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.

New Book and World Turtle Day

 

Recent updates around the other sites are this new charm book, you can find out more on Paper Tapir. Also here is a sneak peek for tomorrows special Ume update for World Turtle Day. 

I have a whole bunch of things going on until around the beginning of August, hopefully everything will get done and I'll have time to work on my own stuff, but I'm not holding my breath on this one. Trying to finish redrawing the Ume Abroad preview for CAKE (June 15-16), I'm helping with two different art festivals. CONvergence is at the beginning of July and we have to to a bunch of work for that, and I'm TAing for the MCAD pre-college program again during the middle and end of July. 

I'm going to be trying to get a normal website up for Paper Tapir and then un-merging the blog and the actual site, unfortunately that's going to come after all these other things. 

Again, thank you all so much for the additional support on the Facebook fanpage of Paper Tapir!

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.

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.

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.

New Year Process

Color drop process for the Ume New Years post. Yep. Spent the 2011 to 2012 watching all three Indiana Jones flicks (and then Thor, just because you know...can't have too much Kenneth...or something) with some friends. 2012 is going to be hectic but good.

Promos

This is the promo that I'm using for Ume at MIX. It's actually quite pink and it matches the tabs on my Tapir tags. I'm excited for the Facebook page too, and I really appreciate the support I'm getting! There are currently preview photos of MIX stuff on said Fbook page.

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!!

Ume Guest Comic Request

For those of you who expressed interest in doing a guest comic for Ume, thank you!

Ume has been really good for me as it's simple and fun, I hope you guys can have fun with it too! I know everyone is super busy. So I'll be posting about it here and there. Remember you can ALWAYS send me art and I'll be more than happy to post it up on the blog. <3

Your art will be featured in the print version of Ume that is coming out this winter, please let me know if you do NOT want your art to go to print version. It will be put only on the blog with a handy watermark. (You can also just...do your own watermark.)


For sending purposes you have several options:
* Upload your image somewhere like a file
sharing site and note me the link on facebook.
* Do the above but attach it (.jpg or .png please)
to an e-mail and send it to steorraleoht@gmail.com.
* Upload it to deviantART and send it via note
@ShrunkenAngel.deviantart.
(Please remember to leave the download feature on!)

I will resize larger images for health purposes.


Please send your images/links/etc with the name you would like to be known as and a website/blog/dA if you have one so I can link to you!

(Your name (optional: website/email) will also go in the print version.)


Here's the list of UME format notes from the last note:

* 1 panel
* nothing sexual, violent, etc...Ume is G-rated.
* Colors are optional but encouraged
* OCs are good.
* Detailed or as simple as you like.
* Any medium.

Food Logic

This is about Ume. All the human characters of Ume have Japanese names, specifically they are all Japanese food word names.

A brief reasoning:

Ume: "Japanese Apricot", an Asian plum. Really Ume's name comes from the variety of things that are created from the ume fruit. Most things lean towards being sweet, but also can be sour, salty or tangy. This mostly reflects in Ume's personality, which will be seen in the upcoming Ume comics. Generally liked, a bit odd.

Tamago: (Tamagoyaki) "Grilled egg", Japanese omelette. Tamago was made to be the slightly more reasonable counterpart to Ume. She is fairly simple, though has many layers, can be sweet or savory. Well liked, easy going.

Senbei: Japanese rice cracker. Senbei hasn't come into the Ume comic yet, but he's currently the only male character. Sometimes sweet, more often savory with a little saltiness. He's sociable, small and a bit snappy. Well liked, casual.

(It's very bizarre to talk about these foods and then apply them to characters, actually it's a little creepy. Ergh. It made sense at the time.)

Opposed to the human characters of Ume, there are the animals.
Pop: Ume's cat
Skid: Pop's cat friend, scruffy
Fizz: The small turtle

I'm not sure why all the animals have short little names like that. Their names relate too but less logically than the weirdo food names...

Hope you enjoyed the brief dip into crazytown. :D

It's a trap.

Seriously.
Upcoming character, Senbei and Ume fly through the sky on a whale shark!

Ume

Check out the single panels of Ume on the alt blog!