fishbones_illustrations

now, with more colors...

2012-01-31T14:07:00.000-06:00

did this guy lil-by-little, when I thought I needed to be distracted.

lil something I'm...

2012-01-30T12:54:00.000-06:00

...playing with. Not that I needed to divide my attention anymore at the moment, but sometimes an idea gets into your head and you have to get it out. This is just after stating the coloring process, and the black & white line art.

give a hand

2011-12-19T20:59:00.000-06:00

In progress panel from the comic I'm doing with my buddy Josh.

Also, RWP (Reading With Pictures) is currently having a fundraiser. If full of that holiday cheer thing, that people tell me about, then take a look and see if you can help out a bit.

blue

2011-12-17T14:45:00.000-06:00

Blue lined roughs for inking.

panels-in-progress

2011-12-15T11:22:00.000-06:00

In progress panels from a comic with Josh Hechinger that will be launching next year.

Burn Baby Burn

2011-12-14T10:04:00.000-06:00

had my sketchbook and a ball-point pen on me... so here's what I came up with while watching TV with the fiancee.

2011-12-07T17:11:00.000-06:00

A very quick digital sketch that I posted over on FFTT. Kevin and I have decided to extend our break in order to create a more comprehensive back-log of strips.

roar

2011-12-02T09:20:00.000-06:00

No thumbs today, just the usual ink and pencil in the sketchbook.

more thumbs & such

2011-12-01T12:09:00.000-06:00

Some more thumbs and a couple of lil' doodles.

sketch & thumbs

2011-11-30T22:18:00.000-06:00

One of my sketchbook pages with thumbs from a project I'm working on.

colored

2011-11-30T15:37:00.000-06:00

Finished coloring this logo a bit ago. I must be infected with my own version of holiday spirit, because it makes me think of the Krampus... so... Merry XMas and beware of this guy snatching your kids.

inks done

2011-11-28T09:31:00.002-06:00

Nom Nom

2011-11-27T23:15:00.000-06:00

A label I'm working on for my buddy, Chef Jon Patton. He apparently wanted something monstrous.

I called the Witch Doctor, he told me what to do :)

2011-11-26T00:05:00.000-06:00

Hey folks.

This sketchbook page has a bit of influence coming from my friends Lukas and Brandon, who just completed their first Witchdoctor mini-series through IMAGE.

A couple of things from the comic then some of my usual random junk.

enjoy

smokey face :o

2011-11-22T22:03:00.000-06:00

head games

2011-11-18T10:17:00.000-06:00

Head full of doom. I love the idea of creatures with giant brains... it's sad though, that in movies the much more advanced alien/monster/villain is outwitted by the regular Joe. Anyway, giant head for the win.

sketch(es)

2011-11-17T11:02:00.000-06:00

A couple of pages for today.

I love letters... they're fun to draw. If there is space left on a page that screams at me to add a lil something, my fallback is usually a letter or two.

lick

2011-11-16T09:31:00.000-06:00

Sketch done on tracing paper. Ink Brush did surprisingly well on the surface (I was wondering if it would be all smeary).

bump

2011-11-14T10:10:00.000-06:00

another sketch. this one I just wanted to play around making texture with the brush.

snippet

2011-11-13T11:00:00.000-06:00

What I'm going to be mostly posting for a while will be sketches I do to relax. The reason is that I don't want to show too much of upcoming projects yet... but here is a little piece of a comic I'm working on with Josh Hechinger. There might be enough here to guess the genre, but then again you're likely to be off the mark.

2011-11-13T10:40:00.000-06:00

I think it was the seafood

2011-11-12T16:20:00.000-06:00

another sketchbook page

2011-11-11T18:22:00.000-06:00

2011-11-11T18:21:00.000-06:00

2011-09-25T22:43:00.002-05:00

new tricks

2011-09-25T20:54:00.000-05:00

Currently teaching at Northern Illinois University, and figured as long as I'm back at the school I should use my time there to learn how to use a 3D art program. A few more tutorials in Mudbox, then I'm going to give building a Lil Charlie a try.

back on the horse

2011-09-16T15:07:00.000-05:00

Back to working on Lil Charlie, after a good amount of time focusing on some other projects and getting into the swing of things teaching.

Charlie and the Undead

2011-08-23T20:32:00.000-05:00

started penciling out the next Lil Charlie storyline:

idle hands (and heads)

2011-08-19T22:40:00.000-05:00

colored page that introduces us to the creator of the universe.

