A new comic strip up on the new blog:
http://jasonlatour.blogspot.com/2010/02/movies-with-dad-delta-force-2.html



Please reroute your RSS feeds to: http://jasonlatour.blogspot.com/ or http://www.jasonlatour.com

Until my paid LJ account runs out I'm going to post links to recent blog posts here. Here's yesterdays:

http://jasonlatour.blogspot.com/2010/02/are-you-cussin-me.html

Please reroute your RSS feeds to: http://jasonlatour.blogspot.com/ or http://www.jasonlatour.com

So I'm picking up stakes and moving the art blog to BLOGGER. Please update your books marks and RSS feeds to:

http://jasonlatour.blogspot.com/

I hope to have the url: www.jasonlatour.com rerouted over there soon. So if that's your preferred mode of entry please bear with me.

Honestly the reasons for the move are pretty simple. I was a little frustrated by the lack of custom options for even the simplest things over at LJ and I wanted something that was more cross compatible and less messy. So here we are, at least for now. I mean lets face it the state of any marriage is a little shaky. But Blogger and I are gonna make a go of it, for the kids...

See you there.

It's really been sorta lame around the old art blog, huh? I don't know if today will change that but here's an old college try in the form of (the beginnings to) a long overdue con sketch.

Eduardo Risso is an artist I have immense respect for. He really is a master of line economy and has a unique knack for distilling the world at large into something lean, mean and sexy clean. So while I am excited about drawing DIZZY from 100 BULLETS, it's not something I tread into lightly. This is what I have so far, sort of the first take:



Not there yet, but I think it's the right direction. I don't know if it's a chicken or egg situation but all day yesterday I was in a hip hop mood. After a talk with a couple of different friends about our favorite current rap artists I went on a little binge. I posted a bunch of that stuff on <ahref="http://blip.fm/jasonlatour"> BLIP.FM </a> but since that changes with the wind here are a couple of tracks that have helped inspire me lately...


YOGA FLAME!



LIGHTS PLEASE:


Anyways, I thought I had more to say, but I'll keep it Cobain for today.

More soon...

Just a reminder that this weekend good buddy and comics shop legend Shelton Drum will be putting on the the Charlotte Mini-Con

Click for more info:


I'll be there doing con sketches. If you're lucky you'll get something better than this:



More soon...

-J La

LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN got me through college. So as all this melodrama between he, Jay Leno and NBC unfolds I just wanted to make it clear that I'm on TEAM COCO

Really not much of a thing and I'm not sure how good the likeness is. The color is there because that's how I saw a much more finished version in my head (blue dots for eyes, orange playing off of his famous pompador or the 12:05 start being "tomorrow"). Other than that I really had no plan, just doodling while I listened, popping my head up to see how he moved or get a mental image how his face looked. I find it damn near impossible to do likenesses of people from photos. I tend to do better (if you will) by just thinking of the person and by approaching things more like a cartoon than an illustration or exaggerated portrait. Maybe that comes from doing it live. One of my first art jobs was doing caricatures when I was in High School at a theme park called CAROWINDS. As jobs go it was a great gig, but I'm always a bit torn about what it actually taught me. There are a lot of habits good and bad that I picked up from that job, some I still can't shake.

It really wasn't doing caricatures in a true sense. Most times the job was just to make the person happy. I found that by reading the subject's personality I could tell if they were open to being truly ridiculed or not. Surprisingly, most times the people who would pay to be drawn were actually very thin skinned and being a kid and wanting to make money I would give them a more flattering drawing. Which is of course kind of antithetical to the whole idea. One time I even GAVE a redneck woman who had no teeth a set of pearl chompers. Artistic integrity anyone?


Every now and then someone will ask me to do a drawing of them or if I do parties... which is probably right behind "I've got an idea for a children's book" when it comes to idle lamen chatter. No thanks, I'll stick to comics if I can.

That's not to diss the practice. It's a hard job and a tremendous talent. I think the best caricature guys get to the spirit of things, and that's what I'd like to be able to do on the rare occasion I try it. Speaking of which, I recently saw this little video with MAD MAGAZINE great Mort Drucker:



Not SUPER-informative (IMO), but man he did let a few nuggets of gold slip. You really can't be as great as he's been for so long and not have forgotten more than most people will ever hope to know. He's actually come up a few times around the "studio" recently as I know he was at least in the back of Brunner's mind working on LOOSE ENDS pages.

So those are the contributing factors to was what inspired such a random doodle. Maybe if I get time I'll polish it up.
More soon...

Today's post is a little detail of one of the crazier moments in the Graphic Novel I'm working on. I can't show the whole panel because it would be a spoiler of sorts but I wanted to post something from it:



Under an issue worth of work left.

More soon...

This was an X-mas gift for my girlfriend. It "stars" yours truly and I'm not sure it's funny or makes a lick of sense to anyone other than us, but she liked it... so there's that.



Anyways, I hope everyone has a happy and safe "blue moon" New Years. More soon...

-J La

These are done, yet I still see them in my sleep:





I hope everyone had a great holiday. More soon...

The Iron Man 2 sketchcards I did came back from approvals a lot faster than I thought. So lets try this again:





Some real spares and gutters. Strikes? Eh, I dunno.For the purpose of drama I'll wait to post the rest. Obviously not the Xmas related post I was talking about. That may yet be coming.

Anyway, more soon...

Today, a color study for a sketch card that didn't come to pass.



Basically the final card wouldn't cooperate. Eh, it happens.

