Big Time Attic

Messy Giuseppe Video Postcard

2011-11-22T10:55:00.001-06:00

Here's a video postcard of the best Italian food truck in the Twin Cities, put together by the Delmont brothers. If you like the design of the truck, that's great, because Zander and I may have had something to do with it...

Evolution Makes YALSA, Maverick Lists

2011-11-19T09:04:00.001-06:00

We're happy to share that our most recent graphic novel, Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth, has made two prestigious lists.

First, the book is a nominee for YALSA's 2012 "Great Graphic Novels for Teens."

Second, and most exciting, is the inclusion in the Texas Library Association's "Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List."

Thank you, YALSA, and TLA -- we're honored!

The Making of a Mini-Comic: Beard Hero

2011-11-02T22:29:00.000-05:00

I don't do a lot of mini-comics these days -- for various reasons -- but a few weeks ago I had a burst of inspiration and decided to get something produced in time for MIX. MIX is, of course, the biggest and best indie comix convention in Minnesota, and is celebrating its last year in existence this weekend. You should totally go.

"Beard Hero" is a condensed version of a much longer story that I've been toying with for the last few months. Unfortunately its sheer size was keeping me from actually sitting down and drawing any of it, because long projects, well, take a long time and can be exhausting to even think about. So I decided to compromise and just take the heart of the story and turn it into a mini, and frankly I think it's more interesting because of its condensed nature. The reader can fill in the gaps and frankly it's a one-gag story that probably wouldn't have been able to carry a big tome.

So because I like showing process, here is an annotated look at how I created this mini. I hope you enjoy.

Step 1: Story

The story was already written, albeit in detailed notes, in a google doc somewhere. It's about a six year old boy who wakes up with a full beard, and his parents take it as a sign that he's now a man and they send him off to war and other various adult-only activities. Along the way the boy falls in love with a bearded circus girl whose visage he sees only on posters and advertisements, and he spends the rest of his life trying to meet her in person. So that's the story in a nutshell. The trick is to fit it all in the size of a mini-comic. That's the next step.

Here are some doodles that eventually inspired the full story:

Step 2: Figuring out the Specs

Since this is a peripatetic story, I wanted the mini to have ridiculous, landscape-driven proportions. I also wanted to try a new printing technique, where I would print the entire mini on both sides of an 11x17" poster. Thus, I decided to cut the poster lengthwise three ways, folding in the middle, so that I would end up with a 12 page mini where each page was 3.66" high by 8.5" wide, which would give a maximum length of 17" when the book is opened to an interior spread.

I used a vendor called NextDayFlyers.com for the cover of Just Add Ink, liked their product, and decided to use them again. So I priced out what it would cost to print on a double-sized 11x17 sheet of 100 lbs paper with a 1-sided cover on 14pt card stock. Here's the sheet where I chicken-scratched all that stuff, and figured out pagination.

Step 3: Script

I usually like to script out every shot and word balloon before I start drawing, but I wanted this mini to have a more kinetic feel, so I just wrote dialogue on the fly. But I didn't want to leave anything out, so I wrote down what I wanted to have happen on each spread (see the notes page above). If you read the final comic you'll be able to tell that by the end of the story I was leaving out old plot points and adding new ones as the story demanded.

Step 4: Loose Pencils

Now the fun begins. Since there are no panels in this particular comic, the trick was to fit everything in, word balloons and all, while still maintaining a readable flow throughout the page. On a few occasions I drew out the page on a scratch sheet, but normally I just dropped everything in loosely with a light pencil. Here, I'm drawing on a thick Xerox paper I like, called Color Xpressions Planet 20, #3R11811, 12x18". It's heavy, like bristol, but pen & brush pen ink dry on it really fast, so it's virtually smudge-proof (at least with the tools I've used). The pencil I'm using for this stage is a hard lead 2H, applying very light pressure so it's easy to erase.

Note that in this image and the next one I've beefed up the contrast so you can see the lines, but in reality the lines are pretty light.

Step 5: Tight Pencils

If everything looked good I went back over the lines with a darker pencil -- nothing fancy, just a drugstore No. 2 Bic mechanical pencil. There was no need to eras or alter the light pencils underneath; I just went over them with the darker pencil and made changes along the way.

Step 6: Inks

I find that the penciling is the most stressful part of the process, because that step requires the most juggling & problem-solving. The inking stage, however, is a lot more relaxing. Even though I need to be precise and everything, this is the stage when I can crack open a Molson, tune in a hockey game, and turn off most of my brain. For this book I used a Micron 01 for all art, and a Micron 005 for the lettering. Both are available at any art store worth a dime.

Step 7: Scanning

Scanning this was pretty basic. I drew it at size, meaning that the final book would be the exact same size as the original art. Most cartoonists draw larger, usually at 150%, and then shrink the art down when they print it. This makes the art look cleaner and tighter. However, for this book, and for a lot of my work, I want to keep that gritty look, hence drawing at size.

At work we have a large scanner that could easily scan this 4x17" art right at 1200 dpi, no problem. Unfortunately I was at home using my crappy low-budget scanner, so this is how I get to a good scan:

Scan each section of the art at 600 dpi grayscale (no correction)
In Photoshop, use the ruler tool to level each section.
Drop each section into one big canvas and, with each layer on "multiply", line everything up.
Turn off "multiply" and flatten the canvas. Crop as needed.
Gaussian blur at 1.0
In the Image Size window, upsize to 1200 dpi using "bicubic smoother".
Adjust levels (to your preference).
Change mode to bitmap, 1200 dpi, at 50% threshold.
Save your file. Include the info "lineart", "bitmap" and "1200" somewhere in the file name. (e.g. "BH_lineart_bitmap_1200.psd")

Step 8: Basic Colors

To start coloring, I like to flat big sections of the canvas and drop in my basic colors to set the palette. It's a lot easier to change the palette at this stage than later when you're dealing with tons of little details. I prepped my files like so:

Always "save as" first so you don't overwrite the original lineart. (e.g. "BH_color_600.psd")
Change image size to 600 dpi using "nearest neighbor." Go down to 300 dpi if you have a slow computer.
Change mode to grayscale, then to CMYK.
In the layers palette, double-click on the background to turn it into a layer. Name it "inks." Set it to multiply at 50% opacity.
Create a new layer underneath called "flats". If you want to be a huge nerd call it "Stochastic Flats" -- it's an Alan Moore reference.
Choose pencil tool (NOT the brush tool) and set the size to something small like 20 px.
Start drawing your big shapes of color. Having the "inks" layer set at 50% allows you to see where the edge of your color planes go -- obviously you want to tuck your planes under the lineart so there's overlap.
Note that there are many ways to flat your art. Some people use the lasso tool, some people use the BPelt plugin. Here, I'm using a pencil.

Step 9: Final Colors

I was pretty crunched for time on this project, so I tried to limit the amount of fancy photoshop work I would do. Which is fine, because I try to stay away from lens flares etc. anyway... Here's an example of the level of detail I dropped in after the flats were finished. Again, this is all done with the pencil tool. Note that the lineart looks washed out because it's at 50% opacity.

I use the pencil tool at a high resolution (instead of say, the brush tool at a low resolution) because that allows me to go back in and easily change colors with the bucket tool.

Okay, so after I finished all the detail work I wasn't quite satisfied with the colors, so I played around with color adjustment tools. Here's a snapshot of the layers so you can see what all happened:

From top to bottom:

MASK: This is a white border I put around the trim lines so I know what the page will look like when printed. This layer gets trashed before printing.
INK: The lineart at 50% opacity. This layer will also get trashed before printing (more details later).
FAUX AGE: This is a cream color that sits over everything and gives it an aged look. In the mask to the right I've knocked out all whites from the mask, so anything that's white (like word balloons) will retain their crisp whiteness. For this particular faux aging I used the color 5/16/34/0 on multiply at 50% opacity.
HEADLIGHTS: I added headlights to Beard Hero's car.
COLOR BALANCE & HUE SATURATION: These are a bunch of adjustment layers I messed around with to get the colors I wanted. As you can see, they each have masks attached to them because I was doing very surgical adjustments as opposed to one big global adjustment.
FLATS: The original flat colors.

And here is another closeup of the result:

... and the whole spread:

Step 10: Post Production

Next I create an InDesign file at the print size, which will be 11x17", double-sided. I then import the flat color file for each page, and then add the 1200 dpi bitmap lineart layer on top (and make sure they're aligned perfectly). For this particular book I split the lineart layer into three distinct files because I wanted three distinct colors: black, white, and red. Here's a detail of how it turned out. Note that the billboard lettering is now red.

