The Art of Matthew Warlick

Senryu is live and being updated every weekday! Check it out and add it to your RSS reader of choice!

I almost missed Dallas Comic Con this year (they sold out super-fast, proof that a larger venue is now needed) but thanks to fellow Space Gunner Evan Bryce I got to com eout Sunday and hock my wares.

Prints and copies of Senryu moved slowly but I sketched almost the entire 4 hours. First up was a Joker for Charlotte Peeples, wife of awesome artist Brent Peeples.

I get odd requests at ties but this one I liked. It’s Deadman,  holding the ‘deadman’ on a Kovach R11 refueling truck..

Hush.

And last but my favorite, Destroyer. I loved the new Kirkman mini and plan to do a pinup of the character soon.

Oh, and I finally got a copy (albeit a 2nd printing) of local bad-ass Joe Eisma’s new Image book Morning Glories.

Fun was had by all and I’m looking forward to next year, hopefully bigger venue and more tables in Artist Alley will come with it!

Wow, what a crazy month it’s been. My apologies for neglecting the blog but the new day job has taken it’s toll on my free time and after working on freelance, finishing up commissions, and the constant connection to Twitter and Facebook there’s not much room left for blog posts. I guess the new research is true, blogs are going the way of the Do-Do.

But have no fear, I won’t be neglecting you beautiful internet masses, and have several cool bits of news to announce.

First off, my new employer Rockfish Interactive has moved into its new Frisco office (photos on my Flickr account), and I’ve settled comfortably into the role of a senior designer/art director.

I can’t say I don’t miss working from home and drawing all the time, but it’s nice to design again, get back up to speed on interactive work and produce storyboards and spot illos while getting a nice salary and bennies to boot.

The other bit of news is the official commencement of my next project, Lights in The Sky. Friends and family have long known about my fascination with UFOs and this summer I’m going to share my thoughts, theories and personal experiences on the matter.

The plan is to offer it up for free as an ongoing webcomic, and if all goes as planned my fellow Space-Gun Studio mates will also have projects kicking off. You may even see Space-Gun webcomics in the near future.

That’s it for now, below is the first promo image (and possible cover) for LITS. I hope you dig.

The fifth and final winner for this round of #followme4freeart sketches is Chris Garret, twitter user @Gravnos. Very appropariately, he chose his own character Gravnos as his subject.

Congrats Chris!

Follow me on twitter and check out the hashtag #followme4freeart and you might be the next winner!

So a few of us Dallas folk got together and started a weekly sketch blog called Metrosketchual. Below is my piece for our first weeks’ theme, Ghostbusters!

And here are a few rejected sketches that I just wasn’t feeling. They’re decent enough, but I wanted something that better captured the vibe of the first movie. Plus Slimer was a straight-to-ink warm up sketch.

Day two of DCC was pretty awesome. The lines weren’t nearly as bad but business was jsut as good as day one, with most of that business being in the form of sketches.

This cool kid asked me to do a female Iron Man sketch and I tried to rock it out as best as I could.

Got a nice Two-Face request as well.

Plus a rare appearance by King Bender.

Deadman. Who is dead.

Plus a little Predator action.

And to top it all off the little lady got to meet one of her most favorite actors, Sean Patrick Flanery. Priority pass line-cutting FTW!

All in all it was another very positive convention experience (except for the con-contagion Beth and I came down with Sunday night). Senryu didn’t do quite as well as I had hoped, but I made plenty of profit doing sketches and selling prints, so it was a win. Hopefully Staple will treat the book a bit better come March 6th.

Ciao!

Nrama: Going back a little bit, what’s your background? Tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got to this point.

Warlick: My professional background is in interactive design but I?ve been drawing since I was a little kid. In 4th grade I discovered comics and I?ve been hooked ever since. When I graduated I took an apprenticeship with a web design firm and eventually moved up to the position of interactive designer and then art director. The past few years I?ve freelanced doing interactive art direction and illustration work.

Nrama: In terms of organizing the event, was there an overall structure to who you teamed up with? Or are you hearing from people who published who you had never spoken with before?

