It's My Nature

I think as artists it's really important to keep experimenting. Experiment with what works for you, what doesn't. Experiment with techniques, writing, painting, your life, whatever. Just keep trying new, weird, scary, exciting things. Find what makes the game fun for you. Try as many things as you can at least once. Keep growing.
That being said I am currently trying some new art software since my adobe software is a no go right now. Trying out, Art Rage, Painter 12 and The Gimpy. We shall see what happens.
Also working on a new watercolor series to be paired with some of my poetry. The focus of the series is "pain".
Finally as well getting back to my graphic novel, 'Nine Gates' as well. Writing and penciling and random illustrations.

So trying to get a nice swing going.

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Facebook Page: Mike D. Burke

Some New Art-ing

 "Clarity"

Pencil/Watercolor

Mike D. burke

"Eros"

Pencil/Ink/Watercolor

Mike D.Burke

New Project: Psycho Cat

I am starting a new children's book project entitled, 'Psycho-Cat'. It is the story of a brave little toy-pinscher named, Tony who saves his unsuspecting parents (his owners) from a psychotic cat who they unknowingly bring into their home.
The story is sort of inspired by real life. In our first apartment, in the first year we were living together on our own a couple of months after we got our baby puppy boy, Tony we were out for a walk in the village of New Hartford one summer afternoon. They were having some sort of a pet expo for the Humane Society at the New Hartford Park and had all sort of pets for adoption. Now at the time we were still getting use to having one new member of our family and I was hesitant to get anymore yet. However we fell in love with a kitten at the show. I tried to resist getting the little guy but my wife, who at the time was my fiancé, fell in love with it fast and so we decided to try it for a while. We got all the right stuff for it and everything and brought it home. It was a very cute cat and we liked it a lot, however our little guy Tony did not care for it. We played with it and fed it and tried to train it a little, as much as you can in one night and then we all went to sleep. Well, so, my wife and I and our dog all sleep in the bed together so we had our new kitten sleep in our living room and closed our door. Somehow that night the cat had slipped itself underneath the door and curled up to my head. Tony was in the sheets but then he sensed this and started barking and trying to get out of the sheets (which was hilarious) to get at the cat. So then I got the kitten and put him back in the living room, however Tony would not go back to sleep. The next day we talked long and hard about it and decided that the kitten wasn't for us, so we returned it to the shelter. I chalk this experience up to the fact that we were still new at being on our own and we still were learning to take care of our little puppy, and we just got scared I think. Luckily though I heard that our little kitten got adopted the next day and is very happy.
So I had been mulling over a short humorous story for a landscape style children's book for a while now. Then one day I was staring at my dog and thinking how cat like he is, yet how much he despises those felines and that sparked the recollection of that night and thus I began writing. The story will be narrated by Tony from his perspective, so as to bring it down to an accessible level for kids to get into but also cross that line so that YA and adults will like it too hopefully. Pictured above are just some sketches I've done so far. More to come.

WIPs of "Hipster Skull Girlz 1"

Spot Illustration

Here is a spot illustration for my upcoming graphic novel. In a later post I shall describe the process I took in creating this and most of my pieces along with pictures. 

Happy May the 4th!!

Some Star Wars day smurfy smurfette fun for ya!! Pencils and inks n words all me! Boom baby!! 

Happy Holiday Illustrations

Christmas is coming! Soon all shall be merry and cheery and white! So naturally the season to gifts that are straight from the heart is upon is all! I have decided to give certain members of my family who live in a far off land illustrations to commemorate my feelings and theirs as well toward certain things.

The main illustration is for my step-mom/whole family. You see, recently their dog had to be put down because of medical complications. We all took it hard of course but my step mother seemed to most of all. My father and I thought it would be a terrific idea to do a sort of portrait of our beloved, Buddy.

Here I share with you the pencils of the Buddy illustration I call, "Saint Buddy". Also some shots of the other ones as well. I plan on doing individual blogs on each so look forward to those! And shhhh don't tell my family this is on my blog! Happy Holidays! Cheers!

NINE GATES: My journey to making a graphic novel

Greetings! Never mind that last post, I was ranting like a mad man! Recently I promised you in depth interviews and videos about my newest book Short Stories of a Man Named Frankie Dingle: Adventures of Absurdity. Well you're still going to have to wait for that! Ha! It seems I've sold but one copy so far (pathetic) seemingly because a lot of people don't understand that its only available in digital format. So I will have to adjust my marketing strategies and get that rolling.

