Draw It Like You Mean It

AWOL

2011-07-11T21:43:00.001-03:00

Hey everybody,
Just letting everyone know that I've not disappeared off the face of the planet. I've gone back to school to do 3D Game Art in the last year, had a beautiful baby girl, Lennox Linda Collins, and am still working full time at a regular job. My art and illustration has definitely been delegated to the back burner for the next while but hopefully will be back in 2012. Thanks for your patience and support and see you soon!

-Gino

The Life and Times of Hal Foster

2010-08-04T14:27:00.002-03:00

This is a piece I did for a press conference about Hal Foster creator of Prince Valiant. He was born in Halifax, NS and some of the local artists and business people have been trying to raise awareness. We at Atlantic Comics were asked to submit art and help organize the event. Here's my contribution.

-Gino

Slam Fan!

2010-07-13T00:03:00.005-03:00

A piece of fan art I did for Dave Howlett's amazing old school Wrestling comic: Slam-A-Rama

Check it out. It's a whole lot of fun!

-Gino

FULL COLOUR!

2010-07-04T21:42:00.001-03:00

Here's my entry in a colouring contest over at Strange Adventures: The World's Greatest Comic Shop here in Halifax, NS. They had a lot of amazing entries which you can see here. I highly recommend having a gander. I'm pleased to say my fellow Atlantic Comics collaborator Shawn McLeod and I both won in the amateur category. Woohoo! $100 gift certificates in the store. I see the Invincible Library Vol2 in my future....

-Gino

ACK Comics Issue #0.

2010-06-28T10:18:00.001-03:00

I recently became involved in a new independent comic project with a couple of my friends: Brent Braaten and Shawn McLeod. Issue Zero of ACK comics (after much delay) should be out in local Halifax/Dartmouth comic shops this week. Here's the coloured version of the Table of Contents for issue Zero. Pick it up!

-Gino

Say What?

2010-05-30T14:07:00.000-03:00

More sequential and colouring practice.
-Gino

Bus Hero

2010-05-01T00:19:00.001-03:00

This is a scene from a story that's kicking around in my head and hopefully get to to sometime. I've been enjoying coluriong the last little while. I still need to figure out textures yet but not bad.
-Gino

Cup of Tea

2010-04-04T23:44:00.001-03:00

Haven't done any colours in a while and I enjoyed hte previous drawing I did of our hero haning out in a kitchen waiting for a cup of tea. Fairly pleased with the result but still a ways to go.

-Gino

Still Alive and Kickin

2010-03-24T23:50:00.003-03:00

Hey everyone. I'm still alive and kickin. Changed positions at work and been fairly busy lately (not to mention the drop of Final Fantasy XIII. Ahem.) New position's really great so far and has a nice side of having a little down time to do some sketching every now and then. This one was started a while back and just finished up this past week in between calls. Will ink it soon and maybe throw some colour into it too.

Peace
Gino

Happy New Year/Merry Christmas/My Birthday/ Etc...

2010-01-13T23:45:00.001-04:00

Been pretty bust lately and lost a bit of initiative to draw over the past while. My amazing wife bought me a reference book for Christmas so I thought I'd try it out. Here's a quick(ish) sketch of everyone's favorite angry dwarven demon hunter! Enjoy!

The Return - Conclusion

2009-11-09T13:40:00.000-04:00

And here's the last chapter of the internationally reknown (I'm Canadian and Mike's American...shhh) The Return: A webcomic in 8 parts. Thanks to eveyone for reading and we hope you enjoyed.

-Gino Collins
-Michael Moreci

The Return Page 6

2009-10-30T20:18:00.002-03:00

Heres page 6 of The Return. See Michael Moreci's site on Monday for page 7. Enjoy!

The Return - A Webcomic Page 4

2009-10-23T21:12:00.003-03:00

Heres page 4 of The Return. See Michael Moreci's site on Monday for page 5. Enjoy!

(Sorry everyone. I had page 5 up accidentally. Oops!)

The Return - Page 2

2009-10-16T18:25:00.002-03:00

Heres page 2 of The Return. See Michael Moreci's site on Monday for page three. Enjoy!

