My Comics are on Sale!

Remember these titles? Well I finally set up a Big Cartel store so if you like you can pick up some of these books! The books are Pixie Punk, Riot Against My Happiness, KCNO (my best graphic novel), The Looming Deadline and Calla of the Sea. Thanks for all the views and for giving my art and stories a chance! Click on the link above or on the link in my page bar above.

Calla of the Sea Cover Colored

The cover has been colored. I have to state again, color is not my strong suit and I struggle against it constantly, but I did my best to convey the idea of the comic without over-rendering it or just losing any sense of subtlety.

Also, super thanks to my friend Melody Ledford who created the brush I used to get the lighting and shadow effects. She used it on her art better than I did, but it sure did make conveying different layers of depth a whole lot easier. Check out her art at: http://sheet-music-melodies.tumblr.com/

Now to head home and get this thing into a pdf!

UPDATE: Added the file with the title and my name.

Calla of the City Cover Inked

I inked this yesterday and started working on the colors and forgot to post it. Here it is; I really think the china marker brings this image together. I inked it with my Raphael 8404 almost completely, mainly to give it a sense of the buildings covered with algae and other settling elements. This was also a chance to play with fun composition and more explicitly show the city wasteland that isn't really important to the main plot of Calla of the Sea but one that I feel gives the story an added element of dread.

I also like that this image could be either be the start of the story, or even the end, with Calla finding a new boat with potential love interests. Oh ambiguousness.

Calla of the Sea Cover Pencils

I need to take Calla to the printers soon, but because of school and other things I've not had a ton of time to dedicate to a cover. I painted one before but I think this is more interesting. I'll try to ink and color it before the 28th so I can get to an early bird discount at my local printer. The inks will be coming soon!

Calla of the Sea colors

In my spare time between classes I've been working on coloring Calla of the Sea. Compared to the work I did in my digital coloring class at SCAD, I think I've gotten a lot better at rendering and color choices. It definitely helps when you draw figures and objects with a definite volume, which I didn't really grasp at the time I took the class.

I think this is a positive step in the direction of being acceptable in all the areas of comic making. Now to see if I can keep it up. Also thanks to all of my SCAD friends who gave me advice on coloring these pages. You guys really helped me push it further than I thought I was pushing it.

Also I don't remember if I mentioned this when I posted the inks, but I made this comic for SEQAPunch's comic anthology and it was chosen as one of the featured comics in the book! Check out their site: http://www.seqapunch.com/index.php and maybe get a copy of the anthologies!

Calla of the Sea complete!

Here is the finished art for Calla of the Sea, inked and lettered.

These pages I inked with a Raphael 8404, which is a change from the usual Winsor Newton's I use. Honestly, it feels like a perfect brush, I had all the control over it I could ask for and it felt more sturdy in my hand. I still like and will use the Winsor Newtons but I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked the Raphael.

My inking strategy this time around is trying to focus on bounding lines and keeping the art unified. I love the use of bounding lines in Wade Von Grawbadger's inks so I was trying to channel him while at the same time trying to keep things that I like in there. Overall I think its a success, concentrating on an area and the lines within it really helps me stay focused on line weight and how that influences the panel. I was still able to do wispy lines, but they feel more controlled now, so I'm happy with that. I also tried to break away from as much of the dark noir shadows that I've tended to use a lot. My inking professor Shawn Crystal recommended I try to find a balance of their use, so here is my first attempt at it.

I'm happy enough with these pages, which I'm sure will change in a few days. But I did my best on them, so it's time to move on to other things. Next time I want to try inking while channeling the inks of Chris Samnee who is an artist I very much so admire. I played a little bit with it in the bodies in the last page of Calla. I think that's a good natural step, as I've spend the last year getting better at drawing the figure, so now I can start focusing on good use of contrast on them.

Thanks for reading and I hope Calla was enjoyable! It's certainly a step up from the pages I was working on a year ago.

Calla of the Sea pencils

My entry for the Seqa Punch anthology. I wanted a project to work on between quarters so my comics comrade Crystal pointed me in the direction of this anthology. I wrote up a script speedy quick and started to work on it immediately. I think it's a level up as far as my pencils go from the last pages I did for class. I'm currently working on the inks, and I'll post them here as soon as they're finished.