Cover Pencils!

So here's the pencils for the cover of issue two, modeled after action figure packaging from the 1990s. The back cover (which I'll be drawing within the next week) will be the back of the package, which will be a lot of fun.

Inside cover digitally inked with the new Wacom!

I know I said I was tentatively going to do all the pencils needed for the issue before inking, but when I was testing out digital inking on the inside cover with the new Wacom tablet and Photoshop Elements, it ended up becoming "Oh I can actually finish this tonight." So there you go. Below is my first digitally inked piece ever and my first inks on actual art for a comic in 13 years.

It took awhile. Inking digitally takes some getting used to. There is something about moving a pen on a tablet while looking at the results on the screen that was just awkward at first. By the end I was getting kinda comfortable with it. If my hand can get used to what my eyes are seeing I think it's doable.

I inked on layers that were over a scan of the original pencils (having background and foreground inks on different layers is actually kinda handy). Most lines took umpteen tries but being able to use an eraser and  hit Control Z (undoing the last thing I did) makes for a much, much better outcome. I'm very happy with the results. I think it's as good as the cleaned up inks on issue one.

So hopefully if I can get comfortable with it and am able to do it with reasonable speed, this is how I can ink the second issue. I'll be testing the digital inking further before I make any decisions. I may also see if I can completely finish the inside cover (doing the colors and letters) with the Wacom and Elements.

Page five and inside cover pencils done

I finished the pencils on the incomplete final page of story two last night. I only had one fourth of the page done back in 2000 when I abandoned it. So it took a little work, but boy does it feel good to have the pencils done after 13 years! You can see one of the new panels I did to the left. My tentative plans are to do the pencils for everything before I start on inking, etc. and finish any pages.

I also did the pencils for an image for the inside cover. Once I put the words and colors to it, it'll be an awesome parody of old romance comic covers. I promise  no scene like this appears in the actual story or, heck, in the entire series. No real Kleenex was harmed in the making of the image below.

My first penciled panel in 13 years!

So if you want to get over fear of drawing a comic, just pick the hardest panel you can and start from there.

And that's what I did last night. I drew a couple panels on the unfinished last page of the second story starting with the one below. Most of the story was pretty easy to draw back in the day. But for the "Lunch Break Dino" panel, I wanted at it at this weird, close up angle with more complex hand positions than I'd done up to that point. I struggled with it in 2000 and it was probably one of the factors in why the page didn't get finished. Perhaps it was simply too ambitious for a novice artist.

So I contemplated simplifying the panel, but. instead, decided to tackle it head on with the exact layout I sketched back in 2000. I took it piece by piece, finding reference photos online for the soda and fries. I took pictures of myself imitating Dino's position and gestures in the panel and drew from that. Working from models is very important when trying to draw something unfamiliar.

So I'm pretty happy with the result and the rest of the page should be a relative breeze that I'll get done this weekend.

Sketching and Breaking in the Wacom

Spent last night trying to get used to drawing again. I did some practice sketches, mainly of the second story's main character Dino, trying to get comfortable drawing her again after 13 years.

I'm also breaking in my new Wacom tablet and Photoshop Elements on my home computer. It's taking some getting used to.

I didn't have time to do much beyond sketches because of work, but I should be able to get more done this weekend. I'm going to do the pencils that need to be done on the first story (completing the last page, the cover, ect) while breaking in the Wacom, deciding if I'm comfortable enough with it to digitally ink the story.

Below is a sketch I digitally inked while struggling with glitches in the tablet (which I mercifully figured out how to fix this morning). 

Chiggy says "It tastes great!"

In an earlier blog, I said I'd post more Chiggy art if  I got around to scanning it in. Well here's one I had to scan in to get another image I needed. This is the one that was at the top left corner of my student web page's title logo. It's inspired by the same gag that Garfield would do at the beginning of every Garfield and Friends episode, saying a random funny one liner as he appeared in a box next to his show's logo (it's a brilliant show, which is on Netflix and Hulu currently, by the way). I wanted Chiggy to say different things, but I don't know if I ever got the chance to switch up his saying. I apologize for the image's size and quality since web graphics back then tended to be much lower rez to accommodate the slower dial up internet speeds of the time

Social Media on Parade! Stickboy wins...himself?

So it's going slower than I'd liked but I finally was able to update the main image on the College Follies Google+ main page so that someone actually got a doll. I plan to switch it up every month or so with different dolls and maybe different characters playing. It's a little touch, but I smile every time I scroll up to see Stickboy looking at me with that bewildered look. It's the little things in life...

Political Cartoon-Palooza! One for Veterans Day...

This is a political cartoon I did for my college newspaper back in 2004 when the country was fighting in civil wars raging in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I think it's still relevant today...

 

The "It's Done!" Video!

 First off, definitely watch the video before you read the commentary below...



So this video is basically me summarizing  my recent blog posts on submitting the comic. It's a continuing effort to show my progress on the series across all the different social media sites. I used the same techniques to make it as I did in my other videos.

Well, until you get to the after-credits scene, that is. This is me eating Shawarma at Mooney's Mediterian Café, which I blogged about yesterday. And obviously this is a homage to the Shawarma scene from Avengers.

I had to go out and buy a camera for it. I'll occasionally have use for motion video and it's always good to a camera handy. So I got a Samsung HMX-W300 for $100. It shoots quality 1080p with great sound and doubles as a high resolution digital camera, so I felt like it's a good investment.

I've only shot one other short video in my life so I'm pretty new at this. So what did I learn from the whole 11 seconds of video footage here? Well, preparation is important if you're shooting yourself. It's easy when you can just move around the subject and look through the view finder or screen on the camera to see what you're capturing. But in my case I had to put the camera in one place and didn't know what I'm shooting until I stopped recording and played it back.

So I did test shoots in my kitchen and discovered I needed to get the camera really damn high. If I just laid it on the table it would cut my head off. So I went out and bought a tiny, cheap 8 inch tripod on the way to Mooney's. It turned out to still be too short for this particular shot, but I came prepared with a box to put it on and finally got just enough height to pull it off.

It also took several tries and a several minutes of footage to get those 11 seconds. Even though I'm sitting there really eating it, my chewing didn't look right. I was moving my mouth too much. But after a few takes I got it right.

The raw footage has sound, which was "Don't Worry Baby" from the Beach Boys playing in the background because that's what was playing over Mooney's sound system.  I'm unsure if I could have used it without dispute from YouTube, but the scene really didn't work unless it was silent (like in the movie) so I guess it worked out.

Adding this ending to the rest of the video was a bit different since I didn't have access to imovies at home. The software that came with the camera wasn't fully compatible with my computer so it made putting it together with the existing slideshow video (which was already in MP4 format) difficult. I ended up using YouTube's video editor. It glitched out the first time and so I had to redo it (thank God, it was just putting two videos together!) but I'm super happy with the results!

Shawarma Time!

If there's any lesson to be learned from The Avengers movie, it's that shawarma is how you celebrate major accomplishments, whether it's saving the world from alien invasion or, in my case, completing the first issue of a comic series. I had mine at Mooney's Mediterranean Cafe in downtown Winston-Salem. And to answer one of the movie's great unsolved mysteries, yeah, shawarma is pretty darn good!