Kickstarter Campaign to begin in June

Hello everyone! Just wanted to give a heads up on what's going on in the homefront I like to call Obsidian Studios. Right now as we speak, I am working on a project for our first Kickstarter Campaign. This project is for the next White Ninja Guy comic book coming out in October 2012. We are attempting to raise money to be able to pay for various expenses; the most important of those being printing for the 1000 copy run as well as the special edition 150 copy run of the special edition B&W sketch cover version of White Ninja Guy Saga #1.

We are producing a lot of artwork from various artists for variant covers, and promotional posters and the like for various comic shops. We are looking at a projected goal of $4500. Though the costs are MUCH higher, that being of $8300, the $4500 is much more doable, and the rest will be coming from the income of commissions and original art sales of other artwork. This campaign will be ready to launch by June 1 2012. Along with the Kickstarter campaign, we will be launching the White Ninja Guy Facebook page. This will allow us to be able to find out who the REAL fans of White Ninja Guy are. As a result, this can help us create contests and incentives for those fans. Over on the Obsidian Studios blog, and Facebook page, we will be uploading pictures and video of the White Ninja Guy project and other things to keep you guys up to date with progress.

This is a very exciting time, and we hope that with these avenues of promotion and networking that we can make White Ninja Guy a success. The final endgame will be to get White Ninja Guy Saga #1 into the hands of potential new fans at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco in October. We can make this happen, and so stay tuned! What can you do? Spread the word and tell folks about the project, and if you can donate, please do so! Thank you all so much for your time, and we hope to hear from you soon!


Until next time Moonwatchers!

Ian Walker
Obsidian Studios Founder / Owner

Chill N' Sketch - May 2012

So I got together with a bunch of local talent where I am here in Santa Rosa, and decided to put together my own little drink and draw style get together which I call, Chill N' Sketch. It's where we... You guessed it! Chill and Sketch!

We all met up at the Aleworks in town which is a local bar and restaurant, and I reserved part of the upstairs area, and all 10 of us in attendance ordered food, sketched out some great artwork, and had an AMAZING time. For the first event, it was a really good turn out. Below are a few of the sketches that were done. I'm going to be putting up a blog post every month when we have these events, and hopefully they get bigger and bigger with even more artwork.

2012 Sketchbook - Understanding Women Vol.1

This is the cover to a new full color sketchbook that I will be coming out with in the later part of the year! Still putting this together, so the page count is still up in the air. This will showcase all of my sketches and drawings, including fan art of all female characters over the years spanning 2010 to 2012.

I will be self publishing the book, and doing a limited number release of books under the Obsidian Studios banner. This will also be revealed in the next few months as well. Pre-Orders for the book will be available once everything is set and ready to go to print. So keep watching and looking for details!

Free Comic Book Day 2012

This was a great great time at my local comic shop FTW Comics here in Santa Rosa.  Got my mind off all the stresses of the last 2 months, and I met some new and amazing people! Sold only 2 of my books, and got only 2 commissions, but all in all, I think it was really great.

I will be posting up one of the pieces that I did that day up here soon! I know that I will be definitely doing this every year forward. Now that FCBD is done, I now need to gear up for APECon! That means new projects must begin, and I need to be ready and solid to go come October 2012!

The Avengers: A Movie Review

There is not enough good things I can say about this film. Anyone that knows me know that I am a DC fan boy. However, my opinion is this... The Avengers will go down in history as the GREATEST comic book film ever made. Here are a few reasons why...

 

THE HULK... THE HULK... THE HULK!!! Aside from the Ed Norton film which was AMAZING in it's own right, and set the precedence for realism for how the Hulk should look, the Hulk in this movie was simply amazing! I remember how when Mark Ruffalo was revealed to be the new Banner, people (including myself) were miffed that this role wasn't reprised by Ed Norton. But recognizing the trend that most of the CG Hulks are modeled after the real actors themselves, I was thoroughly pleased with not only the performance of Ruffalo as Banner, but also the LOOK of the Hulk. With a tiny bit of exaggeration, he ended up being an amazing likeness to the classic Hulk we see in the comics. Seeing him reminded me of Dale Keown's Hulk w/ the exaggerated features and such. 

