Comic Diary: Pencil panel preview from page 4 of WC#3

This is my last post for this year.
Have a safe new years eve and see you in 2010!

Christmas card 2009

Merry Christmas and a happy 2010!

Stripdagen Houten 2009: Report

So last Saturday I went to this comic event in the Netherlands and joined the Mangafique group to sell and draw there. I got the impression it was awfully quite around our stand. Did'nt sell much like earlier years, but I guess that's also because I haven't anything new to sell.

All with all, I left with a bitter taste. I will attend these kind of events again when I have more things to sell and to promote. I drew only a couple of sketches there, here they are:

Claire taking a bath and scared waitresses!
A little warming up, two emotionless heads of both genders.
Experimental; a dumb and fruity portrait of Ruan.

Stripdagen Houten: Saturday 26 September 2009

Next week on Saturday I will attending Stripdagen (Comic days) in Houten the Netherlands! However, nothing new to sell. I just want to attend because I was absent last year and I wanted to show I'm NOT dead. As for being a dealer, I like to walk around the area trying to network a bit (I'm really terrible at this!) and perhapes buying some comic books.

Comic Diary: a preview of Witch Cat #3 - Page 1

Comic Diary: WC#3 temporarily on hold

As you read in the title of this post, Witch Cat volume 3 is on hold for a short while. The reason is that I don't have the time and courage to finish it in time next September. I feel terrible for this because I really wanted to finish it around this time of the year. I'm a bit anxious about finishing it and I try to get my drive to finish it back. If you can catch my drift...

College has started and that means I have to concentrate especially the first two months to get used to everything again. I'm now going to an art academy and I'm very excited about it. I think that I will have enough time to work on my own stuff as well, though it's also a lot of homework. I'm looking forward to the following classes: Art history, illustration, comic design and model drawing.

Wish me luck!

Experimenting with magic and succeeding

This illustration gives me the same feeling when I finally finished something after trial and error. I'm just happy even it works a bit.

WIP: Claire Line art

Just something in between.

Comic diary: Back from vacation and back to work

I'm back from my vacation and I have a couple of weeks still free before I'm going to study. I haven't done anything artsy all that time. And I kind of regret it, since I'm annoyingly stiff when I'm drawing. Never tought It would be this serious...

Anyhow, I have inked a couple of pages already and that went alright. At least I don't make horrible mistakes like I did with Witch Cat #2 that I had to edit big time in Photoshop. I will show progress soon, but I'm holding back because or else I'll spoil too much before the product is finished. :)

Comic diary: A sneak preview of the pages #2

So far I have only been drawing pages, pages and pages... I wanted to ink all pages at once when they are all drawn. However, that is just boring. A little bit of something else works better then doing them in stages. I wanted to ink the first five pages and to move on to drawing five pages and repeating that.

Some annoying factors during the progress; my scanner does not really like to listen and scans my pages skewed. I will look in to this matter later, since I got some help from people. Thanks a lot! Second, my new bottles of ink I purchased some while ago give bleeding lines. They are not visible on the page above, but some parts are that are inked with the new ones. I panneled and ballooned with old ink. I just can't understand why it bleeds... (you can only tell the difference when It's scanned, this is a photoshot).

This was the last post before I'm going on holiday! I'm away for about two and a half weeks. When I come back, I'll be working again and update this blog when I can. There are exciting days to come after that as well. I hope I can finish my project before the upcoming madness. Wish me luck and good bye!!

Comic diary: Concepts #1

Comic diary: A sneak preview of the pages #1

Environments... If there is something important to a comic, it's environments. Not only gives it the idea where the story takes place, but it also adds a mood and feeling to describe the surroundings of the action.

Anyway, I am working at the opening shot of a village that Claire's going to enter. But as you might noticed, I have a big time dealing with perspective and vanishing points. Most buildings in the panel have there own VP (vanishing point), so It will give a more chaotic and poor atmosphere. I added extra paper around my panel so that it will show the VP's and I want to get it as believable as possible. It's really tedious work, but it's the end result that counts.

Comic diary: A balance between light hearted fun and technical perfection

I always wondered what it takes to keep on working for a comic. Untill I was working on one. The first Witch Cat comic went quite fast without trouble, because I was thinking very light hearted about the progress and worked the same way. The second volume was more about thinking and doing the right things in order to get a more professional approach.