-Gino

The Return - A Web Comic

2009-10-13T00:18:00.007-03:00

Over the summer, Cold Blooded Chillers--an award-winning publication from Robert Heske--ran an open submission contest for its latest anthology: 2012. The challenge was for creative teams to come up with a short comic based on the 2012 'end of the world' mythology.

I was contacted by my writer friend Michael Moreci about providing the art for a script he had written for the occasion. The story departed a little from what the anthology was asking for but we both enjoyed the story and decided to submit it anyway. The end result is what you'll see here, a short called 'The Return.'

Michael and I earned an Honorable Mention for the strip, but not publication. Both of us liked the story, and rather than allow our completed work to languish in a drawer--or hard drive, rather--we decided to use the power of the internet and get the story out there.

So here's the deal: Michael and I are both posting this first page (of eight) on our sites. Every Friday, I will post even numbered pages; every Monday, Michael will post the odd pages. As mentioned above, the story is eight pages long. So in four weeks, we'll have posted the complete comic--and for free no less!

Cheers and I hope you enjoy!
-Gino

(Some of the above was taken verbatim or adjusted slightly from Michael's site. He is the writer after all!)

More sketchies

2009-09-19T00:57:00.003-03:00

Here's a couple more sketches from breaks this week. I added a background to the previous pic and a whole new one. Enjoy.

-Gino

Cool September Days

2009-09-16T13:34:00.005-03:00

Weather gets cold fast here on the east coast. It's a bit of an adjustment from 6 years in Korea. Kind of nice.

Here's a sketch I did while on breaks at work. Enjoy.

-Gino

Ooooh colours...

2009-09-06T04:38:00.004-03:00

Here's some more experimenting I've been doing with Photoshop colouring. One is a cel type look while the other is a more water colour type feel. The character is one my own for a book I've been working on my a while now. Enjoy!

Been A While...

2009-08-24T16:54:00.000-03:00

Hey all, I've been working on a short story with Michael Moreci for a submissions call and trying to get my sequentials to a place where I like them not to mention looking for a job and trying to keep my sanity..:P Sorry I haven't had time to post lately. I watched some of Brian Haberlin's Digital Art tutorials recently and decided to give a more painterly look to my work a try. I usually enjoy a more cel shaded approach but have been itching to try this for a while. Here's my first try. Not bad for a first attempt but I may keep picking at this for a while.

-Gino

Round two...FIGHT!

2009-06-28T15:41:00.000-03:00

The last version of this pic really bothered me so I spent some time inking it up and then fooling around with the colours to match it up. Here's where I am with it right now still not fully finished I don't think. I'll leave it for a while and see how it sits with me.

-Gino

Colour by Number

2009-06-24T00:34:00.000-03:00

Here's a coloured version of the last pic. I tried to go straight to colour and bypass the inks for a change. Definitely prefer inked better. Just doesn't feel right. Almost a rushed feel to the piece. If I have some time soon I'll give inking it ashot. Enjoy!

-Gino

Kee Yah!

2009-06-22T19:12:00.000-03:00

Haven't drawn any fantasy themed stuff in a while (which used to be all I'd draw truthfully) but talking to my old roleplaying buddies fom a few years back got the old dwarves and elves and all the good stuff floating around in my head again. Also been absolutely loving David Aja and Ed Brubaker's Iron Fist which made me wanna draw some old school chop socky. One of the most detailed pieces I've done in a bit. Hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I did drawing it. Kee Yah!

-Gino

What's Cooke-ing?

2009-06-20T09:12:00.000-03:00

A few months ago I had the pleasure of meeting illustrator extraordinaire Darwyn Cooke at the Calgary Comic Expo. Meeting is perhaps too strong a word as I said about three words in cowardice as I walked around all day asking for autographs and feeling overwhelmed with awe. But I digress. Darwyn Cooke has a brand new book coming out based on the Richard Stark "Parker" novels. The Mel Gibson movie "Payback" is a loose translation of the first novel to screen. Very loose from what I've heard. From all accounts it looks to be an amazing book and you can win copies of it at his quasi blog here if you do a picture of Parker. Here's my submission. I tried to get a 70s feel to the character and design of the piece. Enjoy!

