Curse of the Eel has 1 Million Views on Tapas!

 Hello everyone, I wanted to post this before but my end of the year has been hectic, but Curse of the Eel has hit a really cool milestone! My comic has 1 million views on Tapas, which is amazing! I'm really lucky to have made a story that can be enjoyed by people, and I hope everyone will continue to enjoy Eel as the story enters its final acts!

https://tapas.io/series/Eel/info

Here is an illustration I made for the occasion! Thank you for reading!

Curse of the Eel Volume 2

Hello all, I hope you're all doing well despite the quarantine and all the other craziness going on in the world. Unfortunately a number of the shows I was planning to attend this year have been postponed, which is the safe thing to do of course, it's just a bit of a bummer. However, I did get my restock of Curse of the Eel Volume 1 as well as my brand spanking new Volume 2! This book collects chapters 7-11 of the comic that began as my thesis and has become the flagship title that shows people how I write and draw my own stories!

Curse of the Eel is about a goth girl named Connie whom, in volume 1, accidentally summons an Eldritch creature known as the Eel to earth. In volume 2, things have taken a turn for the worse as the cult responsible for all of the madness in Connie's life is making big strides in their dark plan. The question is, will Connie be able to do anything about it, especially now that it looks like she and the Eel are turning into one being?

You can pick up the volumes from my store HERE! I'll still be shipping despite the quarantine, but I'll only be shipping at the end of each week, just to stay safe myself. Also, because this is a crazy time and I appreciate your support, each order with an Eel book will get a free bonus illustration of Eel eating a different food! I'll include some of the ones I've already done here to show what they look like!

Thank you for reading and take care! I'll have more art to post soon!

Volume 2 Cover!

Chapter 7 that I love!

Chapter 8 page of horror!

Chapter 9 page that I'm quite proud of! Environmental storytelling!!

Chapter 10 page of the cult person showing their power and fury!

Chapter 11 page that summarizes Eel and Connie's relationship

Eel Bonus Art: Dippin' Dots!

Eel Bonus Art: Okonomiyaki!

Eel Bonus Art: Buffalo Wings!

Curse of the Eel ch7 Cover Process

Here's a little look at my art for the cover of Eel 7. I don't have the pencils scanned, I was really excited to ink this. At first, I did not plan for the cracks on the face of the red side. My theming with these, was to show the difference in planes that was so prevalent in Lovecraft's work that inspired me to make Eel. His thoughts were that the universe was infinitely vast and complicated and humans grasp of it was limited, so I tried to visually show two opposite but complimentary worlds: human and non-human. With the end of Eel 6, that split is breaking, and upon inking this cover, I had the idea to show that cracking here. For the first time, the two worlds are linked, and based on this cover, it can't be good.

My tools here were:
Inks: Raphael 8404 #4 brush and Deleter Gpens with FW and Maxon black inks
Paper: Stillman and Birn Beta paper

I hope you enjoy the cover and Eel 7 when it's out.

Curse of the Eel Chapter 7 WIP

Here are a few pages of pencils and inks from Curse of the Eel 7, as spoiler free as I can make them.

I started drawing these as my work on Spencer and Locke was coming to an end, I'm not even really sure what I can share of that work at this point, so Eel it is. These were a fun break from buildings and such, and I feel like I got to play with my brush a lot on these. I hope that the framing is interesting and that you're left wondering who that person in the hoodie is.

Tools: Prismacolor Turquoise leadholder with Faber Castell B Lead for pencils
Inks: Raphael 8404 #3 brush, Deleter G-pen and FW Acrylic Ink
Paper: Stillman and Birn Beta paper, the best for drawing comics

Curse of the Eel Ch 6 pgs 1-5 Inked

It's been too long since I had a comic update! Since I can't really show what I'm working on for publishers or for pitches, I'll share my most recent inks of Curse of the Eel. If you'd like to see the pencils for these pages, click HERE.

Inking Curse of the Eel is the most fun. I use a Raphael #3 brush to do most of my lines and that allows me to ink fast and expressively. I've started using Zebra brush pens to help me do fine lines, just because I want spare my wrist since my day job in graphic design is also demanding of my wrist. I'm inking as always on Stillman and Birn Beta paper, the surface is super accepting of pencil and ink and I've still yet to find a paper that is as much fun to ink on as it is to pencil on.

