Fun shit. Exams are over and that has freed up quite a bit of time for me, so naturally I’ve been going out and enjoying the weather and not doing any comiking. That time is now over. I am crying on the inside, I assure you.

 

Time for comiking. It is long overdue. But I like comiking, so not really such a bad thing really. :)

 

I’m doing ‘The List’ pages too, but I have to scan those, and I’m not near a scanner.

 

Here’s a panel for a short promotional commissioned comic instead, that I am spending way too much time on. I think that this delay is produced by a tendency to be perfectionist for every detail. Hey, now that a lot of time has elapsed, I have no choice but to deliver the quality, eh?

 

Getting much appreciated support for the Anthology idea I have. Looks like that pipedream of mine that’s been bobbing in my head for the last few years might very well go somewhere, and dare I think get done. Funding looks like it will be covered. I might be able to afford to boost the production quality, although I’d say that’s a premature statement as I haven’t gotten around to getting printer quotes just yet.

And because I like transparency, I’ve put this down.

From what I conceived of it at the moment:

-         Title has not been created yet. Expect some weird name.

-         10-15 contributors

-         Invite only for first round artists, and then it’s open to others if room is available. I think this is would ensure that the quality of the work is there. At the moment, I have a fairly large shortlist, so it’s going to be hard culling it down to a mere 10-15, but then again, it also depends if anyone is up for being a contributor.

-         10-20 comic pages each

-         Full colour

-         I wouldn’t mind A5 size, but it’ll probably be the same size as another anthology called Gelatin (smaller than A4?).

-         Optional theme: Psychosomatic

-         Each author has 1-2 little pages dedicated to their biography and description of works (and pimp out their websites/contact details/whatever else).

-         Tentative 3 book anthology, where the first one will determine if the others will get done as well as if further print runs are required

-         Initial print run will be 200

-         Glossy dust cover jacket (I initially wanted a matte finish without a dust cover, but after seeing this done on another anthology where it really worked, I wanted to do this)

-         Glossy interior pages if budget allows

-         I’ll try to promote it as much as I can before its release and after, by flyers and whatnot during conventions. To help generate interest, I’ll try to include it with my works, and probably encourage other contributors to do the same if they go to cons, or to include it with their works as a freebie.

-         Each contributor gets one copy.

-              Each contributor retains the right to their work, but for the first edition, I'd like the first printing rights to include it in the anthology. For further print runs, the agreement has to be renewed with the creators for the right to print for each subsequent run.

-         I’d like the sales price per book to be around $25-$30

-         The idea is after printing costs and excluding contributor copies (at cost per unit), each contributor (including myself as I’d be a contributor) will have equal share in profits. So that means whatever is left over is split evenly amongst however many contributors there are in the book.

This can be done either as a lump sum payment when the first print run sells out or included on a per unit basis and paid in instalments after certain predetermined sales marks are made. I prefer the former as it’s less complicated for me. ;)

Maybe I’m a bit naïve, but I think that 200 print run is doable to sell out, and after printing costs are recouped, I don’t see why anyone who contributed shouldn’t be able to have profits (even if I do run at a (hopefully minor) personal loss for myself).

-         If further print runs are required, all contributors have to consent to a second printing (per book if it gets to that). If it’s not a full consensus, then it does not go ahead.

 

 

These things will most likely change during the course of the production, and this is by no means a complete list inclusive of all contingencies. So far this is an idea at its roughest design stage.

I've been doing exams. Yay me. Rest assured, I'll be posting so much when the exam period ends, you'll be sick of me. Lots of 'The List' related updates to look forward to.

Here's a little something for you.

Keep this short and sweet. I’ll post more shite later on other stuff.

Webcomic. MÜT ON A STICK: You won’t get the title unless you’re very, very ethnic AND old, old school.

I spent the better part of today doing CGing this comic. As usual, I make things difficult and don’t use reference, even at least for the colour. Goes to show that just grinding it out gets the best results for me when it comes to CG. 

I was surprised how decently I managed, at least for rendering the sky. I used Photoshop and the same old brush I always use. For some reason I’m more effective with full opacity settings on the brush. I can blend without it being a faint thing. 

If I keep this webcomic as sporadic ongoing, I should stick with it as it’ll remain interesting for me to continue. My long form comics are what I really enjoy doing predominantly,

It’s entirely “uncalled-for” humour, but hey.

