OK, I know from my last post I said to keep an eye out for some portfolio pieces I would be doing in the coming “months” but I couldn’t resist. I just had to do one really quick. So I chose this Thor piece by Jonboy Meyers and Marc Deering because it’s just a figure against a simple background. Also, because it kicks ass! I hope everyone likes it.

I’m back from HeroesCon so I thought I would post a quick blog with a few photos from the show.

First, here’s a few photos from when we first arrived in our hotel room at the Charlotte Hilton Center City. This is Elbonie in our room, which looks like someplace the Joker would want to stay because the decor was all purples and greens. There are also some photos I took out the window so you can get a sense of our view.

The next morning we went over to the con a little early to set up our table. Here’s a few shots of that.

While we were setting up I spotted Guy Davis arriving. I’ve worked with Guy several times over the years but never had the pleasure of meeting him in person. So, as he was setting up his table I went over there. He was right across the way from me where I had a great view of the back of his head. He’s just as nice in person as he is in emails and on the phone.

Skipping ahead, I also got to talk to Steve Niles and Sarah Wilkinson once again. This time, I got a picture.

I also met several people who I have met before that I didn’t get pictures of. A few of these people I knew from GutterZombie Such as Marc Deering (who had a table next to me), Marc Lewis, and Laura Martin. Marc and Marc kept me entertained with conversation while my table was slow. Even though I’ve met Laura in the past its always fun to visit her booth and talk color. I always learn something just by talking to her. Its not surprising because she is a goddess of color and she has a sack full of Eisners to prove it.

I also met Jason Copland, an artist I know from Myspace. And I got to meet up with fellow SCAD alumni, Dean Tripp, once again.

Plus, I met a few artists I’ve never talked to before such as Jonboy Meyers and Cliff Chiang.

Besides meeting with other talent another thing I love about going to cons are all the costumed people. Here are a few that I felt were picture worthy.

Of course, I also love to buy stuff (and sometimes I get stuff for free). Anyways here are some of the books I managed to get while there.

And here are a few prints.

Overall, the show was really fun. I was happy with how many people stopped by my table to talk about the books I’ve worked on. I had a ton of Doctor Who fans stop by and had me sign some books. They gave me a lot of kind comments about the Who books. I was really pleased when a few people enthusiastically mentioned that they enjoyed the colors I did on Doctor Who Classics. Since those are old stories that already had a fan-base for twenty some years I’m glad they approve of my treatment of it.

I was also pleased with how much we sold from our table. We had prints and comics for sale and Elbonie even sold a few of her original sketches. In total we made a little over $100 which I thought was impressive since we were selling all the prints and comics for $1 a piece and $5 for the sketches.

Well, I guess thats about it. I was thinking I may scan in a few of the black and white prints that I got and color them up as portfolio pieces when I get the time. When I do that I’ll be sure to post them on here so keep an eye out for that in the coming months.

Well, as many of you know I’ll be at HeroesCon in Charlotte NC later this week. If you’re going as well please stop by my table and say hi so I don’t get too bored. People don’t like visiting lowly colorists such as myself so any pity visits are welcome.

My table number is AA-918  in artist alley. Last year I wasn’t aware that I had a table until I got there. So, This year I’ll be better prepared.  Not only will I have an extensive portfolio featuring my colors from the last 2 years that you can glance through but I will also have stuff to sell!

My wife, Elbonie, and I created three prints especially for this con. She drew them and I colored them. I’ve never sold prints before so this is a bit of an experiment to see if they sell. Here are some samples:

On top of that I’ll have a stack of cheap comics that I’ll be selling. These comics are comics that I’ve worked on recently (like Dr. Who) as well as the three issue set of Sutari: The Mystic that my wife self-published when we were in college.

Note: As an added incentive to sell our prints, the first 5 people to buy a print will get a free box of Norfolk Manor Jelly Babies imported from the UK!

See you at the Con!!!

Originally, I was just going to title this post as “Pia and the Heat” but I thought that it sounded like a Doctor Who title and since it is Doctor Who related I thought I would make it look like one.

OK, first I wanted to post a quote from Pia’s blog that she made about me and my work on Doctor Who- The Forgotten:

“I’m really happy how it’s turning out. The colourist, Charlie Kirchoff has been sending me pages and they look amazing. Can’t wait to see this on the shiny paper stock. It’ll be one pretty book.”

It’s always a great motivator to get encouraging words from an artist you admire.

Right now, I can use all the motivation I can muster because I’ve been trying to finish up the colors on an issue of Dr. Who Classics and then my a/c died earlier this week during a heat wave so that put me behind. Apparently I can’t work as fast in the heat. But now its fixed so I’m building up my speed again.

