6 - Electroshock

Final strip above was done with dip pens, brush for the large black areas, and the gray tones done via dip pen into watered down inks.  Lettering, borders and little touches done with microns.  A little PRO white paint for touch ups.  I'll discuss that further below.  

Been rescheduling how I organize my week.  Been doing more consecutive art on weekends and less during the week.  Art like life seems to be a permanent experiment.  Nothing is static.  

Here are the pencils.  I like pieces.  I like the expressions on panel 2 and 4.  I totally gave up too soon and studied too little on my electricity effects on panel 3.  It's cool, though.  Time constraints and learning on the go.  Next time I'll do more studies of just lightning prior to drawing it.  

So I forgot to scan the inks.  Sorry.  But I have some extras for those who care about my crappy technique experiments.  So I wanted to try another form of gray-toning and so I went with ink wash.  

I found Will Morris's blog and I really liked his art and he had some ink wash pieces that were inspirational.  In particular these entries...

http://whmorris.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-shadow.html

http://whmorris.blogspot.com/2012/06/hairlet.html

http://whmorris.blogspot.com/2010/08/hearty-breakfast.html

And he was kind enough to even comment back to me his technique on the last blog.  I sorta used his technique.  I didn't quite follow instructions.  I eyeballed some things.  I dumped some of the wash and thinned out the ink once or twice.  I played around with using ink wash with brush and with dip pen to see what's up with it.  

I bought 3 airbrush jars to hold my washes from Plaza here in Nashville.  They look like this.  http://www.wonderlandmodels.com/products/badger-airbrush-jar-34oz/

But I put a I, II, III on the lids to keep track of darkest to lightest.  It holds a crap load and I should run out in the years 2050 maybe.  

Anyway here are my ink wash experiments.    

Above, the face on the right is entirely dip pen, different shades/solutions of ink wash.  I like the effect to some extent but I find it distractingly busy.  I like the invisibility of the brush.  All those little lines focus too much attention on the lines and not enough on the drawing as a whole.  

These pages were pretty warped by the wetness level of the ink washes.  You can see the shadows on the pages.  I put my "big dictionary" on the scanner for my final comic to reduce the distortions in the scanning process.  It's a giant unabridged 1967 (or is it 1963, I forget) Funk and Wagnalls dictionary which I love but rarely use.  It helped flatten things out.  

I'm getting a crapload of bleeding on my inking.  I know my skill is somewhat to blame, but I think it may be in part the card stock I'm using instead of standard Bristol board.  I'm also working small (8 1/2"x11") which doesn't help.  I'm going to have to return to microns as my primary inking tool until I work through my card stock.  

Here are some random sketches of characters that will be/are part of the comic strip.  

And that's all I got for now.  I'll try and publish next Sunday, but we'll have to see how I do.  

Audi 5000, 

Nick.  

5 - Ghoul Fight

Next ep.  Getting a little faster.  Playing and learning.  Not much new to comment about, more an extension of what I've been learning.  Pieces I like and some a I don't.  Learning as I go does that ya know.  

Here's the pencils.  I like these better than my inks and finals, mostly.  

Here's the inks.  

Used mostly microns and brush again.  Screwed up a lot due to low visibility using my lightbox, particularly around the tiny itty bitty areas.  So next time going to lightbox for broad outlines.  Then I'll put pencils side by side with inks so I can kinda copy the details.  

Shading stage up top done with #2 pencil.  Mixed feelings about it.  But that's how it goes.  

Messing around with dip pen and I think I'll use that next time and ditch the microns except for panel borders and lettering.  

Hope you enjoy.  

Nick.  

4 - The Unexpected

Alright my non-existent fans, long time no see.  I'm still working the same basic method.  Started out with rough script.  Then thumbnailed a couple of layouts and ended up taking what I thought were the best elements of both and merged them.  

Here's the pencils, yo.  

8 1/2 x 11" white Cardstock Pack, acid & lignin free from The Paper Studio.  50 sheets for $5.  Did roughs colerase blue and red.  Figures got a little confusing so I used red for the ghouls to help my eyes differentiate.  Lost some patience on last panel and didn't do enough planning/underdrawing to really nail it.  Ah well.  

Inking went pretty well.  I like some bits more than others.  I liked my Derek/Silent Seeker reaction shots even though I'm not good at keeping anyone on model.  Partially because I don't create model sheets, maybe.  Partially because I'm not that good yet.  Inked w/microns (mostly 8, 5, 3) and brush.  

I'm feeling the ink then pencil shading.  I started out with an H and found it too subtle and used mostly 4B with different levels of pressure.  

I'm pretty happy with my progress although I still see all the flaws.  I'm more optimistic than I've ever been about my art even though I still criticize it.  I feel progress.  

I think the thing I really have to do is budget time better.  Its not taking me terribly long, but I'm find it hard to get to the art table.  It used to be about fear/dread of seeing how horrible I think I draw, but not any more.  It's my second character flaw, poor time management/absent minded professorishness. Also I tend to put art last on the To-Do list.  

I'm going to really try to put this out weekly.  I'm about monthly now and that's just ridiculously slow.  At this rate I'll get my first story arc out in the year 2350 AD (although I'll get to meet Duck Dodgers - bonus!).  

So hopefully I'll make that goal.  

Check ya later.  

Nick.