In other news:

Comic a week is chugging along. I’ve been doing it, but I haven’t been posting nearly as much as I should. I’ll change that as soon as I get some obligations out of the way; which should be cleared up after 8 September.

I’ve worked on Incunabula a bit more. I’m redoing it again from the start. I’m working bigger so that my inked line work will be tighter. I found that working at A4 was too restricting, and that my inks look like some amateur did them. When I did the cover on larger manuscript paper, my inks were satisfactory. So far I’ve done the first two pages. Admittedly, they are splash pages, but the amount of detail I’ll put into them will be quiet a feat.

Since I am taking my time with these pages, I’m somewhat enjoying it. I like working on something, taking time off, and looking at it with fresh eyes. You tend to admire the results more too, as the work you put in pays off. If you rush shit, then you get shit.

Commission work is now my priority for this week (amongst all my other non-comic related priorities). I went out of the house today, and went to my Uni’s library and got some work done. These days, I cannot work at home. There are too many distractions. Internet, for one, is very, very bad for getting things done. It’s also refreshing to move about and just bask in outdoors. The library is quiet, and there’s enough space to put a laptop on the table as well as spread your page. The best thing is that it’s open until 9pm on weekdays; plenty of dedicated work time. 

The List isn’t getting a lot of love as of late. It has a tentative January release date (same like the last volume). I best get cracking on that so I can give it Tom in increments. I don’t want to do the same thing I did last year and lump it all on him in one shot to ink. As I’m sure I’ve said before (if I haven’t, I’m saying it now), I want to put more work into my pages. I felt that with each volume, my work is improving, but there’s always something that feels like a step back. I’m going to put more attention into my backgrounds, and I have to learn to adapt to Tom’s inking style. When I pencilled the last volume, I was pencilling like I would ink it myself, but Tom has a grittier bolder inking style than I do. He also takes liberties with my details. So I have to make the most of his inking style as its pretty damn good.

Henry

I’ve been throwing the idea of doing my own anthology for quiet some time now. Sure there’s the tentative Oztaku Anthology, but I want to do things differently. This is spurred on by getting other anthology comics over the years. Titles released locally like: Fist Full of Comics, Xuan Xuan, Moshi Moshi, Pirates, Something Wicked, Oztaku, Generation, et cetera; but also other international anthologies, in particular Robot and Flight.

 It’ll be a limited series of 3 collections. I think 3 is a good number, and doing an anthology one way can only last so long until it’ll stagnate. 

Ideally I want it in full colour, making it expensive from the onset. I’ve also found that there are a few artists I know of already hesitant with working in colour. I might be able to assist with that by doing the flats for them to work off, but I already see this turning into a nightmare task.

Although, the main differences that separate what I want to do from most other Aussie anthologies is the quality control. I want to choose artists that would go into it. I’ll be flipping the bill for this, so I might as well make it the way I want; and I want quality. This poses problems in itself, as getting artist commitment would probably be difficult.

I’d be acting as a default editor in chief as well, so that would be additional work for me, on top of creating content. It goes without saying, that because this is my project, I’d be doing the lion’s share of work as well, which is honestly, something I am looking forward to. I happen to like learning new shit, and because I’d be working at my own pace, I’d have the chance to enjoy it too. So pre-press, marketing, distribution, sales and customer service.

Storywise, they’ll be shorts. It can be a story spanning the whole 3 collections, or just disparate one-shots per collection. Nice and easy. It would range from 15 to 20 pages from each artist per book. If there were 6 comikers in total, and each did 15 pages minimum, then it would hit the 90 page mark. I think that having 15 pages per story is important as it would give the reader something substantial. This anthology would conceivably be shared with everyone who’d come across it, so I want those who come by it to enjoy it naturally, and come away with an experience. Ideally, I’d want the shorts to be experimental, so whoever comes across this anthology will experience something they haven’t read before, but I know not all comikers are inclined so, so this isn’t essential.

That’s it for the moment. This is only an idea. I don’t have the time necessary to devote to this…yet. I guess after July 2010, I’d have the time to do this properly. 

I’m putting this in writing so that this may actually happen in the future. By writing things down, at least I find for myself, that I eventually make my ideas happen.