Officer Joker

2009-06-04T23:35:00.000-03:00

Just getting things set up after a international Korea to Canada move, a month long road trip across Canada from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland, and then driving back to Halifax to start the new chapter of my life. Done a little bit of drawing in between but without a scanner or proper time to work on anything. Trying to get back on top of things now and was inspired by the posters for the recent influx of security guard movies to do a sketch of Joker doing the "watching you" pose.

-Gino

Another One Bites the Dust

2009-06-03T23:03:00.000-03:00

Captain Britain and MI:13 was a wonderful book with great writing and solid art month after month. A shame to see it go as well as the Guardians of the Galaxy series which I enjoyed. Hopefully all the creators involved will be seen soon on othjer projects. I can't wait to see Paul Cornell's next work. Here's a pic of Cap for kicks. Enjoy.

-Gino

2009-04-18T21:36:00.001-03:00

My uncle Mike passed away this week. Wonderful man with a joy and passion for life and always ready with a smile and a joke. You're sorely missed Mike.

-Gino

Back in The Great White North and Hard Drive Disaster

2009-04-02T19:52:00.000-03:00

My wife and I have moved back to Canada now and are relaxing at her parents house in BC. Everythings nice and the weather is starting to turn beautiful. The air is so much cleaner and my immune system is finally getting back to normal. If only my back would magically auto-repair here... Bought a car last week and we plan to do a massive cross country road trip from BC straight to Newfoundland. Should be a lot of fun and I can't wait to see family and friends along the way. On a much more horrible note my hard drive from my computer in Korea that had everythign I've drawn, written, designed, coloured, and all the photos I've taken over my entire 6 year life in Korea, died somewhere on the way to Canada. I removed it from my computer and used every precaution I could think of for the trip across the world but I guess something just happened. I don't think it's even hit me yet. Everyday I think of something else I lost on the hard drive and just sigh. It's akin to a house fire in my childhood home y'know? I've got most of my sketches but there's a lot of work from just the basic sketches. There's not enough curse words in the English and Korea languages for this. When I moved back to Canada to start my new life I didn't figure it was at the expense of the old. *sigh*

Up, Up and Away

2009-02-11T10:52:00.001-04:00

Read Geoff Johns' Superman! Seriously. As angry as I was with another retake on the character and throwing away or retconning the origin in the last couple of years Johns makes it bearable. Beautiful artwork and Superman written great. Just good stuff.

Almost Done

2009-02-08T21:48:00.001-04:00

Sorry about the lateness between posts. Been pretty busy packing up my life to get ready to move back to Canada. Crazy stress trying to get all this together. Three weeks to go and so much left to do. Here's a couple of pieces I did recently. The first one is my niece Brooklyn as a princess for her birthday. I'm fairly happy with the picture. The layout's a bit iffy but I'm happy with the drawing of her. First time I tried drawing a child. Mike Wieringo always made it look so easy. *sniff*

-Gino

Daughter of the Blue Shield

2008-12-03T10:48:00.000-04:00

Another concept character sketch for the book. Enjoy!

Now In Technicolor!

2008-11-29T23:56:00.000-04:00

Here's a coloured version of Benjy I did for practice. Not bad.

Jam

2008-11-27T09:58:00.000-04:00

A piece a did for a Jam on Millarworld. Came out pretty decent. I really need to work more on my inking. I think it definitely lost something from pencils to inks. Next time.

Well Whaddaya Know...

2008-11-24T19:33:00.000-04:00

Things have been continuously crappy lately. Had food poisoning TWO WEEKS IN A ROW. That's gotta be some kinda record. Andy's been sick and now we both feels colds coming on. Not to mention a bunch of our coworkers finished their contracts and we're short handed resulting in us teaching 12 hour days for the last weeks. It's Andy's birthday this Wednesday but we don't finish till so late me may not be able to go out and do anything for it. On a good note I entered a Draw Off on Millarworld.net for a Flash costume redesign and I won! Whoohoo! First time entering and a win. There were only like 6 entires mind you but they were all really good and the voting was fairly close. Pretty cool. Gives me a nice needed ego boost.