Why have both CMYK files and bitmap files in InDesign? Because by keeping your lineart (your ink lines) on a top-level bitmap file, you can keep your lines crisp while keeping your press-ready file size LOW. To see an example, look through the ads in your local alt weekly newspaper. Most have crisp lettering and low-res art. That's because the lettering is separate from the art in InDesign. Now look around until you see an add with blurry lettering. That ad was probably created in Photoshop and was exported at 300 dpi (which is way too low for fine detail). I'll do a blog post later on exactly how to construct this file in InDesign if people want to see it.

Step 11: Print, Collate, Sell

Okay, the rest of the process is pretty obvious. I sent the files to the printer, waited a few weeks, then a few days ago received a 25 lbs shipment with all the pages -- cover and interior -- and everything looks great (phew)! I painstakingly cut the 11x17 poster pages down to 3 2/3" x 17" strips (because I didn't give myself any room for bleed) and stapled them with my handy long arm stapler.

And viola!

If you'd like to learn more, or ask questions directly, I'll be giving a lecture on Photoshop fundamentals on January 5th, and InDesign fundamentals on February 2, 2012, as part of the Nordeast Comics Summit. There's no info on the site just yet, but check back closer to the date for full details. And feel free to leave any questions in the comments section below!

FINALLY... please come to MIX on Saturday and Sunday and if you want to drop five bucks on Beard Hero, I won't stop you.

If you can't make the convention but would like to purchase a copy, here's the solution for that:

Thanks!

Food Fight!

2011-10-30T23:02:00.001-05:00

I'm happy to report that I've got some artwork in November's Altered Esthetics "Food Fight" show! While I've been behind the scenes for the AE comics shows over the last few years, this is the first time I've submitted work to a NON-comics show -- you know, like as a regular Joe Artist. So it's pretty exciting to have work accepted by the curatorial team.

This is "XOLOTLAN" and it's pretty much the most fun I've ever had drawing anything. Please click on the image to view it in detail. See if you can find the caricature of Louis CK.

This piece is part of my CMYK phase, where I'm trying to draw color images only using cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink. So a while ago I bought microns and pitt brush pens with those colors and have been experimenting with trying to get different colors like green, brown, etc.

In XOLOTLAN, above, the first thing I laid down was the yellow base with a yellow pitt brush, and then used a magenta micron over it to make red, and used a blue micron over other parts to make green. The same blue micron was used in the center, but since I was drawing over white paper and not yellow, it just stayed cyan.

Anyway, this piece will be part of AE's "Food Fight" show, which opens on Thursday, but the big opening reception is on Friday night. Because MIX parties are also happening on Friday, I will probably start at AE at 7pm, hang out for a little while, and then wander down south to Pink Hobo.

Help print Altered Esthetics' 2012 Artists Calendar!

2011-10-27T06:26:00.000-05:00

Altered Esthetics, a community-run art gallery here in Nordeast Minneapolis, has bent over backwards to help the local comics scene, and now we have a chance to help Altered Esthetics! Please consider donating to their Kickstarter fund which will go toward printing AE's 2012 calendar.

Our very own Zander Cannon drew the image for November, as he will be the featured artist for "Lutefisk Sushi: Volume E." Yes, that's "E" as in "E"veryone should chip in. As an added incentive, if AE reaches their goal, we'll post Zander's image here on the blog. If not, well, it will disappear into the ether...

So, please go HERE to donate!

... And here's more info from our good friend Lupi:

Hi, I’m Lupi. I help direct press and communications at Ae, and I’d like you to check out the kickstarter page for Ae’s 2012 calendar. Ae didn’t have a printed calendar for 2011, and a lot of people missed that. I hope we can raise funds to print one for next year.

As you know, Ae is the non-profit gallery in Northeast Minneapolis that collaborates with the Cartoonist Conspiracy each year on a comics exhibition. The Ae board is made up of volunteers who donate hundreds of hours of their time to organize 14 group exhibits each year, plus workshops and a solo exhibitions program.

We work hard to keep our shows inexpensive and accessible for artists, and we encourage all styles and media. If you appreciate what Ae does for the artistic community (and the cartooning community), show some love by helping us print our 2012 calendar. A pledge of only $5 gets you an art calendar, which you can pick up at the gallery. For a pledge of $10, we’ll mail it to you. That’s a fraction of the cost of driving to a store and buying a mass-produced calendar. If you plan on participating in Lutefisk Sushi or any other Ae events next year, this calendar is nice to have, because it lists openings, deadlines, and workshops.

MIX Sponsorship Map

2011-10-26T11:23:00.002-05:00

As you're well aware, I'll jump at any chance to draw a goofy map of the Twin Cities, so fortunately Sarah Morean didn't roll her eyes too hard when I pitched the idea of drawing a map of all the sponsors of the Minneapolis Indie Xpo. So here is the finished product!

This map will be printed on the back of the catalog, so go to MIX early on Saturday morning and get a hard copy for yourself. The first 500 attendees will also get a free MIX ballpoint pen so you can fill out the scavenger hunt game on the bottom there.

Speaking of MIX, I am also sponsoring two celebrity cartoonist panels that you should attend on Saturday and Sunday. They involve Pizza Island star Sarah Glidden and local digital guru Gordon McAlpin. Full details on the Nordeast Comics site. See you there!

MIX is a little over a week away! November 5 & 6 at the Soap Factory.

Big Time Attic Featured in The Journal

2011-10-18T10:38:00.001-05:00

Jeremy Zoss wrote a great profile of Big Time Attic in this week's Journal (we found it in the NE Journal, but I'm told it's printed in the SW Journal as well). Anyway, thanks for the ink, Jeremy!

Click on the image below to see a larger version. But if want to actually read the text, go to the Journal's online version of the article.

If you're local, go pick up a copy! It should be on news stands until October 23.

Huge Convention Weekend Summary

2011-10-12T09:37:00.000-05:00

... or more appropriately, "Summary of Huge Convention Weekend."

You have a ton of options for comic book conventions this Saturday, and I highly recommend the three that I know about. In no particular order:

1) RAIN TAXI BOOK FEST

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 10am-5pm
Minneapolis Community & Technical College
1501 Hennepin Ave, Downtown Minneapolis

This one is actually a book festival with an increasingly heavy emphasis on the sequential arts. Big Time Attic has had a table there for most of the last seven years, and it's been great to watch the evolution of book lovers' reactions from "What's a comic book?" to "These are awesome! I'll take one of each."

This year I'll be premiering a brand new book, not a comic book mind you but an honest to goodness illustrated long-form poem, written by my old friend and mentor Tom Hegg.

Little Dickens is the story of a boy who sets off to Revolutionary France to prove his worth, and ends up encountering friends and villains from Charles Dickens' world of novels, including Marley's ghost, Madame DeFarge, and the Artful Dodger, among others. It's a fun read, and I'm heading out in twenty minutes to see the printed book for the first time -- it's literally hot off the press.

To that end, I'll be signing books with Tom Hegg at the Nodin Press table from 2-3 pm. You should buy lots and lots of copies. Your Christmas shopping could be finished by Saturday afternoon.

Also catch me on a panel discussion about the subject of "place" in literature from 12:30-1:30 pm. The panel is made up of poets, photographers, artists, novelists ... and they even let a cartoonist sit up there to provide some color commentary.

The entire day, from 10 am to 5 pm, Big Time Attic, the Cartoonist Conspiracy, and Altered Esthetics will all have a table together in the comics alley. I'll be selling the aforementioned Little Dickens, as well as Far Arden & Evolution, but you should really stop by and pick up a copy of Just Add Ink, the comic cookbook that came out in August.

Also, bonus, Ben Katchor will be at Book Fest, and will be giving a talk at 2:30pm! The man is a genius, and his Julius Knipl book is one of the first comic books I read after college and it really made me rethink the modern punchline. Click this little image for more info:

2) FALLCON

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 10am-4pm
MN State Fairgrounds, in the Progress Center
1621 Randall Ave, St. Paul, MN

I am sad to miss this one as there are going to be many cool comics creators there, and the MCBA always puts on a great show. If I were you, I would spend the morning at Fallcon, and then jet over to the Rain Taxi Book Fest for the afternoon.

3) NEW YORK COMIC CON

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13-16
Javits Center, Manhattan

I don't know much about the New York con except that Zander Cannon will be there showing off his brand new vinyl banner, so go say hi and buy some books from him so he doesn't have to lug them back on the plane.

Wally Wood Said It Best...

2011-09-05T20:57:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen a lot of posts from me and Zander in the last year, we apologize! We've just been very, very busy with really cool projects, and stuff like blog posts have fallen to the wayside as a result.