I wanted to talk a little bit about my other current project, Nine Gates  my graphic novel! I'm in the prelims right now with it and am unavailable to scan in and post any progress pictures unfortunately but I am coming along. The script for the first chapter was finished quite sometime ago and now I have finished most of the character designs, and page 1 pencils and the cover pencils as well. Currently starting on page 2, of which I have the prelim pencils done so far. Everything with time and effort.

I'm looking to hopefully get this published through an actual big name publisher (IDW; DARK HORSE, IMAGE or SLAVE LABOR GRAPHICS) so as not to have so much pressure on myself to sell it. All of their submission guidelines are luckily all the same pretty much: Cover Letter, Whole Story Synopsis, Character Breakdowns, and 5 penciled, inked and lettered pages. Five is the minimum but its pretty much what I'm shooting for right now.

The cover letter, synopsis, character breakdowns and pencils part is easy for me and somewhat the inking. I run into a huge problem with the lettering part however. Like what do I do for that part? So that is really going to be quite a doosy for me. I'll figure something out I'm hoping.

I picture this series in black and white (basically like a manga graphic novel) interiors with of course full color covers and wraps and what not. It's sort of a cross between; Avatar/Korra; Ral Grad, and Lord of the Rings. Sort of. The rest of it is something different that I've never come across myself out there in the comic world. I'll post the synopsis and stuff soon and hopefully some pictures. Thanks.

Learning things and what not

So yeah, I'm still learning and will continue to do so for the rest of my natural life for the most part. I've been studying hard now all the different pencillers and thier techniques to better myself and really paying attention to what it is I've been seeing you know? Really taking it all in and using that knowledge in my own sketches and drawings. I've been doing one big sketch a day for two days so far and will continue to do so I believe. I've been studying the Marvel Encyclopedia and all the different drawings in it and been picking one character that really strikes me as interesting and usually doing my sketch on them. I'm doing a real focus on line weight becasue that's mostly what I was told to practice on when I went to this passed months Big Apple Comic Con which was this May 2011. They told me that my storytelling was excellent (which they said is the most important part of being a comic book artist) and also that I'm very consistent with my characters from panel to panel (which is also a hard thing to keep up, two points ahead for me) but just to focus on line weight, and then the basics (i.e., proportions, perspective).

So yes that is what I'm doing! They also said to focus on whatever company I want to work for or a company that wouldn't be bad to work for just to get myself in the door. So I'm going to focus on the big two; Marvel and DC of course. I've been going through my more current comics that I've recently purchased to keep myself on the scene and picked out characters that are either popular or always popular and have written a three page story around them for each company. I also included my own original character "Ananami" copyright Mike D. Burke 2011. I'm making it so that he can fit into either universe depending on which one hires me. Here are the characters I've chosen: For Marvel; Dr. Strange, Dormammu, Wolverine and Spider-Woman. For DC; Red Robin, Batgirl and Batman. I've made it so that these stories need no dialogue as I am to focus mainly on the ability to draw a story panel to panel. One thing they also told me to focus on was the way I lead the eyes of the reader on the page, to make sure that the characters are facing the proper ways so as the story has good flow to it. Hopefully this all goes well, I've finished the story for both companies, I'm also going to put in their three pinups/covers also because from all the books I've read they say those are essential for a good portfolio as well. I'm so happy I have this new found focus now!! I'm pumped up and ready to take action, this is what it's all about!!

Work!Practice!Write!Draw!

Currently I am so slammed with a ton of work to do right now and it is really having an effect on me. I have tons of school work to do which includes; continuing to get good grades and stuff for graduation, nine more pages for my Children's book I am working on for Childs Ill, I have to do three finished illustrations for this book, a cover and two other illustrations, doing photos and research and all sorts of things for Figure illustration, and doing good enough at Science to keep a good grade, oh and doing projects well for Editorial as well. By the way I don't think I've done many awesome pieces that would be considered portfolio level which is not cool. Then I have my own side projects I'm trying to do like; writing a script for my comic I want to do, "Master's of Fiction" (which then I have to thumbnail, layout, pencil, ink and eventually color on the computer and publish through Lulu), do random pencilled pages for my comic portfolio and I offered to do a story and whole comic for this Indy anthology thingie so yeah....a bit too much on my plate per se.
But I guess this will all make me a better artist in the end. It is teaching me to not sleep so much, man that just holds you back...In anycase I hope to post some stuff up here soon but until then I will continue blogging.