Warlick: The main ICBW team is Vinh-Luan Luu, Jake Ekiss, Paul Milligan and myself; It?s basically our Space-Gun Studios entity minus Evan Bryce. We?ve been responsible for putting together the website and organizing the blog, but have had a lot of help from creators and retailers in spreading the word and helping the event take off.

So head on over and give it a read.

And if you’re in Texas come out to the Dallas Comic Con tomorrow. It’ll be the first time I’ve had Senryu for a convention and I’m really excited to see how it’s received.

Mention this post and I’ll give you a sweet limited edition Senryu print. While supplies last.

The guys over at Newsarama’s Best Shots review my first full-length comic Senryu.

…a mixture of chutzpah, free association and illustrated poetry, Indy Comic Week co-founder Matt Warlick’s book is a personal story put in front of an impersonal audience that nevertheless gives readers … food for thought.

…this book isn’t trying to pander to anyone — it’s intensely personal… if you’re a fan of poetry and art and the sort of daydreaming that comes with it, give this book a look.

It may not be Eisner-ready just yet, but Senryu is a precocious read that’s indicative of a lot of potential.

Read the entire interview here.

Aron Head over at Ideology of Madness provides the first post-Indy Comic Book Week review of my first full-length comic Senryu.

Warlick suckered me in with his lovely artwork and hit me hard with his thought-provoking verse. The book is an anthology of illustrated stories set to lyrical poetry. In my head, there?s a soundtrack to this book. There?s a certain element of Fantasia to it.

You can read the rest here.

Indy Comic Book Week is only one day away, and I?ll be signing copies of my full-length comic debut Senryu at Madness Games & Comics in Plano, TX (RSVP to the Facebook event here).

To celebrate the ICBW event and Senryu I?ve got a couple of specials offers to those who can make it out to the signing; here’s what I’ll have going on for the event.

As well as Senryu I’ll have copies of the Synesthetic anthology, Real Magicalism, One Off and my first work Weird West. Prints of all sizes will be super cheap, I’ll be doing sketches and taking commissions AND I have 3 limited edition 13×19 Senryu prints for the first 3 people who buy the book and mention them.

Hope to see you there!

My books arrived on Thursday, and have since been organized and prepped for shipping. They will be in participating shops on December 30th (I’ll have a detailed update on that tomorrow).

Big thanks to Ka-Blam for helping us out with Indy Comic Book Week and for hooking us up with the awesome discount for participating creators.

Superhero stress reliefe at its best. When all else fails, just draw!

On a side note, I’m open for commissions.

So the comic project that was scheduled to start in 2010 has officially fallen through, and with spare time and bills a-plenty pilling up I’m going to open up spots for Holiday commissions.

Commissions can be of any character; comic book heroes/villians, movie or literary figures, portraits of your loved one or even original artmade by me left to my own devices.

I’ll be taking payment through PayPal, and will gurantee a pre-Christmas delivery for all requests I receive before December 9th. Base price for pieces will be $10 for b&w and $20 for color.

I’ll accomodate digital delivery as well as snail mail orders for folks who want original art. If you want to be really picky and/or make a complicated request email me at soulcoredotnet (a) gmail.com to talk specifics.

$10 bucks gets you an inked sketch of any character delivered by email.
$20 bucks gets you a full color sketch delivered by email.
$30 bucks gets you an inked sketched delivered snail mail style.
$40 gets you a color print delivered snail mail style.
$10 per each additional character.

Order with the handy Paypal Dropdown below!

2009 Holiday Sketches

Inks, digital delivery $10.00 Color, digital delivery $20.00 Inked, snail mailed $30.00 Color print, snail mail $40.00 Full color original (mixed media), snail mailed $50.00

So the fundraiser is going well.

I?m already at almost 2/3 of my goal of $300. Thanks to everyone who has donated and helped spread the word. It means a lot, especially after having set Indy Comic Book Week into motion and then losing the financial ability to get my own book out for the event.