Wally Wood summed up our current situation very well in the last few panels of the premiere issue of "Cannon":

...Except that it's not "the end" of our blog! Keep checking back because we'll eventually post some sneak peeks of these projects that are eating up all of our time...

Lutefisk Sushi: Volume E -- The Ballot Boxes Are Open!

2011-08-14T14:47:00.000-05:00

Hey cartoonists!

Minnesota's premier comics art show LUTEFISK SUSHI is back for its fifth season in 2012. While the opening reception is over fifteen months away, we need to decide on a featured artist ASAP! As in past years, the featured artist will design the sushi box, and will have a whole wall devoted to their artwork during the gallery show at Altered Esthetics in November, 2012. See websites of past shows here.

NOMINATION PROCESS:

To nominate a cartoonist, please send the following info to nordeastcomics [at] gmail.com:

- The artist's name
- The artist's website (if there is one)
- The artist's email (so we can contact them to confirm if they want to run)

NOTE: Artists must reside in Minnesota or have some strong connection to the state.
NOTE: If an artist does not wish to be nominated, or does not respond to us before August 25, they will not be listed as a nominee.

CALENDAR:

August 15: Nominations open
August 25: Nominations close; Voting begins
September 1: Voting closes at noon; Winner is formally announced at 6pm at the Nordeast Comics Summit, and online.

VOTING PROCESS:

As in past years, voting will take place on www.cartoonistconspiracy.com/conspire. So jump on that site between August 25 and September 1 to vote! Voters must register on the Cartoonist Conspiracy website (it's free). Voters may vote only once.

Past featured artists are Vincent Stall, Ken Avidor, Kevin Cannon, and Danno Klonowski.

Questions? Post them in the comments section below.

Mealtime Hero Viral Video

2011-07-04T16:09:00.003-05:00

Nearly two years ago Zander and I were asked by Lunds & Byerly's to create a superhero character for their Mealtime Hero campaign. The campaign launch coincided with the revamp of their Golden Valley Byerly's store, and they printed some life-size cardboard cut-outs of our character for the grand opening event.

Here's a small jpeg of the cut-out as well as a screencap of the online comic we produced:

Today I stumbled upon a youtube video showing another aspect of Byerly's campaign -- a surprise in-store musical put on by U of M opera students. Quick eyes will spot our cut-out at 0:07 and also at the end of the video. For those of you with slow eyes, here are some screencaps:

And here's the full video, for your viewing pleasure. Turn up your speakers:

To date, this is the most musical theater I have ever been a part of.

City Pages Pride Map

2011-06-22T22:34:00.003-05:00

Some more cartography for you. This is a somewhat navigable map of Downtown Minneapolis, highlighting some of the events and locales from Pride Week 2011. Click the image below for a high resolution version. Visit City Pages' blog to learn more about the map and to see some of the preliminary sketches I sent to the art director.

Just Add Ink -- Comics due JUNE 15

2011-05-03T18:27:00.003-05:00

JUST ADD INK: A COMIC COOKBOOK is this summer's blockbuster comics show at Altered Esthetics. Instead of a box of comics or a newspaper of comics, this year we're making a COOKBOOK of comics. Draw whatever you feel like as long as follows the theme of cooking -- Could be an illustrated recipe, a kitchen horror story, or even a "recipe" for how to make great comics (meta, right?).

Like with any good recipe, you need to follow the guidelines EXACTLY. The submission guidelines pdf can be downloaded here!

BONUS: This year a limited number of artists will be REIMBURSED for a big portion of their printing costs! Again, details here.

Good luck, and please TELL YOUR FRIENDS! The more pages in the anthology the ~~butter~~ better!

Some Recent Watercolor Illustrations

2011-04-13T22:20:00.006-05:00

This fall I'll be coloring a graphic novel for a major publisher so I thought it might be time to get out the ol' watercolor tray and take a crack at this subtle yet unforgiving medium. Unforgiving because unlike digital coloring I can't paint on disposable layers or magically hit the UNDO button.

To begin, I reviewed some of my old watercolor "how to" books, but in the end I found it more interesting and educational to crib off the process blogs from watercoloring cartoonists like my old pal Sam Hiti and Pizza Island guru Sarah Glidden. And if I REALLY needed some inspiration I would just stare at this post all day, by Master of the Watercolor Universe Eleanor Davis.

Anyway, the best way to learn is to actually DO something, so here are some sketches, doodled with microns onto Arches hot press paper:

One commission I did recently was a gigantic world map, so here was my "look & feel" sketch for the client. And yes, this was painted BEFORE Sudan split up, so it's not entirely accurate:

And now another commission, this one for my high school. I usually do computer coloring for their posters, but since I'm on this watercolor kick I thought I'd try out something a little more challenging. For the fun of learning, here are all the steps. You can click on the images to see them in greater detail:

First the rough, at around 150% size. This was done on a thick bristol-like paper I use a lot. Ink bleeds on it a tiny bit but it's soft like butter and mad cheap:

Next, the tight pencils:

Then the inks. This is all done with an .01 micron:

Then I scanned in the ink and shrunk it down to final size, and changed the black lines to 8% cyan (so light you can barely see it). Then I printed that on a sheet of Arches hot press. Actually, before I printed it I deleted any unnecessary lines, like the words on the banner. That's because when I paint yellow over the 8% cyan it becomes a muddy green, which is bad. Here's how the watercolor turned out:

Then I put the two images together in InDesign. The watercolor is at 300 dpi but the line art layer is at 1200 dpi so it's nice and crisp. As you can see I changed the black lines to blue and made the field lines and some other details white. Although it was difficult to paint over the cyan print-out, I like having the post-production flexibility of being able to change the line art separately from the watercolor layer.

Finally, here's a painting I did for Altered Esthetic's 7th birthday party silent auction. AE has been VERY good to the Minneapolis cartooning community so I thought I'd do something extra time-consuming and hopefully earn them a few bucks during the auction (the auction is April 29, by the way, and you should totally go and bid on this piece or the tons of other great stuff in the show).

This drawing was also done with an .01 micron, but it was drawn right on the watercolor paper. Then I did something really stupid which was to start painting without doing any color samples first. Basically what happened was I started painting in the characters in lots of random colors with no real color scheme and it looked terrible. This is the pitfall of watercolor which is that you can't paint over it like with acrylics and you can't subtract from it so I figured I had just ruined a week's worth of work. Eventually I just painted GREEN over my terrible colors, and after enough layers it looked muddy but at least consistent. Then I painted the rest of the characters green and added some orange coloring to match the muddiness of that first patch. You can see in the lower right how the color looks denser -- that's because there are layers of crappy color I'm trying to hide. Secret's out. And lesson learned: always do test swatches to get your color scheme picked out before jumping into the final.

So the painting itself is just a series of random jokes, one-liners, and musings. Here are some of my favorites:

A nod to our neighbor across the river:

T.S. Eliot and some horny bookworms:

This is actual Inuktitut I cribbed from a bilingual arctic newspaper called Nunavut News/North. Each issue has a "man on the street" Q&A (kind of like The Onion does, but for real), and that's where I pulled this from. The first guy is saying something like "What's your best fishing tip?" and the second guy is saying, "Be patient."

Here is the cast of the next Shanks book, which I should really be working on right now instead of blogging:

The title of the painting is "I'm Not Actually a Dentist" and this is the gag that the line is from:

A nod here to Ted Anderson who has openly admitted to buying not one but FOUR happy meals just to get the My Little Pony toys. If you're interested in hearing his defense, it's discussed at length on a recent Geek Report.

Speaking of the Geek Report, here's a nod to Lance Ward and his ever-evolving crew:

And finally, here's Xeric winner Britt Sabo surrounded by her favorite creatures (not counting ghosts):

As another incentive to come to the Altered Esthetics party on April 29, the gallery printed up posters of this painting that you can have for a small donation. "C U" there!

"How Do I Make a Mini Comic?"

2011-03-23T12:02:00.002-05:00

If you've asked the above question, it's time to head on over to Wet Paint in St. Paul. Specifically, go on Thursday, March 24, from 5:30-7:30pm. There you'll witness a bevy of local mini-comic greats spewing forth tons of knowledge on the subject. And by "greats" I'm talking about Steve Stwalley, Danno Klonowski, Athena Currier and BTA's own Zander Cannon.

What size paper to use?
What kinds of materials?
How do I work a photocopier?
All of these questions and more will be answered. Plus you'll be inside the warm, dry oasis called Wet Paint -- Minnesota's (and possibly the nation's) best and friendliest art supply store. The Wet Paint crew are the ones who sponsor tons of local art events and have even been known to give away goodie bags of art supplies during 24 Hour Comics Day.

