Oni Me!

Recently Oni Comics announced an artist talent search for the convention season Stateside but they are also accepted postal submissions. Supplying three five-page scripts, the only guide is that at least one strip must be included so even though the deadline's mid-August, I thought I can easily get five pages done so I'm considering submitting some work.

Each of the three strips present their own challenge. One is a Western and I have enough reference from my old Wolf Who Thunders research to be able to make a pass but it's still a daunting thing to do a historical strip. The second strip was an espionage strip that not only involved a double-page spread (which I've never done before so I'm unsure how the bleeds/gutters work on those at this point) but some late 1980s references: as my phoneline's been disconnected for a week or so, that put online referencing out of the way so I chose the last strip.

So far, this has been fairly straightforward (there's a main panel on the last page that I'm leaving till last as it's gonna be tricky) but I'm not sure about the results. I've been putting alot of time in on these (mainly as the blocking of blacks takes time due to lots of little areas of black in the backgrounds) and don't feel like the results match up to the hours put in.

Anyway, here's three pages, with me set to ink another tomorrow...

Donna Kebab

After a few weeks of not really drawing much (mainly due to work being such a leech on my time and energy but a few other inconvenient interruptions too), finally got back to a bit of drawing today and thought I'd go in and finish off that Wonder Girl pic I finished recently.

Bit of an odd history to this one: first roughed out when I was trying to practise drawing characters at a larger (ie A3ish) size than usual, I never really had an idea of who the character would be. (Original version previously posted here: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc7A07V1_wrQ602Egc9ByIsGXcuCVP-YtpH8xvKDBapCOKG1kar_VlInjtYlJckDIWYstH7nqUs_O3k9QllLMmdjl8jEKDrs1r9MbDITfacNyRJVtjmPP17WEI7GZxTcT-FaD02b_B_nuo/s1600-h/net+sketch.jpg) For a while I figured I might use Power Girl but the proportions seemed off to me so I abandoned it. Still, there were elements I liked so I photocopied the pencils at A4 in order to better determine the errors and hey, presto, things became clear and I drew in the correct proportions.

During this recent fallow period, I dusted off the original, tweaked it and decided to turn it into the Donna Troy Wonder Girl: I always loved Perez's depiction of her and can never get her quite "on model" with his version but I still kinda like this one. Using pens to draw the lasso was a mistake though, so I pencilled a new lasso and used Photoshop to tinker with it and drop it to replace the original and ta-da, Wonder Girl is finished!

Rapid Randoms!

Not posted much lately as the things I was considering posting were not particularly interesting even to me. Subjects rejected were:

Terminator 4: Too uninteresting to gather up the requited concentration...

Blood: The Last Vampire: Bloody awful...

Political Correctness: Work-related shenanigans that I decided not to post as it might get me the sack...

Blue Beetle & Booster Gold: The first figures I've bought in yonks are the rather cool DCUniverse Blue Beetle and Booster Gold figures...

Shite Saturday: How I nearly got into a fight as I wouldn't back down to twat with a chip on his shoulder just after getting a call from my bank telling me they've cancelled my card due to fraudulent activity (thankfully they stopped the transactions pretty sharpish and stopped them)...

Carnivale: May still post about this show after I've watched the second season...

Artwork: Not done much but a teaser above plus an old semi-pencilled figure that I returned to and turned into Wonder Girl. Not too bad in the end but the lasso's wonky (used Pilot pens rather than a softer smoother pen that would have been as amooth as the pencils. I maycolour this and photoshop a better lasso in...

Michael Jackson: Actually I couldn't care less, so never even thought about posting about him..

He's Baaaaaaack.....

Seems to be a whole heap of tumbleweeds blowing through the blogs at the minute and the endurance test that is work at the moment means that mine is no different. Haven't had the time or energy to draw much this month but above is the cover to the impending Silver #1...not the greatest example of visual sequential storytelling as I was more interested in churning the story out in as small a number of pages as possible (12!) but hopefully it's fun to read. Two short backups fill out the 24-page first issue, with #2 being an edited version of the last Silver #1, with an all-new conclusion (and possibly a short strip rounding out the package).

This Weekend Oi Have Mostly Been...

...watching episodes of Lost, playing with animals and struggling to sleep but I did also manage to script some pages, tweak the text to the Silver script and complete this illo...

Anatomy Lessons

Well, following on from Dave's thread ("The Key"), thought I'd do a post following the creation of a page...quality aside, let's begin...

