Tuesday, August 09, 2011

This Bart Sears and that Bart Sears #2

Good morning fellow Searsians, it's time to catch everysearsian up on some of the 'going's on' from the Bart Sears estate. It has been a good long while since I've done something like this, and there are several projects that have long since been completed that I have neglected to mention here.
So what I'm going to do is start with the most recent projects, and work my way backwards.

So first off, Bart has just recently completed the pencils and inks for the Deadlands: Death Was Silent One-Shot which goes on sale on the 17th of August. Here's the beautiful cover inks for it:
Deadlands: Death Was Silent cover inks
I've been lucky enough to see all of the pages of this comic as they were completed in their inked form, and I can honestly say that this is one of the best comics Bart has done in many years. It is done in a style that hasn't been seen before by Bart, it's kinda like a sketchy version of The Path, with some fantastic storytelling and emphasis on flow and framing, rather than flash and pretty lines. This comic art shows a maturity on Bart's part that has always been there, but rarely on display so evidently.
Bart has been kind enough to hold onto all of the thumbnails and roughs from this comic for me, and I'll do a big post here about the comic and the roughs as soon as the comic is out and I have the roughs to show you. I'm very much looking forward to seeing them both.
Ominous Studios has produced a number of fun items to get people ordering this particular comic, namely these three promo adverts:
Deadlands: Death Was Silent promo adverts by Ominous Studios
They even went as far as creating a little promotional video for the comic, with sound effects and all! Check it out here.

Bart has also completed several very nice commissions recently, including this one and this one. Lovely aren't they? They are produced on those new trendy comics with blank covers, for artists to work directly on, much like the Wolverine 100 project covers Bart did. Bart has mentioned to me that he does like drawing on these covers, but has found that the format doesn't allow for the use of a light box much, so the roughs and all pencil work have to be done on the actual cover, which is obviously not how a traditional comic page is done. But the results are still fantastic, even more so for the fact that they are inked entirely in markers. Not a brush to be seen.

Bart has been producing a number of interactive comics (or Interactive Graphic Media, as Bart prefers to call them) for the Ominous Studios website. These interactive comics show recent and previous comic work of Bart's in a really cool format that I'm sure you'll agree is both fun to use and great to look at. You can see the unpublished Heroes For Hire issue from the late 90's here. You can also see the inks for Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #200 here and the pencils for Conan: Island of No Return #1 here.

And speaking of Conan: Island of No Return, you'll all no doubt know by now that Bart produced the pencils for two issues of this finite series. The first issue came out on 15/6/11, and the second issue came out on the 20/7/11. Both issues seem to have gotten very favourable reviews, with many people being pleasantly surprised with Bart's work on it. It would appear that this Conan work, coupled with the impending Deadlands issue, could be the work that really gets Bart's name out there again, which can only be a good thing.

One step back is the cover image Bart produced for Advent Comics' Pandemonium: Evil Incarnate book. I call it a book because it isn't really a comic, it's more of a Graphic Novel, of about 70-80 pages in length. Anyway, here's Bart's pencils for the cover alongside the final version:
Pandemonium: Evil Incarnate by Advent Comics
Bart only did these cover pencils for this book, which can be purchased through a number of places, including Amazon, in both book and kindle form.
But apart from this cover, Bart has produced a decent amount of work for Advent Comics, including this Titan cover that is yet to see print:
Advent Comics' forthcoming title 'Titan' cover pencils by Bart Sears
He's also produced some very unique work for another as yet unpublished title for Advent Comics, this time creating a bunch of interior pages on the art program Manga, the results of which are amazingly crisp and beautiful to look at. I sincerely hope these pages get printed, but it has been about 9 months since Bart handed them in to the publisher, with still no sign of them. Only time will tell.

Bart also recently produced some single frame action grabs for an organisation called Robin Hood, who raises money through charity work to feed the homeless of New York. They hold large events that appear to attract some high-flying A-List stars such as Lady Gaga! Anyways, Bart produced a handful of images of a modern Robin Hood sort of character that was then used for a video at an event. Photos of the final product are seemingly impossible to come across, but I can share a few of the inked renditions with you in the meantime:
Robin Hood frames

Let's see, what else has Bart done lately... oh yeah, he also did a two-page splash for an issue of Top Cow's Artifacts comics! The comic in question, issue #3, came out on 17/10/10, with a trade paperback featuring the issue and spread being released on 26/1/11.
And here are the pencils and inks that Bart provided for the spread:
Top Cow's Artifacts #3 2-page spread by Bart Sears

And finally, one of the bigger jobs that Bart and the gang at Ominous Studios has undertaken recently is a project still very much shrouded in mystery and intrigue. I can't really give you any information at all on it, not even the name of the project, but I can say that the work produced by Ominous Studios for it is fantastic and will be worth the wait!

Now, as for the future. Again, I'm privileged to be privy to a great deal of what is going on at Ominous Studios, but bound to secrecy nonetheless. I can say that there are more Brute & Babe tutorials on the way, both old and new ones (which is exciting enough on its own!). There are some very interesting educational products in the works, not to mention several entertainment properties that are simply going to knock your socks off.

It is a very good time to be a Bart Sears fan, there's plenty of things to collect, and promise of amazing things down the road, so stay tuned, Searisans, the future is bright indeed!