Newsletter, continued...

July 1, 2025

So yeah, comic books. They're such a defining aspect of my artistic roots – and no matter how long I'm away from them, they always seem to find a way into my work. Even just tiny little hints here and there. But this time, with this new 311 poster, it's different. And it may be different than any kind of 'poster' you've ever seen before. So with legit heartfelt joy, I couldn't be more excited about it, and more excited to show you.

So let me set a stage, for context to everything. I'm a child of the 80's, and I was a teenager in the 90's – and that was all such a special time in comics. Maybe you know what I mean?

Well, back then, all that young James Flames wanted to do was draw comics. I drew my own, I created characters and started different ongoing series'. When I was in grade school, my uncle would photocopy each issue for me at his work – I'd fold them and staple them, and hand them out to the kids at school every month (I kept a monthly schedule, just like all the 'real' comics lol). Sometimes I would just leave them on every desk in the classroom during lunchtime so that everyone would have it when they got back to their desks.

It was a thing.

And it was pretty awesome.

Anyway, fast forward through life, and countless creative (and non-creative) endeavors, all the way to 2007, the very beginning of my current poster work. And even then, my default approach to drawing was always in a 'comic' style. As you can see with these very early posters of mine from around that time:

As the years went on, and my work developed and deepened, the overt 'comic'-ness of my style kinda disappeared. Like I said up top, little hints would always show up here and there, sure. But I had gained more abilities to express ideas and stories in different ways, visually.

And then, some months ago, my main contact with 311 reached out to me and basically said: “Hey dude, what if you made 3 posters for us this year, but what if they were all comic pages that told one huge story – but like, they're also all posters that work independently of each other? Can you do that?”

The answer was a big fat yes. And my head began spinning with ideas, and all the possibilities for stories to tell.

I sketched a ton, and finally came up with a solid beginning – I'll only show you the first one, since I don't want to give the next ones away just yet. But here's the first teeny doodle for this first poster – it's about 2 x 2 ½ inches:

I refined the sketches a couple more times, each one slightly larger and slightly more developed. This last one in ink is still only about 3 ¾ x 5 inches:

And then this is the actual rough sketch that I submitted to the band. They were so stoked on it. So was I. Now, the hard part – making the actual poster.

The first thing I needed to do was talk to an actual comic book artist and get his thoughts on this. Telling stories sequentially through panels is a unique skill, and before I went too much further, I wanted to make sure my story was 'reading' properly. Well, turns out that one of my younger brothers, Thomas Pitilli, actually is a professional comic artist, and an educator in that field.

I showed Tom the idea for the first two posters, and he had a few great notes that opened my eyes to some things I hadn't considered, which really really helped me as I continued along.

Then, after that, I realized that I needed to develop the actual characters in these posters – I'd need to know these people inside and out! How they look from every angle, and little quirks of their features and personalities. This is something I never have to consider when drawing my usual posters. Usually, posters are always just a single image, and then the next poster is something completely different. No need to maintain character-consistency. But yet another example of how this project was so different.

So I did a lot of character studies. And this was not easy, or fast – lots of slow development, as these characters slowly revealed to me who they were. And, who are they? They are Cass & Rey. Here are the final character studies for each of them.

I kept these two studies on my desk 100% of the time while drawing this first poster, constantly referring to them. Man, it helped tremendously!

And so here is the finished pencil drawing for this poster:

In case you're nerdy about supplies and stuff like that, I mostly used an “H” lead pencil, and then when I had everything solid enough, I used a “B” pencil over it to chisel things out a little more (the H is a very light lead, the B is much darker).

Then I scanned that pencil drawing in, and I turned it into what's called a “Blue-Line”. This is a common approach for comic book artists, to ink over a very light/faint blue version of the pencils. This allows the ink drawing to be crisp and sharp, and it also allows me to keep my pencil drawing intact and separate (which, as I've mentioned to you before, is something I really value).

Here is the finished ink drawing:

I used a combination of a Hunt 102 crow-quill nib (dip pen) and a Raphael 8404 #3 brush to ink this. The ink I'm using right now is Rapidograph “Ultradraw” ink. And this was done on Strathmore Bristol (400 series).

The inking on this one took a very very long time. Like I was saying before, all my posters are always just one image to draw – which is enough of a challenge in itself. But this one was EIGHT different drawings/panels. So much to pay attention to, and so many little intricacies in each one.

So I'll tell you this... I had 90% of the inks done, but I hadn't drawn in the rain yet. Everything looked really good, I was super pleased – but I needed to get that rain on there, and I got a little scared lol. Draw lines covering all this art I slaved over?! Oh man, I was so afraid to ruin it. Part of me was thinking “Yo, just scan this in as it is, and then draw the rain in the computer – this way you won't mess anything up”. But that seemed like a cop-out.

So, I grabbed a ruler, I dipped my pen-nib into the ink, deep breath, and I began to draw a ton of 'rain' lines all over the artwork. It started out mildly terrifying, and then it started to feel good, and then I was in the groove, and it all worked out great.

Also, you may have noticed that the colors play a huge role in the storytelling of this piece. Rey is a writer, and he lives in a world that's yellow & orange. And he's writing something called “The Last Storm”, which is a story about him and Cass – this story (daydream? memory?) takes place in a rainy world that is blue & pink. So the colors help define the two worlds. But notice that his pen is blue – it's the link between these two worlds.

And then, as an added touch, I used Day-Glo inks on this one – which gives it such an incredible extra punch.

By the way, I just saw a rainbow outside. I stopped writing to go see. It was super vivid and amazing, and it was still raining too. Rainbows always bring a ton of joy to our home. And I suppose this is pretty symbolic to witness nature's absolutely perfect display of color and light right at the same time that I'm presenting my own little display of color and light to you (also I can't help but notice how nature isn't as shy as I am to just 'draw' rain all over everything lol).

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this look at the process of what might be one of my favorite posters I've ever made. One of those full-circle kinda things.

You ever have one of those full-circle moments? Like a time in your adult life that finished the loop created when you were a wee one? I feel like this probably happens to me more often than I know – if only I could learn to pay more attention...

Well, anyway, I hope you're doing good. And I hope your Summer is showering you with all it's beautiful and amazing colors. Thanks as always for reading, and for allowing me to share this with you. I have a LOT of work scheduled for this Summer and Autumn – so many things on my drawing desk at the moment. So I'll be in touch again soon.

MUCH gratitude, and much love,