the blog post was picked up by the Official Nation 24-Hour Comic Book Blog too. – (Hour 13 1/2 from New Mexico)

This blog post was originally published on my former website, Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Artist Blog.

The Daily Comic Sketch Challenge – The Maxx

The Daily Comic Sketch Challenge – The Maxx

The Daily Comic Sketch Challenge! Here’s the 2nd quick 30-minute daily sketch. This drawing was done on Tuesday, October 6th. The Maxx by Sam Kieth was suggested by my friend Carlos Parra via his Twitter account @carlosparra

This was a fun character to draw. I knew I wanted to make him big and exaggerated. That’s the way I remembered him. Never drawing the Maxx before I was very excited to have fun with this. I was able to get the sketch done in 35 minutes. I used an H2 drafting pencil. I think I had better control of it than the HB I used for the last quick sketch.

I remember when I had my comic book store, The Maxx Comic was always a very popular character. I literally could not keep the comics in stock. This was years after its publication too. I think it was so popular because of Maxx, MTV Cartoon. Which was great because it brought the character and comics to a more mainstream audience.

This blog post was originally published on my former website, Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Artist Blog.

The Daily Comic Sketch Challenge – Manhunter IV (Marc Shaw)

The Daily Comic Sketch Challenge – Manhunter IV (Marc Shaw)

Last night I drew the 1st in a series of quick 30-minute daily sketches. I’m calling them The Daily Comic Sketch Challenge. After asking for suggestions on Twitter and DeviantArt the first drawing is The Manhunter IV (Marc Shaw).

I had fun with this drawing. I’ve never really read any comic with this Manhunter, but the costume design is very cool. I actually took a little longer than 30 minutes, I think I took about 45. I used an HB drafting pencil, Only sharpening it once. With this drawing, I tried to be quick, but not lose detail. I also tried to use shadow and reflection of light. Thanks to @BlaqueSaber on Twitter for the great suggestion!

This blog post was originally published on my former website, Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Artist Blog.

The Daily Comic Sketch Challenge

I’ve decided to give myself daily exercise to help in my drawing skills. I call it The Daily Comic Sketch Challenge. This next week I will be doing a quick drawing for only 30 minutes. These drawings will be of random comic book characters. Not only will I get to draw some different characters, but it will help in sharpening my drawing skills.

The Daily Comic Sketch Challenge

Last week I asked for suggestions through my Twitter and DeviantArt accounts on who I should draw. I received a lot of great ideas. Here is a list of which characters I will be drawing this 1st week.

I’ll be posting a new Daily Comic Sketch every day. If you have any suggestions on who I should draw next, please let me know. – SHAZAM!

This blog post was originally published on my former website, Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Artist Blog.

Twitter Contest – Original Captain Marvel Drawing – By Comic Book Artist Eric Merced

Original Captain Marvel Drawing By Comic Book Artist Eric Merced

I’ve been very active on Twitter for the past few months. I’ve actually maxed out the number of people I can follow (which is 2001). I would say that about 80% of the people I follow are comic book artists, writers, and fellow fans. Well, a few weeks ago I saw a contest for an original drawing from comic book artist Eric Merced through his Twitter account @eric_merced. “1st and 5th to tweet a character for me to draw on live stream…” I tweeted my favorite character Captain Marvel and was the 1st to enter and win the contest!

The cool thing about the live stream was I got to see him draw it live. Eric Merced talked about why he liked the character of Captain Marvel while he sketched him out. It was really interesting to see the process he used when going from sketching to drawing and finally to inking. He also had a question/answer session with other people watching via a chat widget. The original drawing is 7″ x 5″ and he gave it to me, which was very awesome of him!

As a fun added pulse the mailer that the drawing came in had a cool drawing of Captain Marvel too. Thanks, Eric Merced for an awesome original drawing! Shazam!

This blog post was originally published on my former website, Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Artist Blog.