Whale Comic_Progress

This is the "dead whale" comic I've been working on in whatever spare time I have. After realizing I hadn't done a comic about anything ocean related, I decided on...a dead whale. Repeating patterns! Will be posting two prints later that I did in the last few months. Mostly been doing freelance stuff, and just got some new findings for Paper Tapir winter stuff.

Ume Abroad Progress

So. Here's how Ume Abroad has gone. Tomorrow will be day 15, and it is being used for stapling and trimming. The above right photo is the same number of pages, but the top stack has been folded by hand, the bottom stack has been folded by hand and then with a bone folder. (Everyone use a bone folder, it'll take twice as long, but there will be less crying over uneven pages later.)

After penciling and scanning, the pages were inked with Photoshop, formatted in InDesign, printed at Kinkos using their terror copier, the covers were printed at home using the terror Epson. The cover paper is light cardstock from Office Max, my pencils were done on copy paper. Yep. Rockin'.

This is going to be available for the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo this upcoming weekend. Go to the CAKE website for more information.

Ume Abroad Mock Up

This is the "mock-up" (of a mockup?) for the preview of Ume Abroad. Which is going to be at CAKE this upcoming weekend. I hadn't started something from scratch without a paper mock on InDesign in several years, so this was a little nerve wracking today. Spent a lot of my time at Boneshaker poking around files. But eventually everything worked out! Tried printing it just on my 8.5"x11" printer, and sort of like the smaller size, going to maybe go with that instead.

Vivian

This was a drawing for Ben Tye. He's making a mini of his latest comic, "Dewey Delane", and this is his character Vivian. I like doing fanart of friends' characters, it's oddly satisfying. You can pick up a copy of Dewey Delane at SpringCon, May 19th and 20th at the Minnesota Fairgrounds.

Doodle and update

Girl doodle, pencil and colored in photoshop. I love drawing with a .9 sometimes. It's a lot different from what I got used to, which was a .3. I was posting things that were really bright but I decided to tone this one down a little, I found that a bunch of these have been -really- bright. Whoops! I hope I haven't hurt anyone with color.

Going to mostly be working on CONvergence things in the next little while. Trying to stain plates today! I'm not even sure if it's going to work, yay for experimentation! Ume has still been updating on Tuesdays, and Ume Abroad is going, though I'm thinking about redrawing a bunch of it. Hopefully I'll still have a preview up for CAKE!

Will be trying to figure out a way to print Jubliee as well.

Progress on Ume Abroad

Been working on Ume Abroad, this bigger panel is costing me though, because I refuse to utilize my tiny awkward flickery light box, and choose to use this window. It's fine, until it gets dark out.

Going to finish inking it today though, then the panels get "normal" sized again for a while and I don't have to do larger things. A plus of this whole thing is that I'm pretty awful at doing the perspective on these types of buildings, so it's good for me.

Here's a progress update on the inking. It's slow going. I took a break with working on finishing the reopan print.

Mini card

Printed out one of the headers, I might use this as promos for Ume Abroad, I like the size too. Though I would have to switch companies for printing. Haven't thought about what to do with the back. Will be doing that soon. Working on that among other things. Going to try and get back to books and stuff soon.

I have about sixteen pages done right now. Will be trying to make it to twenty this weekend. Before June I want to have a pretty big chunk done in b/w and a lot of it colored. Going to decided on final coloring style soon as well.

More comic headers

Two for this "part", there's one more to go. The one above is the first one for the entire thing, the bottom one is the second to last section. Drawing four people in these little boxes seems to work pretty well. It's quite a bit easier than drawing in huge open 10x15 pieces of bristol. Also I noticed I didn't draw -any- hands in the last one. Huh.

I also went back and changed the one of Senbei a little and added the spot of red. Oh look in that group one they're all wearing blue. Crud. I'm bad at this.

More comic header progress

click to make it bigger!

Still having some issues with the drawing of Senbei, I just...never like them when they're colored. I even referenced this one! Though maybe that's the issue. Maybe. Bleh. I have three more to do, but they're less Asian. So therefore less...fun. I'm also redrawing the third one. This though, is because I was drawing it at 2am last night and the pen sort of got away from me.

Here are the two that I still have to draw. No there is not THAT much of a height difference, maybe they're standing on something. The one of Pop is for the first section. Yep. These "sections" are getting weird though, they keep really varying in length. Man, I could never draw a comic that had to have floppy versions or anything. Yeesh.

Do these borders seem familiar? That's because they're business card sized! I need the shape for the comic, so that's what everyone gets. Also it's a plus because if I ever want to put them on cards I'm set.

