Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Posted by Sam Kressin in Gestural Drawing
Posted by Sam Kressin in Personal Journal
Starting the 7th grade I was hit by a car on my bike in a head on collision. After being in the hospital for 3 days and out of school for a month I returned to the 7th grade unable to attend P.E. I presented my doctors note excusing me from the class to the P.E. teacher. The teacher told me for each day I missed class I was to go to the library and write a one page report on anything related to exercise or health. I got to the library and pulled Amazing Spider-Man # 309 out of my back pack. I bought it the day before off the spinner rack at 7-11 the issue was drawn by Todd McFarlane and it was the first time I’d ever seen his art. He drew Spider-Man with these huge eyes, he made Spidey’s webbing very detailed I’ve never seen the character drawn this way before. His anatomy was weird, Spidey’s feet were pointy, everyones faces cartoony but McFarlane made it work and everything looked really cool, different and interesting. I pulled out a piece of paper and began tracing the pictures. For the next two months when I went to the library each day during P.E. period I practiced drawing most of the time just tracing over my favorite Spider-Man comics. After my doctors note expired I had to go back to P.E. and my teacher asked me where my reports were I told her I didn’t do them. She said I had to stay after school running 4 laps = 1 mile for every report not turned in. I spent the rest of the year staying after school for an hour walking around the P.E. field.
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Posted by Sam Kressin in Strength Monsters
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Here is the Art Work Posted in this Video;
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Posted by Sam Kressin in Karate, Training Journal
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Once these head drawings are completed with a grey wash I’ll have finished well over two dozen of them as I working toward my goal of pencils and then painting with a grey wash three dozen heads.
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Posted by Sam Kressin in Personal Journal
True story; in 2008 when I was coaching out of my Carlsbad gym I had a guy call up and ask if he could sublease space for his martial arts group.
I asked, “what style of martial arts will you guys be practicing?”
The guy replied, “We have no style.”
Me, “Ok so what martial art is this?”
Him, “We we are a style without styles we don’t fall under a specific martial art.”
Me, “Well what are you going to be doing; punches, kicks, wrist locks, throws, grappling, self-defense, weapons?”
Him, “We do everything and nothing I can’t say we do this or that or it will only place limitations on an art without limitation.”
Me, “If you can’t tell me what you’re going to be doing in here then I can’t sublease to you.”
Him, “We are all members of a meditation temple so you don’t have to worry.”
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
These heads didn’t turnout as well as I’d have liked them to but you have to start somewhere… 
Posted by Sam Kressin in Notes
Walt Disney never graduated from high school in fact he only completed one grade of high school before dropping out. He has had four high schools named after him, received two honorary Masters Degrees from Yale and Harvard and in the spur of the moment while giving a speech at the second high school to be named after him in Anaheim he declared that school would be out for the day and had buses pick all the kids up to take them to Disneyland!
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Posted by Sam Kressin in Billy Robinson, Catch Wrestling
This photo was taken in the U.K. Circa 2013 you can read my entire write up about my trip over to Europe where this photo was taken with Billy Robinson here…
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Posted by Sam Kressin in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Training Journal
Posted by Sam Kressin in Personal Journal, Uncategorized
Read Part1 Here, Read Part2 here; It’s Saturday circa 1990 and I’m thumbing through records and audio cassette tapes at Kobey’s Swat Meet in the parking lot of what was named the San Diego Sports Arena at the time with Martin de Pedro. Back then CDs were too new to be found at swap meets. As I’m digging through the record section I come across this… A record with a character that looks kind of like a zombie all of his skin is removed allowing you to see his musculature interwoven with wiring, electronics and what could be pieces of robotic anatomy. He’s standing in the middle of some futuristic city one gun drawn the other holstered. This has got to be the best painting I have ever seen I think to myself as I purchased the record for a couple of bucks. When I got home I proudly taped the record onto the wall of my room so I could look at it every day all the time….
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics
Here’s the work I finished today;
Posted by Sam Kressin in Catch Wrestling
Posted by Sam Kressin in 100 Days of Making Comics, Comic Books, Drawing and Illustration, Pencil Drawings
Day One of 100 Days of Making Comics.
The challenge is simple. Work on your comic for a minimum of 30 minutes a day for 100 days straight. Document what you do and upload it to youtube in order to stay accountable.
Here are the illustrations I did today;
Posted by Sam Kressin in Comic Books
I was one of the original backers on this project of two years ago. I’m glad to see it’s finally going to be out this month. I’ll be looking forward to watching it and will post a review once I have.
