If you are a long time visitor to my blog you will remember my first US-comic work ‘Alpha Bettie‘ which I started to draw beside my job as a lead artist on mobile games in 2006. The story is written by former IDW editor Dan Taylor.

The year is 2053. Lieutenant Bettie Swift is an officer and fighter pilot with the United Solar Fleet serving aboard the U.S.S. Patriot. She is a member of the Alpha Squad (hence the name Alpha Bettie). She’s a firecracer, but an ace fighter pilot.

The project is on a hold for now because of my other projects I’m working on. It’s open when and with who the project will launch with but you already can get a five page sneak peek of our sci-fi work in progress here by clicking the following thumbnail images.

All art (layouts, pencils, inks and colors) by me of course.

I would love to hear what you think about this first preview.

CU all soon!

of course I’m not talking about the weather here…
What I’m talking about are all the fantastic projects I’m working on and which I already have finished in the last month, the first month in my live as a freelance artist (see preview blog post for details)!
First of all, working with Papercutz EIC Jim Salicrup on ‘Tales from the Crypt’ is fantastic! For everyone who doesn’t know: Mr. Salicrup was an editor at MARVEL Comics for many years and is most well-known for his work on the new high selling Spider-Man series (from the nineties) with artist/writer Todd McFarlane. Click here to read an interview with Mr. Salicrup at the Pulse: ‘JIM SALICRUP’S TALES FROM THE CRYPT‘. You also can pre-order the Tales from the Crypt comic with the story ‘Extra Life’ (story by Neil Kleid, art and colors by me) at Amazon:
Click here to pre-order the paperpack.
Click here to pre-order the hardcover.
And don’t forget: This story will be published first in the regular series!
Regarding the MADDRAX project I talked about in the last post, I can say there will be a SpinOff series I’m working on. More details on this and what I am doing for this new series I will post in a view days.

Beyond this projects there also is a new issue of GameStar/dev out since the end of May. This issue contains my workshop about how I created the ‘Girl with Guns’ image which can be seen in the last blog entry.

Regarding Alpha Bettie: The 10 page preview edition will be available at SanDiego ComicCon in July (not June, as I said in an earlier post).

And finally: If everything works out (it is a little early to talk about details right now) I will soon start with another cool project which is connected to a classic SciFi Hollywood monster movie.
It really can’t get any cooler right now…

All my plans for the dark and gritty stuff will have to wait a little longer. There is too many other stuff going on here right now. First: The new issue of the biggest German game developer magazine ‘GameStar/dev‘ is out now. It contains my ‘Making Of’ which shows how I made the ‘Scientist In Love’ image from idea to final. The article shows some first idea thumbnails which are very small in print. I do this thumbnails very fast and very small to get an idea down on paper. You can see bigger versions of the thumbnail images here

‘Click here for thumbnails – part 1‘
‘Click here for thumbnails – part 2‘

And while showing some thumbnails here are some more from ‘Alpha Bettie‘ visualization work:

‘Click here for Alpha Bettie thumbnails‘

Second: There should be good Alpha Bettie news soon .

And finally something else I’m very excited about: I will work on another new very cool comic project soon! Right now I’m afraid I can’t tell you more. You will have to wait for the official press release… maybe I can tell you more after New York Comic Con…

Click on the image to the left to see my workplace at home. On the wall are some pages from ‘Alpha Bettie’. Sorry I had to make most of them unrecognizable. I think you have to wait until the issue is out to see them . I’m working on pencils to page twenty right now so you shouldn’t have to wait ‘forever’…
I will start working on a digital painting today for my next article which will appear in the new issue of ‘GameStar/dev’. The plan is to show something with a little more action after the theory stuff from last issue… so watch out.
For all comic fans here is an answer to a question I asked at Newsarama to Mr. Marvel himself, JOE QUESADA!
My question to Joe Quesada:

Chris Noeth: “Do you think printed comics will live for another 30 years?”.

Here is his answer:
Joe Quesada: “I honestly don’t think so. I think the future of comics is going to be via fans receiving our content in electronic form.”

