Flowers for Venus Inks Wave 1

Not every page from pencil wave 1 has been inked, but Dragon Con is this weekend and I needed some fresh inks for my portfolio. So here are the first three pages.

Page one was fun and interesting in that the most amount of work went into the environment. I would say that's the prevailing focus on all of these pages, is making the environment something foreign and creepy. Since this comic is meant to be read digitally (once I figure out the program to add in all the panel transitions; if anyone knows, please share the program please!) the comic will actually begin on a pure black screen with the first panel (with nnnCHK) simply outlined in white. There will be a transition to panel 2, where you see sparse lighting effects; I was trying for that funky flashlight effect, where it stutters before coming to life fully. The third panel was the most fun, which I mainly did with the G-pen nib, using the brush only for the figure and the black spotting in the crater.

Page 2 is mainly establishing the character of Noah and his struggle out of the crater. I've not drawn the final transition panel yet, which will cover panel 3. Here he's looking down, but in the transition which will fade from this panel, Noah will be looking up and seeing where he is before the reader will. There's less to say on this one since it's more obviously straightforward.

And page 3, we see the surface of Venus, which is really interesting. Venus has such thick greenhouse gasses in its atmosphere that very little light ever makes it down to the surface. As such, the planet would be insanely dark, so I was trying to illustrate it based on a NASA photo I was given on what a composite of Venus would look like based on radar data. Venus also has a HUGE amount of pressure on the surface equal to about a kilometer into an Earth ocean. So I was trying to simultaneously show the darkness of the planet and also the swirling wave like torrent of pressure that exists on this planet. Venus is very interesting, so I had fun trying to get all this across, which ends up having a Van Gogh Post-Impressionist painting feel to it. I don't mind it, but I hope at least that even if it doesn't look like Venus that it at least looks like this man is on an alien terrain. I can't wait to draw more scenes of the Venutian surface, although it did take me a while to ink the sky. I used brush exclusively on this page. I was also testing out some ideas I've taken from my professors at SCAD but also applying inking techniques I've seen used by Wade Von Grawbadger when he inks Stuart Immonen. It's less evident here as it will be in the next page. Which I'll try to post up as soon as I can.

Thanks for letting me share!

Flowers for Venus Pencils wave 1

Here are the first 8 pages of pencils for Flowers for Venus. While I will print this up in the end game, the ultimate goal is for these pages to be read on a tablet or a computer so I hope the flow and panel counts make sense when that's kept in mind. I pencilled these on Stillman and Birn Gamma paper, 11x14 which was just big enough to fit into my carry-on while I was away. Penciled in F lead, I played around with using blue line (both shades) for my character underdrawings and I had mixed results. The non photo blue is too light for me to really make a good drawing call on and the blue col-erase lead is so dark that it's hard to remove with erasing or even adjusting the curves in photoshop. I may just stick with my 2H pencil and F lead holder for these, as that's what feels most natural.

I hope these make for an interesting read!

Comic Journal and Sketchbook update

Here's another comic journal. This one is a bit late, but I haven't had access to a scanner in a while. This one is from July 18, 2012. I still think its funny though.

 The rest of these are drawings of people that I've been inking with Microns. I'm having fun doing quick ink studies with the pens in my sketchbook. Before my goal was just to practice drawing people for anatomy's sake, but with these I was aiming more for how I would take a live model and simplify their features into a form I would like to draw in a comic. These are my steps in discovering my personal art style.

I wish I had brought my brushes with me, but this was still fun exercise.

 My favorite director, Christopher Nolan.

Some of my childhood heroes.

Flowers for Venus thumbnails

Here are a few thumbnails for a short comic I'm working on. I hope to have it ready to go by AWA, but I just wanted something to work on that I'm really happy with this summer. It'll be 32 pages total when it's done.

The format is a bit different from my usual pages. I'm trying to make this so it can be read on iPad's and other tablets first and foremost. I made these templates myself and while they're not perfect, it's been adapting a comic to another paper size.