That being said there?s still that last 33% to go! So please, donate if you can. If you?re a comic lover, an independent media lover or just someone who digs my art/wallpapers please donate what you can. This has been a big dream of mine for a while and with the success of ICBW it?s the best time to get it into stores.

Everyone who donates will get a digital copy of the finished book. Larger donors will likely get original art or some other personalized goodies, depending on how many people donate (there are only 36 pages to give away).

Again you donate at this link or by clicking the donate button below.

So thanks for all the help, here?s to hoping I can reach my goal by November 15th!

Day 2 of the 30Characters/30Days project.

Discovered wandering the Pacific in 1903, Mountain Man was recruited into the first Federal League of Heroes in 1933.

After decades of loyal service tragedy struck on June 26th 1980, when, in the heat of battle, Mountain Man was knocked unconscious by Professor Gravitron. His subsequent fall to Earth wiped Plano, Texas and its 220,000 citizens off the map.

He has since become a recluse, shying away from public attention. He now resides in Yellowstone National Park.

So as you know I?ve been planning on getting my book Senryu out for Indy Comic Book Week, and have been posting previews and progress here and on the ICBW blog.

As you might also know my Space-Gun studios mates Jake Ekiss, Vinh Luan Luu and Paul Milligan and I have been pushing really hard on the Indy Comic Book Week front, and are really excited about the opportunity to get our books into stores.

Double-page spread from Senryu.

Well due to circumstances beyond my control Senryu is now in jeopardy of not making it to the shelves on December 30th. I had a very large freelance project get pushed back until after the New Year, and as such it leaves very little room in the budget for essentials, much less printing costs for a comic that, no matter how well recieved, is guaranteed to lose money.

So, while I don?t like to beg, I?m going to start a PayPal fund raising event for printing and shipping costs and see how it goes. My goal? A whopping $300US to cover printing costs and shipping to as many participating stores as possible. The deadline to send the files to print is November 15th.

Anyone who donates more than $25 will get a copy of the book mailed to them with a nice thank you note. I?ll end up donating original art and other goodies to folks who participate as well. More on that later.

Donations can be made via PayPal to soulcoredot (at) gmail.com.

Shameless PayPal Donate button below for your enjoyment!

Thanks in advance to everyone who’s followed my progress so far and offered advice and support, you guys rock. Now let’s see if we can get this thing into stores!

And just for visitng, here’s another preview page.

So while I’m in between freelance projects I’m hitting the Senryu pages hard and fast, vowing to do a page a day until it’s finished and ready to print.

To see it and more be sure to look for Senryu in participating comic shops December 30th.

Indy Comic Book Week has taken off more than we could have ever hoped, and with the TWAYKI graphic novel finished I’ve had some time to focus on side gigs and pet projects.

Below is my page for One Night Stand entitled Daydreamer. It’s a mini comic being put together by David Hopkins for ICBW.

ONE NIGHT STAND is a collection of one-page stories, all about “casual encounters.” This mini-comic will explore sex and intimacy, guilt and anonymity, risk and fantasy.

I’ll be working on Senryu next while I wait for my next day-job script to come in. I’ll be finishing it up this week and getting it ready for Indy Comic Book Week as well.

Stay tuned.

Testing out the WordPress iPhone app with the new blog setup. If all goes as planned below you should see my penciled contribution to David Hopkins‘ Indy Comic Book Week project One Night Stand.

Written by David Hopkins, ONE NIGHT STAND is a series of one-page vignettes, a collaboration with 32 artists – centered around a theme of casual sex and brief intimate encounters.

Be sure and pick it up come Indy Comic Book Week.

So I had promised a day 2 DCC wrap-up, but was unfortunately struck down Sunday night by the dreaded con-cough. Only gastrointestinal. Or maybe it was the Golden Chick. Ughn.

Instead of a blog post wrap-up I?ve got a sort of homage to the con in progress at the moment and will post that in the next few days.In the meantime it?s back to the day job (making comics) and blog posting (now that I?ve caught up with all the work I missed being sick Monday) so without further ado I give you a relatively new piece that hasn?t been posted yet, Black Bolt from the Inhumans.

More to come, for now it?s back to this weeks batch of pages.