I don’t hope he is right and comics will be still printed on paper in 30 years.

I wish you all a Happy New Year 2007! Because I haven’t posted in December ‘06 I sketched ‘The Hulk’ to start the new year with something BIG… . Click on the colored image to the left to see the sketch.
The new year is a special year because I will finish my first US-comic ‘Alpha Bettie’ (written by Dan Taylor, complete art by me) in February. I can’t wait to hold the finished issue in my hands .
Enough talk for today… must go back to work now and penciling the last pages of Bettie.
Feel free to write a comment here at my blog or some feedback in my online sketchbook at ‘Conceptart.org‘.
See you soon!

… “I’ll be back!”. Hey… it took a while but this time I have a good excuse for not posting so long… my wife and I got a boy! His name is ‘Konstantin’ and he was born in september. It is our first child and right now I can’t imagine a life without the little ’sunshine’
Back to the things I do when not putting on diapers…
Some of you may already have noticed the Alpha Bettie site is still down. Dan and I had some problems with spam postings in the past and not enough time to start the new Alpha Bettie blog yet. But it should be online next month at the official site ‘www.AlphaBettie.com‘.
At work I finished some new mobile games. The last one is called ‘Funky Monkey’ and will be out soon. If you want to see a Trailer go to the HG website. I have started to work on a new game this week but can’t talk about it yet.
I also have finished a new workshop article for the november issue of the german game-developer magazine ‘GameStar/dev‘. The article is about color theory and image composition. The next article coming in january 2007 will show a detailed tutorial on how to make a concept art image.
With all the game related things going on this days I feel an urgent need to study more comic related stuff and will show some more comic related sketches in an online sketchbook soon. So hopefully you will get some more comic stuff soon. That’s why you are here, right?

 

Another issue of the biggest German game developer magazine ‘GameStar/dev‘ is out. It contains part two of my concept art workshop. The article shows a ‘making of’ tutorial about creating an Alpha Bettie related battle robot using 3ds max and photoshop.

Regarding Alpha Bettie: The forum was attacked by some hackers so Dan and I desided to start a blog instead where we will post the news on the comic project. The blog will be online soon.

More comic news regarding Dan’s other (cult) comic series Hero Happy Hour. IDW is publishing the newest ‘Deluxe’ issue in september. Watch out for Dan’s and Chris Fason’s creator owned project ‘Super Deluxe Hero Happy Hour: The Lost Episode‘ where our beloved heroes from The Hideout Bar & Grill finally will return.

No news on our side project yet. There was too much other stuff going on the last weeks… I hope I can get the news out there soon.

 

I was on vacation in Austria for one week visiting Salzburg. Me and my wife relaxed in a very cool four star wellness Sheraton hotel and visited some nice places like the birthhouse of Mozart… but hey… you are not here to read about my vacation right? … So back to comic business: My booth at http://www.comicon.com is open and I hope there will be many new comicfans finding their way to my site and will check out my early previews from my first US-comic Alpha Bettie written by IDW-Editor Dan Taylor (Princess Of Mars, Hero Happy Hour) .

 

The new issue of the biggest German game developer magazine ‘GameStar/dev‘ is out. It contains part one of my workshop article about creating some Alpha Bettie related concept designs using 3ds max and photoshop.

Beside the MTV promotion of the mobile game called ‘Flitzer’ my artwork for the game (where you can see the streaker in action) can also be seen on the cover of the new PC game ‘Flitzer’ from dtp. It is the first PC game based on a mobile game! Read more about the mobile game or order it ’here‘. You also can order the PC game at amazon ‘here‘.

At last some comic related news: I’m working with Dan Taylor (IDW Editor and author of Alpha Bettie, Hero Happy Hour, Princess Of Mars)  on some ’small’ side project parallel to ‘Alpha Bettie’ which will be announced soon.
IDW’s august solicitations are up and you can order some of Dan’s newest works at your comic shop. Check the ads in the actual diamond Previews catalog for ‘Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars #1‘ and Dan’s creator owned project ‘Super Deluxe Hero Happy Hour: The Lost Episode‘ where our beloved heroes from The Hideout Bar & Grill return. You also can read an interview with Dan Taylor ‘here‘.