This was a fun chapter for Eel, I got to delve into some of the actual horror stuff that's been brewing since chapter 1. I got to draw 2 monsters in this issue, so I'm happy. I didn't think I was so into horror when I started Eel, but I've become really fond of it now. I still listen to H.P. Lovecraft audiobooks to set the mood while I'm working. These are also the places where I get to play with my comic skills. I don't really get the chance to on my other projects so my own projects are where I can try weird things and see how the experiments go! Like that 4th page, I hope you enjoy that one!

Thanks for the read and hope you like the pages!

Curse of the Eel chapter 6 page 1-4 pencils

Hello! So yesterday I was a madman and drew 4 pages of pencils in 3 hours for Curse of the Eel. I haven't had time to really sit down and vibe with my own projects in a long while. I've been drawing pages for an Action Lab comic that I can't announce yet, so here are the pages I did yesterday.

I like to pencil loosely, I used to spend a lot of time drawing things out exactly like how I would like for them to look inked. Looking at amazing pencilers like Stuart Immonen will do that to you, but he is working with an inker, so all of that detail is needed. In my case, once I became a confident enough inker and penciler, I tried to pencil less so my inks can feel more like drawing. That has really improved my speed, to where if I had the time I probably could do this entire chapter, pencils and inks in 2 weeks or less. Sadly, I've got other things to focus on but for now: here is what I'm working with! I'm aiming for this to be out for SPX 2016 which I have a table for! More details soon!!

Still Alive! Curse of the Eel 5 inks

After several months of no computer, I'm back and ready to share some art. 2015 ended kind of rough but I'm ready to make 2016 a much more productive year. On that note, here are some pages from Curse of the Eel chapter 5!

You can read Curse of the Eel online now on Tapastic, Tumblr, and Smackjeeves!

Curse of the Eel Ch4 Cover process

Here's another post for Curse of the Eel, this time for chapter 4's cover art. I'll go into a little detail about making this that I don't usually do on my other social media. Here we gooo! (I'll be at SPX on Sept. 19-20th at table J-13 so come by for books and laughs!)

These covers have been really easy to do. Relying on a simple layout set up has been the best thing, the books all feel related but have enough differences that they stand apart. I did struggle with this one though as the creature on the cover here is a mystery. It hasn't properly revealed itself in the comic itself, so even this is a clue to what it's going to be. I also wondered which character to put here, since the chapter doesn't focus on a new character, I decided to go with Connie but to raise her higher in the frame than in chapter 1, to show that she's getting better, even though things are getting worse. The hand lettering has also been really fun, although I hope I can keep it from being less confusing. This time it kinda was. You'll see in the inks.

I LOVE improvising. The greatest tool I've used since graduation has been that, and I do it a lot on these covers. My pencils used to be a lot tighter, it was me trying to really show people I knew how to draw, but what it also lead to was boring art. I was also taught to enlarge and trace over my thumbnails, but once again, it led to not fun results. I get why people do it, but to me, this isn't drawing, it's tracing. Same thing with inking over incredibly tight pencils, it's not drawing, it's tracing. I also wanna put forward that this isn't art theft tracing, what I mean is, when a step tells me exactly what to do in the next step with no room to play with the new method or tool, it just feels like work. I much prefer a loosely penciled page that I can have fun drawing with a brush and ink on. The results are a LOT better, and I'm finally understanding how to really shape forms with my brush. I've improved greatly in inking in a short time by being more loose, so I think there's merit to it. Draw how you want, that's what is most important. If it's not fun, don't do it.

There's not much to say on this stage, I'm not the best on coloring so having these preset and striking colors has been a godsend! I probably won't add more colors to them in the future, so I hope they're at least somewhat interesting to look at!

Thanks for reading!

Curse of the Eel Inks Ch4 page 8-13

More pages from Curse of the Eel chapter 4. I've inked thru 16, only 4 more to go and I can begin lettering the book! I'm really excited for SPX, I'll be at table J-13 if you can make it!

As usual, pages are inked with a Raphael 8404 #3 brush with FW Acrylic ink on Stillman and Birn beta paper

Curse of the Eel c4 p1-7 inks

Hello internet! Here are some pages of inks from the next chapter of Curse of the Eel. I've been working on this one again finally, and I'm really happy with how these are turning out. I switched to a new brush and I'm getting really great lines from it. I used a Raphael 8404 #3 brush, which is the same size as the last brush I was using, it's just not as battle worn. That brush lasted me about a year, that's pretty good I think. Anyhow, here are the inks. The paper is Stillman and Birn beta paper. It's the only paper I really trust to do pencils, inks, and watercolors on.

My plan is to have this chapter printed by SPX on Sept. 19-20, so wish me luck!