As I've just completed a Silver strip, I'll use that as an example. As I wrote this myself, I worked in an unorthodox way: I wrote down the basic beats that the plot had to hit and assigned a page to each, although I did commit the cardinal sin of switching locales on the same page (or else I'd Havw to do an extra page to facilitate the switch). Hopefully the switch is subtle enough that you'll only know there's been a switch when you read the caption. I'll use a specific page as an example for all stages, except the comparison between pre and post-black spotting (as I forgot to scan the same page before blocking in the blacks!)

I usually thumbnail a few pages on a sheet of A4 at roughly 3 inches each in scrawly scribbles that probably only I can decode as they're just placeholder to remind me of the images in my head, but quite often what I end up drawing can be quite different. I only scrawled a few lines of dialogue here and there so had to leave space for text later as I only had a basic idea of what I was going to write. The nature of the panel requirements usually preclude the necessity for multiple page layouts, although there is probably something to be said for a few different takes.

I start a page by ruling the borders and then ruling the panel borders with a Berol or Pentel: experience and my thumbnails usually guides me pretty well as to how much space I'll need per tier. If I was lettering onto the art, I'd also do all the lettering first (EC-style) and do the balloons after the pencilling but before the inking. In this instance i wasn't lettering so cracked straight on with the pencilling. I usually pencil a page a day over the weekend for me to ink through the weeknights: I usually start on a Saturday morning as Jonathan Ross starts on Radio 2 at 10.00 and usually finish around the end of his show at 1.00, sometimes earlier and sometimes later. There's been some discussion over how tight my pencils for myself are: I'd class them as layouts as really only the figures are usually properly detailed, but others tell me these are complete pencils. What I class as full pencils must be ultra tight!

I usually a start a page (both pencilling and inking) with the easier or more fun panels and get into things for a while before tackling some of the more involved work, so I never complete a page sequentially. Currently I usually try to ink about two hours a night, completing a page over two nights. Sometimes I surprise myself and ink a page in a night and other times I end up nearly doubling the time spent on inking, all depends on what I'm drawing. The fewer panels per page, generally the quicker it is to complete but it all depends on what I'm drawing.

As I'm useless with a brush, I inks with a variety of Pilot pens...I can get a consistent line and as the nibs wear down (the ink last far longer than the nibs), I switch back and forth but generally try to keep the same new pens in use for the main drawing of each strip. A set of Pilots used to see me through an issue of the Jock but generally wear out a lot quicker now. Brand new pens started to thicken out about two thirds of the way through the current 12-pager. Again, I use the Berols and Pentels for ruling lines as I find ruling lines knackers Pilots really quickly.

Many artists ink all the heavy blacks first and work out from there but I save that stage to last. Once all the details are inked, I'll erase the whole page and go in with permanent markers or Sharpies to block in the large areas of blacks, using older knackered out Pilots that I can only use at a certain angle to edge into the linework. Once this is done, I'll do any cleaning up or spotting effects using Tippex pens...I used to use the standard bottles but the brushes would frequently clunk up, resulting in lunar surface-like deposits of correction fluid that often needed to be chipped away. With the bottles now using sponges instead of brush tips, I find the pens much better all round.

And then, the page is done and it all starts again...

Anyone For Scribbles?

Well, pretty good weekend...as well as kicking back a bit and catching up on some reading, still managed to get quite a bit of art done and I received a cheque for my upcoming Back Issue article. Being tied up today meant I got caught up on inking the final page of Silver two days ahead of schedule. I managed to complete the line art for the cover to Pjang #3 and was a bit unsure about it but Rol likes it so I'll colour that asap. I won't post that here as that's his to reveal so I thought I'd post some other bits I've done this weekend...

Asbo Adam has morphed into Asbo Avenger but the bug has spread around the office. Above is the original version of a superheroine version of one of the officers (she didn't like the face or the cape, leading to the much better disco version posted previously) as well as two versions of another officer. She asked for the manga version but when I pointed out that manga characters just look like manga characters rather than bearing any resemblance to actual people, she decided she wanted a superhero version too. The detective is for a (non-work) project with yet another officer and the top picture is of a colleague in our section. She wanted a picture but a "nice one", hence a fairly straightforward depiction. I actually quite like this..it's not a spot on likeness but is close enough to be recognisable, I suppose. She's very pretty in real life so I've probably not done her justice but as a drawing, I quite like it.

Coming soon, a post using an idea nicked from Dave (who I always suspected was making it up about Bar-nolds-wick but now I'm sure when I heard Barnolds-wick being discussed on telly...much like Slawit...)