FULL DETAILS:
Wet Paint
Thursday, March 24th 5:30-7:30PM
1684 Grand Avenue
Saint Paul, MN 55105
651.698.6431
email: info(at)wetpaintart.com

Last Chance to Get Involved with "Just Add Ink"

2011-03-14T22:26:00.003-05:00

Apologies, I was supposed to post this information much, much earlier.

In any case, the planning for Just Add Ink -- this summer's Altered Esthetics gallery show about comics & cooking -- is ramping up, and the next meeting happens tomorrow night.

WHERE: Psycho Suzi's
TIME: 9pm
WHO: Anyone who wants to be involved in this year's comic art show at Altered Esthetics

If you'd like to be a part of the process, please show up, as this will be the meeting where we nail down who's doing what over the next several months. If you're planning on coming, please read through the agenda carefully and try to think about binding options for the eventual cookbook we'll be producing. At the last meeting we had a pretty lively discussion about how to produce the book, like:
- How to bind: pay for perfect binding or make spiral bound?
- Limit copies to a one-time short run, or have pdf available to do print on demand?
- Do artists print their own pages, or do they send in digital art and AE takes care of printing?
- What size?
- How many pages will we accept?

Anyway, that's just one aspect of the show we need to figure out. Here's the rest of the agenda, from Jamie:

Hello All,

Just a reminder that we’ve got a meeting scheduled for tomorrow, 9:00pm, Psycho Suzi’s.

Preliminary Agenda
Decide roles
Decide on how submissions will work (Maybe a “Plan A” and “Plan B” depending on funding)
Talk about print processes and options (bring budgets and figures if you have any)
Website stuffs

Tuesday March 15th, 9:00pm – Psycho Suzi’s.
___

Action Items (from last meeting)
Everybody to look into the cost of printing various types of pages and books. (binders, etc.)
We can bring this information with us to the next meeting to make an educated decision.
Everybody think about roles and how you want to be involved.
Jamie to draft sponsorship level and create spreadsheet for sharing
Jamie will bring a few budget drafts to the next meeting
Danno to bake us all a cake

Some things to establish:
Submission guidelines
“Mini-grants” guidelines and budget (and checklist for Ae staff)
Distribution guidelines (This came up last time. 1 book per artist? Or 1 book per entry?)
What will go on the preliminary site (and who is creating it?)

Looking forward to seeing all of you tomorrow!

ICC -- More Like IOO

2011-03-03T01:08:00.003-06:00

Our beloved International Cartoonist Conspiracy has its 100th monthly jam session tonight. What were jams like back in 2002? As I remember, 5-10 of us pushed a few small tables together at the Spyhouse in Uptown and drew for a few hours, mostly silently. What are jams like now? A lot bigger; fifteen is a low turnout and we've been known to squeeze in 20-30 cartoonists. New venue; after getting kicked out of the Spyhouse for being too awesome, we found a home at Diamond's Coffee Shoppe in Nordeast. Different atmosphere; it's a much more raucous event, especially if Ted Anderson is there. But same leadership; Steven Stwalley is still the Grand Poobah, even though the two smaller Stwalleys he's produced recently keep him from showing up until after 8:30.

100 jams. That's a lot of fart jokes. And other kinds of jokes.

If you've been going to all or most of the meetings, don't feel old. Not until you consider this: In 2002 Kriske was nine.

Happy centennial, Twin Cities Chapter of the International Cartoonist Conspiracy. Click on Shanks' head for your present:

Sketching at MCAD -- Part One

2011-02-28T18:40:00.004-06:00

The oft-parodied nude modeling session is actually a great way to develop one's artistic chops. Drawing in public (coffee shops, etc.) is fun, but people move around so quickly that it's difficult to focus on anything but basic shapes. With a modeling session you can dig into the subtleties of light and shape, etc.

Britt and Danno invited me to a session at MCAD yesterday, and here are the results:

My drawing materials are similar to what I brought to last month's Opera Sketch Night:

- brown pitt brush pen [B] (the thick brown lines)
- brown pitt fine pen [F] (the thin brown lines)
- Pentel pocket brown pen (the black lines, thick and thin)
- Copic markers (the gray and tan tones)

We started out with some quick gestures:

Then we went to some longer 10 and 15 minutes poses:

For the longest (20+ minute) poses I twisted Danno's arm and stole his large drawing pad. I'll post those later this week after I get the big sketchpad back from Danno.

The session lasted four hours. In the final few minutes we switched gears and did some quick gestures to cool down. This first one looks like how I feel most of the time:

I fully realize I didn't really draw these correctly. You're supposed to lightly sketch in the full form as basic shapes in order to find the figure and then slowly build up the tones and detail. Unfortunately I'm too impatient for that, plus I really like the messed-up look of an oddly proportioned model, so there you go.

Not sure when I'll be heading back to MCAD in the near future, but I'll be hitting up the Bell Museum Sketch Day on Sunday. Looking forward to drawing some prairie landscapes!

"JUST ADD INK" Looking for Organizers

2011-02-27T22:13:00.004-06:00

Art by Lance Ward

Every year, the kind folks at Altered Esthetics gallery in Northeast Minneapolis invite members of the local cartooning scene to curate a comics-themed show. Past shows include 2010's Lutefisk Sushi: Volume D and 2009's Big Funny, and Big Time Attic has been a proud sponsor of all of them.

This year's show is entitled "Just Add Ink" and will explore the crossover appeal of the comic arts and the culinary arts. Artists are invited to submit cartoons for a "comic cookbook" and will be encouraged to display their original art during the show itself (submission and event details forthcoming).

If you'd like to be included in the planning process, please come to Just Add Ink's first meeting, this Tuesday, March 1, at 9pm at Psycho Suzi's. If you can't make it, continue to watch the Cartoonist Conspiracy website. Shortly after Tuesday's meeting we will post the minutes along with details about the next meeting.

If you have any further questions about any of this, leave a comment below!

Sketch Night at the Opera

2011-01-28T11:10:00.004-06:00

Last night I had the good fortune of being able to doodle during a dress rehearsal of the Minnesota Opera's Mary Stuart at the Ordway Center. I was invited by Tempo and the Black Hat Collective, and was part of a group of about fifteen cartoonists who tried to visually capture the opera. Our little group must have looked strange from the stage, fifteen dark-clad cartoonists scribbling madly under a haze of blue booklights, our rapt silence broken only by paper rustling or the occasional pencil dropping on the floor.

I haven't done any life drawing since college, when I spent a ridiculous amount of time drawing in coffee shops and around campus, drawing people who either didn't notice me sketching them or didn't care. This guerilla sketching style forced me to get used to drawing people who moved around a lot, resulting in distorted or fractured drawings like this one:

The actors in last night's opera, however, moved around significantly more than someone sitting in a coffee shop, so it was a major challenge trying to capture a pose. Because of this, my first sketches of the night are kind of a mess:

[ Click for larger versions of each pic ]

Realizing that I didn't want to end the night with a jumble of frantic half-drawn sketches, I decided to try a blend of life drawing and imagination. I took a mental snapshot of something that happened on stage and stuck with that pose, even while the actors were busy moving around standing in different positions. I also thought it would be fun to incorporate lines from the opera, translations of which were conveniently shown on a screen above the stage. So here's the result of the less-lifelike, more imaginative set:

A note on materials: These were drawn on 80 lb Strathmore drawing paper (the sketchbook with the brown cover) and I used sepia Pitt brush pens for the linework and Copic markers for the tones and color.

The only downside of the night is that I spent so much time focused on drawing that I failed to grasp exactly what was happening on stage. But whatever plot was lost to me was made up in a greater appreciation for all the little details in costume and background that I don't usually catch when watching a performance like this. All in all a terrific experience and I highly recommend that other cartoonists jump at the chance to do this should the opportunity come up again.

Thanks to Tempo and the Black Hat folks for allowing us to sneak in and draw for three hours. It was a blast!

Update: MinnPost's Max Sparber wrote a review of "Mary Stuart" and he even mentions our little sketch troupe and includes a photo of yours truly.

"Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth" Book Signing & Party

2011-01-20T14:39:00.005-06:00

Zander and I will be signing copies of our newest nonfiction graphic novel, Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth at Big Brain Comics in Minneapolis on Saturday, February 12, 2011, from 4-6pm. Full details below.

[ CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE ]

Written by Jay Hosler, Evolution is an engaging and often humorous look at how life evolved (and continues to evolve) on this planet, as seen through the eyes of an alien narrator. This book is aimed at a high school and college level reader, but can really be enjoyed by anyone. Evolution was released in January to much critical fanfare, including Pharyngula celebrity blogger PZ Myers who wrote:

"Jay Hosler has a new book out . . . and I'm afraid it's going to be required reading for everyone, and you're also all probably going to end up buying multiple copies for gifts. Really, it's that good."