Smash 2009. I'm off to Smash tonight at midnight.

I'll be at the OzTaku booth helping out and maybe working on sketches there, so I'll be promoting myself and earning money. Well, that's what I say now; I'll see how I feel at the con. If you're there, or planning to go to Smash, definitely come and say hi.

If you want a sketch, I think I can cover paper, but if you want me to draw something for you in particular, please bring a reference.

I hope there's a bunch of stuff I can bring back. I mainly go to cons for new independent works. I don't buy the shite I can get here (and choose not to buy anyway), or useless fanart. I go for the comics. That said, I am looking forward to seeing RockSalt GN and finally meeting Mark after all this time.

There's some more stuff I intend on doing there, like getting some other work done, as well as designing a business card for myself.

I suppose that's it for now. I'll post more when I get back.

Cheers


Henry

So it's been a bit between posts. For the two people reading my blog, I've probably lost them. :P

Well, I've maintained some output in my self-imposed sabbatical. I have sort of been creating one comic a week, but some I can't really show. What I will share is some development of The List. I've done this for the List website which needs some content inbetween volume launches. ;)

I'll also be making some changes to the layout of this blog. At least the banner. Probably work on a welcome picture for my DA Portfolio which has been set up recently. It's a new feature of DA, which I welcome. I don't think it's any real substitute for creating your own portfolio site, but it's better than the nothing I had. 

The List Process.


 
Here are the thumbnails of the first few of pages. What I do is I open the script in Word, and then I print it out the script so you get 2 pages on a single page. I work directly on the scripted page. It saves paper, and I don’t have to flip between pages. Also, doing more than one thumbnail on a page helps with the storytelling relationship between the pages, and makes it more cohesive overall.



Nifty fact #1: I work in traditional media, even though I am reasonably good in digital (I paint in digital though, but the main work is done on paper first). It feels better, and with art, that is what I usually go for. For me, the result doesn’t matter as much as the process. Somehow, it always works out with producing the results in the end. :P

You might notice the thumbnails are pretty weird. Thumbnails are meant to convey layout only. I used to do more detailed ones when I started working with Paul, but that was more the fact that we haven’t worked together before, so putting more detail in was a way to get across what I was doing visually to Paul. The script writing probably changed as he got more familiar with my work. 
Now, thumbnails are purely for organising what Paul has written in the script into a storytelling format, and design purposes. It’s a planning stage. I figure, that if you put too much detail into the thumbnails, you might as well be doing the finished page.  

Nifty fact #2: Oh, and the lame offhand comments written on the thumbnails are there for my own interest/amusement. :D

Page 3 is a finished page. I pencil fairly sparsely typically, because I’m used to inking my own work, and I do all my detail in that stage. But as of the last volume, I am working with Tom Bonin. Working with an inker changed my pencilling process somewhat. I had to put all the detail, as well as pencil the entire page. What I used to do was pencil the foreground and ink it, and then do the background objects in layered order. Now it’s all done at once. It feels weird doing what every other conventional penciller does.

I’ve also included a close up of my pencils. I’ve sharpened it up in Photoshop a bit to make it more crisp for intertrons viewing. As Tom is inking this, I usually leave the scans unaltered. He’ll then use whatever process he has to transfer it to paper.
Tom would probably have his own preferences on how he wants to reproduce copies of my pages to ink, and therefore altering my pencils post-scanning would just end up being a pain in the arse for Tom. 

Page four has been scanned prior to its completion just to further show how I work pencilling. If you take a look at the thumbnails for this page, the layout is roughly the same. But you still have to transfer it to a page. In this stage I chose the main things to draw and position them roughly how I want them to appear on the final page. I then adjust the layout slightly to accommodate. Thumbnails are a good indication of how the page should work, but it is by no means final. Layout is an art in itself, so my advice to anyone doing comics is to treat it with care.
Working on paper on the physical page also visually helps with composition. It’s hard for this to be replicated in a digital canvas for some reason (zooming out is not the same as standing back), so I can’t imagine myself working entirely on a computer.

Nifty fact #3: The List is a sausage-fest. Even as heavily silhouetted, as this female character is, I’ll draw the detail in, if only for the fact that it’ll be a while until another chick is in this damn script. :P


Cheers

Henry