So, with any luck I’ll be done with both of these books very soon and hopefully I’ll have something new to show off here.

On Wednesday you should be able to find issue 7 of Doctor Who Classics in your local comic book shop. If you can’t you should ask them to start stocking it. This issue concludes the “Dogs of Doom” story and feature the Daleks. If you read my previous post you’ll know that I’m recreating the classics 80s covers for these issues. This is the second one I’ve done. Below is the original 80s cover and next to it is my reproduction.

The Sontarans are back! Tonight you can watch them on TV on the Sci-Fi channel and in August you can read a classic comic book adventure featuring them (Doctor Who Classics #9). Here’s a peak at whats to come:

I’m trying something new here. Since I became a colorist I’ve never actually tried selling anything related to my work. For a colorist, especially in the digital age, there’s not much to sell. Artists have physical art work to sell but colorists don’t. We can’t really sell prints because most of the time our work is copyrighted material. But after I got my copies of Doctor Who Classics #6 I thought maybe I could trying selling an autographed copy. I don’t know if anyone would really be interested in having a comic signed by the colorist but I thought I would try. This seemed like a good issue to try because I did recreate a classic cover for this issue (even though the credit was accidentally given to Joe). So, I put this up on ebay in case anyone was interested. If it sells, I may try putting more up in the future.

Check out my previous post to find out more about my work on this issue.

Yesterday I posted a few covers for the upcoming “Doctor Who: The Forgotten” miniseries so today I thought I would post the first page of interior art. I like how it came out. Its a pleasure to color Pia’s art and her inks on this is beautiful.

Here are the first two covers to the upcoming Doctor Who miniseries “The Forgotten”. These covers were fun to do. Not only did I get to color new art work featuring past Doctors but I had the freedom to be a bit more creative. The backgrounds on these two covers were basically blank so I had to figure out what to do with them.

For the first cover the artist, Nick Roche, had suggested putting the time vortex in the background. But I thought, that was done on the background for the first issue of the first series, lets try something different. So what I did was create a pattern that was reminiscent of the effect that was done for the original opening sequence of the show back in the ’60s. And I positioned it so that it kind of looks like an aura of energy is being emitted by Doctor #1.

For the second cover I had to come up with a background again. I briefly considered doing a similar effect like I did for the first but make it look technocolor like the Pertwee opening sequence. But I quickly decided against it because the future covers may not be that sparse in the background where I could continue with that trend. So I finally got the idea to do the background with Gallifreyan symbols and make it look sort of in the style of the display on the monitor in the TARDIS. I had fun with this because I used symbols that actually have meaning. If you’re a big enough fan of the show you may be able to identify each of the individual symbols and, if you’re clever, you may be able to figure out what these symbols mean in the context of each other, this cover, and the story. I could tell you what I had intended for the meaning but I think it would be more fun for you to guess, and I don’t want to ruin your fun.

Enjoy!

Oh, and if you wanted to know more about the series itself here is a brief description:

Stranded in a strange Museum that’s dedicated to him; and with no TARDIS in sight, The Doctor and Martha must make sense of their surroundings, hindered by one small fact - The Doctor has lost his memories of every one of his previous incarnations! With items relevant to each Doctor in their possession, The Doctor must try to use them to regain his memories before it’s too late, starting with his earliest incarnation’s memories, involving Susan, Barbara and Ian. This all-new series written by Tony Lee (Starship Troopers) features artist Pia Guerra in her first monthly comic since Y The Last Man!

The series is due to debut Fall of 2008 (I believe August for the first issue but I could be wrong).

This issue is a special issue for me. Not only does it feature the first half of the “Dogs of Doom” story, which is one of my favorites, but it also features a very special cover.

Allow me to explain. When these stories were originally reprinted in the States way back in the 80s Dave Gibbons had created some beautiful covers to go along with them. So when I got the gig coloring these new reprints I asked if we could reuse the old covers. My editor thought it was a great idea however he was unable to track down the art. I was a bit disappointed but these things happen.

One day I had a thought. I have all the original reprints with these covers. Would it really be that difficult for me to recreate them? The hardest part would be to make up what was being hidden by the logos, but I figured I could do it. So I gave it a try and I liked how it came out. I pitched the idea to my editor and he ate it up. So now I’m recreating the old Gibbons covers to the best of my ability and I hope I do them justice.

I’ve done 5 already and I think I’m getting much better at it. The first few were a bit experimental but I think I’ve found my knack. Anyways, the first of these covers comes out this week on issue 6 of Doctor Who Classics. I’m sure there will still be multiple covers available for this issue as always but I hope everyone will be able to find this one if they want it.

Below is the old 80s version of the cover and next to it is my new recreation of it.