Now, with the third volume right now; I want to be so perfect as possible. This can be at times very frustrating and unforgiving, but I will in the end learn so much from it as well. So where do we have to draw the line? I think it's a balance between light hearted fun without being too precise and technical perfection. Archievement in learning and finishing the product will then go hand in hand much better.

As you can read, making something takes a lot from you as a skilled and experienced person. It's not like we're pulling these works straight out of our asses, for saying. It does not only take 'talent' but also hard work and dedication. Thus, respect for all comic creators and other hard creative workers! :)

Comic diary: Work in progress of the cover #3

I have finished the two portraits of the ladies for the cover! Only Ruan is left to do...

Anyway, these portraits were quite annoying to get right in the way I wanted. And most annoying part is... That you won't see most of it in the cover when Ruan is showing in front of them both... Well It's not too bad, since I'll show these in my gallery in the future as portrait artwork and you can see them right here ofcourse!

I've started working on some pages. I still need a lot of reference and reworking some environments... I'm quite excited though, I have a very strict deadline actually that I don't want to screw up and I'm working for the first time with A3 size paper for a small press/doujinshi. So I hope I won't bump into hiccups during the progress...

Wish me luck (and work hard)!

Comic diary: Work in progress of the cover #2

I'm almost done with the colouring of Claire, but I started on the priestess for a change of doing something else to clear my mind to work on it again later. It's good because you'll focus too much on one aspect and are not aware of simple mistakes. I can't promise though...

As you can see, I give her a mitre and a cloak as opposite from the last thumbnail versions. She's some kind of spiritual fertility worshipping priestess and she will take part of the story beginning in the third chapter. I can't tell about her whereabouts yet, but let's say It'll spice the story more up.

I'm not sure about her looks in this WIP yet, she looks a little too happy and I can't point out why I don't really like her eyes so far either.

Comic diary: Work in progress of the cover #1

As you can see, I started with Claire for no particular reason. Drawn with various pencils ranging from H to B5, A3 size Bristol paper. Man, working at that size is quite hard for a portrait, I tell you!

PS: I gave her the old all latex suit because she wears it when Ruan remembers her. I really don't like it because of it's simplicity. I prefer the jeans and latex outfit much, much, much more...

Comic diary: Another concept for the front cover

The second and maybe last concept for the cover page of Witch Cat #3. I gave Ruan (that sailor guy in the middle) some more space, but he's standing there like: "Why am I standing here? Can I go home now?" I'm thinking of using a combination of both, the background figures are having their own colour so it does'nt look all too confusing and blending in with each other. Fertility priestess needs more shoulders...

Comic diary: Thumbnails and concepts for the front cover

Alright, so I guess this is the first official post for my comic diary I mentioned in the last post. I have done a few thumbnails and colour them to get a good impression how I want my front cover. The first two front covers from Witch Cat, didn't get that treatment only one concept and that's that. Just too little info to work on and from what you get in the end.

I always choose one main colour for a volume so it differentiates from the other volumes. I'm also thinking about mood and what the colour stands for. A new character is introduced which is a fertility priestess and fertility is most of the time used with green or light brown.

The front cover will have this time a group of at least two persons that should draw attention as well tell a bit about them in it's current volume of that book. Enough rambling, here are some pictures: (note that this is the cover of volume 3, Chapter 2 thing is a place holder)

Starting to work on the cover of Witch Cat #3!

I will start soon with the cover of Witch Cat #3 and I made already some thumbnails to get a better idea of what I really want for a cover. I was thinking to keep a diary here when I'm working on Witch Cat #3, so to get more motivated to do almost every do something and to keep track of the progress for readers who are interested. I might toss as well at times some previews and tips about making a story and translating it into pages of panels.

Brain fart #4

You bore me...

Brain fart #3

Brain fart #2

Brain fart #1

Sporty Girl

Darkstalkers Tribute

I entered the Darkstalkers Tribute contest hold by Udon Entertainment, but since the competition was so high and good, I did not stood a change. But here it is for your viewing pleassure, I hope you guys like the paper cut out style that I was aiming for.

Claire by Blue Monika

No I haven't drawn this one, but Blue Monika did!
If you are also interested in a commission sketch, be sure to check her journal at DeviantArt here.

Her website: www.dreamchasergallery.com

Designs and unfinished illustration

Oparaha villagers designs for Witch Cat

Unfinished Witch Cat illustration