Free Comic Book Day 2012

Hey, if you don't already have plans for Free Comic Book Day, why not drop by the fabulous events they have today at the Toronto Comic Book Lounge & Gallery at 587A College Street in Toronto. 

I'll be there doing sketches and whatnot, along with a number of fantastic artists.

Free comics! Yaaaay!

FCBD. Starring everybody (and me)*

*Yes, that is an intentional Muppets reference.

Keeping it Real part 2

In my last post, I talked about the importance of setting up a perspective grid as the first step in making an illustration.

The other important first step is research. (Exactly which of the two, grid vs research is step 1 and which is step 2 varies for me, depending on what I'm working on.)

Research can be looking up photos on the internet or visiting similar locations and taking photographs of my own. Either way, I'll collect a whole bunch of photos. And then I won't copy any of them, exactly. But I will use them to help me figure out what might be included in the background when I design my locations. If I do use photo reference, it's  as a reminder of what kinds of things are visible on a rooftop, for example, and then I make up my own versions of those things.

I looked up a whole bunch of reference photos for New York City rooftops for this, but I didn't use a single one of them verbatim (or whatever the photo version of "verbatim" woud be) I just used them to remind myself what kinds of things might be found on a roof.

Even if I am using my own photographs for a specific location, I won't make quite an exact copy. In this example, I copied but greatly simplified my photograph of the gates at Trinity Bellwoods Park to set up a specific location, including just enough detail to be recognizable and believable, but without being slavish to the photograph. I didn't want to put so much detail in the background that it became distracting, because the picture is about the white squirrel, not the park gates.

When I was working on Grawlix #2 (which got renumbered as #3 by the time it was released) I used a pillar from one room, and a table from another, and windows and  decorations that I completely made up, and combined them to design the bistro where our characters get together on page 2 of my story.

Set dressing helps to establish the story, and the character. You can use subtle details to support the story and move it forward, or to tell the reader something about the person in the room.

When I was given the job of designing the personal office space for Number Two in issue 2 of Holmes Incorporated, I looked up a lot of images on executive office space and furniture, as well as what other artists had drawn in issue 1.  

Then I took all of that, looked at all of it, and let it influence but not dictate my designs. I used what I already knew about the character to create a space that specifically appropriate to him.

Good background and props design provides an extra layer of communication and another reason for someone to re-read the story, and handled properly it can also help establish and maintain the pace of the story, guide the readers along, and help them get to know the people that inhabit the story world.

Keeping it Real

OK, I know. I get it. 

Constructions and perspective grids are not the funnest, sexiest parts of making a piece of art. There's always a real temptation to skip this step and get right to the good bits of doing the drawing.

The little X is to remind myself which of these lines was the horizon

There's a saying in building things that applies as well to drawing: Measure twice, cut once.

If you take the time to carefully plan your drawing, you're less likely to have the artwork turn out wonky, or end up having to erase and re-draw a bunch of stuff because you accidentally used two different points of view on the same composition*

* and before you say "what about cubism" these rules apply double, or triple in that case, because each of the different points of view presented has to be consistent with itself.

It also helps to establish the settings of your drawings as a real place that people could visit.

When I'm doing constructions I mostly just hint at the location. I lay down the framework so that when I do the detailed illlustrations later, I have a basic idea where the characters are in the setting, and what details need to be added to create a sense of place.

If your viewers believe they could really go to the place where your characters are, then it will give them another way to connect with your story. At least, it seems that way to me.

I'm going to be at Toronto ComiCON

Come by booth A-51 in artists' alley and say Hi, or if something I've got catches your fancy, buy a sketch or a print.

Here's the last preview:

And now, I pay off the teaser from a couple of posts back ... 

My convention exclusive print for 2012 ...(which means the only place it'll be offered is at ComiCON this weekend and FanExpo in August, unless I book any other shows this year.)

Squirrel Girl in the City!

Sneak Peek

Toronto ComiCON is just seven days away. Who's excited?

Here's another preview of what I'll have at my table.

Taking flight

A while back, on what was practically a dare from a friend, I applied for a table in artist's alley at the Toronto ComiCON. 

And then, to my utter astonishment, I actually got in.

So, March 10-11 I'll be at table A51, with some prints and some artwork, and doing some sketches.

I figured that I would do up a special print for it, and throw in some local flavour.

Here's hint 1, my location photo reference.

 And here's hint #2, my initial construction lines.

So, if you're from Toronto and really, really nerdy you probably know where I'm going with this.

