Today’s doodle took a little figuring out. The scene was basically the same, just the framing and positioning went through a few passes. I also needed to decide exactly what was going on outside the window. This is another story I’m probably going to rewrite. I like the idea but the execution can benefit from a second attempt.
I’m feeling pretty good about this one. The idea’s solid and it’s coming along alright. My biggest issue here is I kept moving between the rough sketch color and the refined sketch color. It’s better to do scrawling on one layer and cleanup on another. But sometimes you’re fixing something and know exactly where you want to place something. There’s two modes my brain goes into: One where it’s scribbling to fill space and place objects, the other tightening up what’s established. I also realize how much I rely on the shift key in Photoshop where I lock brush orientation for straight lines. Manga Studio has rulers and the like but for rough sketches I just wing it to correct later. But that’s the nice thing about working digitally – you can add layers and correct as many times as it takes to get what you want.
This chapter right here represents a change from where the stories go from being largely visual to more dialogue-heavy. The more I think about it the more I want to re-write it. When I’m feeling better I’m going to take some time and retool some of the chapters I’m having issue with. I really like the concept, I just don’t like the angle I’ve taken with it.
Here are some panels from my rough layouts so far. Getting sick has really punched my productivity in the gut but I’m still trying to work every day. I was really enjoying drawing on Monday’s Daily Doodle and then things went off the rails. Hopefully I’ll feel better next week so I can get more done.
Today’s doodle is for the chapter on greed. I look forward to contrasting this with the fleshed out version I’ll make when I’m not sick.
Today’s doodle is literally a doodle. I want to do more but I’ve come down with something and can’t stop hacking right now. I’ll probably stretch this series of doodle out another week so I can tighten up, ink, and actually finish them for the book.
This week I’ve been going through each story in the 7 Deadly Sins anthology, making panel folders and doing pencils. I’m trying to do about 10 pages of this a day, feeling out what the characters look like and placing them solidly in each panel. I really want to have this stage done before moving to inks. I haven’t yet revisited the last story that was giving me trouble. Think I’ll get the rest nailed down and spend a day or two on it. As I’ve been going through the early stories rely more on pictures while the later ones are more word heavy. I’ll probably trim text out where I can as I’d rather show instead of tell. It’s just some ideas tend to need more explaining than others.
Hey everybody, no video this week as I’m working on illustrations rather than animation. (I shot some video of me talking but I won’t subject you guys to that.)
I’ve been thumbnailing/laying out pages for awhile to get the writing out of the way. I’ve retooled the last story and I’m still not happy with it. It feels like I’m scripting a scifi story instead of a scifi horror. Right around the middle story I went from using little to no dialogue to having lots of dialogue. I’m concerned about trying to force the writing but I’m not sure how it’d fair if I tried winging it while I was drawing. Most of the other stories fit into 10 pages fairly neatly and I’m trying to do that here. Think I’ll try penciling pages and see if I can resolve issues before I move onto inking.
Welcome to a new feature on the site, Work in Progress Wednesday, where I’m going to be showing stuff I’m currently working on. I tend to have a couple projects going at a time and I think sharing my progress is going to be a good motivator on getting them done. It’s a good way to take stock of where things stand at the moment. I’ve done art posts before but I’d like to make this ongoing. Just remember all this stuff is in development and may change completely next time you see it. So lets get this party started.
Billy Badass
This is a webcomic idea I’ve been working on about an internet reviewer and his obsessive nostalgia for the 80s/90s of his childhood. I’ve been trying to design the main cast at various ages and make family members look related. Also trying to add more detail to the style than I normally do.
Playing with the logo for the main character’s review show. I really like the Magic 3D Photoshop Action, I just need to get better at placing things in perspective. Also debating adding some explosions or something to this.
7 Deadly Sins
I’ve been wanting to do a collection of scary stories for Halloween so I came up with some ideas based on the 7 deadly sins. I’ve been playing with some of Ray Frenden’s Manga Studio brushes and a few others here trying to step out of my comfort zone a little with digital painting.
Crafting Mines
I’ve wanted to start a Minecraft Lets Play series for awhile. You might recognize the name from a previous podcast/audio drama I tried doing awhile back. Right now I’m tinkering with animating the pre and post-roll bits to match up with this logo.
Blues Man
Here’s my first real attempt at animating one of my cutout rigs. I’m going to do a couple videos showing how they’re set up. I built this guy about 4 times or so as I switched tools and figured out better ways to set him up. The last was when I decided to get rid of the outlines except when colors overlap. I set them to appear dynamically which got complicated but should be useful down the road.
Here’s my second rig from this short I’m working on. I got really ambitious with the deformers on this one. Each finger on his hands have curves on them and the outlines also appear dynamically as well. It’s best practice to just swap the hand drawings out, and I probably will at points with this guy, but I want him to have really weird movements.
Here’s a couple frames of a shot so far. (The banding’s a result of the gif compression.) Debating if I should have the clouds wave any as they drift. Also not sure how I want the stars to twinkle in the background yet. That’s the fun of doing big projects yourself. All these little nuances you could spend an entire day tweaking that will just look organic in the end.
When I decided to make the characters line-free I had to reconsider how I was going to render backgrounds. There’s a lot of artists doing inspiring work with texture and brush strokes I’d like to learn from. This scrolling background is sort of in between styles right now. Background painting is it’s own special skill and I intend on developing it more.