Sorry for the late update (again)… but you now I’m busy, right? …

So let’s get straight to the news:

First: At this years biggest German comic convention the ‘Comic-Salon’ in Erlangen you can find some Alpha Bettie artworks at the ICOM exhibition. This is the place where you can see exclusive the first page from the comic! To find the exhibition please take a look at the official site by clicking the image to the left. It is called ‘ICOM – Die letzten Originale’. The ‘Comic-Salon’ will be from June 15 to June 18 in Erlangen.

Second: If you want to see me on TV you (maybe) will have the chance this weekend on Sunday, May 28 on the German channel ‘Bayerisches Fernsehen’ at 18 o’clock in ‘Frankenschau’. There you should see me working on some game art… if they didn’t cut me out…

Third: Another TV news… watch out for the latest soccer mobile-games ‘Flitzer’ and ‘Tipp Kick’ I worked on which can be seen on MTV (and maybe VIVA) soon. ‘Flitzer’ was THE game on this years Game Developer Conference!

Fourth: Back to Alpha Bettie. I finished a workshop article about some Bettie related artwork and the production of it which will appear next issue in Germanys biggest Game Developer Magazine ‘GameStar/dev‘. This should be interesting for both the Bettie fans and the game artists out there…

And at last: The 5 page western comic story I translated for artist Tony Moore (The Exterminators, The Walking Dead) will appear in a printed Magazine from ‘Comicgate’ at the ‘Comic Salon’ in Erlangen. You can preorder your issue here: Preorder Comicgate Magazine.

Thanks for your interest. Untile the next update…

 

Dan couldn’t wait and posted a sneak peek of the first Alpha Bettie page at the official boards. Click the image to the left to get to the boards and to see the page… or the part of the page .

Let me know what you think.

As you know I started working on the sequential pages of the Alpha Bettie comic book. You can follow the creation of the comic on the official boards. I haven’t posted any sequential art yet… I will wait until I have finished a little more pages.

Beside the work on Bettie Pages (mhhh… this sounds familiar ) I started to teach a course at the ‘Fachhochschule Wuerzburg-Schweinfurt’ about 3D modelling and animation.

Other news: German readers of the magazine ‘Computer Bild Spiele’ will find the game ‘Railroad Pioneer’ on the CD of the current issue. I did many of the 2D and 3D art for this game some time ago.

And the people of the german game developer magazine ‘Gamestar/dev’ printed one of my tech articles on ‘3ds max MAXScript’ for readers of the magazine ‘Creative Live’.

I translated a five page comic for Tony Moore two weeks ago which will be printed in Germany in summer 2006.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Too much things going on here at the same time. At work I’m still very busy working on many cool new mobile games at once. More information on the games you will find soon at the company homepage at www.handy-games.com.

The work on my actual comic project Alpha Bettie is doing fine and you can find some of the concept designs on the official board to the project at: www.AlphaBettie.com. Feel free to use the image to the top left of this post for putting a link to the Alpha Bettie forum on your personal website.

Or use this image to the left to link to my blog if you like.
Today I updated the blog version from v.1.5.2 to v.2.0.1 which makes posting much easier now… and maybe I will post more often from now on…
 

The last few weeks I was very busy. Many new game projects and other things took up much of my time. This is the first new blog entry in 2006 and it is time to get some good news out there… so why talking about it so much? Go and see for yourself… the ‘Alpha Bettie Forum‘ is online now!

The forum is the place where you will find the newest information and artworks regarding the project. It is the place where you can get an inside look in the production of the comic. You also can become a part of Bettie’s universe yourself… read about it directly on the boards.

The holidays are here soon and I will take a view days off starting tomorrow to visit family and friends. The year 2006 is the year of Bettie and I think we all will have a good time on her official page at www.AlphaBettie.com soon when the forum will be online. Watch out for the forum after the holidays. A big THANK YOU to all of you who had sent comments so far regarding my new comic project.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas with your loved ones and a Happy New Year!