2011-08-15T14:05:00.000-05:00

print that I ended up offering at WWC/CCC. A lot of interest in the new comic I'm working on, and one nice lady wanting a tattoo of Lil Death.

2011-08-06T18:04:00.000-05:00

I will have all the pages up to this one (plus another hopefully), at WWC to show around. I will be in Artist Alley somewhere in the 3700 block area with the RWP group.

2011-07-21T23:05:00.000-05:00

Forced Perspective... GRRRrrr

2011-07-06T17:06:00.000-05:00

still chipping at my Lil Charlie comic

2011-06-25T22:05:00.000-05:00

This is a comic about what happened with the progress of my "official website". I'm chipping away at it again now, and hope to have a place for me to post digital versions of my Lil ' Charlie comics in the near future.

Official website (though in shambles) is: http://www.johnbivens.com/

I was on the radio...

2011-05-21T10:03:00.000-05:00

I appeared as a guest on ART TALKS with host Bruce Carter. Have a listen if you want, I was very careful at choosing my words, so I never said anything overtly inappropriate (like I usually tend to).

Charlie&Stuff

2011-04-27T20:24:00.000-05:00

a variety of little charlie sketches, with some other stuff mixed in.

Forest For The Trees

2011-04-27T10:47:00.002-05:00

The sequential corpse project that I'm doing with fellow creator, Kevin Mellon, launched a couple of weeks ago (Kevin's next page will be up today at noon central time). Every week we switch off on who writes and draws the new page, not having a plan but riffing off the previous page. Check it out to see if this experiment goes crazy or if we can pull off an intricate story.

whatsit warm-up

2011-03-30T19:03:00.003-05:00

Have no idea what it is, just doing some sketching in Manga Studio for some fun. Been spending most of my time writing and doing thumbs and concept sketches, so it felt good sitting at the tablet again.

After Convention Day

2011-03-23T12:33:00.005-05:00

Had a great time at C2E2. Got to meet some old friends and make some new ones.

inspiration stikes

15 minute Quick comics (something I'm gonna try to do at conventions from now on). As of today, I'll be charging $15 for them. They are 5"x17", brush on paper. I have these two left, so they would be $15 plus S&H.

Original, Lil' Charlie pen and ink drawing. $50 plus S&H. First come, first served.

Ran out of these prints at the convention. As a convention special, I was charging $10 each (they are 13"x19" on matte paper). If you want one, get a hold of me, I will keep the price at $10 plus S&H.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the show, hope to see you again in the future.

Charlie RP

2011-03-08T18:19:00.002-06:00

Right now, just kinda feeling out a new Charlie print. Not sure were it's gonna go, but once I finish the rough, I'll print it out and get to inking.

2011-03-07T23:27:00.000-06:00

2011-03-04T09:30:00.000-06:00

Michael

2011-03-02T12:16:00.003-06:00

Another Dresden Files warm-up sketch. This time I drew Michael "The Fist of God". He's one of my favorite characters, so it made it that much more difficult to come up with a result that I could live with. I worked this more as a character design sketch rather than a action sketch.

Nicodemus

2011-02-25T18:10:00.002-06:00

My Dresden Files warm up today is the leader of the Knights of the Blackened Denarius. This one was done all digital.

Froggy

2011-02-24T11:19:00.001-06:00

Thinking about different characters from the Dresden Files. I'll probably be using them as warm up sketches for a little bit. This is the Frog Demon from Storm Front.

sketchy too

2011-02-22T11:42:00.002-06:00

another sketch today, before I head off to work.

sketchy

2011-02-22T09:25:00.002-06:00

Page of the sketchbook I filled up, while watching TV with the fiancee last night.

Sketching

2011-02-17T10:54:00.004-06:00

Found an old rag-paper sketchbook that I hadn't really touched (I have this addiction to buying sketchbooks, by-the-way). Here's a couple of pages I was playing around on.

I'm supposed to have a sketch day with a buddy soon. Since this is rag paper, I might have to break out my watercolor box.

coming soon...

2011-01-17T19:48:00.002-06:00

...to a website, somewhere.

Kevin Mellon and I are working on something that will either keep us from going insane, or drive us over the edge. It will be a fun journey, and when we launch it (2-3 weeks) we'll let you know where to look to follow along.

2010-12-08T17:30:00.002-06:00

bought Manga Studio Debut off amazon for $10. Now I'm messing with it to see what I like. Love the drawing tools... for everything else, I think I'm sticking with photoshop.

