Character Portrait Line Art

Its been a few days since i've drawn anything, mostly because every time i tried my characters turned out hideous. So i put the pencil down for a few days even though i really wanted to get back into the comic. I guess a little rest is good. Anyways i tried again and was able to reproduce my characters slightly larger than before. Before i'd been drawing the characters at about the size which i was gonna use them for the comic itself, making them larger required some extra effort. Out of the four i think Simon and Damien came out the best as they are the two characters who have more defining features to them. Gabby and Charlie are draw similarily which is pretty obvious. The reason they remain simple is because all i really wanted to do was to have characters who were easy to draw and reproduce so i can remain consistent. Its been a tough trying to develop a style which is comfortable but i think i've found something good here. Here are the scans of the Four characters including Charlie!!. Enjoy.

When everything looks like its misspelled.

The problem with being the writer/letterer is that when you stare at your work for a certain amount of time, you start thinking that every word in the english language seems to be misspelled. I once spent 15 minutes looking at the world "real" and thinking I'd gone quite mad because it looked wrong somehow.

Progress

Well it's coming along rather nicely I think, if all goes well we might have our first chapter done by next month. Now the thing is the decision needs to be made, as to whether we release the entire story at once, or we do a chapter by chapter release, and honestly, we can't decide.

So now it's your call. I'm starting up a poll, let us know. Chapter by Chapter or all at once.

Organization

The hardest part about this whole process is how to use the space your given on a page. Ive tried many different approaches and the one that i've found that works time and time again is thumb-nailing. I know it seems pretty obvious if anyone has ever done this themselves but it really works. Then i realized how to work more efficiently although this picture might force you to think otherwise.

Meet the Kids

So i randomly decided to upload some photos from the old sketchbook.Heres the progress on the characters i've been working on. Charlie has yet to be worked on but you can see how the other three kids look. Heres how they look before they are inked and colored in.

Full Speed Ahead!

Alright so now i have broadband which allows me to do more than just check my mail. Now i can update this as the comic progresses, just as how i intended.
Anyhow, CTD is moving along smoothly and we are already 5-6 pages into the first chapter itself. and as a teaser heres how some of it looks...
Who is that?! and Why is she so alarmed!
Find out in Chapter One...
Comments Welcome btw...

booklets

So we're not going to be in the magazine due to factors that im not going to get started on because that could take a while. regardless, we went ahead and made ourselves a little booklet version of our comic which im really happy with, if anyone wants copies let us know, theyre pretty expensive as we're just printing A3 pages out at a student xerox and binding them, but it looks really good so far. we're paying 240 a comic so let us know if anyone actually wants one for themselves and well make you one.

Yeah i know

We haven't really added anything this past week, we're still working on ch.1, and we don't want to give away the entire story here, so we'll think of something to show you guys in the meantime. Concept art and stuff like that. Keep an eye out.

Here you are

 
I've reordered things so i figured id take down the last post and put things up in order.. enjoy people.

 
 

Microsoft needs to be put down. slowly and painfully

So I just spent a fair amount of time searching the web to find the code to set up the effect I've got on the blog. Get it in place, spend an equal amount of time tweaking and fixing the odd bits that stick out here and there, and finally i get it working and I'm happy.
Then i close Firefox and start up Internet explorer to see if the retard version of web browsers can read the page properly. Big surprise. It doesn't.

To all of you who read this, if you're not already using Firefox, the first thing you need to do is download it. It will vastly improve your web browsing experience and make you want to destroy your computer less.

Get Firefox Here

Caduceus

Well with any luck if we manage to shift our lazy asses well be able to get our prelude along with a little extra content as teaser material ready to be published in the college magazine. if we really like how it turns out we might even turn it into little preview booklets so let us know if youre interested.

Right, im here

Im now officially on the Chasing The Dark staff, expanding its ranks to.. well.. two of us.

Just a quick update, we've got our overall plot done, and personally I love the direction in which the story's going. Hope to have the prelude colored and lettered soon, and we've started work on our character bios, so keep an eye out here for those.

Bringing the Pages to Life

I started coloring in the first page of the prelude and realized exactly why there are teams of people producing comic books. the process is very time consuming and is an art that im trying to teach myself. the entire comic is going to be an evolving process and since it is my first one there will be changes along the way some which might be noticeable others that might not. Either way feedback is welcomed as the next book i intend to make will be more consistent. As for this issue i dont think im going to change much unless its grossly out of place. Im currently observing Peter Steigwald who does colors for Michael Turner of Aspen Comics ( creators of Fathom and Soulfire). His work is amazing and im trying to apply some techniques he uses. We'll see how much of a difference it makes in the coming pages. Enjoy.

