Sketchblog

Things have been a little mental lately, but back to say hi again and give you some rambling updates.

MG&GL has been going pretty well so far, although the slow speed I’m able to work on it is being a little excruciating. Jack and I actually have quite a lot of story planned out for the thing that I can’t wait to get to. And in the mean time it’s been fun to draw, and an interesting challenge adapting his prose into single-page suitable scripts (when I’m much more used to working long-form.) (more…)

Calico Jack and I are terrible influences on each other. An extended session of taking the piss out of the up-and-coming game Bayonetta led to creating our own terrible version, then mashing her up with another joke character idea from a party a few weeks previous… which led to Jack writing a script, me doing some images with actual effort put in, and then us getting horribly, horribly carried away, fleshing out a full cast and ending up with a story we actually quite like.

(Granted, an incredibly silly story, but hey.)

It’s a pulp-parody, possibly to be a webcomic, and we’re throwing it around under the working title of “Bulletwitch Baretta and The Gentlelady Thief”. I’ve been really enjoying drawing up the characters, combining Jack’s design ideas with my own. They’re all done in brushpen and photoshop, and I’ll be covering the colouring method I used in the next part of my Masks tutorial.

No good will come of this. But oh is it fun. Enjoy.

PS: Gun-shoes are still stupid.

A second entry in this journal comic nonsense thing between Sel and I. She still owes me comics.

So, the lovely Selena Thomas and I were supposed to be doing a back-and-fourth journal sketch comic thing. And it was taking too long to get started, so this happened:

Oh boy.

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Okay, so not actually done today but due to my ISP being muppets I was lacking in internet for a while. Anyway, I thought I should start throwing up sketches again, so here’s some materials testing and playing with hands in prep for a comic thing I’m working on. Verdict: need to be better at hands.

Growing up with both parents and an aunt in the traditional music scene, I’ve been around folk and world music ever since I was a tiny pram-bound little KT. I’ve been to more folk festivals than I can count, and while I drifted out of it as a teenager a bit, now I’m older I realise I really do still love some of it. Other parts, namely the bits that involve excessive amounts of morris dancing, bohdrans or taking yourself too seriously I’m less of a fan of, but there’s a huge amount of trad and world music that I adore.

And with that in mind, the more I think about it, the more insane it is that I never went to Musicport before.

If you don’t know the festival, it’s a weekend long celebration of world and trad music that used to take place in Whitby but this year took over Bridlington Spa. The atmosphere was great, really friendly and up for anything, and some of the music was top notch. Artists from all over the world, with music ranging from straight up traditional, through jazz and dance of all kinds from tribal to tango to techno. I paid my way by running a small workshop on the basics of manga drawing, which was a lot of fun and I’d love to do again some time. (Perhaps with more than an hour to do it in next time, although some of us relocated to the bar afterwards for more doodling.) I had been a little concerned it was a little unusual to run at a music festival, but there was a decent turnout and it was great to see people of all ages having a crack at drawing. I helped out with the artists’ green room as well, and then spent the rest of the time hanging backstage or being out there enjoying the music.

Suffice to say, I’m more than geared up to go again. In the mean time, I’ll leave you with some of the photographs I took while I was there.

To wake myself up and kick the creeping cabin-fever that’s been setting in, this morning I went to the park. Armed with some Solid Steel mixes and a camera and backed up by blue skies, bright sunlight and a crisp breeze, it was a nice way get back in touch with the world after the long weeks of being chained to my desk.

Here are a few of the things I saw.

So, I will tell you about it in a badly drawn autobiographical comic.

The metal was still there when I got back later in the night, so I took a photo of it for posterity’s sake. Looking at the building, I think it was one of the dark side panels that run up some of the buildings on the estate I live on. That particular block of flats has a 2 tiered roof, the lower part nearest where I was, so I guess the first clang was it falling and hitting the roof, then it bounced and fell 4 stories down to me. I could be over-reacting but I’m pretty sure it could have killed me, or at the least caused some serious damage. Thankfully I’m easily spooked enough I didn’t just carry on walking.

So, right now I’m feeling pretty lucky.

Okay, so as usual I’m not quite in the ‘OMFG YAY CHRISTMAS!!!’ phase yet, but I rarely am until a couple of days before the day itself. I dunno, I guess coming from a family where you’ve heard people practising Christmas carols in the next room IN JULY so they can get an album done leaves you with a bit less of of a hurry towards it. I’m last-minute as hell.

It’s also a time of me drawing pictures I have to be all secretive about so I don’t spoil people’s presents, and I never get as many done as I’d like. Still, I’m liking the paintings I’ve done so far.

Comic wise, I got my script done, though it needs a lot of work because it’s still pretty clunky, and I decided it’s better as a pilot issue for something than as a fully self contained thing and need to bring that out a little more. But I think I’m going to try and do the layouts first, it’ll give me a better idea of how much space I really have to play with. Also, I just found out I probably should change my protagonist’s name because, due to not checking first, I’ve accidentally given him the same name as DarkHawk’s alter ego (From various marvel stuff). While I don’t think anyone is going to confuse my unremarkable 20-something photographer guy for a teenage magic-amulet-powered superhero… DarkHawk has been in Runaways and I LIKE Runaways, so Chris is going to have to get a new surname.

Moral of this story, kids, is Wiki/Google your characters’ names BEFORE you get attached to them.

(I didn’t mind the real world people that the 2 main characters in the first issue shared names with. Because they’re not exactly uncommon names. But you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.)

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get the first issue done by Bristol, due to potential things with paid stuff I’m going to have to give priority to. I’m probably going to have it for Amecon in august though.

In the mean time, have some doodles I did while trying to get used to drawing the character. (Yes, I know you can’t hold a camera like that. Shhh. XD)

Okay, that’s enough babble for now. Laters.