I'm going to try and get something else up before Xmas, plans are a formulatin'... but if not I hope everyone has a good 'un! Thanks so much for your patience and patronage this year.

More soon.

Some warm up pen and brush pen studies....




Gotta keep it Kurt like Rambis. More soon...

Okay I lied. I'm back sooner than I thought. A little holiday M.O.D.O.K. for you and yours.

Back to the grind. More soon...

-J La

The blog here's been a little slow due to a really killer work load. Unfortunately that looks to be the case for a while. In the meantime carry on with your plans for world domination, I'll be back to stamp them out soon...

Above image from Graphic Novel X, which I finally feel like I'm rounding third and heading home on. I chose that image because honestly I enjoy drawing stuff where the "camera" wanders and finds the little moments as much if not more than anything else. I hope it doesn't sound too pretentious but I feel like that's where most of any good story is.

Speaking of story...



That Mad Men finale... whoo boy. I wish I had time to just do Mad Men fan art all day. Utterly satisfying. Scratched every itch.Best show on TV these days by miles.

Anyways, more soon...

The first couple (out of ten) of these always stressful but always educational sketch cards I'm doing for an IRON MAN 2 card set. Rules preclude that the characters be Marvel Comics versions of the characters, which is fine by me.

Kind of a funky crop at the top of his head on this one, I know. I ended up having to black that area in because the pen bleed as I was writing "MARK V ARMOR" there.

(EDIT: Oops, gotta take these down until they're officially approved. Be back up soon)


Big thanks to Brunner for his eyes and sage advice. That guy is the master of the sketch card... hope I didn't let him down. I'll trickle more of these out when I find the time to do them. I really hope these are the worst of the bunch.

More soon...

I'm pretty slammed but I took a minute to do some overdue life studies...



It's business as usual here at the casa. I'm approaching the final sprint on this Graphic novel gig, which causes roller coaster bouts with relief and stress. In the next month or so I'll be contributing some sketch cards to the Iron Man 2 set, so I may post some progress stuff here as I churn it out.

Anyway, more soon...

I'm back from this past weekend's trip to Baltimore Comic Con and finally (seemingly) readjusted to normal life. Big thanks to Marc Nathan and the guys who run the show for having me, as well as to colorist extraordinaire Rico Renzi for showing me around. I didn't get my lake trout but I did experience the calorie explosion that is the Pollack Johnny's #1 special (loaded sausage dog, fries and a chocolate shake). Then on Saturday night myself and my fellow Growling Commandos crossed the breech into a Brazilian Meat Storm at Fogo De Chao , which was such an experience it should probably either be kept a secret between our band of carnivores or immortalized as a comic strip. I can't decide. There was much more fun had but to avoid the risk of leaving something or someone out I'll wrap it up and just say it was a real blast. I hope my third trip up wasn't my last.

Today's art post is actually the piece I donated to the Con Auction. The previous night I had a long, friendly, debate with Jason Aaron about who the best Linebacker in the NFL is. Despite being a die hard Steelers fan Jason suggested I draw Ray Lewis for the auction. So I ran with that idea and the excuse to draw NFL SUPER PRO.



I have no idea what it went for, but it was fun and the people browsing the auction seemed to like it, so mission accomplished.

Anyways,hope you dig it. More soon...

So just a heads up.. I'll be visiting the home of lake trout, Ray Lewis and David Simon this weekend for Baltimore Comic Con.



I believe I'll be seated in booth 2101 next to Jason Aaron. I'll have copies of my sketchbooks for sale and I think I'll be doing a limited number of con sketches. So if you're in the area come by and say hi!

Speaking of con sketches and since this is still, despite it's disrepair, a art blog...

I've been trying to work my way through a few overdue ones. I really like drawing women quite a bit but I don't think my real strength is "cheesecake". That said though,here it was sort of the assignment, so I tried to do a good job and bring some enthusiasm to it. Even threw in a couple of cartoon characters for my own gratification. The end result? Well strikes and gutters as the saying goes..





The color never quite scans right on marker, blah, blah, blah, enough excuses. That fulfills the art quotient of our post. I hope you dig. I'll be trying to get at the rest of my "to do" list as time permits. So if I owe you one... check back soon and you just might see it.

Anyways, more soon...

THE DESTROYER (MAX) by Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker was a really wild ride of a superhero book. I quite enjoyed seeing the guys go a little nuts on what was essentially a creator owned book under the Marvel banner.

Cory's a real art stud, and I've owed him a trade for quite some time. So I started this sketch of the Destroyer a while back, but as you can see it never moved past much more than planning.



Anyway, thought it was worth posting. Especially since I've let things fall to ruin here.

8 Tracks

I've been messing about with internet music. 8 tracks and Blip.fm. To call it a "mix" is a bit of a stretch given the limited options, but it's fun to share.

So here is my first 8 tracks attempt, DOOM AND GLOOM VOL. 1 a set of mostly Alt Country songs centering around that theme.

(note- probably plays out of order)
1. A Gringo's Tale- Steve Earle
2. Tobin- Ben Nichols
3. Down the River- Chris Knight
4. Cotton Seed- Drive-By Truckers
5.Just Can't Let You (Say Goodbye)- Willy Nelson w/Emmy Lou Harris
6. Long Black Highway- Chris Knight
7. Loving County- Charlie Robison
8. Cold Irons Bound- Bob Dylan

http://8tracks.com/jasonlatour



Also posting stuff on Blip FM as the mood strikes:
http://blip.fm/jasonlatour

Anyways, more soon.