-Gino

Gettin back on the wagon.

2008-11-07T09:28:00.000-04:00

Back's been feeling a bit better lately. Still not amazing and back to normal but minimal pain and hopefully getting better. Here's a couple new drawings for the Knights comic. One I spent a fair bit of time on. I recently bought a book on drawing perspective for comics and gave some of the techniques a whirl. Came out okay. I can see myself improving which is always nice. Now that my back is getting better I hope I can post here fairly regularly again. Draw till my eyes bleed. Wicked.

Gino

Good news for a change.

2008-10-11T11:19:00.000-03:00

So I had my MRI on Friday morning. Not an enjoyable experience. Giant round casket that sounds like a jackhammer and no one in the hospital spoke English. Strange procedure in another country where no one explain anything to you. Not the optimal conditions. Oh well. It's done now. Turns out I don't need surgery but I'm close. My lowest vertebrae is eroded a 1/3 of the way in and almost touched the nerves inside. If it was 1/2 than surgery is the only recourse. So I have to drop my weight an strengthen my lower back muscles taking the pressure off my spine and apparently it will heal. I say apparently because the doctor was speaking English as a second language and I have learned during my five years here in Korea that there is ALWAYS something lost in translation. Anyway, I'm trying to cut down my eating and pay more attention to what it is I do eat. This isn't too big of a deal as I was already on the way to doing this and living healthier when I got hurt. I was going to the gym constantly and changing my lifestyle when this happened. However, it gets kind of difficult to exercise and become active when I'm not aloud to move too quickly or lift anything or be very active in general. Oh well. I'll figure something out. There's talk of pilates but I don't know if my ego can handle it. In my mind pilates = hippy Hollywood nonsense so we'll see. Hopefully Something works out because I want this to be the last time I have to deal with this.

Cheers,
Gino

Craptastic Times

2008-10-09T07:53:00.000-03:00

So in a matter of a week I got my first paid gig as a comic artist, paid off a 1 of 3 student loan and went to the gym constantly and losing 5 pounds . All this good stuff made me a little wary. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then Blammo. I took a tumble while playing volleyball and re-injured my spine. Majorly. This is the first time I've been able to sit down to use my cpomputer in like 2 weeks and I haven't been able to put a pencil to paper which is murder. I've been on my back in bed every minute I'm not at work. I have to have an MRI tomorrow to find out exactly the problem is. There's a possibility I may need surgery. If I do need surgery it's 6 weeks of recovery which pretty much means I'm out of a job and Andy and my plans for next spring and driving across Canada are toast. No money and no job. It's looking fairly postive as my pain has reduced in the last few days and signs are good but I'm still nervous about the results from the MRI tomorrow. I'll throw up some if the concept stuff for the book I was working on before the tumble. Sorry to all the people who've Facebooked me or dropped me a message in the past while. It's been literally impossible for me to reply. I'll be doing my best to get back to everyone in the coming days. Be patient. I'm still limited to small times of sitting.

Cheers,
Gino

2008-09-16T11:50:00.001-03:00

So last week I posted the picture of the magic cop (see previous post) on Millarworldforums and a few days later the creator (John Knox) asks me if I want to do some pages for a project based on the character! After my initial panic attack I quickly said yes and am now getting paid for comic book work. I haven't stopped smiling in about 4 days. So in honour of the occasion I bought myself a new oversized sketchbook. Heres the first piece from my new sketchbook and my first try at the character of my new project! :D

Magic Cop

2008-09-05T10:32:00.000-03:00

Here's another character sketch from Millarworld forums. Came out okay. Did it on my 10 minute breaks between classes. This whole job thing really gets in the way of your drawing comic books. :P

Man of Steel

2008-08-24T05:34:00.000-03:00

Anybody who knows me is aware of my love of Superman. Because pf this I am always hesitant to draw him. Afraid I'll never do him justice. This is probably the first Superman I've drawn in about 5 years. Still not what I wanted but a little closer.

