Archive for October, 2008
9 items.
I tried a few different angles on the characters and played with the background a bit. I need to get back into drawing backgrounds, but since I do everything by hand it`s kind of a pain. I COULD digitally add backgrounds that I hand draw in layers, but it just seems wrong if it`s not on my original. It`s a personal oddity, and that`s why artists who embrace the digital can be so much more efficient.
Dental Plan! Lisa Needs Braces! That`s a little Simpsons reference for those of you not hopped up on Nyquil and coffee.
I cut this story line short because I didn`t like where it was going. Well, I liked the potential, but I needed a diferent format, and I`m not ready to switch things up that drastically yet. Instead, I`ve been looking at some more subtle things, like checking my writing and, in today`s comic, trying something new with hands. It`s subtle, but I`m simplifying them and so far I like what I`ve sketched (and done with the second panel here). I`ll probably stick with four fingers, but don`t be surprised if your favorite characters lose a pair of digits.
I like this one, it has two jokes rolled together. The first one is a bit subtle, and does require you to be familiar with the guy`s job…He`s on the bottom rung, so when he says “hold my calls”, he`s talking to the phone. That one cracks me up for some reason, so I hope everyone else enjoyed it. The next is the exaggeration of the girl`s importance in creating a new buzzword. These mysterious people even have a cult and a secret meeting place in which to worship her!
For a change of pace, I decided to see how the guy responds to this new ManagementSpeak ™ (c) (etc) in his office. The answer? Not well…
I was out of ideas and had a bunch of strips half-scripted. I needed some filler to buy some time…and as is usually the case, I ended up really liking what I came up with! I still think it`s kind of cheating, even though everyone does it, but not only do I usually like the results of a quick n` dirty strip, but I usually get the most feedback from them. Isn`t that weird?
Plus, Professor Lobster! He`s my caricature character, of sorts, and I like putting him in different stereotypical roles.
I`ve tried to keep the angles and shots varied to help with pacing and emphasis. In today`s strip, I actually used two shots and made the strip as a whole symmetrical. I played with the background colors a bit, just to be playful. The joke I`ve had kicking around for years, and it actually predates the strip, but I finally remembered/got to use it here. Of course, in the second panel, I should have emphasized thoughts, not outside…but oh well.
This one was a bit tough, but a lot of fun, the third panel in particular. I inked the train and the silhouette, being sure that the two had whitespace between them. I filled in the silhouette with my brush, then I colored the train (again leaving whitespace). On top of that, I threw a layer of dark and faded the edges with the eraser tool. Finally, I threw a gradient on top of it all, starting at solid white and fading in opacity, not color, which gave the oversaturation of the headlamps. Lots of fun.
I like how the linework came out on this one. I had more bold plans for coloring, much like the Krazy Kat or Spaceman Spiff (Calvin and Hobbes) scenes, but a few things (including time) stopped me, one of which was Dave Kellett`s (Sheldon) homage to Krazy Kat this past Sunday. That`s what I get for taking a week and a half off…I would have beaten him to the punch by a whole week! Oh, well. Can`t wait until Thursday…
