Requiem Sonata chapter 3 pencils and inks

Hello! I've been drawing a lot lately and I need to share them on here more. Especially since this is the main site on my business card! Here are some non-spoilery pages of Requiem Sonata which I inked 18 pages of for Inktober!

My tools here are Zebra and Kuretake brush pens, Pentel Hybrid Technica pens in my Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook.

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.

Summer and Autumn

So I've been motivated to paint more and to focus on illustrations instead of just my usual ventures, so I decided to take a leaf from Alphonse Mucha's book. I loved Mucha's work a lot in undergrad, and at a friend's place recently I saw large prints of his Seasons, and I decided to try my hand at it. Here are my Summer and Autumn.

Tools: Watercolor, gouache, and water soluble pencils
Paper: Stillman and Birn Delta sketchbook

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!

Q is for Qiang

Q is for Qiang, Zhi's older brother.

Qiang is a prodigy much like his sister, only at the violin instead of the piano. Qiang and his sister often performed together at concerts and were almost considered the idols of the classic music scene. But then he stopped performing. I wonder why, and I wonder what he's been up to.

Tools: Prismacolor Turquoise lead holder
Paper: Stillman and Birn Gamma 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!