More stuff from Millarworld

2008-08-17T02:39:00.000-03:00

Here's another character from the Millarworld Forums. Enjoy!

Once again with feeling...or ink

2008-08-14T10:23:00.000-03:00

Same image but inked.

Busy Up

2008-08-12T11:02:00.000-03:00

Tired to make the piece a bit busier so I added some new people and a bit of life.

Perspective Practice

2008-08-10T09:09:00.000-03:00

Here's a piece I was doing about my fantasy characters that a friend and I came up with. I got the idea a few weeks ago and decided to do it for a DRAW OFF at Millarworld forums. I decided to experiment with Google Sketch Up to lay out the piece. I'm really starting to enjoy that program for layouts and scenes. This came out a lot better than my last attempt at a pirate ship a couple years ago. Ew. I'm gonna try to ink this (even though I freakin hate inking) and post the inked here is a few days.

Flame On!

2008-08-05T10:06:00.000-03:00

Here's one of Johnny to keep the FF theme going. I may do the other two. See where my doodlin' takes me.

Ups, downs and men made of orange rock.

2008-08-03T11:06:00.000-03:00

I attempted a page of sequentials for a Batman thread at the Millarworld forums. Disappointing would be the kindest word, I suppose. The contest ended today and it wasn't near ready to be put up but I may throw it up here at some point after I redraw and rework it. Fought with myself for awhile but whatever. The more I work the better it'll get. So I'm gonna keep drawing and posting and working my ass off. Moped around today and reread my Mike Wieringo Fantastic 4 and Spider-Man book. I could stare at his work all day and never stop smiling. Ringo just made everything look so easy and beautiful. Flawlees and pristine. Made me jump back on the drawing wagon and give Ol Blue Eyes a shot. Came out okay but drawing all that rock? Not as fun as you'd think. :P

Another Character from Millarworld.com

2008-07-30T12:43:00.000-03:00

Here's another character I did up from the forums at Millarworld. You ever happy with something when you do it and then not so much 5 seconds after you finish? This is one of those.

Coloured Cowboys

2008-07-29T13:09:00.000-03:00

Figured I'd colour up the Steampunk Cowboy just for fun.

Sleeping Beauty

2008-07-29T10:07:00.000-03:00

This is a scene or image from a game/comic book series my friends and I are doing. Fairly happy with the drawing but I still think the light and colouring needs a little work. Grayden Brighthammer in the foreground and Whisper in the glass coffin.

Here's another character from the same series. Ethan Drysdale half-elf thief and all around scoundrel.

Cowboy Steampunk

2008-07-25T09:58:00.000-03:00

Idea from a theme going on over at the Millarworld Forums. Came out pretty good. I love steampunk. :)

New Sketches

2008-07-23T13:00:00.000-03:00

Here's a few new sketches for the tofu comic. My wife, my buddy Will, and a few action shots. Enjoy!

Tofu Page

2008-07-21T13:27:00.000-03:00

Quick page I put together for my Tofu bit. Trying an animated look to see how it works.

2008-07-21T09:10:00.000-03:00

I hate Tofu. hate it. It's evil and vile and tastes like sponge. Tasteless icky sponge. So I did what any aspiring comic artist would do while living in a country that cooks tofu in everything. I started to work on a comic about it. Here's some of the character sketches.

Tofu grrrr

First Try

2008-07-21T08:16:00.000-03:00

OK, this is my first time at something like this. I read my friend Shawn's blog intermittently and though I enjoyed reading a blog I was never sure I had anything to say. However Shawn recently showed me a link to Living Between Wednesdays. If you haven' read this blog and enjoy reading comic books I highly recommend it. The fact the blogger is an East Coaster is a nice added bonus. It's good to see this stuff going on while I'm whittling my time away in Korea "teaching" and working on my art. So I figure I'll start give this whole blog thing a shot. I figure I'll talk about the weeks comics or ones I've read recently or things going on the industry that ecxite me or piss me off. Also I'll throw some of my drawings or things I'm working on for people to have a look at. I'll probably throw some personal stuff in for good measure, too.

See you soon.
Gino