This is a quick, let's-try-stuff-out sketch.

warm-up

2010-12-02T14:22:00.000-06:00

Warm-up sketch experiment. I let various music played on the ALL SONGS CONSIDERED 24/7 channel decide the direction of this. First I treated it as various shapes (like looking at clouds for something recognizable. Then I would tighten up what I eventually saw, letting the music help determine brush type, color, line weight and final theme.

Witty Title Here...

2010-11-30T22:36:00.003-06:00

Finished with the pastel drawing part of the print today, nest step will be scanning in and working out the final layout of the text.

on the easel:

detail:

Me figuring out my inventory for tabling at a local gallery hop this Friday:

For anyone curious, my space will be at the Blue Cat Brew Pub in downtown Rock Island. The hop goes on from 5pm to 9pm, December 3rd.

2010-11-29T23:28:00.002-06:00

a quick shot of a little progress on the Lil Charlie print I'm making.

Also, I've had this putty forever, so I think I'll experiment a lil bit with some stop motion in the near future.

Charlie print under-painting

2010-11-27T19:03:00.001-06:00

This is a stage where I'm avoiding any final decisions. Next I will start really laying in any dark areas.

Something I'm working on...

2010-11-15T18:52:00.003-06:00

with writer Sam Costello, whom I've done some work with in the past. This will probably be the only page I show from this project, but it willbe posted in it's entirety in the future at Sam's sight, Split Lip. I'm sure it will also be part of one of the future anthologies that Sam puts out collecting stories. You can pick them up at conventions or order online.

underdrawing 11-11-10

2010-11-11T15:38:00.002-06:00

Okay, here is a pretty rough underdrawing for a Lil Charlie print. Since I'm still on my chalk pastel kick, that's how I intend to finish this piece off. That means there will be a bit of simplification as I work into this. At the moment I still have to work into this with a darker line to keep track of my under-drawing a bit when the initial colors are put down.

being creative for me

2010-11-11T13:19:00.003-06:00

I love drawing stories. Even if it's only one image I want people to be able to read a story from that illustration. I'm working with a bunch of writers right now, enough to keep me in projects for a few years. That's fun, and I love the collaboration.

Random Person: "I think I hear a 'but' coming on."

But... sometimes it feels best to have projects that are only mine. I want to be selfish and choose which of my "darlings" I'm gonna snuff and which I'm going to coddle.

To Keep myself sane, I'm working on some personal stuff, while working on the collaborative stuff. For a guy who pulls a regular "joe job" while trying to work his way into the comic world, this isn't easy... but necessary. You may have seen the post of the new Mr. Simian comic I'm working on down the blog page. Along with that adorable monkey-man I'm reviving my favorite inner devil, Lil' Charlie.

One of the benefits of doing this is that it will allow me to update my blog more frequently (writers tend not to like it when you give their entire stories away on your website).

Lil Charlie is coming back...

I am first developing some prints that I have been thumbnailing out, and will show more progress on in the near future.

In Progress

2010-11-05T21:35:00.001-05:00

A bunch of stages working on a personal chalk pastel piece.

hey there

2010-11-03T22:10:00.003-05:00

It's been a bit, and most of what I'm working on I'm not allowed to show... but, I have a personal project for the holidays that I can update with.

First post, stage one: Under-drawing

This is a pencil drawing on Reeves (or Rives... no idea how to spell the paper I'm using) that has been sealed with an acrylic pastel ground. Why you might ask? Because I love chalk pastels and never get a chance to break them out, hence using them on the personal project.

...

2010-10-06T10:35:00.004-05:00

Working on a project I can't show any of. Instead, here's another sketchbook page.

A couple weeks ago...

2010-10-03T10:16:00.003-05:00

Northern Illinois University had Sterling Hundley, come in and give a visiting artist presentation. The bulk of these pictures were taken during a break; when the demo was in full swing, the room was packed shoulder to shoulder.

a few pages...

2010-09-27T23:24:00.003-05:00

... from my sketchbook. I was awaiting approval to go ahead on a project today, and took time to get out of the house and sketch a bit. These pages were all graphite, black pen, and pentel brush pen.

graphite...

2010-09-25T23:56:00.004-05:00

I really don't sketch enough with plain old pencil anymore. This sketchbook page was done with Sanford Ebony pencil (I like the wide range in value I can get from it) and Staedler liquid point 7 pen (I like how cheap it is).

As a bonus, I'm starting to think of a follow up story to my Mr. Simian comic. Here's a thumb of the opening page.

