Tuesday - Ep. 1 page 2 - The truck cometh

Not much on the comic today - I was busy with housework, and then I took my boys swimming in the afternoon. However - I have done a little bit, adding the truck to the background of the image. I figured that the truck from frame three in the fist page would be visible in this angle view of the uplink / Ryce.

So - something !

Tuesday - Ep. 1 page 2 - More lines ! More holoscreens !

More development of the line work ( mostly of panel 4 ), and three more of the holoscreens added.

Tuesday - page 2 - Holoscreen !

I'm pretty happy with the way the holoscreen has turned out so far. That might change when the background colours get added to frame 3, but at the moment it looks pretty darn great !

Shout out to Lynda.com for their hologram tutorial !

Tuesday - Ep. 1 page 2 - more linework

Had some time today to put in the rest of the text of page two, as well as doing some more of the linework.

I'm not thrilled with the 'pointing hand' - but it's not too bad I guess. It will eventually be slightly obscured by the holo-screen.

Tuesday - Ep. 1 page 2

I've just managed to install a plug-in to Photoshop to fix a problem where keyboard short-cuts would stop working which has seemed to work, which is really great - it was really annoying to have the shortcuts keep cutting out.

Done the frames and some of the line work on the second page. It's coming along.

New logo commission

My usual client contacted me yesterday and asked if I could put together a logo for an audio fiction collection he was wanting to sell.

I played around with an idea today, mostly involving a stylized version of his face. I would be hoping to do something like this ( if that's where he wanted to go with it ) with a photo shot for the purpose. Maybe a nice profile.

Bonus ! - Tuesday page 2 initial sketch !

I'm not going to post a link to this to Facebook - so this is just one for you regular fans ( hi mum ! ).

This is a VERY rough digital sketch going over the pencil sketch I just scanned in from the page 2 rough layout. It's not much to look at now - but this is where it all begins !

I'm going to try and pretty much give EVERYTHING it's own layer. So rather than, say, all the frame outlines being on the same 'frame' layer - I've now got a frames layer folder, and each of the four frames has it's own layer in the folder. If I need to change something it makes things easier, or limits the damage if I make a mistake.

Tuesday - Speech Bubbles !

I managed to add the speech bubbles this morning. Pretty exciting.
Important lesson - so the text FIRST, THEN add the bubble. Otherwise the bubbles will look weird.
I'm using a free font called 'Back Issue' at the moment. It's okay for now.

Tuesday - various small things

A bunch of little things done. Lot's of base colour added. Some shading. One of the 'men' in the third panel changed to look like Ryce. I'm not altogether sure how 'Ryce' is supposed to be pronounced - not I think about it. In my head it's always sounded like 'Peace'. I'll have to ask JR about that.

Tuesday - shading and title

Had some time over the last couple of days to work on some of the shading for the first page.
I put in the title / by-line as well - which makes me happy !

Tuesday - Sky refinement

I experimented with opacity levels with the various layers of 'sunset' gradients I had - and I think I like this more subtle blend.

I also filled in a little more colour here and there.

Whoa !

Okay - so, the machine is telling me the last time I posted was freaking JULY or something. Sheesh. That's really bad.

I had some time to work on this logo today.

I'll be back sooner than last time !

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.