Spencer and Locke Issue 1 Inks

Here are the inks I submitted for issue 1 of Spencer and Locke, which is in comic shops and Comixology today! I hope you enjoyed the book and like taking a look at my finished lineart for the comic.

My tools here were:
Inks: Zebra F Brush Pen, Pentel Color Brush Fine, and Kuretake white ink
Paper: Stillman and Birn alpha paper

Requiem Sonata Ch4 Preview

I finished another chapter of Requiem Sonata, and it took me forever to do, but this book is so near my heart that I have to do it. So I finally exhausted all of the pages of the 9x12 Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook that I was drawing it in, and all future pages will be drawn on 11x14 or 15 inch Alpha paper. The reason is, my hand and wrist pains have gotten pretty bad in the last couple of months, so to allow my wrist more room to work and ease its burden, I'm switching to a larger paper for these detailed pages. I'm happy to work at this size, and I'm actually working a lot faster because of it, so know your tools, dear readers aspiring to do comics! Knowing your tools is as important as knowing how to draw, because your tools will impact your ability, believe it or not.

So here are some pages from chapter 4, where Requiem gets more dark before taking steps toward the end. I hope my readers enjoy it and find the story fun!

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Spencer and Locke, which is my first comic to ever be published widely. I didn't write it, I did the art, so if you want to see me draw a detective with an imaginary panther for a partner, give it a look! Here's a link to some preview pages.

Tools: Deleter G-pen and Saji Pen for most of the main lines, and Pentel Color brush for fills
Paper: Stillman and Birn Alpha paper

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!

Curse of the Eel chapter 2 cover process

Sooo Curse of the Eel 2 has been done for a while, and originally I printed the chapter with chapter 1 because I thought it would make it easier to sell. Instead of selling 2 smaller books, you get one big fat book and I hoped to keep the price down by not having to print 2 covers and bind a second book when I could print them all in one. However, the printshop I was going thru was charging so much to print the book that it's just not feasible, plus the increased page count made the book so thick, it was hard to drive a staple thru. Ugh.

So I found a new printer! I'm getting test prints done now, so I'm hoping that this will make the book more affordable so i can sell them less, but splitting Eel 1 and 2 meant 2 needed its own cover. So I whipped this together yesterday! I say whipped because the thing I love about Eel is that I have a design scheme for the covers, so finding ways to make each cover interesting but following that same idea is super easy! I'll need these books because I'll be tabling at SPX next month! I'll post again when I know my table spot!

So here are the steps, pencils to inks to color for the 2nd chapter cover of Curse of the Eel!

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 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!