2010-09-09T19:36:00.001-05:00

trying to get a lot of sketching and plotting in before I jump head-long into a handfull of new & old projects.

follow me

2010-09-09T13:09:00.003-05:00

Hats and big ole' walking sticks... both are full of awesome. Oh, and mustaches. I can't pull it off but they are full of win as well.

todays putzing about

2010-09-07T22:09:00.001-05:00

a couple of sketchbook pages from today:

2010-09-03T07:30:00.004-05:00

Just got to thinking, without the old ZUDA up anymore a few comics I did aren't online anymore.

This is the only entry that I did all alone. Looking at it now, the dialogue was horrible and a bit redundant but I had fun with the characters. The other entries that were up on the site were collaborations, and will only be posted if I get permission for it from my co-creators.

couple more sketches

2010-09-02T14:06:00.002-05:00

sketching with mixed media today. trying to get into the swing of things with traditional materials again, so I can start designing some prints for next con season.

sketch dump

2010-09-01T11:10:00.003-05:00

just scanning a few pages from my sketchbook. All drawn with either a office max pen or a refillable ink-brush-pen.

digital wiminzez

2010-09-01T10:46:00.002-05:00

digital practice... very light stuff, but if your with a sensitive crowd, NSFW.

the door never knew what hit it

2010-08-27T11:03:00.001-05:00

a page of art from the B&W crime story, "One of Us", I did for OMEGA COMICS PRESENTS #3.

Watercolor Cards

2010-08-26T12:10:00.003-05:00

If you were at Chicago Comic Con (Wizard World Chicago) you had a chance to buy the READING WITH PICTURES anthology from me or one of my fellow creators I was sitting next to. We had both softcover and hardcover (which you can only buy from the creators); if a person wanted to buy a hardcover from me they got to choose out a little hand-drawn, watercolor painted artist card for free (purchased separately they cost $5). Here's a few of the cards I had left after the con.

Here is the cover to the anthology, painted by the fabulous Jill Thompson.

digi-inked

2010-08-11T10:53:00.002-05:00

stuff to sell

2010-08-10T10:44:00.003-05:00

Here is a bit of the inventory I'll be selling at the Chicago Comic Con next week.

I'll also be doing commission sketches.
$45 for single figure, B&W
$100 for single figure watercolor
If there are more than I can get done at the convention itself, I'll take down emails and mailing addresses.

tension

2010-08-09T19:40:00.003-05:00

deadlines loom, tension builds, guns come into play on the page.

cover stuff

2010-08-03T09:54:00.004-05:00

long time no post right? Sorry about that. Packing, moving, unpacking, and telling myself I need to work and not play on the internet has hurt my blogging ability.

Here's a cover for the upcoming OMEGA COMICS PRESENTS, which is planned for a November release (I believe... I'm really bad at remembering stuff like that). It's traditional inking with digital finishes done in Photoshop and Illustrator.

inking-a-go-go

2010-06-29T17:40:00.002-05:00

pages I've been working on lately have been a mix of traditional and digital inking, depending on the scene (if it's an emotive person, they tend to be easier for me to catch traditionally. if it's a scene that needs a bunch of buildings or stuff like that I like going more digital). Neither of these panels are all finished yet.

a jumble

2010-06-26T09:19:00.000-05:00

random sketching from a coffee house in DeKalb.

loose sketch and thumbs...

2010-06-13T19:14:00.004-05:00

These are a few thumbs from THE GRAVE DOUG FRESHLEY pin-up I did for my friends Josh and Marv.

These are for an upcoming cover idea... it has a running theme.

and this sketch is just from me sitting around letting the pen wander wherever it felt like going.

musical sketch

2010-06-05T23:24:00.001-05:00

rough sketch of a poster idea I had for fun.

working on a pin-up

2010-06-05T21:23:00.004-05:00

got tapped by some good friends to do a pin-up for their book "The Grave Doug Freshley" which will be coming out in hard-cover soon. Here's the pencils and what I've started of the inks (I'll post the other stages to this once the book hit's comic shelves).

This finally got me to download a lot of photos I had stored on my camera... most from C2E2.

Skottie and I pose together (note I am not a small guy, Skottie is a giant and could crush me with one hand.

My fiancee Mal & cover artist Jenny Frison doing Huskie Hands (we all graduated from NIU... it's a mascot thing).

boxer with heart

2010-05-25T18:42:00.003-05:00

Sketched during a thunderstorm today, where I felt like not risking working on my computer with insane wind and lightning going on. Done with ballpoint, brush-pen, and prismacolor markers. Half-tones added after scanning.

while chatting...