I like the "multiple copies" bit. Anyway, for more information about the book, including where to find two free chapters to read online, click the "Evolution" tab above or just click here.

FULL DETAILS
WHAT: Book signing & party
WHO: Kevin Cannon and Zander Cannon will be signing Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
DATE: February 12, 2011 (Darwin's 202nd birthday!)
TIME: 4-6pm
WHERE: Big Brain Comics, 1027 Washington Ave S, Minneapolis, MN
WILL THERE BE SNACKS & BOOZE: Yes

Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth ... Goes Live!

2011-01-04T17:47:00.003-06:00

At long last you can hold in your hands the newest nonfiction graphic novel from me and Zander. Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth is the sequel to The Stuff of Life and was penned by cartoonist, professor, and Office Hours star Jay Hosler.

To centralize things a little, we've created a home base for Evolution. We'll be archiving things like reviews and interviews there, as well as a few high-resolution preview pages so you can impress your friends. Eventually we'll get to all our books, and you'll be able to navigate easily using the tabs above. Oh, technology!

In the meantime, please enjoy these snapshots from a local Barnes & Noble, courtesy of my mom:

DINO-A-DAY #96: Liopleurodon

2011-01-04T00:01:00.001-06:00

Welcome to Dino-a-Day, where we'll be highlighting one prehistoric beast per day until the release of our graphic novel Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth on January 4, 2011.

Each of the ninety-six creatures we'll be featuring on this blog are taken from a huge 2-page spread in the middle of Evolution. So while you can see each individual creature here, you'll need to grab the book to see them all together!

NAME: Liopleurodon
PRONUNCIATION: LIE-o-PLOOR-o-don
ORDER: Plesiosauria
EXISTED DURING: Middle–Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: France, 1873
FUN FACT: Today’s fun fact is that our book is out! Go grab a copy for yourself, and if you’re feeling frisky donate a copy to your local school library!

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

Comix Issue Cover Named One of Ten Best in 2010!

2011-01-03T11:02:00.003-06:00

The fine folks over at the Society of Publication Designers have compiled a list of their favorite altweekly covers of 2010, and my recent City Pages cover made the list!

This cover was for the fourth City Pages Comix Issue, an annual event where local creators produce comics around a central theme. 2010's theme was "Declaration of Independents," for which I imagined a scene where a couple of characters are declaring their independence from the funny pages. The "indie" theme was a nod to MIX [Minneapolis Indie Xpo] which launched its inaugural convention this past summer.

You can read more about past issues of the City Pages Comix Issue here.

Thanks for the nod, SPD!

I Want This Hoodie

2011-01-03T10:55:00.003-06:00

Thanks to M. Harris at Sheridan College for the kind words and awesome drawing!

DINO-A-DAY #95: Peloneustes

2011-01-03T00:01:00.000-06:00

NAME: Peloneustes
PRONUNCIATION: PEEL-o-NYOOS-teez
ORDER: Plesiosauria
EXISTED DURING: Middle Jurassic
DISCOVERED: England, 1869
FUN FACT: Peloneustes is thought to have mainly dined on ammonites due to the species having fewer, blunter teeth than its cousins.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #94: Ichthyosaurus

2011-01-02T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Ichthyosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: IK-thee-oh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ichthyosauria
EXISTED DURING: Early Jurassic
DISCOVERED: England, 1822
FUN FACT: Fossils suggest that Ichthyosaurus delivered its young by vivipary (live birth), as opposed to laying eggs.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia

DINO-A-DAY #93: Elasmosaurus

2011-01-01T00:01:00.001-06:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Welcome to Dino-a-Day, where we'll be highlighting one prehistoric beast per day until the release of our graphic novel Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth on January 4, 2011.

Each of the ninety-six creatures we'll be featuring on this blog are taken from a huge 2-page spread in the middle of Evolution. So while you can see each individual creature here, you'll need to grab the book to see them all together!

NAME: Elasmosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: e-LAS-mo-SAWR-uhs
ORDER: Plesiosauria
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Kansas, 1868
FUN FACT: Elasmosaurus is featured prominently in the 2005 graphic novel “Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards.” I would say more about it, but you’d be better off purchasing the graphic novel and then buying a few copies for your friends.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #92: Muraenosaurus

2010-12-31T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Muraenosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: myoo-REEN-o-SAWR-uhs
ORDER: Plesiosauria
EXISTED DURING: Middle Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Europe, 1874
FUN FACT: Even better than a fun fact, take a peek at this thread in which bone hunters discuss their finds, including a Muraenosaurus vertebra with some strange properties:

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #91: Cryptoclidus

2010-12-30T00:01:00.000-06:00

NAME: Cryptoclidus
PRONUNCIATION: KRIP-to-KLIE-duhs
ORDER: Plesiosauria
EXISTED DURING: Middle Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Europe, 1871
FUN FACT: Cryptoclidus’ small, fine teeth suggest that it ate a diet of small fish and didn’t do too much rasslin’ with other predators.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #90: Plesiosaurus

2010-12-29T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Plesiosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: PLEE-see-o-SAWR-uhs
ORDER: Plesiosauria
EXISTED DURING: Early Jurassic
DISCOVERED: England, 1821
FUN FACT: The first Plesiosaurus skeleton was discovered by Mary Anning, she being the rare female in a field then dominated by men. Anning made several early discoveries in England’s Blue Lias cliffs, doing her bone hunting after landslides when the fossils were freshly exposed.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #89: Macroplata

2010-12-28T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Macroplata
PRONUNCIATION: ma-KROP-la-tuh
ORDER: Plesiosauria
EXISTED DURING: Early Jurassic
DISCOVERED: UK, 1930
FUN FACT: Macroplata had huge shoulder bones, suggesting it was a speedy swimmer.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #88: Kronosaurus

2010-12-27T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Kronosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: KRON-o-SAWR-uhs
ORDER: Plesiosauria
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Australia, 1924
FUN FACT: For today’s “fun fact,” check out History Channel’s excellent series called “Predator X,” in which Norwegian scientist Jorn Hurum uncovers a yet-to-be-identified cousin of Kronosaurus:

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #87: Sphenacodon

2010-12-26T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Sphenacodon
FAMILY: Sphenacodontidae
EXISTED DURING: Early Permian
DISCOVERED: Texas, 1878
FUN FACT: Unfortunately there are no “fun” facts about Sphenacodon. It didn’t have a cool sail like Dimetrodon, and due to its large jaw and sharp canines it probably wasn’t much fun to hang out with.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia

DINO-A-DAY #86: Edaphosaurus

2010-12-25T00:01:00.000-06:00

NAME: Edaphosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: l-DAF-oh-SORE-us
FAMILY: Edaphosauridae
EXISTED DURING: Carboniferous to early Permian
DISCOVERED: North America, 1878
FUN FACT: Edaphosaurus is acknowledged to be a massive, slow-moving animal, which is frankly not the most flattering way to be remembered.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia

DINO-A-DAY #85: Dimetrodon

2010-12-24T00:01:00.000-06:00

NAME: Dimetrodon
PRONUNCIATION: dī-mět'rə-dŏn'
FAMILY: Sphenacodontidae
EXISTED DURING: Permian
DISCOVERED: North America, 1878
FUN FACT: I was crushed to discover that my favorite dinosaur is not a dinosaur at all! By definition dinosaurs are terrestrial animals that are either bipedal or quadrupedal, with straight legs underneath their bodies. Dimetrodon, although awesome-looking, does not fit that definition due to its low, bent-legged stance.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia

DINO-A-DAY #84: Moschops

2010-12-23T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Moschops
PRONUNCIATION: MOS-kops
ORDER: Therapsida
EXISTED DURING: Middle Permian
DISCOVERED: South Africa, 1911
FUN FACT: Moschops was the star of an animated series for UK children in 1983. Like the real Moschops the show went extinct pretty quickly.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia

DINO-A-DAY #83: Pterodactylus

2010-12-22T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Pterodactylus
PRONUNCIATION: TER-o-DAK-ti-lus
ORDER: Pterosauria
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Germany, 1809
FUN FACT: As with bats, Pterodactylus’ wings were simply fleshy membranes stretched between its body and an extremely elongated fingers.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #82: Dsungaripterus

2010-12-21T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Dsungaripterus
PRONUNCIATION: jung-gah-RIP-ter-us
ORDER: Pterosauria
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: China, 1964
FUN FACT: Dsungaripterus had a narrow, toothless front jaw which was probably used to pull shellfish and worms from cracks in the rocks, and to scare its grandchildren.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #81: Quetzalcoatlus

