The gig is almost up as the Injun rushes Elijah Holman- with a meat cleaver only a few feet from chopping our protagonist apart at the seams, and his 1850’s single action revolvers can’t lock on to this one man killing machine with time and bullets running out, and just as it is all coming to an end for our hero… The Injun loses his head and  left hand, and an unlikely ally appears, The Chinaman- Xi Chou Long.  Realizing that he’s been set up to die in a double cross, and his enemy was an honorable one, he decides to save Elijah’s life and team  up to fight for their lives.

Now, I did diverge from David’s script here, but as I have been doing the work on the pages, this made more sense than Chinaman just fighting Elijah with the Banditos.  Of course, that’s my .02 cents on the story at this point… The readers will tell us if it works when it’s all done! 

From an art point of view- I loved these three panels, lots of action, movement and emotion, and lets get down to it, a really cool decapitation!

Elijah Holman puts a bullet in Xi Chou Long’s right elbow after the Chinaman missed a killing strike, however a handmade dagger is thrown at both of the putting a halt to their showdown outside the destroyed whorehouse of San Quentin, California!  It’s the rising tide of drama at UGLI Studios true believers as we keep up a steady march to get Ugli Studios Presents #2 in your hands!

Elijah Holman goes at it up close with the Chinaman on page 7 of the “Painted Ladies of San Quentin”… Tried some alternate angles to really show the Chinaman getting up close with his sword and pole arm which would negate the advantage of Elijah’s handguns, until using a close up, we see Elijah (perhaps) getting the drop on his would-be assassin!

So this is page 6 of “Painted Ladies of San Quentin”- and it’s on.  A full splash page that I give credit to Aaron Kuder of Marvel fame for telling me at NYCC 2012- “get the hands in the foreground, up close” and he showed me a cover he did from Avengers for me to think on- see attached photo.  Keeping this in mind, I did three elements- a horse, jumping “Chinaman” with weapons, and Elijah’s revolver shooting and missing in the foreground. All three are in motion in a triangular pattern on the page, with the ground on an angle.  I’m pleased with all three elements, and the motion and action (whoa Chinaman jumping off the horse!!) the hand close up brings it all to a sense of immediate action which makes the whole splash page work- thanks for the tip Aaron!

As an aside- I did this on a scrap of paper in my niece’s 3rd grade class on 11/26/12 in a child’s chair and desk in the back of her art class while I sat in while we were in Florida for Thanksgiving.  I had no references, and did it in 90 minutes, and as my UGLI Studios collaborator and friend Brian Allen said- “I love the expression on the horse.  He’s like F This!”

Aaron Kuder’s art at NYCC…

The 5th page of the Painted Ladies of San Quentin- the flash back ends with a visual device of blurred vision and Elijah’s eyes closing from his POV in P1-2, and then to bring it back to the present characters getting ready to clash a side worm’s eye view of the horse carrying the Chinaman (fond of the panel- really love how this turned out!) and Elijah getting ready for a fight now that he is in the present again- in P’s 3 and 4 respectively.  Also went for a lower angle side shot of the head turn on Elijah-thanks Brent Peeples from NYCC for tipping me off to more dynamic head turns during a folio review!

Also, Im getting more comfortable drawing the pistols of the era- practice makes perfect on them!

The flashback continues on page 4 with a nice alternative twisted POV for Elijah running to the house in p1, a closeup on the Sheriff’s face in p2, and a nice 2×4 upside the head from Jessica to Elijah in a violent p3 (really liked Elijah’s face construction in this panel) which starts to wind up the flashbacks to set up the action that takes the story to the fighting, guns and blood once we get the exposition part of the story set up, which is what everyone wants in a western about vengeance, killers and double crossin’!  Some good old fashion old west killin’….. right pardner?

The third penciled page from Painted Ladies of San Quentin- really tried to get creative with the Sheriff’s obese body, a worms eye viewpoint on the P1 shot- a nice profile of the Chinaman in P2 (does he look like he is up to no good or what?!) , and a flashback moshup of three of the dying painted ladies in p4,5,6 which overlays a top down POV of the whorehouse burning with Elijah’s face superimposed over it which leads into page 4.