We also got to see a lot of the Hulks personality as well. He was a pissed off destructive force, but smart enough to understand at the right time, he needed to work together with a team. This was done wonderfully and the Hulk was a major asset to the team, showing you how muscle should be used in a team. There is so much more to the Hulk, but if I say more, then I will be spoiling ish. One thing I will say though, is that from the second we see the green behemoth to the end of the film, he is tearing through EVERYTHING, as the Hulk should be! No sentimental BE-TTY moments with her single tear on his finger. He simply HULK SMASHED!

The chemistry between everyone in this film was wonderful as well. The mix of humor brought to us graciously by Robert Downey Jr aka Tony 'Iron Man' Stark was wonderful. The relationship between Hawkeye and Black Widow that we all know of in the comics was played on brightly as well. Hawkeye honestly is not a character that is given the opportunity to shine very much. Not too many people I know care a lot about Hawkeye, and I think that Whedon and the writers knew that. So even though they didn't capitalize on his background too much, I think they played a very smart move here by making sure that whenever Hawkeye was on the screen, he was doing something really cool. In effect, this would make folks who never cared about the character go... Hmmm. Who is this dude? After this movie, if I didn't know who Hawkeye was, I would be checking him out afterward for sure. I think they were really smart with this. Captain America was shown as the worlds greatest leader in this film, and the character I feel was given another side of which was seen in this film. You need to see it to understand what I'm saying. 

Thor throughout the film was just annoyed with his brother, and it kept a realism and a much different element to the movie in regard to the relationship to Thor and Loki. He still really loves his brother, and will do anything for him, but he never ever once condoned the actions he was taken. Thors growth as a character was plain as day in the movie. It even seems as if the writers wanted us to see that he had grown and learned a lot more since the Thor movie that had come out, and I thought that was nice to see.

I like to call Nick Fury as wonderfully played by Samuel L Jackson, the Great Manipulator. The thing I love about Nick Fury and his role in the film is that he is a friggin GENIUS! The man knew how to fight, he knew how to think, and motivate the Avengers to get their butts in gear, and do what he knew in his heart what they could do. Sam Jackson is not an action star by any means, but give this dude some lines, and that ish does not even matter. I know very few actors that can do this, and Sam is one of them. He made Nick Fury a very cool character. And it does help a lot that the Ultimate Nick Fury was modeled after him, so to see this come alive in film was amazing.

Finally, Joss Whedon... I have been a fan of this guy since Firefly. I didn't really expect him to do much for the film honestly because this wasn't a property that HE created, so I didn't expect him to pull off his usual amazing skills. But BOY was I wrong. After seeing this film, Whedon, and his writing team say a few things to us as comic book fans. 

1. We are sorry for all the crap hollywood had you sit through and waste money on. Here is our gift to you.

2. You are a fan, and so are we...

3. The comic book movie CAN be done like the comics. 

4. There are no more excuses for not putting together quality films just like the comics, since comic books are essentially movies, and TV in printed form.

5. Comic companies (Mainstream or indy) MUST invest in putting together their own studios to create films that stay true to the characters they create. And these must also be willing to cater to indy creators that want to see their properties on film as well. This eliminates the risk of any tampering with those who just want money or who only want to please Hollywood, and not the fans.

This man can do and touch anything he wants from this point forward. He like Christopher Nolan of the wonderful Batman films and his other great films have the ability to touch anything and turn it into GOLD!!! Whedon from this point on has proven to me, and even more so to his hardcore fans that he is an undeniable talent. And I'm going to call this right now... After the Avengers film, the next great TV project he creates will survive for more than 2 seasons. Hollywood now has NO CHOICE but to recognize the talent for what he is. The Rise of Joss Whedon has begun!

Thanks for taking the time to read today! If you want to leave comments, leave them here!

Talk to you guys soon!

Ian W.