2010-12-20T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Quetzalcoatlus
PRONUNCIATION: KET-sahl-koh-AHT-lus
ORDER: Pterosauria
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Texas, 1971
FUN FACT: Quetzalcoatlus is named after the Aztec serpent god, Quetzalcoatl. Here is the god himself, via Wikipedia:

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #80: Pteranodon

2010-12-19T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Pteranodon
PRONUNCIATION: te-RAN-o-don
ORDER: Pterosauria
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Kansas, 1870
FUN FACT: Pteranodon crests were sexually dimorphic; females had smaller crests than males, suggesting that the crest was involved more with mating displays than with practical functions like being a counterbalance to its long beak.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #79: Cearadactylus

2010-12-18T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Cearadactylus
PRONUNCIATION: say-ahr-ah-DAK-ti-lus
ORDER: Pterosauria
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Brazil, 1985
FUN FACT: Popular media has given Cearadactylus a bad rap: in the book Jurassic Park it attacks the main characters, and it’s portrayed as a villain in The Land Before Time VII.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #78: Polacanthus

2010-12-17T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Polacanthus
PRONUNCIATION: pol-a-KAN-thus
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Isle of Wight, 1865
FUN FACT: In the TV show Dinosaurs, the character Spike was a Polacanthus. In total, the sitcom aired 65 episodes, while real dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. Coincidence?

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: Dinosauria.com

DINO-A-DAY #77: Kentrosaurus

2010-12-16T00:01:00.000-06:00

NAME: Kentrosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: KEN-truh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Tanzania, 1915
FUN FACT: A large amount of Kentrosaurus bones were discovered in the early twentieth century during the German Tendaguru Expedition. Unfortunately many of those fossils were destroyed during World War II.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #76: Echinodon

2010-12-15T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Echinodon
PRONUNCIATION: eck-EYE-nuh-don
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: England, 1861
FUN FACT: Echinodon was once thought to be a basal thyreophoran due to the fact that a turtle bone was mixed in with the Echinodon skeleton, which strongly suggests that 19th century British paleontologists liked to throw turtle bones at each other during digs.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #75: Wuerhosaurus

2010-12-14T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Wuerhosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: WER-oh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: China, 1973
FUN FACT: The spikes on the end of the tail of Wuerhosaurus and Stegosaurus is called a thagomizer, and was initially coined by cartoonist Gary Larson. Wikipedia explains:
The term "thagomizer" was coined by Gary Larson in a 1982 Far Side comic strip, in which a group of cavemen in a faux-modern lecture hall are taught by their caveman professor that the spikes were named "after the late Thag Simmons". The term was picked up initially by Ken Carpenter, a palaeontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, who used the term when describing a fossil at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting in 1993.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #74: Stegosaurus

2010-12-13T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Stegosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: STEG-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Colorado, 1877
FUN FACT: Othniel Charles Marsh, who discovered the species, first thought that Stegosaurus was an aquatic, turtle-like creature whose plates laid flat against its back like the shingles on a roof.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #73: Panoplosaurus

2010-12-12T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Panoplosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: pan-OP-luh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Alberta, Canada, 1917
FUN FACT: Foreleg muscle attachments suggest that Panoplosaurus could have charged enemies like a rhinoceros, which most experts agree would have been awesome to watch.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #72: Deinonychus

2010-12-11T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Deinonychus
PRONUNCIATION: dye-NON-ik-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Montana, 1931
FUN FACT: A recent discovery found a Deinonychus adult fossil positioned near fossilized eggs, suggesting that the species brooded over their unhatched eggs much like modern day birds.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #71: Euoplocephalus

2010-12-10T00:01:00.000-06:00

NAME: Euoplocephalus
PRONUNCIATION: you-op-luh-SEF-uh-lus
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Alberta, Canada, 1902
FUN FACT: Euoplocephalus means “well armored head” and when scientists picked the name they weren’t kidding -- this species even has armored plates that slide down to protect its eyelids.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #70: Nodosaurus

2010-12-09T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Nodosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: no-doe-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Wyoming and Kansas, 1889
FUN FACT: Nodosaurus did not have a clubbed tail like Ankylosaurus, so it is believed that the animal dropped to the ground like a hedgehog when threatened.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #69: Silvisaurus

2010-12-08T00:01:00.000-06:00

NAME: Silvisaurus
PRONUNCIATION: SIL-vee-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Kansas, 1960
FUN FACT: The Silvisaurus’ head contained large air cavaties, which may have been used for loud vocalisations, or storage.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #68: Ankylosaurus

2010-12-07T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Ankylosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: ang-KILE-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Montana, 1908
FUN FACT: Ankylosaurus has starred in many newspaper comic strips, most recently in 2009’s time-traveling adventure serial ARMY MEN.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #67: Pachycephalosaurus

2010-12-06T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Pachycephalosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: pak-ee-SEF-uh-lo-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Montana, 1850s
FUN FACT: Scientists have recently discredited the idea that Pachycephalosaurus regularly used its thick skull in head-to-head combat, but they can’t prove that it didn’t happen at least once.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #66: Homalocephale

2010-12-05T00:01:00.000-06:00

NAME: Homalocephale
PRONUNCIATION: ho-mah-luh-SEF-uh-lee
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: 1974, Mongolia
FUN FACT: A recent study suggests that Homalocephale is nothing more than a juvenile form of Prenocephale, which is bad news for anyone with a Homalocephale fan site.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #65: Plateosaurus

2010-12-04T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Plateosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: PLAY-tee-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Triassic
DISCOVERED: 1834, Nuremberg, Germany
FUN FACT: Plateosaurus was the first dinosaur discovered in Norway. Why the species was not immediately renamed Nansenosaurus remains a mystery.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #64: Mussaurus

2010-12-03T00:01:00.000-06:00

NAME: Mussaurus
PRONUNCIATION: moose-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Triassic
DISCOVERED: Argentina, 1979
FUN FACT: Only juvenile fossils of Mussaurus have been found so far, so any attempts at describing an adult version are speculative at best.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #63: Yangchuanosaurus

2010-12-02T09:45:00.001-06:00

NAME: Yangchuanosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: yang-chew-ANN-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: 1977, China
FUN FACT: Yanghuanosaurus was discovered during construction of the Shangyou Reservoir Dam in the Yongchuan District of China. That’s what we at Big Time Attic call a “dam good discovery.”

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #62: Megalosaurus

2010-12-01T07:30:00.001-06:00

NAME: Megalosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: MEG-uh-lo-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: England, 1676
FUN FACT: The first dinosaur to ever be named; Megalosaurus’ original fossil -- a piece of a femur -- was thought at the time to belong to a gigantic human, as described in the bible.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #61: Massospondylus

2010-11-30T00:00:00.001-06:00

NAME: Massospondylus
PRONUNCIATION: mass-o-SPON-dih-lus
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Jurassic
DISCOVERED: South Africa, 1854
FUN FACT: Massospondylus was one of the first dinosaurs to ever be named, and its name, courtesy of Sir Richard Owen, means “longer vertebra.”

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #60: Caudipteryx

2010-11-29T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Caudipteryx
PRONUNCIATION: kaw-DIP-ter-iks
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Liaoning Province, China, 1997
FUN FACT: Caudipteryx was the size of a peacock, but probably slightly more dangerous.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #59: Carnotaurus

2010-11-28T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Carnotaurus
PRONUNCIATION: kahrn-uh-TAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Argentina, 1985
FUN FACT: The “taurus” in Carnotaurus is from the Greek tauros, meaning bull, referring to the bull-like horns at the top of the skull.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #58: Guanlong

2010-11-27T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Guanlong
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Dzungaria, China, 2006
FUN FACT: Guanlong had three long fingers on each hand, as seen in the extremely realistic drawing above.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia

DINO-A-DAY #57: Therizinosaurus

2010-11-26T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Therizinosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: thair-uh-ZEEN-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Mongolia, 1940s
FUN FACT: Therizinosaurus’ name means “scythe lizard,” referring to its enormous scythe-like claws that look awkward but could probably take down prey in one quick swipe.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #56: Hongshanosaurus

2010-11-25T00:01:00.002-06:00

NAME: Hongshanosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: hong-SHAN-o-SAWR-əs
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Northeastern China, 2003
FUN FACT: Hongshanosaurus’ name means “red hill lizard” and refers to the ancient Hongshan culture which lived in the same area as where the fossil was found.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia

DINO-A-DAY #55: Ouranosaurus

2010-11-24T00:01:00.002-06:00

NAME: Ouranosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: ooh-RAN-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Niger, Africa, 1966
FUN FACT: Some scientists suggest that Ouranosaurus’ large vertebrates were used to hold up a camel-like hump, rather than a Spinosaurus-like sail.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #54: Iguanodon

2010-11-23T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Iguanodon
PRONUNCIATION: ig-WAN-oh-don
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: England, 1822
FUN FACT: Iguanodon was one of the first dinosaurs to be named, and its skeleton was originally put together in a creative, albeit incorrect pose.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #53: Callovosaurus

2010-11-22T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Callovosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: cuh-LOW-vuh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Middle Jurassic
DISCOVERED: England, 1889
FUN FACT: Callovosaurus is based on one complete thigh bone and possibly a partial shin bone that was found nearby.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #52: Alamosaurus

2010-11-21T11:25:00.001-06:00

NAME: Alamosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: AL-uh-mo-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: New Mexico, 1922
FUN FACT: Sadly, Alamosaurus was not named after the famous Alamo in Texas. Rather, the species was named after a type of geologic formation, Ojo Alamo.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #51: Mamenchisaurus

2010-11-20T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Mamenchisaurus
PRONUNCIATION: mah-MEN-chih-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Sichuan, China, 1952
FUN FACT: Mamenchisaurus’s neck made up half its total body length!