2010-05-24T23:37:00.004-05:00

No real idea what I was thinking, but this is what I drew while chatting on the phone tonight. Ball-point pen, brush-pen, and prismacolor marker were used on this sketch... happy accident with how the ball-point bled into the prisma.

stabby-stabby

2010-05-23T09:10:00.001-05:00

Random marks became this sketch.

Done with brush-pen, markers, and digital screen-tones.

really quick...

2010-05-20T23:41:00.002-05:00

sketch of my character, Squeezel, from a comic idea I've been kicking around.

Quick Sketch...

2010-05-19T20:04:00.002-05:00

Just to give my brain a change of subject, & to play around a bit. Done with HB graphite in lead holder and one of my brush pens.

Always love drawing ornate masks, btw.

page-in-progress

2010-05-19T18:18:00.002-05:00

a very cop filled page-in-progress, as a matter of fact. Digital-pencils, and about to start on the digital-inks.

digi-sketch done

2010-05-19T01:59:00.003-05:00

I think this is as far as I'm taking this practice sketch. I could work on it for a bit longer, but it's done it's job and got me to stretch my muscles a bit. Gonna have to do a lot more of this practice in the future though.

grayscale_underpainting

2010-05-18T23:10:00.000-05:00

sketch4practice

2010-05-18T16:24:00.002-05:00

Years ago (while in school) I was practicing digital painting a lot more. Then I started doing comics and that fell to the side. Now I want to get back into it and develop a portfolio of work along those lines... so here's a sketch I'm gonna use as the base of a warm-up.

quick panel...

2010-05-18T15:59:00.002-05:00

...from the project I'm currently working on. It's an anthology piece which will be printed in B&W.

cowboy

2010-05-17T14:16:00.003-05:00

line-work is done traditionally. then added screens in photoshop.

self-portrait warm-up

2010-05-16T12:31:00.002-05:00

quick digital warm-up

Where have I been...

2010-05-14T12:18:00.004-05:00

I honestly don't know... been doing a lot of work on things, but not getting to do a lot of art. Trying to figure out where I'm gonna be living at the end of the summer, graduations, weddings, and many other things have distracted me a little bit but I'm gonna be riding that art horse till it dies over the next few days.

My website (and the comic I've been developing for it) has been put on hold until I get a chance to retrieve files off my laptop that died.

Have a mix of sketches that applies to a project I've been thinking about in this post. Also, I'll have work coming out in a couple of anthologies due out in late summer and early winter... more on those later though.

busy, busy, busy

2010-04-11T23:41:00.002-05:00

Really excited for C2E2 to be coming up. This is the last con that I plan to just attend to wander, make introductions and simply enjoy (after this I gotta start tabling). Today I put together a portfolio packet to hand out to editors, writers and such; did some inking; and did a ton of scanning.

Here's a page from my auto-bio web-comic I'll be posting in the near future (no text yet, especially since it's a personal project... I got a lot of stuff lined up with others folks that has to take priority).

SciFi Western

2010-04-05T21:18:00.003-05:00

For some reason, I just kept thinking "God, I would like to do a western with robots, clones and aliens" today. I need more of me to work on the projects on my plate, those being offered, and the ones I come up with. A slave army of clone Johns... nah... my heads just stuck in mad-scientist mode.

Q&D warm-up

2010-04-05T12:19:00.003-05:00

a quick and dirty warm-up. Never got into drawing a lot of the "Bad Girls" when I was younger, but I figure I will give myself some practice at it for a bit.

On a side note, it's not till your not surrounded by friends that were ready to be life drawing models at the drop of a hat, that you miss it. I need some kind of artsy community around where I live *sigh*.

C2E2 coming up

2010-03-31T19:18:00.003-05:00

An illustration I made up to use for page numbering my portfolio packet I'm handing out to editors this year. Soon I'll be starting the process of sifting through the stuff from the last year or so to figure out what wil be going into it.

quick digi-sketch

2010-03-30T22:49:00.002-05:00

just need to let the mind wander for a bit. Yesterday was a good day for getting work done, and despite getting most a page penciled & inked plus beginning coloring on another, today felt a bit off.

final...

2010-03-30T00:29:00.003-05:00

Added my final little touch after doing some other work. I may have to color adjust after I print out a sample at the local shop (if that's the case I'll post the change also). The author, letterer, and I still need to discuss logo design... but that's still a bit off.