Other than that, here's a couple of other things I've got on hand.

 

So, here's me. Taking a deep breath and taking the plunge. Wish me luck.

Putting 'em up

So, there was some friendly smack talk over at Outcast Studios discussion boards, and now I've gotten myself signed up for Battle Artist on deviantArt. I guess I'm just a sucker for punishment because I'm out of my weight class going up against pretty much anyone else on the roster. But it's fun, and there's no particular shame in being 0 for 2.

The topic of the last battle was Ben 10, and we had a week to work on it.

The first thing I did was rent a DVD so I could learn what Ben 10 is. I'd heard of it, of course, because I haven't been living under a rock, but I'd never seen it. Incidentally, I will never get that theme song unstuck from my head now. I started out by filling out a couple of sketchbook pages while watching the show and getting an idea of the character.

While I was doing that, I also started working out what my own drawing was going to be about. 

I set up the composition on a simple, one-point perspective with the convergence point between Ben and his giant robot opponent, so that the piece is about the tension and the fight about to take place. Then I did a little design work on the giant robot arm itself so that I had a reference for it. These were done on a wee, 3x5 sketchpad during intermission at a concert. Because I like drawing, but I also like Beethoven.

I was happy enough with this sketch that I developed it a little more than I would usually do for a thumbnail sketch. And because the perspective is pretty straightforward, I skipped right to building a grid and rough construction on full-size comic board instead of making an intermediate construction and blowing it up on a copier. I forgot to scan that stage, though.

I added enough detail in the background to give a sense of location and what had happened up to this point in Ben's day, and checked that the composition still had energy to it. It still goes in a spiral, coming in down the robot arm, going up the black stripe on Ben's shirt, and then back down the pipes leading down the corridor, and even though the robot is closer to us and on the left hand side of the page, Ben is dominant, so it does what I intended.

I only sort of know what I'm doing with inking, but I managed to get some fairly clean lines down for this one, especially by my own standards. Looks like that inking class I'm taking from Ty Templeton is already paying off, halfway through.

And then, because I still had a day or so before the submission deadline, I decided to try doing some colours. I let the background be fairly dark and desaturated, so that Ben would stand out more.

So there you have it. That's how I throw down at an art fight.

I still lost, of course.

But my real opponent isn't whoever the randomizer stacks me against, my real opponent is myself.  And I'm making some pretty good drawings, and they're getting better all the time.

It's a date!

 Just a quick update...

Grawlix Anthology #3, in which my story "Undone" appears, is launching at the November 29, 2011 session of the Toronto Comic Jam at Sonic at 60 Cecil St at College & Spadina.

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=183797985045539

If you missed my earlier posts about working on the story, I did one on character development one on set design and page layout and just a quick one with preview art and the wrong launch date. Oh yeah. Also, the wrong edition number.

But now it's real, it's official, and Grawlix #3 will be live and in person.

Preview art

A while back, I did a post about the story I was working on for Grawlix issue 2. It's all done now, and scheduled to launch Oct 23 at Canzine

In the meantime, here's a little preview.

Work in Progress

I'm making a bit of headway on my Grawlix #2 story. Which is good, what with the finished pages being due in about ten days' time.

I had originally planned to use photo reference of a real restaurant in Toronto for the location on page 2, but after taking the pictures I realized that the restaurant layout would screw up my storytelling, so I went with an imaginary restaurant that has small, round tables and I just made a script margin scribble so I could make sure that the characters stayed in the right seating arrangement and that the right background shows up depending on which way the camera is facing.

I found some photo reference for the kind of office environment that Jacob and Simon would be working in. I figured if they're at an inbound tech support call center, then they wouldn't need very big cubicles. And since the cubicle does have a bit of a hero shot on page 2, I wanted to know what it looks like. It's a shallow one, where the dividers are only as deep as the desks.

The page thumbnails are all done, and they seem to read OK to me. I like that so far a couple of people who have seen them picked up right away on the very structured grid giving the reader a sense of security and something to grab onto while the events in the story go from bad to worse.

The little circles in the notes are for word bubbles, and the numbers inside the circles are how many words they are, so how big the word bubble will need to be. Roughly.

Thumbnails, minus the ending

The page constructions for the first two pages have turned out OK, and I've got them transferred to comic art board. So, I've got most of my planning done and it seems to be working out OK for me so far.

Page constructions for pages 1-2

Now I just need to draw. A lot.