If you are unfamiliar with Superman Lives it was a film put into production shortly after Tim Burtons 1989 Batman during the 1990s. The original script was written by Kevin Smith, Nick Cage was cast as the role of Superman and Tim Burton was set to direct. Then the project was scrapped. The art work, costumes, test footage and more that came out of the preproduction on this film is some of the most wild and bizarre Superman content I’ve ever seen anywhere period.
Here is the trailer for this documentary about Superman Lives.
Posted by Sam Kressin in Comic Books, Strength Monsters
Posted by Sam Kressin in Boxing, Training Journal
Posted by Sam Kressin in Personal Journal
Read 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
Posted by Sam Kressin in Catch Wrestling
Posted by Sam Kressin in Comic Books, Strength Monsters
Posted by Sam Kressin in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Training Journal
Posted by Sam Kressin in Drawing and Illustration, Gestural Drawing
Here are some new gestural drawings I did earlier this week from life during a session in David Pimental’s gestural drawing class.
To check out some more of my gestural drawings from life hover over the image below and click through the photo album.
Posted by Sam Kressin in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Posted by Sam Kressin in Personal Journal
I 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…
Posted by Sam Kressin in Comic Books, Design Work, Strength Monsters
Here’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;
Posted by Sam Kressin in Catch Wrestling, Training Journal, Uncategorized
Posted by Sam Kressin in Comic Books, Martial Arts, Uncategorized, Worlds Deadliest
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.
Posted by Sam Kressin in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Marc Denny of the Dog Brothers Martial Arts (famous for their pioneering of full contact stick fights) talks about Chris Haueter introducing him to Rigan Machado and the early years of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the United States.
Posted by Sam Kressin in Strength Monsters
Panel penciled by A.J. Fulcher for my forthcoming comic book Strength Monsters in Ultra Mayhem! Check out my finished inked version of this panel here.
Posted by Sam Kressin in Boxing, Martial Arts, Training Journal
Posted by Sam Kressin in Design Work
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.
Next I used a non-photo blue lead pencil to roughly sketch in all the letters.
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
Once I had my grid built I printed everything out and tightened it down with my pencil and ruler making adjustments to my design.
I will continue to build up the design with my pencil and ruler until I’m confident enough to move onto inking.
The final step for this one was to scan in the final inked drawing and color digitally.
Posted by Sam Kressin in Comic Books, Design Work, Drawing and Illustration, Inked Drawings, My Inks over My Pencils
I have been posting my progress on this Al Feldstein, Weird Fantasy inspired Spaceman piece I started two days ago for Your Web Designer. You can see my rough sketch here, and my tighten up pencil drawing here. Today I completed the piece. I inked him traditionally with a Raphael Kolinsky Sable – Fine Point Round – Size 3
Posted by Sam Kressin in Comic Books, Drawing and Illustration, Pencil Drawings
I posted my rough sketch of this Al Feldstein Weird Fantasy inspired Spaceman yesterday for Your Web Designer. Today I was able to get the pencils finished and tied down for the illustration. I will be inking tomorrow.
Posted by Sam Kressin in Comic Books, Drawing and Illustration, Pencil Drawings, Sketch Book
Work in progress for Your Web Designer I’ll tight this guy up and tie him down tomorrow. This the quick sketch I did today inspired by an Al Feldstein Weird Fantasy Cover. If you don’t know who Feldstein is I suggest you learn! My recommendation is to pick up a copy of FELDSTEIN: The Mad Life and Fantastic Art of Al Feldstein!
Posted by Sam Kressin in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Old school advertisment circa 2001 this was a video series my Jiu-Jitsu coach Chris Haueter put out back in the day.
Posted by Sam Kressin in Adventures in the Strike Zone, Comic Books, Drawing and Illustration
From my Sketch Book. You can see my other character design for this series here.
Posted by Sam Kressin in Comic Books
Our Next Panel sequence part of my forth coming Strength Monsters Comic Book; “Ultra Mayhem!”
Posted by Sam Kressin in Drawing and Illustration, Pencil Drawings
I finish this today pencils for a recreation I’m doing of a classic Frank Frazetta piece. I will being inking tomorrow. My proporations are not exactly the same as the original as I freehanded the entire piece (no tracing). This is an exersice to improve my skill to pay attention to Frazetta’s lines and feel how his drawing was put together.
