Tuesday - refining line work continues / some colour

Spent some time on this while the kids are watching a movie on TV :

I'm not thrilled with the sky so far - but it's a placeholder at least. I need to make it look more sunset'ish. I've also replaces the line drawn projected 'screens' from Ryce's datapad thing with marqueed blocks. They'll get more detail later.

It's nice to see some colour on there at last though !

'Tuesday' - Page one - scan and initial touch-up

Okay - later than I would have liked, but I have the first page scanned and into a Photoshop file :

I re-did the frame lines with the marquee tool - and I'll not bother too much with inking the frame outlines in the initial drawing phase. WAY quicker / easier to do in Photoshop !

I also tidied up the drawing a little.

I'll try and get back to it and fix up the lines more, and hopefully star the colouring process, soon.

Dunesteef Cover-art : Chalupa for you - Provisional final

Right - junior reports done now, so I was able to colour the cover art :

We'll see what Rish says.

Dunesteef Cover-art : Chalupa for you

I continue to be stupidly busy with work, and haven't had much time to do much in the way of art. I did volunteer to help out Rish and do a piece of cover art for the Dunesteef. I've been much slower with it that I would normally be. I've spent the last hour or so doing more of the lines based on teh original sketch Rish sent me. Here's the state of play right now :

Almost finished the outines. Next step will be colour.

'Tuesday' - progress on page 1

It's been VERY slow going, but I have been making some progress with the first page of the comic, which Jez and I are calling 'Tuesday' - as a working title anyway.

Here's the proof :

Not brilliant, by any means - but it's not a bad start !

What ? No drawings AGAIN ? What gives ??

Hello faceless reader ( unless your'e my mum - in that case, Hi Mum ! ). You might be wondering what's happened with all the drawings. You're right to wonder ! Here's the skinny :

1. I've been slack / somewhat intimidated.

And that's pretty much it. I could make up a bunch of excuses about work, kids and such - but it really boils down to the reason above.

Intimidated ? Yup. My pal Jez has come up with a pretty cool idea for a comic story, and I worry that I'm going to suck at actually drawing it. It's not like I haven't been thinking about the story, I have tried to do some page layouts ( which haven't turned out terrifically well ). But I worry.

Funny thing is - pretty much all the webcomics I read sucked in terms of art in the early days ( or at least when compared to the current stuff ). I really need to just step up to the plate and DO something, and not worry about what people will think about it. This will largely be an experiment for both Jez and myself - it doesn't have to be The Sandman out of the gate.

So - current resolution. Get an initial layout of the first couple of pages up before the end of the month. Let's see how well I do.

What this space.

Sci-Fi Comic - Character Sketch #1

Okay - so, work has started again and I've been very busy with that. Not much time for drawing, which has been tough. Still, I haven't been completely slack.

My partner in this comic strip venture ran another idea by me for a sci-fi story which I really liked. I don't want to go into too many details just yet, but I've started playing around with some character sketches. I've just finished putting some colour details here :

Not a bad start.

RPC's - First character concept sketch : The Cleric

Another initial concept sketch :

He's supposed to have become a blacksmith.

I don't know - I'm not thrilled with this one. Back to the drawing board.

RPC's - First character concept sketch : The Fighter

I was lucky enough to catch up with an old friend over the new year period. We went to University together, though he lives in Australia now. Our conversation came to comics, and we came to the conclusion that we could probably produce something along those lines - him mostly in the writing seat, myself mostly in the drawing seat.

It's an exciting prospect - and is one of my major goals for this year.

We're in the early stages at the moment, mostly in developing characters. Here's the first concept sketch :

Not bad. And yes, that is a sorcererous / mechanical arm ( thanks Matt ).

Commision for the first born - Final

Finally got round to finishing off the drawing for my eldest :

I found some 'light swirl' brushes for the psionic energy from the commander's hands, and I got a metal texture for the wall and floor.

Overall - I think I could have done this better, but the boy seems to like it, so I guess that's okay !

Cover Art - 'A Lovely Singing Voice' - Final

Well, the client actually preferred the less coloured version. That surprised me a little, but hey - you like what you like ! I did seriously hate the way the hair looked when it was desaturated, so that needed a fix :

I ended up making selections of the hair areas ( which involved a LOT of the magic wand tool - I'm sure there was probably a more elegant way of doing it, but heck - it worked ! ), filling the selections with a new gray colour base, then lowering the opacity of the layer, so the previous detail showed though a little. Then I had to touch up the edges a bit, and I added some new highlights.

I gotta say, it certainly makes the fish pop more ! Rish seemed to like the final version, and the story should be up on Amazon for sale soon. I'll try and remember to throw a link to it here when it's up.

EDIT
I totally forgot to post a link ! Here's where you can buy the story on Amazon :

http://www.amazon.com/Lovely-Singing-Voice-Rish-Outfield-ebook/dp/B00S31I64K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424829616&sr=8-1&keywords=a+lovely+singing+voice

Commision for the first born - Shading and energy ball

Added some shading and highlights, as well as the energy sphere from the alien device :

It's shaping up alright.

Commision for the first born - Ethereal Commander and Alien Device

Had a bit of Christmas / New Year break there !

So, my eldest boy asked me to do a drawing for him. He loved watching me play the 'XCOM : Enemy Unknown;' video game ( which I probably shouldn't have let him watch - it is a little gory perhaps ), and he REALLY liked the Ethereal aliens. He wanted me to draw him an Ethereal Commander with the 'Alien Device' ( a thing you steal from the aliens in the game - you need it to win ). It was VERY important that it be coloured.

So managed to sketch it out over Christmas, and inked the outlines over the last couple of days.

Tonight I scanned it and tidied up the lines a bit :

And then I added a quick base colour :

Shading and sfx to come !