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #50: Apatosaurus

2010-11-19T00:01:00.002-06:00

NAME: Apatosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: ah-PAT-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Wyoming, 1877
FUN FACT: Once known as Brontosaurus, the name Apatosaurus was found to have been used first, and so the popular name was dropped. The US Post Office caused a row in 1989 when it released four dinosaur stamps, one of which was a Brontosaurus, leading to a public outcry.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #49: Camarasaurus

2010-11-18T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Camarasaurus
PRONUNCIATION: kuh-MARE-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Colorado, 1877
FUN FACT: In Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards, a misappropriated Camasaurus skull plays a key role in the drama. Read the book to find out more!

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #48: Dicraeosaurus

2010-11-17T00:01:00.000-06:00

NAME: Dicraeosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: dye-CRAY-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Tanzania, 1914
FUN FACT: Scientists believe that Dicraeosaurus didn’t compete with its fellow herbivorous species because, as they were all different heights, they most likely consumed different plants.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #47: Saltasaurus

2010-11-16T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Saltasaurus
PRONUNCIATION: salt-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Argentina, 1980
FUN FACT: A huge Saltasaurus nest found in Argentina contained eggs with tiny armor-plated embryos.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #46: Bagaceratops

2010-11-15T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Bagaceratops
PRONUNCIATION: bag-uh-SAIR-uh-tops
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Gobi Desert, 1975
FUN FACT: The diminutive Bagaceratops was a herbivore, and most likely dined on ferns, cycads, and conifers.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #45: Brachiosaurus

2010-11-14T12:10:00.001-06:00

NAME: Brachiosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: BRACK-ee-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Colorado, 1903
FUN FACT: Once again, Jurassic Park had it wrong: Brachiosaurus could not, in fact, rear up on its hind legs to nibble on tree leaves.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #44: Saurornithoides

2010-11-13T11:27:00.001-06:00

NAME: Saurornithoides
PRONUNCIATION: SAWR-or-nih-THOY-deez
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Mongolia, 1924
FUN FACT: Saurornithoides had stereoscopic vision and thus good depth perception -- a necessary trait when chasing after small rodents in the desert.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #43: Allosaurus

2010-11-12T00:01:00.002-06:00

NAME: Allosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: AL-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Colorado, 1869
FUN FACT: One theory of Allosaurus’ predation habits is that it snuck up behind potential prey and used its upper jaw like a hatchet. Ouch.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #42: Euhelopus

2010-11-11T11:29:00.001-06:00

NAME: Euhelopus
PRONUNCIATION: you-heh-LO-pus
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: China, 1929
FUN FACT: Euhelops had longer fore legs than hind legs, which is a unique feature among sauropods.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #41: Baryonyx

2010-11-10T00:01:00.002-06:00

NAME: Baryonyx
PRONUNCIATION: bare-ee-ON-iks
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Surrey, UK, 1983
FUN FACT: The first Baryonyx fossils were found near what used to be Wealdon Lake -- a huge lake that covered most of what is now northern France and England during the Cretaceous (140 million years ago).

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #40: Triceratops

2010-11-09T07:20:00.001-06:00

NAME: Triceratops
PRONUNCIATION: try-SAIR-uh-tops
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Denver, Colorado, 1887
FUN FACT: The first Triceratops fossil found was a pair of horns. When it was sent to O. C. Marsh at Yale to be categorized, he believed the horns belonged to a kind of over-sized bison.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #39: Arrhinoceratops

2010-11-08T00:01:00.001-06:00

NAME: Arrhinoceratops
PRONUNCIATION: ah-RHINE-o-sair-a-tops
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Canada, 1923
FUN FACT: This species was originally thought to have no nose-horn, hence the a-rhino-cerat (“no nose horn”) as its name.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #38: Pentaceratops

2010-11-07T00:01:00.000-05:00

NAME: Pentaceratops
PRONUNCIATION: PEN-tah-sair-uh-tops
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: New Mexico, 1923
FUN FACT: Pentaceratops’ name means “five-horned face,” which refers to the two horns at the top of its head, one at its snout, and two more located under the eyes.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #37: Velociraptor

2010-11-06T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Velociraptor
PRONUNCIATION: veh-loss-ih-RAP-tor
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Mongolia, 1922
FUN FACT: Velociraptors had dewclaws on their hind limbs, which are vestigial claws that never touch the ground. Dewclaws can be seen on modern animals as well, such as dogs, pigs, and deer.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #36: Diplodocus

2010-11-05T00:01:00.002-05:00

NAME: Diplodocus
PRONUNCIATION: dih-PLOD-uh-kus
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Colorado, 1877
FUN FACT: Diplodocus was the model for Winsor McCay’s famous cartoon, “Gertie the Dinosaur.”

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

Zander's Game Informer Sacred Cow Barbecue Illustration

2010-11-04T12:03:00.006-05:00

Game Informer, the best video game magazine out there, has once again sent a gentle whisper out onto the wind saying they need an illustration that has lots of video game related gags in it. And I respond by kicking down their front door and saying I'm the man to do it!

The recurring feature Sacred Cow Barbecue, a no-doubt-very-satisfying opportunity for GI's editors to say bad things about all of the games that people love, is fun in a different way than Game Infarcer (the April Fool's drawing) for a couple reasons. One, it allows me to draw a bunch of characters from a bunch of different games rather than from just one. Two, it goes across two pages, plus little spot illustrations interspersed throughout the rest of the article, so it's more piecemeal, and individual figures or groups are more important than the overall composition. And three, from a technical standpoint, since the illustrations are likely to be in the hands of the production department who have to fit them around all the text, the image has to be delivered in many, many layers so that they don't have to chop it up more than necessary.

The first thing that happens is that I go down to GI and talk with some editors (who I won't name this time so that they don't get hate mail). They give me the list of the games that are going to get a kicking in the article, and I write them down. One thing that I did differently this year is that because the last two Sacred Cows were in picnic environments, with the characters being grilled, skewered, roasted, and otherwise mishandled, I wanted to change from that and show something different. One idea was that the figures would be cows in a field, dressed up as the game characters, but since the games chosen are not as iconic as things like Mario or Halo, we figured that it might not work well as a gag. My other idea, and one that fit in well with the idea of giving the production department the most leeway in their layouts, was all of the characters in a lake of fire. It doesn't have as many opportunities for good gags the way a picnic environment does, but it ends up being kind of fun from a cartooning point of view, focusing on characters' body language and expressions.

SKETCH

After going back to the studio, I worked up this sketch for GI, which basically laid out the characters, their expressions, their placement, and where I thought the text (introducing the article) could go. I also went ahead and did a title treatment because why not.

The idea here, in terms of delivering the image, was that the characters were all independent of each other and the perspective the illustration takes didn't limit where they could be placed (though you want characters to be facing inward for the most part, and asymmetrical characters like Kratos can't be flipped, so there are some parameters here). I was trying to make the drawing as flexible as possible for the layout people.

PENCILS

Once that was settled on (and I figured out which World of Warcraft character I'd put in there), I worked up the pencil stage. I was really trying to have variable sizes of all the characters, such as the rock with HK-47 on it and the devil cow, on down to the concerned-looking Bastila in the upper right corner and Darth Malak in the lower right. I tried to throw in some sight gags as well, such as Kratos praying for mercy (not a likely scenario in God of War), Leon Kennedy pushing Ashley into the lava (she's a real pain in the neck in Resident Evil 4), and Luis looking like he's getting awfully cozy with Ada Wong (no reason, just thought it was funny). Also, it's pretty satisfying to draw Pokemon with big teary eyes as they burn. Sorry, Pokemans.

