mostly banal: March, 2013

Diary comics from March.

strangersinthenight

Been pretty quiet 'round here lately.
Here's something I drew recently. It was for a thing.

blowingaway?

You know, I almost like the original prep-sketch of this last comic better than the finished one.


The progression seems somehow subtly easier in a way. It flows better.
I messed it up, somehow on the final rendering. Too much trying to wrestle with the materials (which, in this case were literally crumbling in my grip) maybe. Not enough attention being paid to the overall flow?
The final version seems to have lost something in the translation from sketch to re-sketch

Or maybe it's just me.

big angry

Another in a series. If you remember the first one of this set, I'll email you something like a dollar.

there be dragons

a brief lesson

If you look at this picture in the horizontal alignment, it's just a reg'lar old merman swimming along.


But if you turn it 90 degrees clockwise he takes on more of a topless trannie merman with a flair for the dramatic kind of vibe.


Context is everything.

do not be afraid of bad drawings

Another in my series of geometric breakdowns. Getting closer to what I want out of these...

More sketches:

It's good advice. Something I'm trying to take to heart.
Tico is our younger dog.


I've been playing with my kids' crayons lately. I've got an idea I'm toying with... a comic in this color scheme. Something abstract. Part of the the growing diaspora, I guess...

But I'll end this post with something more representational:

projections

Boy am I bad at this blogging thing lately.

I'm about halfway through redrawing my ! story. I'd hoped to be further along by now.
I've set a deadline to finish the whole thing by June 10th. I can do it but I've still got a lot of work ahead of me. Keeps me busy.
And I'm waaaay behind where I'd hoped to be on Uncertainty, too...
I'll get back to posting comics here someday.

But, hey! I built a wall this weekend!
The second-floor stairwell used to just open right into Sophie's bedroom. We had gates and everything, but her or Jamon falling down the stairs was always a concern. Chris helped me to build the barrier and to move around some of the electrical stuff. Now it looks like a real room up there. When you ignore all the still bare wall board.

Oh, yeah... plus I also fixed our flickering livingroom lamp!

Who needs comics when you can hear all that exciting stuff?

*sigh*

Here's another in an intermittent series of non-comic sketches. Not Quite Geometric.

titled

Hey! Remember when I used to draw stuff and post it here?

*sigh*

I haven't gotten to the inking stage in any of my bigger projects so I decided to take some time and work up these gags a little. Other than this it's been all Uncertainty and !...

You know who does finish things on a regular basis?
Boxbrown.
(how's that for a smooth segue?)

Boxbrown writes comics with a warmth and earnestness that's rare and appealing. His regular gig, a kind of slice-of-life gag strip called Bellen, is one of my favorite ongoing comic. Examining relationships is his thing (Bellen = Ben+Ellen, his two main characters) and he does it well, with honesty and humor and always a terrifically humbling sense of humanity.
Boxbrown's also just published a book of some longer form comics, done in a similar vein. Check out his Love is a Peculiar Type of Thing, self published and subsidized by a Xeric grant.
I wholly endorse this book.



Look at that! A sort of comic and a little write up of someone else's work! Not too shabby for a guy who barely posts anything anymore.
Now, to keep from appearing too competent, the concept doodle, for the above:

doodle drop

Why, oh why do we have to live in a world that allows insanely ambitious projects couched with unprecedented expectations to collapse under the burden of their own weight? Why, dammit, WHY?
(link from comics comics but maybe you saw it somewhere else...)


Here're some lousy doodles that I'm sure interest no one, but anyway...





I like the cat panels here:



the end.

"Uncertainty" process post

So, another reason I don't post much sketchbook stuff is that it looks like that. This is me figuring a page layout for the upcoming Uncertainty in my 5 cent Walmart spiral-bound notebook. The lines are awful and nearly unreadable, but that's okay because they're really only for me anyway. Naturally, I chose to lead the post with this.

Some stuff looks more like this.

Starting to work my layouts into a real drawing, still messy and loose... figuring things out.

Then I go to pencils.

(Sorry about the crappy scan. I'm keeping my pencils pretty light on this one...)

Then Inks, which I have yet to do, and some "post-production" type stuff on this one...

I'm treating this work with a lot more of an illustration-vibe than some (all) of my previous comics, giving each panel quite a bit of individual attention. I was even drawing it one panel at a time on separate sheets of bristol, but man does that not look right when you put it all together. I'm back to composing whole pages at a time.
Here's a finished panel, drawn in the old way, which I've since rejected.


And, yeah... that's what I've been working on.

I are still heer, internet.

Woah! It's been forever since I posted anything here. Didn't know this sketchblog-thing would become a monthly gig...
Here is something I drew just now, though. Especially for you!

Actually, I've been pretty busy with comics stuff lately. What's taking most of my (art) time right now are ! (which you've already seen) and Alexander's Uncertainty (which you can't see just yet). So, I'm drawing a lot, just not posting anything I draw here.
I'm going to try and get better with keeping this sketchblog stuff up. Maybe I'll post some in-process work for Uncertainty...

And wish me luck on getting ! into print. So far it hasn't been easy.
(but I am making headway)

I'll be in touch.

mother

Chasing a notion this week.

footprints

These last few sketches were done with a set of color Sharpies I've had for a few years now. In my crappy sketchbook they bleed like crazy. I have a proclivity for using only the cheapest of art materials.

I wanted to try and make a drawing work using only the colors available in the pack of markers. I drew this scene once and caught myself layering the colors to achieve a greater variation. I started over to try and keep it "pure"

Turns out "pure" looks a lot like crap and I ended up layering up on the second drawing too.
The two versions are pretty much the same, but I prefer the second (shown here) for the echo of Karel Čapek in the footprints.

this one's for Derik

Derik said he saw panels in the ghost image under the truck sketch the other day, and so he did: Here in this little nonsense comic.

I remember now why I don't post too many things out of my sketchbook anymore. The book is 9" x 12" and my scanner can only take a little more than 8.5" x 11". That means I have to scan everything twice and piece it together in photoshop. Very annoying.
I am too stubborn (or lazy - or cheap) to buy a new - smaller - sketchbook however, so I guess I just have to live with it...