_________Kev Ferrara___________

[Blue Disciple]

Your oil medium is hardcore. Very effective lighting.

[kev ferrara]

Five heads in ballpoint...

[krytical_error]

gershwin is the best!

good show. i really love yer inks. very expressive - all so professional looking. very inspirational to say the least.

[sanoma]

Can't believe I missed this thread...Holy shit this stuff is amazing!

Please keep posting! Very, very inspirational!!

-Mack.

[kev ferrara]

Here's another panel from the Dead Rider that I've pulled. This was fun to imagine and fun to draw and color. I like the feeling of sweltering heat at sunset in the colored version.

If I can find the original sketch, I"ll post it.

kev

P.S. Thanks to everybody for the compliments!

[bengine]

Luvlie work! I like the ballpoint pen drawings.

[kev ferrara]

Here's yet another panel that isn't going to make the final. This was drawn in pencil, inked, scanned and then painted in Painter.

I like the desolate spirit to it. The way I was going to correct the horse anatomy was by putting a dialogue balloon over it.

kev

[kev ferrara]

Here's an entire page from The Dead Rider that isn't going to make the cut, even though I like the mood of it very much. It isn't finished, but its close. I just couldn't fit it into the story. Sigh. I did this to myself a lot on this mini series.

So here it is, without dialogue...

P.S. I reserve the right to change my mind and use this page in the final.

[jim b]

beautiful work! i love the style, ill be looking for this comic. im very interested in this type of classic brush and ink technique, can you recommend any good books or resources on the subject?

[kev ferrara]

Jim, tough to find a great book on inking. Although I hear the one from Dark Horse was pretty good. But besides looking at the masters (Frazetta, Wrightson, Joseph Clement Coll, Franklin Booth, Sienkiewicz, Mignola, etc.) I would also copy over George Bridgman's anatomy books into your notebooks (Frazetta did this, Norman Rockwell studied with Bridgman personally) and take some oil painting classes and paint from the model. Learning how to paint is the best way to learn how to ink because you need to see beyond the ink lines to what's really happening with the form. Ink strokes are just a decorative way of rendering form. Form is the foundation.

--------

Another quick oil painting. A skull in a cardboard box. Don't ask me why.

[kev ferrara]

The Friar's Head. From my notebooks... And Baby Face Malone. Why not?

[Goog]

wow, superbness...

[kev ferrara]

Thanks everybody! I'll post more soon!

kev

[digital_zombie]

Your stuff is amazing. I am in love with your ink work and your color stuff is awesome as well! Keep posting! I can't wait to see more!

[Hazart]

Wooah! Amazing. I like a lot!

[kev ferrara]

I happened to snap the pencils for this incomplete pen, brush and ink drawing from the Dead Rider. I'm going to work on it a little more and see if I can pull the ink job out of the tailspin it's in.

It's at points like this in a drawing that you begin to wonder whether continuing the drawing is worth it. The Dead Rider looks kind of goofy, knock-kneed and weak-chinned, and what was nice about the pencils have been obliterated by my heavy handed ink silhouetting of leaves that don't look like leaves, and that branch in front of him looks like Dr. Seuss drew it!

RULE NUMBER ONE: If you go to the ink stage with incomplete pencils, you should be sure your inking brush is ready to pick up the baton and run with it!

Thinking about stategy: One of the major things I'm noticing is that the shadow areas don't link up. Also, the blacks sit near the bottom too much, weighing down the design, the eyes have no highlights, the branch needs a quick peek at some reference. some of the leaves need to be made to look like something other than brushed ink strokes, etc, etc... I could go on....

Anyway, here it is... I'll get back to work on it soon and post the results.

kev

[stalsby]

Really nice work!

[kev ferrara]

From the model. Pastel. 20 Minutes.

[bwkeough]

Wow, great to read your explanations and I love your ink brushwork.

Would it be selfish to ask you to do a whole comic book in oils?

[kev ferrara]

A few painted panels from the Dead Rider...

[zenichi]

i really enjoyed reading your notes and thought process from some of the pieces that you posted. its a pleasure to the eyes to view your works, and its a pleasure to the mind to read your notes.

[kev ferrara]

Due to extreme popular demand, here's Santa Claus...

[kev ferrara]

My first sculpture, done to model the Witch character for The Dead Rider...

She's Cracking Up!!

[lorem]

Wow! Nice variety of work here. I wish I had criticisms, but I can only think of nice things. The black and white inking stands out as my favorites.

[kev ferrara]

Here's another entire page from the Dead Rider that will not be in the final miniseries.

The page was done early in the project's life, so there's all sorts of "meaningless" ink strokes flying around. By meaningless strokes, I mean those strokes that don't concisely describe the character of the object being depicted. These kinds of strokes are almost always either wasted effort or detrimental to the work.

See that witch's head? That is the drawing to the right, which I created to replace what is under there which shall remain buried!

I think you can see the big difference in the inking between the add on witch's face and the rest of the page.

kev

[kev ferrara]

A trio of "Rubenesque" nudes from the model. 10 minutes on the first two, maybe five on the last one.

[kev ferrara]

This is a rare photograph of the "Salon Viking". He is just out from Kornak's Beauty Spa in Maldobia, just north of Cimmeria. His hair was treated with Conan #5 beauty oil treatment and he uses Cleopatra Brand teeth whitening paste with Nile Essence™ pearl cream. His horns are made from synthetic materials and his metal helmet was forged by Johnny's Manly Forge Factory in Chelsea, NY.

Oil on canvas.

[kev ferrara]

Here's a pen drawing from my notebooks.

[Nixon]

great work, I enjoyed them all! I love your style with the brush and ink.

[Alexandr Pascenko]

just dropping by to say your style very masterful and fits the horror story very well. glad to see comic pros like you posting. i wonder if you have a website or something with older works.
keep it up!