Concepts for maybe upcoming comic

Wow, I'm in the pickle stage... >.< At this stage you think you know something but in it's misplaced confidence that makes you do stupid mistakes. Like a cucumber being pickled, it tastes sour but if you don't let it stay more it won't last and it'll just go bad. My inking is full of blah this post.

This one is not so bad. Toying with a mist like element is kind of fun.

This is just painful, really I only finished it cause I promised myself to finish it and it's got so many mistakes that it's only up here to say I did something... but improvement is not the word for it. This was supposed to be a preliminary idea for the Fairy King and Queen of my story but I've got kinks to work out for sure.

More learning from other artists

If only I didn't get caught up in the story and end up reading every one of them in the process of finding a person to do a picture of. Well here's two more pages from three different artists, I'm getting the feel for more manly faces, I'll try my own tonight while at the Cloudscape meeting.

First one has one of the guys from Cat&Dog by Fujii Mitori and the image at the bottom is from Maigo by Honeron Ken. Practicing more hair styles... not more to say about it.

 The kissy couple is from Hyper Love Power by Hiiro Reiichi, I think I'm starting to be on the right path with the hair. The seme has a black shirt on and I like the way it was done as far as the inking with the very dark darks instead of using screen tones. We'll see what I come up with tonight!

I'm starting to realize that most of these authors are male or at least have male names... and it's mostly been shoune ai/yaoi and such that I've been flipping through... I'm not sure why I was  under the impression that this genera was populated by female artists more so... I suppose female mangaka are still not that dominant unless you go into shoujo.

Promise I didn't die

I just had a deadline last week that sort of ate all my time and then a lovely BBQ on the weekend, so needless to say the computer was either not available or I had already stared at it for the last 18 hours and didn't wish to do so any longer. But here we are, I will resume and I will manage my time more wisely so that last minute deadlines like that stop creeping up on me.

This week I've been using reference... and OMG the difference it makes! OK, reference is maybe not the right word cause I was replicating images or trying to, I'm just using it to build skills not to sell, it's like fan art. So I am planning to continue, I'm just going to do Mangaka that I like for a bit till I get it how I like it and then I'll try doing my own characters again. Today I'm working off Nangoku Banana's stuff, the names of the manga are by the characters. I am trying to focus on the hair but also the use of cross hatching. First off the first picture has a guy, a real guy!!! My guy's faces are far too girly even when I'm trying to a supper top sort of character. So there will be more Guy guys around here soon. Then bottom right of second page is my usual style of guy but I was trying to practice his hair and drawing people with their mouth open. It shouldn't be as hard as it is.

Then I got an idea for some cute fan art of Trance and I couldn't help but do it.  The pose is referenced out of Kitsune no Yome by Nangoku Banana and the character is Quincy from Trance. Artistic cred to me about 50% I just pushed the pen around they had done all the work already.

EEP!

I'm late!!!!! NOOOOOOO! I apologize but yesterday I could hardly keep my eyes open by the time we were back from Cloudscape. I'll try to post before I leave for the meeting so it doesn't happen again.

Ok, First we have a little monster for the Monster Alphabet Challenge I'll be doing cute monsters... that's my plan, you can join in too! All I've got to say is rock is weird to outline.

Next I'm trying to develop a new comic idea, these may be the main characters. Still working on it. But as far as the inking... I need to stop beating around the bush and just do hair studies cause I'm always messing up their hair. Grrr.

 

Love and Kisses for Fishes

I love Jellyfish! They are so cute! Here's my little moon jelly hopefully he'll be turned into a pin or charm, that's what I'm aiming at for Cos&Effect this summer.

Maybe the lines are a bit thick on this one... I can't quite decide. Here's Molly giving the little jellyfish a kiss.

More People

'Cause I like drawing people and they come more easily then backgrounds here are some more people. I think I'm kind of liking the look of the thicker likes in places of shadow and that need an accent... I'll have to push those areas more and see if that is the case.

 His face is a little weird and then his proportions go wacky... grrr, and I hadn't drawn him in so long.

A little frog kissing action, I almost put her in a body suit cause her body looked so nice... but no, instead she ended up in a dress...

Oh, the big eyes!!!

This is getting to be a later and later post. Ish... today is just attack of the big big eyes.

 It's important to use reference, just winging it doesn't get you a hummingbird moth.... it gets you a buggy... with wings...

 

And then a quick something so we have colouring pages for Car Free Day that is happening this Sunday, June 17 on Main St. between 12th and 29th from 12pm to 8pm. Fun for the whole family! I'll be helping the Cloudscape table which will be somewhere close to 29th. We'll have colouring pages and comic making stuff and lots of books!

Hands up

Almost didn't get this out, not at home so I wasn't sure the scanner was going to co-operate.

First we have some hand practice, cause I can't have enough of that. I'm always having a hard time making manly hands, they end up too feminine. So I took up my trusty hand book "The Book of a Hundred Hands" by George Bridgman... it's this awesome paperback I picked up in a second hand shop for peanuts but it's got really good hand positions and a few explanations that make sense bu I've never really sat to think it through.

 

The second pic I was catching up on web comics. Trance to be more exact, it's far too pretty for it's own good and it's kind of my goal right now (this is one of the comics I was talking about in the first post). So I just felt like tormenting some random daemon character and chaining them up... =}

 Ok, that's that for the day. What I learned... hmmm... look at other people's work and try to figure out what they do that you like and then attempt to emulate it.By the way I'm keeping the inks as they are unphototshoped from now one, i think it's important to show mistakes as well as success.

Practice practice

I realize I didn't state my tools yet. Well part of the reason is 'cause I'm still experimenting. The previous post were both done with Sakura Micron size 01 pens.

This time I was playing with the Pentel pocket brush pen for this picture. It certainly has a lot of life to the lines but more difficult to control.

  I switched back to the Micron's for the second picture, going down to the 005 since her face was so small.

Overall I think the trick is not to think. It seems the more I think I will screw up the more likely it is I really will.

Made up my mind!

So here we have it. I made up my mind I needed to ink my next comic by hand. Having seen some very beautiful inked pages lately it has become obvious that I need to just suck it up and start practicing and stop being afraid of inking my work.

So I'm starting a regime. I need to ink one image a day cause practice makes perfect! I'll shear with everyone what I learn along the way, if I find awesome tutorials online, and of course I'd love to get input back from everyone out there so send me links, send me critique, maybe even send a little love once in a while cause gana need the encouragement.

Blog will be updated every second day so to kick things off here are the first two!