Imagine if you came face to face with this guy at a carnival...

Granted i think carnivals are pretty scary places in general...fucking carnies... but after being in a rut of some sorts i've actually taken a new approach at character design. Im drawing a character to fit a certain personality. This guys a new addition. I sketched him out using these crazy japanese pens i fell in love with. They draw like a medium between pencil and ink. and using Photoshop i added some quick gradient tones . Meet bobo, childhood fear # 2 and i intend to have the protagonists encounter this guy soon in the upcoming comic. Comments ?

A Small Distraction

A couple years ago i drew a two panel cartoon for something depicting the "Stages of life". im not really sure what prompted this but i randomly happened upon the rough sketch of it from those past years and since i was bored, decided to re-draw it. Its a little something that kinda helps break the pace of the normal comic routine. I've also seemed to hit a roadblock in creativity it seems. I'm having some trouble staging the beginning of the main part of the comic. Perhaps im over thinking things. I'll give it a break then come back to it. Its probably the easiest thing to do but the hardest thing get started on. Anyhow enjoy the drawing...

The Prelude is Near Completion

I was waiting until i had completed the drawings in pen and ink for the prelude before posting em just because i wanted it to have some semblance of continuity. Each page was different in a sense because i became increasingly comfortable with taking risks while creating the panels. Its all new to me so im simply drawing from what i've felt seemed to be effective as far as layout is concerned. There is no dialog and very minimal sound effects. There are no colors either yet. Im debating whether to color it in fully or leave it grayscale and perhaps color in only the main character's scarf or something. if anyone has any suggestions that would be great. Im curious to see what people would say was going on without narration or dialog; just to see if the drawings carried any bit of the story without having to rely heavily upon text and such. Anyways. Here goes.

"I Am Not Afraid of The Dark" Poster

Heres the aforementioned Poster which started this whole process... Comments are Definitely welcomed. (Thanks Niv)

Chasing The Dark

Do you remember when you were a little kid and were scared of practically everything? Remember being scared of:

• The Dark?
• The Boogyman?
• Lions?
• Tigers?
• Bears?
• Etc...?

The only comfort was that right before you got caught/killed/maimed/dismembered, you woke up safe and sound in your bed.
What if that didn't happen?
What if you didn't wake up?
What if when you opened your eyes all you saw was the same element of fear which closed your eyes in the first place?
Now thats some scary shit.

The idea of this comic came simply from a tagline i wrote on a poster i drew a month ago. Originally it was intended just to be blown up and made into a poster to put on the wall, but every time i looked at it i felt like there was some hidden potential that remained untapped. At this time i was desperate for a story to sink my teeth into in order to kick off my year long desire to create a comic which i would be satisfied with. And after a year of sketching random things, this one simple and darkly haunting piece was my catalyst of creation. My spark, some would say, i'd like to thank my muse.

Some think its silly and some would say its a pretty easy task to come up with a bunch of drawings and make them cohesive. Add text. Add colors. Then suddenly...voila! theres a comic book for all the kids to read.

like all art, the finish piece never does the artist justice. The countless hours put into each and every line, every stroke, every pose, glance, expression. Expression... thats the key. The Artist expresses himself through his medium. His Muse guides him. (oh and just for the record im not saying that all artists these days deserve this kind of respect, like Picasso...Fuck him, give a paint brush to a paraplegic and he'll come up with better work. i mean really the jackass paints elementary school art and gets paid millions. check out "Nu au Fauteuil Noir".(45.1 mill for that one) really Go ahead. if im wrong then so be it but if you agree with me then please lemme hear it)

When people pick up a comic, they automatically associate the fact that it contains pictures with the fact that childrens book also contain pictures... and that therefore comics are for kids. There are certain comics i assure everyone are most certainly NOT for kids. Rather they allow a group of creators, or a team, of people of different talents (Writers, Pencillers, Inkers, Colorists) to work and collaborate on a single piece of work. One that by the end of the entire process they all are proud of. So to state that all comics are just for kids is just stupid. For anyone who wants a perfect example of a GREAT comic book( great drawings, story, colors) Read "Identity Crisis" Written by Brad Meltzer (fiction author of Zero Game) Rags morales , Alex Sinclair. Its a DC comic but i guarentee if your a fan of reading fiction then you will love this book, even if comics aren't your thing.

Now with all this being said and done, i am no way near a great artist but i do take a certain amount of pride in my work. I've studied and observed the way certain artists draw characters and such and am constantly trying to apply them in my work, adapting them in order to build my own style.

Ok Now lets Start the Show...