INKS

Next come the inks, and while this is a single image, all of the characters were inked separately-- I blew up the pencils on the computer and printed out several sections in non-photo blue, then inked them all so none of them were touching each other. You can tell this by some of the flames intersecting each other here. If you look closely, you'll see that I did something pretty lazy, too: the rock on the very bottom of the image is the same as the one on the left, just flipped left-to-right. Man, I saved myself like 90 seconds there.

COLORS

The colors here were pretty straightforward from an aesthetic point of view. I made a color sketch at a low resolution just to get the feel of things.

From this, I knew the overall color was going to be a lava orange, and that that color was going to affect every other color on there. So then what I basically did was color every character their normal color, as if they were in neutral, full-spectrum light, but lit from below, then put a yellowish-orange low-opacity layer over them so that every color shifts toward that. Beyond how warm that makes the drawing look, it also unifies everything and makes it so you don't even really notice. Greens still look green, but if you saw that color by itself, with no orange-yellow around it, it might not look green at all.

I also quickly whipped up some cooled lava in the upper left corner to pop out the logo, which I inverted. If I had thought of it earlier, I might have put in more of that dark lava to give the drawing a darker, more ominous look, but I felt like it worked well, and I still wanted to keep the drawing adjustable.

GLOWY EYES

I also did something that I like to do every once in a great while. I usually like to keep the color mostly flat and cartoony (and simple to do), but sometimes there's someone that just needs to have glowing eyes. So without having to make it a big hairy deal, I have this quick, 4 step process:

1. Once everything's colored, go to the line art layer and select the inside of the area you want to glow. It shouldn't go under the black lines at all, just right up to them.

2. Make two new layers above the line art layer. They should be the top two layers. Call one "Blur" and one "Glow". With the area still selected, color it white on the "Glow" layer and orange or whatever color the glowing thing is on the "Blur" layer. Deselect.

3. On the Blur layer, do not select anything, but go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur... you can move the slider to see how many pixels you want to blur it. It all depends on your resolution.

4. Voila! You have a glowing eye or thing. The white looks just like it's an ultra-bright orange when it has that orange glow around it.

ADDITIONAL SPOT ILLUSTRATIONS

Last time I did a drawing for Sacred Cow Barbecue, the layout guys reshuffled my layout quite a bit and sampled illustrations from the main spread to use throughout the article. I liked that idea, but I wanted to make sure there were enough original illustrations that we didn't end up using things twice. So I drew up a number of single spots that could work anywhere on a lava background and colored them, providing them as individual Photoshop files for the production department.

ALL THIS PLANNING...DID IT WORK?

Kind of. Here's how the two-page splash looked in the magazine. I was starting to worry as I got close to the deadline that my layout was not leaving a lot of room for text. I mean, it left some, but they were going to have to keep it pretty short if it was going to fit in there. I figured that something like that was going to happen.

Obviously I'm open to reshuffling the details in an illustration; I built the concept of this drawing around it. Unfortunately, two things which I didn't foresee happened. One is that they enlarged the devil cow by quite a bit. That sort of thing is fine when you're dealing with painted images or photographs, provided that they are high enough resolution. But the problem with cartoons drawn with pen or brush is that the line weight and quality is a dead giveaway for scale. So when you blow up a drawing, even if the lines are still crisp, you can tell that it was not originally that size because all of the lines are thicker than everything around it.

The second thing is that the Lich King (center) is rotated about 5 degrees. Eh. Weird.

What they did right was that this is an excellent layout. It's asymmetrical, it has a lot of weight opposite the logo, and it moves your eyes around, not to mention leaves room for text. If I had thought more about that, my version and theirs might not have been so different.

They ended up moving a lot of characters from the first spread to the second and creating shapes there to move the text around, which is a fine idea; perhaps cramming 16 characters on one page was a bit much.

And boy did they get their money's worth on that rock. It's there twice--that's four times in four pages!

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE ARTICLE?

This was a funny article, though they've pretty well run through the classic games by now and are beating on games that are 3 years old. I actually loved 2/3 of these games: Resident Evil 4, God of War series, Knights of the Old Republic, and Braid are some of my favorite games ever. World of Warcraft and Pokemon could drop off the face of the Earth and I'd never notice.

Basically, I like drawing video game characters and if they're burning in a pit of fire, so much the better! Thanks again, GI!

DINO-A-DAY #35: Dilophosaurus

2010-11-04T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Dilophosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: dye-LO-fuh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Arizona, 1942
FUN FACT: Dilophosaurus is another veteran of Jurassic Park, although its depiction in the film as having a neck frill and the ability to spit venom is not supported by science.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #34: Acrocanthosaurus

2010-11-03T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Acrocanthosaurus
PRONUNCIATION:ak-ro-KANTH-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Oklahoma, 1950
FUN FACT: Acroncathosaurus was likely an apex predator, meaning it lived on the top of the food chain and had no predators of its own.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #33: Tyrannosaurus

2010-11-02T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Tyrannosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: tye-RAN-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: North America, 1896
FUN FACT: Tyrannosaurus has been featured in more films than any other dinosaur.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #32: Tarbosaurus

2010-11-01T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Tarbosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: TAR-bow-SOR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Mongolia, 1946
FUN FACT: Due to sideways-facing eyes and enlarged olfactory bulbs, Tarbosaurus is believed to have relied more on sense of smell than sense of sight.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoChecker.com

DINO-A-DAY #31: Daspletosaurus

2010-10-31T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Daspletosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: dass-PLEE-tuh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Alberta, Canada, 1921
FUN FACT: Daspletosaurus fossils are among the rarest of the tyrannosaurids.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #30: Microceratops

2010-10-30T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Microceratops
PRONUNCIATION: my-kro-SAIR-uh-tops
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: China, 1953
FUN FACT: The original name of Microceratops has since been replaced by Microceratus due to the former already belonging to a species of wasp.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #29: Psittacosaurus

2010-10-29T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Psittacosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: SIT-uh-ko-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Early Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Asia, 1923
FUN FACT: Psittacosaurus may not be well known to the general public, but with over 400 fossils collected -- including many complete skeletons -- the species is very familiar to scientists.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #28: Protoceratops

2010-10-28T00:01:00.002-05:00

NAME: Protoceratops
PRONUNCIATION: pro-toe-SAIR-uh-tops
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Mongolia, 1922
FUN FACT: A Mongolian fossil shows a Velociraptor and Protoceratops locked in battle!

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #27: Montanoceratops

2010-10-27T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Montanoceratops
PRONUNCIATION: mon-TAN-uh-SAIR-uh-tops
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Montana, 1916
FUN FACT: Montanoceratops had elongated bones in its tail, which may have been helpful in using the tail as a signalling or communication device.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #26: Compsognathus

2010-10-26T09:18:00.002-05:00

NAME: Compsognathus
PRONUNCIATION: komp-sog-NAY-thus
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Germany, 1861
FUN FACT: Compsognathus -- affectionately known as “compys” -- are featured in two of the Jurassic Park films, in which they are shown hunting in packs, despite the fact that there is no evidence for this behavior in the fossil record.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #25: Saltopus

2010-10-25T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Saltopus
PRONUNCIATION: sal-TOH-pus
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Triassic
DISCOVERED: Scotland, 1910
FUN FACT: Saltopus is only known by a few bone fragments, mostly from the hind limb. Some scientists have suggested that Saltopus is actually the juvenile form of another species.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #24: Archaeopteryx

2010-10-24T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Archaeopteryx
PRONUNCIATION: ar-kee-OP-ter-ix
ORDER: Saurischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Jurassic
DISCOVERED: Germany, 1861
FUN FACT: Archaeopteryx, a clear link between reptiles and birds, became a major player in the evolution debate as it was discovered just a few years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #23: Torosaurus

2010-10-23T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Torosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: TOR-uh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Wyoming, 1891
FUN FACT: New research suggests that Torosaurus was actually just a mature form of Triceratops.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com

DINO-A-DAY #22: Chasmosaurus

2010-10-22T00:01:00.001-05:00

NAME: Chasmosaurus
PRONUNCIATION: KAZ-muh-SAWR-us
ORDER: Ornithischia
EXISTED DURING: Late Cretaceous
DISCOVERED: Alberta, Canada, 1901
FUN FACT: Chasmosaurus’ large frill was fairly flimsy -- it was merely skin stretched over thin bones, and could not have played much of a role in defense.

See all the Dino-a-Days HERE

Purchase
Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
on Amazon

Source: Wikipedia
Pronunciation: DinoDictionary.com