Well, I am still on vacation on the east coast, and I don’t have any more pages to upload (they’re all in Chicago), so I thought it would be a good idea to post some behind the scenes drawings of the birth of Space-Mullet, and show you the step by step process of how Jonah came to life.
It started at a meeting at my church, Missio Dei, in Chicago. We had this information meeting called a “Mullet Meeting”. Weird, I know, but their powerpoint presentation had a cool little graphic of only a mustache and a mullet, with the text in the middle. Just a simple design, but effective, and it got me thinking about how there is really no “quality” characters in comics with a mullet (at least in the 2000’s). For a while in the 90’s, we had a Superman mullet, but…
ew.
Anyway, I thought creating a character with a mullet would keep his/her story from taking itself too seriously. So I started sketching, and came up with these:
I nailed the guy right off the bat! I had no story, no concepts, just these sketches, and I loved him! This guy had so much sass and personality for just a 10 minute drawing thrown together in church. Throughout the week I continued to work on him, trying to re-create the spontaneity of the first drawing. Here are some failed attempts:
This one was too realistic, and too sad. Try again…
This one was too trashy…
This one was getting closer, but not quite there…a little too mean looking.
Here we go! This drawing was done about 2 weeks later. I literally tried to copy my first drawing exactly. Just to get the feel of it again. At this point I was getting pretty frustrated.
And after that, I finally got it together. There wasn’t anything special I did, I just had to work on Jonah enough that I got the feel of him right. JUST the way I wanted him to look. This was a ton of work, but so, so rewarding.
Sometimes I think it just takes sweat to make something work. I came back to this guy for a month before I felt confident drawing him, my own creation. Even though I got frustrated during the process, it’s reassuring now that I worked out all the kinks before I started Space-Mullet seriously.
Speaking of creating, I have been using the Pentel Color Brush Pen(black) a TON lately. It makes an incredible line, so pure! My only complaint is that the water is not 100% waterproof, so I can’t mess with my originals too much. Even so, the sheer joy of using it makes up for its 1 fault.
Thanks for checking out all the work that went behind Jonah. I want to be able to share my victories(and failures) with other people, and learn the best I can, so please comment your thoughts below! Page 7 will be coming out Wednesday!
-DW
P.S. I have a more illustration/fine art site up at www.danielwarrenart.com , where you can see more of my work. Check it out!
