Currently browsing Posts Published June 2015

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Megadeth is the Greatest of All Time!

Posted by Sam Kressin in Personal Journal

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Megadeth-RustInPeaceRead Part 1 Here… Shortly after discovering Metallica it didn’t take me long to learn that Dave Mustaine wrote most of the songs on those early Metallica albums. Nearly all of “Kill ‘Em All” and a large part of the album “Ride the Lightning” were written by him.  Mustaine had been kick off of Metallica for from what I read looked to be a lot of drinking and drugs and had formed his own band Megadeth. Immediately upon acquiring this information my mission was to listen to it. The first Megadeth Album I ever heard was, “Rust in Peace” it was the first album the band recored with Friedman on the lead guitar and for the 5th time up to that point in my life my mind was completely blown. To this day Rust In Peacestands as one of my all time favorite albums ever.

 

Once Upon A Time When Metallica Was Cool!

Posted by Sam Kressin in Personal Journal

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Metallica_-_Master_of_Puppets_coverI was in the 8th grade. Up until that point in my life all I’d ever really heard or listened to as far as music goes was was Bon Jovi , Van Halen’s “Jump” and the Cult’s “Sonic Temple.” Then one of my best friends Martin de Pedro gave me a dubbed audio cassette tape. Written across the front it said, “Master of Puppets.” I popped it into my yellow “Walk Man” cassette player and hit the play button. I remember hearing what sort of reminded me of spanish style flamenco guitars playing during beginning of the first song. It starts out strumming then, kind of, goes into this beautiful melody that quickly transitions into a really hard rock type of thing from there the song progress in to an aggressive sound I had never heard the likes of before and all hell breaks loose. It was unlike any sound I had ever experienced in my entire life. My mind was completely blown and I was immediately hooked and from that point on things would never be the same. At this point in time there were only four Metallica albums in existence Kill Em All, Ride the Lighting, Master of Puppets, And Justice For All. The “Black Album” had not been made yet and the rumor was that Metallica would never record another album again. Continues in Part II here…

New Strength Monsters Banner!

Posted by Sam Kressin in Comic Books, Design Work, Strength Monsters

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Detail_Strength_Monsters_PosterHere’s a look at the new Strength Monsters Banner I had made for conventions, special appearances and other stuff. The title is completely hand lettered you can check out my process here.

You can download a digital copy of the first issue of this comic book for Free. Just enter your name and email below and I will send you a link to download the book.



Check out some of the details and special feature I put into this;

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Michael Echanis Style Knife Throwing and Other Stuff

Posted by Sam Kressin in Comic Books, Martial Arts, Uncategorized, Worlds Deadliest

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Stumbled across this cool video today while doing more research for the collected print (and download) edition of Worlds Deadliest, Chapter 1; “Deathly Weapons.”

This video covers the Michael Echanis Style of Knife Throwing as it’s instructed in his 1978 classic; Knife Fighting, Knife Throwing for Combat

I’ve been working really hard to finished this first collected edition of my Martial Arts Web Comic Worlds Deadliest soon. The book will contain a number of never before published illustrations by myself, biographical essays on important martial artists and a number of additional articles and resources pertaining to martial arts even including some little known and obscure information about Dim Mak!

Hopefully the overall all the finished product will be the martial arts book you’ve always wanted to read that no one ever made.

New Mystery in Space Inspired Design Work

Posted by Sam Kressin in Design Work

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New Design Work I did. This is hand lettering I based on DC Comics 1950s Mystery in Space Science Fiction Comic Book Series. I often choose to letter designs and logos by hand because it gives the piece more personality and avoids the sterility of what you get working 100% in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. Most people have no clue how labor intensive it is to do a job like this.

I get asked often by people if I can help redesign a logo or letter something and most of the time I have to say no because of the amount of work that goes into it. Of course everyone has a price and if offered enough money or a fair trade I would be happy to do the work. With that said the amount of work I do is nothing compared to some of the top of the food chain graphic designers. Although I do a lot of work I’ve been to the Dual Forces studio in Los Angles many times. Not only will they extensively research an idea for weeks and longer once they have a basic design they will turn out nearly 100 different iterations of that one idea. That’s one of the many reasons why they are the best and work with the all the biggest brands on the planet.

For this job I started out researching a lot of old science fiction pulp magazines and comic books I will do this until I come across something that inspires me or triggers my imagination. Once I had an idea of what I wanted to create I got started by drawing several boxes in perspective laying out where I want things to go.

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Next I used a non-photo blue lead pencil to roughly sketch in all the letters.

Mystery_In_Space_Rough_Sketch

After that I scanned in my sketch and created a grid in Adobe illustrator. This is to make sure all my lines match up to the correct vanishing points. I couldn’t do this part traditionally because the vanishing points for this design are so far away I would need a ruler the length of my living room. If you don’t know any thing about vanishing points there are lots of good books you can research to learn. I would recommend  Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics from the Ground Up as a good starting point. This book helped me a lot when I was first learning today I have numerous books in my library on this subject.

Once I had my grid built I printed everything out and tightened it down with my pencil and ruler making adjustments to my design.

Mystery_In_Space_Lettering_Grid

I will continue to build up the design with my pencil and ruler until I’m confident enough to move onto inking.

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The final step for this one was to scan in the final inked drawing and color digitally.