My next project

The Toronto Comic Jam is doing another issue of Grawlix, and I'm doing a story for it. 

I've got some basic character sketches down, not so detailed as my character reference for Holmes Inc, but this project has a much faster turnaround so I'm doing the best I can in the time I have. At least I have something I can pin up for continuity.

I used a brushpen on these. When I finish my pages for the book I'll probably use markers, what with my not having refined enough motor skills to use the brush. Yet. And it'll be a challenge enough trying to get the concept of inking down without having a tool I can't fully control.

I'm actually writing the story this issue, which is a new adventure for me. Sure, I've written stuff before. There's all these blog entries, of course, and I've written some short stories,  but this is my first comic script. Fortunately for me, I got some help from Holmes Incorporated writer Dino Caruso (you can check out his tutorial on short fiction on the Holmes Incorporated site.)

The subject matter of the story that I'm telling is a bit personal and uncomfortable (to the characters, not to me and hopefully not to the reader) so I'm keeping the pages on a tightly composed grid structure so there's something to provide a safety net. I'll be shooting it basically like a documentary, with predominantly mid- to close- shots to keep it intimate and personal.


I'm trying to keep all three characters sympathetic, just three people in a bad situation but nobody is "the villain" because it's an everyday story with ordinary people. Again, we'll see if that plays out. Obviously, anyone reading the story would relate to one character more than the others, and have a favourite by the end, but I've tried to give all three of them a reason why you'd like them and a reason why you wouldn't. After that, it's your call as to who is the most to blame for what happens.
At least that's the idea. We'll see if it plays out.

One thing about being the artist as well as the writer, I am putting less detail into my script than I probably would if I was handing it over for someone else to draw, because I already have the picture in my mind I don't have to write it down in the script. So my script is pretty sketchy, but I know what I mean by it.


And being the writer as well as the artist, if when I start drawing I decide to go another direction, I have the freedom to just run with the change because I know the writer won't object. (Or if she does, may need some professional help. But that's another topic for another day.)


So, there you have it. My next project, my next challenge. Now all I have to do is meet the deadline.

A quickie for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival

Hey, friends. Sorry I didn't post last month. I was too busy drawing to write about what I was drawing! Details on that coming soon to a blog near you.

As for today, this weekend is the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Tons of fabulous events and exhibitors, and general good times for all. Check out their site for full details.

One fun little piece of trivia is that I actually do have some artwork there.

Nothing fancy, but as an occasional participant in the Toronto Comic Jam I had a chance to contribute to their 2011 anthology. The topic was "TTC" and the premise was that each contributor would pick a subway station and create a story about it.

I picked Dundas because it's close to where I work and therefore very familiar to me. And being more of a pictures person than a words person, I teamed up with a co-worker from my day job (Sandra Herve for those of you keeping score) to write the script. We teamed up a bit on the basic plot, because I wanted to give a bit of direction to the type of story I was going to draw. We ended up with quite a nice, happy, and positive story. It was a fun little side project. Here's a preview of page 1.

So, hey, if you find yourself in the neighbourhood of the Toronto Reference Library this weekend, check out the TCAF. And if you find yourself checking out the TCAF, check out the Toronto Comic Jam table.

Good, fun times, right?

Hands down, the coolest thing I have done to date

This past spring, I had the opportunity to work with a group of students from Toronto Cartoonists Workshop, led by Ty Templeton, and through TCW's "Fit to Print" course, on a comic book that will be released at FanExpo this weekend. I'm still completely gobsmacked by the whole thing. I've never been to a Con before, so I'm not sure what to expect. I've got an equal amount of thrilled and terrified going on, salted with liberal amounts of "Wait .... what?"

The book is Holmes Incorporated, and you can read more about it here. It's two days until preview copies come out, and there will be a formal release party on September 24. Check here for information on how to get a copy of your very own.

I got to do the drawings for one of the stories.

 Here's how I decided what to put on the first two pages (you can see the final inked and lettered pages here - scroll down to "Spring Loaded."

The first thing I did when I got the script was to write down some notes and decide which panel I wanted to emphasize on each page.  Based on that decision, the other panels would all point to it, but would still have an overall forward narrative flow. For page one, the key panel was the one where the decision was made to send Trey on the undercover mission, so other than the primary panel 1 to panel 4 story flow, I did a secondary page composition with elements that would draw attention to panel 3, where the decision is made.

 

On page two the key panel was the one where the important clues were discovered, so the page composition draws attention to panel 3. But as you can see, I had some trouble otherwise with the panel composition, and there's a lot of weird dead space that doesn't make sense.

