Requiem Sonata ch 2 pages 6-10 inks

Hello again, this time with an update on Requiem Sonata. I've actually finished this chapter and have sent it to press to hopefully have books printed for SPX in September. I hope you all enjoy this sample and if you can, come by the table at the show! I'm also planning to start posting this as a webcomic soon, I'll post up more info when I have it.

Requiem Sonata is about the death of a famous classical pianist, Zhi, and how her friend, Detective Simone Durant, tries to solve the mystery of her death.

All Girl Punk Band

Desperately in need of a name, but here are some character designs I've been having fun with on Instagram, now fully scanned and color corrected. Here are the members and a short bio for each:

Mariah on drums, she assembled the band after getting annoyed with the other bands she was a part of. She's really driven to make music and to make it feel unique, but her enthusiasm wasn't shared by her former bandmates. She's tough, enterprising, and bold, not taking no for an answer and she leads the girls into battle with her amazing drum skills.

Sad-ko, not her real name. She got the name because her hairstyle reminds people of Sadako, the girl from the Ring. She's a Japanese student studying in America and enjoys the loud and heavy sounds of metal. She decided to join up with Mariah because she has more ambition than most people she knows and enjoys performing in front of a crowd. Sad-ko can play most instruments but the bass is her favorite. She'll also leave her bass to play other instruments when they need her for special songs.

Carol Lynn is a country girl through and through. She grew up playing acoustic guitar, hoping one day to make it in country, but has started to enjoy the rebellious punk genre. She's currently clashing with her parents as the world changes, so she enjoys writing most of the melodies for the band. Carol is the most boisterous member of the band, she has no problem rough housing and throwing drinks back, and she will wrestle you down. She will, don't test her!

Amani is a young Pakistani-American woman who probably has ADHD. She is just bubbling over with energy, so to channel it, her parents have tried to get her into music. She's sampled every instrument, but the Flying V her parent's got her for her birthday is her prized possession. She joins the band to play music and also play the solos for the music. Her parents are huge supporters of the band and even go to some of the shows to take pictures for their site. Sometimes her brother is their roadie, when he's got the weekend off from work. Amani vies with Carol Lynn as the most boisterous member of the band, and the two have become best friends.

Makena is the vocalist for the band, coming from years and years of singing in the choir of her church. She's come into conflict with the strictness of the church and is taking a sabbatical from it to explore life and have more fun. Her faith is still important to her, but she also enjoys singing for herself and joins the band hoping for an open place to be herself. She chose pretty well!

Watercolor and Kuretake inks in my Stillman and Birn alpha sketchbook.

Requiem Sonata Chapter 2 Inks 1-5

Here are some pages I've inked of Requiem Sonata chapter 2. I hope to have it finished and ready to print for SPX this September! I'd also love to have Curse of the Eel 4 and Rare Drops 2 out by then too.

2015-06-24 Sketchbook update

Hello, I went to hang out with my friend Emma yesterday and I made some drawings in my various sketchbooks. Hope you enjoy them!

Everyone, let's love each other. Life is precious, and it's far too short to be spending it seething with hate.

Requiem Sonata ch2 pencils 16-20

Here's an update with more pages of pencils for chapter 2. I hope you enjoy them!

Requiem Sonata Ch.2 pencils 11-15

Here's another batch of pages for Requiem Sonata. I'm going to take a brief break from it, although I'm sure I'll still draw it from time to time since I can't really escape it. I have a short story I'm going to try to draw and print up for Heroes Con this. Wish me luck!

Pencils as always in my Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook!

Requiem Sonata Ch.2 Pencils 1-10

Here are pencils for the first 10 pages of Requiem Sonata chapter 2. I'm still drawing them in my Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook, which is 9x12 inches and is considerably smaller than my usual working size of 11x17. Still, I find this really comfortable. The panels don't seem to be stopping me from doing dynamic work, so I'm grateful for that, and in fact, working smaller allows me to be more flexible with work anywhere. I haven't been super productive lately due to work woes and life woes, but when I can scribble a few panels I feel a ton better.

