Testing Colors, Designing Characters

Just colored a character design  and I am feeling out how I think about the coloring style of the whole graphic novel. I think if I do it this way it will be a lot more fun and fit the style of the book. Also I just designed this character. He's a Janitor, and he once wanted to be a knight. But he's too small, and his hand is deformed, and he's got a bad back. But he still gets to wear a swell knight uniform.

I knew I had a scene with this character in it for several pages in the script, but I had not designed him. But tomorrow I start laying out those pages and that sequence, so I need to know what all the characters look like. So in the laundromat I sat with my sketchbook and started from the basic idea I had and built.

Now as you see I did a few heads I didn't like, and then I started in on the final. I sketch in red pencil and then tighten with blue, ust so I can see the drawing better when it's done. The third head I liked, and I started to try to think of what clothes he wore. What does a medieval janitor look like. What if he's a knight? An old knight? Or a wannabe?
So I made him a wannabe knight, because he can't be a knight. I threw every ailment I could at him. Hunch back, cross eyed, tiny week man, with a deformed hand.  But he still loves his life, cleaning for the knights.

Now he has so much character the short scene with him in it will be more fun and almost distract you from the information that you're getting in the scene, and will add to the overall world of Little Knight.

New Comic Panel for the day. Short post, but I will have a little insight to my character design for a minor character, and scripting coming soon.

New Comic Panel Day

IN COLOR! If you came to my USTREAM channel on Sunday you saw me start this, but I didn't finish it until the next morning. Here's the final image.

New Comic Panel Day 5 pack!

The new comic panel is a DOOZY today. Now keep in mind in the comic its gonna be full colored to break it up a little more. This feels like a Where's Waldo page, which I used to draw cheap licensed versions of. But it's fun and hard to do a page like this. Most people won't notice a lot of the details you put in, but it won't take away from it at all. And if people look close they might see some fun things.

This is the Layout for this panel. Now keep in mind, this was a drawing 1 inch wide and drawing it only for myself. This is my blueprint. I just use it to visualize the shot. I am sure it looks like a child's scribbles, but I know what every scribble represents, and I don't wanna waste time drawing stuff this small.

This scene takes place at The Mace and Fl'ale, the bar Knights hang out in. This might help you see what the scribbles were in my head. I made the set in SketchUp and I use it to help set up shots. I lined up the camera to the angle I drew in the layout, and added some stand-in figures so I could see the a standard size at different locations.

Next step, I penciled in the figures. I used the red pencil to figure out the characters, but then the blue pencil to tighten it up a little without loosing the tighter lines in the underdrawing. I also penciled in the monster trophy-heads on the walls.  It's still loose tho, I do the tight drawing in the inks.

Then I combine the whole thing into Photoshop and I inked it, and it took me forever. I don't follow the background exactly, tweaking things to make the illustration better, taking out some things, and moving some lines or objects over so it doesn't cause tangents or close up too much.

It's fun to draw in the little things. The guys in the chugging contest, and guy's playing cards. The drunk singing guys, and the guy carrying beer for all his friends. The fat guy who's chair is buckling. Cheesy pointing guy, solemn talking guys, and guys pigging out. It's a lot of fun to draw, and it's fun because it helps show the world I have created in my head.

New Comic Panel Day

Delayed to Thursday, just like comics this week.

This is Alistair's Lab. He may be a Mage, but he also is an inventor. He uses magical crystals to power a lot of it. You can see some inventions littered around the room, like his Lumberjack Belt, Washing Machine, and his Superjump Boots (well, most of them anyways, due to unsuccesful testing.) Also you can see Fluffy BaaBaa, who i just named, just now.

This was actually hard to ink, because I had to remind myself its a pulled out panel, and keep myself from zooming in too close and get all detail oriented, and I still was trying to figure out the best ways to do backgrounds on my cintiq. I actually used a plastic ruler a few times as a straight edge, but it didn't work well. I free handed a lot on this one, but I usually don't like to do that, but i figured it wood or stone so a lot of it is more organic. Now i just lower the pen pressure and use the shift button to draw straight lines. It works really good and is way faster than pathing everything out like I did for the first 30 pages.

Anniversary Card

I made this card for my girlfriend for our 2 year anniversary yesterday. It turned out good. I actually made it really fast. 4 hours from idea to completion basically, including travel time to store to get supplies.

It actually folds up and fit into a card envelope. Pretty fun. Maybe not the sweetest card, kinda weird actually, but I am proud of it.