The artists had weekly meetings to present our work in progress for Ty's review and feedback.  My pages, in addition to the aforementioned weird dead space, which also happened even worse on a later page, I hadn't left enough room for dialogue, or made enough variation in the camera angle or distance. So I had another go.

I showed some more of the room in panel 1, added a character who I forgot had a line in panel 2, and moved Trey to the left hand side of the panel to give a lead to the next page, and also to give her room to break out of the panel.  She's so excited she can't contain herself, so the panel borders shouldn't contain her either. On page 2, so I decided to remove the medium shot with the clues popped up, and just draw two panels showing the clues themselves, with the character's comments in voice-over bubbles.

Then, based on more feedback that panel 1 should go back to the foreground/midground/background that my original thumbnails had, I made some final tweaks to the layout when I switched to doing the final pencils.  On page 2, I wanted to do fix the dead space problem, which also gave me a chance to add in a quick little establishing shot to show that we were in a new setting, showing the surveillance truck parked outside the campus before cutting to the truck interior and Trey getting ready for her mission. Panel one of the final pencilled page wasn't called for in the script, but I think it supports the story well. I also remembered the frame rule where cameos should be round, and switched up Trey's literal cameo in panel 3 of page 2. I forgot to draw panel 3 as a view-through the spy glasses which I had in my original thumbnail and layout, but it works anyway.

 That's kind of all I have for now. My mind is still a little blown.

There's a contest for this?

Here’s the thing. Someone out there on the interwebs saw my sketch of Captain Canuck that I did for Canada Day and has invited me to compete in their Captain Canuck art contest. 

Kinda cool, right?

Of course, I’m not going to compete using the drawing they saw. It's just a silly little sketch I did for a lark because it was the most Canadian thing I could think of doing with my spare time on July 1. Fun, but not the kind of thing you'd enter in a contest. (It’s posted on my gallery page if you want to see it. It’s really, really Canadian, eh?)

Blue Fox ambushes Captain Canuck

For my competition piece, I wanted to go with something action-y and dramatic, so I’ll be drawing the moment when Captain Canuck realizes that his partner, Blue Fox, is a double-agent for the communists. (Hey, it’s from the 1970s. A lot of villains were communists.) I’ve got the rough layout done on 9x12 paper, and am pretty happy with the basic poses.

This week I'll be drawing the same layout onto full scale paper and planning the composition and environment around the poses.  I’ll use the other elements on the page to direct focus to the captain’s face, and hopefully will be able to draw an appropriate sense of betrayal and drama in his expression. We’ll see how it goes.

Check out the contest at DeviantArt. It’s open to entries until August 15.

What I Did On Summer Vacation

It may seem weird, but I took vacation time to go to school full-time.  In particular, to attend the summer session of Graphic Storytelling and Digital Rendering workshops offered at Max the Mutt Animation School.

Of course, at the same time I was doing this, I was also taking a couple of night classes through Toronto Cartoonists Workshop so I had my hands full. Full of pencils.

Awesome fun times. Sometimes frustrating and a little hand-cramp-inducing, but awesome fun times nonetheless.

 
For the record, if you ever have the chance to spend sixteen straight days doing nothing but what you love best, TAKE IT. For all of its intensity, this was the most restful vacation I've ever had.

 At this point, I've got the kernel of a fun story to tell.

So far, I haven't decided how I'm going to do the final renders, but here's the initial version. I haven't decided whether or not I like it the way it is, and I might redo this in regular pencil, instead of using grease pencil and going in with pen for the details (as shown).

I'm going to think about it, and get back to you on that.


Coming up next week - the creative process behind the page.

It's almost magic

Okay, so here's some stuff.




I was going through some old life drawings and found a kind of fun gesture drawing. It's dramatic, it has some flair, and I said to myself "hey, that looks like a pose Zatanna would take." So, I worked it up as a rough sketch, which turned out okay.



Once I had some decent line art, I put it on the lightbox and traced it onto some watercolour paper to do a rendering in ink wash.

Again, turned out okay. The wash did a couple of things I didn't expect, but that's what Photoshop is for, right?

Some stuff from life drawing

OK, here's a couple of things I drew at the now sadly defunct sessions at Rouge Concept Gallery. A one-minute gesture drawing and an 18-minute drawing, sort of a contour drawing but mostly just throwing some lines on a page. Both of them are from March 2009.