My pencils now are a lot messier because I like to have room to play in my inks. Instead of refining the lines down to the final one, I keep them loose and let inker Jorge decide which line is best, or if needed, redo the area. This adds a lot to my speed because I'm not sitting and dwelling over problems, the me of tomorrow is a better artist than the me of right now, so leaving things up to his more skilled eye is a great confidence boost. Anyhow, here are the pages!

M is for Marie

M is for Marie, a character from KCNO. The entire book is available online to read here: KCNO

Marie is not a character who was very popular, in fact for most of the book, people tended to dislike her because she had ideas that ran against the other characters of the comic. I think characters like Marie are ESSENTIAL to storytelling. To create characters the audience can disagree with, that is important to creating a world that feels real. Too often I'll read a comic, or watch a movie, or see a tv show where characters are all in agreement, or it's a character who is so unlikable that you hate them, but either of those can be boring. Like, SUPER boring! Character's should feel like people, not motivations, or cut outs or NPCs in a video game. A good character, whether you agree with them or not, is a character you want to see become better, no matter what they do or who they hurt, and Marie does hurt some people in KCNO. But I find that most people, after they read the book, like Marie a lot because she does become a better person. She's one of the more dynamic characters in the story in that she makes amends for being a jerk and she ends up happy. I don't think I knew what I was doing when I created her, but I think now I understand why a character like her is so important to good drama.

Tools: Pentel pocket brush pen
Paper: Stillman and Birn gamma sketchbook

L is for Lucio

L is for Lucio, one of the heroes of my short all ages comic: Rare Drops!

Lucio is a young mage who wants to be known as a great wizard. He and his partner Arya adventure around the world, seeking rare treasures and hoping to become better warriors and have fun in the process. Rare Drops is sort of my love letter to fantasy and rpg games I used to play as a kid. I used to love putting the game away and then going outside to adventure on my own, so Rare Drops was a chance to rekindle that magic.

If you'd like to read the first book of Rare Drops, you can find it HERE! The book is also for sale in my shop for just $5 HERE!

Tools: Pentel Pocketbrush and Kuretake white ink
Paper: Stillman and Birn gamma sketchbook.

Curse of the Eel Ch3 Process

Here are the 3 art stages for the cover of Curse of the Eel chapter 3! The first book is chapter 1 and 2 together, so there hasn’t been a chapter 2 cover yet. When I reprint it, I’m going to make them only a chapter per book, it’s cheaper to print that way oddly enough.

Connie is a frustrated goth girl who is being bullied. One day she is chased into an abandoned shack and accidentally summons an eldritch-like eel creature into our world. Connie is horrified however to find that the Eel is a soft spoken meddler who loves to eat and watch Oprah. With the Eel as her only friend, Connie tries to navigate high school life with as few troubles as possible. Good luck with that.

Tools: Raphael 8404 #3 Brush and FW Ink
Paper: Stillman and Birn Beta paper.

Requiem Sonata Inks pages 13-16

So I've been working on pages and other things a bunch lately. I've also gotten more hours at work so my days at a computer outnumber my days at my desk. I'm fine with having a day job especially when it starts really helping me make it through the weeks so comics can come out effortlessly. These pages aren't quite effortless and I think they show it, but still I want to share them. I'm thinking the next batch will be better.

Also I owe a HUGE inktober post. It's almost impossible to keep up with this blog on a daily basis so a lot of my inktober posts went straight to my Instagram which has become my in progress art blog. This one is more scholarly I suppose, but soon I'll compile those posts on here. Or try to. We'll see! Some of these pages were Inktober entries so there is that too.

So these pages are inked with Zebra and Kuretake brush pens primarily. I like using them at this size (7.5x10.5in) over a brush simply for comfort. Holding a brush at this size is murder on my fingers so this is the best way to do it. As usual these pages are drawn in a Stillman and Birn sketchbook, which is a new thing I was trying to keep my comic making mobile. It has its pros and cons but ultimately going smaller was not a bad decision. I feel like I'm getting rid of all of my excess and focusing only on the necessary. This will help when I get back into my 11x17in pages, which I will once the first chapter of this story is in the can.

For now, please enjoy Requiem Sonata pages 13-16!