Ume Abroad progress

I wrote this nice happy journal and then the internet ate it. So have a shorter less involved one. It's probably for the best anyways. This are header images for different sections of Ume Abroad. I figured because they happen to have Japanese names (even though none of them are) they'd start in Japan. The next one might be Europe. I really do want to hit the Euro, but maybe not Russia. Curse you fancy buildings.

The one of Senbei I gave up on because I don't like the original drawing so I'm starting over on it. Yes, they all happen to be wearing various shades of blue or teal, it was actually unintentional for once. But it might have to stay that way. Tamago is hard to color because her skin and hair are so...eggy. Ahaha I didn't do that on purpose either.

So yep. These might end up being the promos for the preview, but who knows. My computer is so sad right now. I've been running photoshop and a bunch of other things.

Looking at printing for the preview, Jubilee and Fresh Ume. Jubilee is proving harder than Fresh so that's going to be interesting.

Ume Abroad progress sketches

 

The first section of Ume Abroad is going to be taking place in Europe. These are some quick pencil and ink drawings. Older European architecture is a bear to draw, yes I happened to sketch some of the easier ones. Wait until Russia, just wait. It's a horrifying prospect really. Um. These are from Estonia and Sweden. The statue and wall piece are from St. Petersburg.

Azen and Raz and Alimen

Two doodles of some characters that are part of my friends comic and long term project, Oria Ohtar. You can find out more about it here. I really don't draw men that often, or masculine men. It becomes painfully obvious. Also. I like scarves. These were done with copic on watercolor paper with a pentel brush and stylo.

Update! I drew the last redhead. Well sort of last. This is Alimen, also from Oria Ohtar. He's my favorite because he's got a lot of hair and a bird.

Ume Abroad progress

Progress on Ume Abroad stuff. Front image, not sure about the tone overlay. I added in some hatching and I guess maybe that shouldn't have been an afterthought. Also unsure about the extra overlay of a light red. It makes everything really warm, which isn't normally a "thing", maybe I should stick with blue.

Yes, the furniture is off kilter

The actual comic is going to mostly be black and white probably unless I decide to do tone as well.

Woo just saw this on the browser, and man is it more red than I thought. Yeesh.
The non-full size tone looks wonky too. *sigh*

Ume Abroad

I am going to be starting the side comic Ume Abroad soon. Well, it's been started but I'm going to post it. Probably going to try and get up a side page off of Ume so it won't be too weird to have both of them be related. It's not going to be in color, but I wanted to have a temp image that was. I guess I also shouldn't have used this as said image. But whatever.

Rounded 4-panels to begin with, they will eventually change to fit the story.

Valentine's Day Ume

Inks and photoshop. I never use pencil with these anymore. From pencil-y beginnings... Also there's a background on this one, sort of. Still need to use that elusive "ruler" Oh well, it will happen eventually. Maybe.

Anyways I'm just going to double post holiday stuff from Ume here. Because maybe that will make be better about doing them. Also maybe.

Inking practice. More colors.

 

Helping Jim Keefe with his inking class this semester. The class assignment was to ink four different artists on sheet that he had put together for them (and blue lined. Because he's a nice guy.)

It included Mr. Kim Deitch, Bud Sagendorf, Bill Mauldin and this Swamp Thing from Misters Stephen Bissette and John Totleben. I love inking detailed things because I don't often draw them anymore. I think it's a secret desire to put heinous amounts of lines in my art again.

Did another less bird-like bird. I only own a few warm colors. Oops. For Miss Meagan LeMay. The hair and the wings were a lot of fun. Rather fond of those four feather sections by her face.

Raptors Doodle Do

I drew this rooster during my shift at the bookstore for Ashby's new comic Raptors, written by Jeremy Zoss. It's fantastic, and did great at MIX this year as a preview.

Ashby's work is wonderful along side the writing of Jeremy. Their work melds into the slightly skewed world of a ptsd war vet as a really visually stunning and emotionally charged piece.

Looking forward to the rest! The cover of Raptors was done by my friend/co-awesome Caitlin Skaalrud, bonus art is the above and from Bart King!

Shark Week

It's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. I always seem to miss it though. Haven't updated anything recently, so here's this. It's also over on Ume! Which I have begun to update again, it's also gotten a facelift for Fresh!Ume comics over on tumblr!!

MIX comics

Cross posted over on Paper Tapir. These are for MIX this November. Yay!

Senior Project 3.0

This is an adorable baby tapir. That's all.

So, my senior project is really hard to actually show anyone in full, it's bulky, and if I wanted to show the whole thing, the images would be huge and annoying. Also, they aren't meant to be seen on a screen, they also aren't supposed to be really large. It's frustrating. Alas...
Anyways, more 'caps of what's been going on. I'm getting ready to test print...eek!