I've been looking at the work of Ashley Wood recently and really enjoying his loose and flowing brushwork. To be fair, I've done this kind of thing in previous work, mostly with the portraits I've done in acrylic. I've been buying 'real media' brushes for PS for a long time and only rarely using them even though I like their effects quite a lot. So, since the comic is pretty much done, I thought I'd take one of the images I'd inked and poke about with some digital paint as well. I can totally see doing a comic in this style thought I MUST RESIST redoing this one all in this style, as appealing as it might be. A good bit of fun before work.

Last page of the comic. It turned out a good deal sadder than I thought it would and I'm ok with that. I'm sure tragedy like this happens to young people all the time. It's likely a reflection of my own grief in the loss of my mom as well. I think, too that there is still a huge pressure on the 'average straight man' to not show emotions other than anger or some happiness, the latter only mostly in regards to sports or other 'manly' things or with intimacy. Anger is ok for some reason as it's 'manly' or something. I don't know. I know that when it came time to grieve for mom, I couldn't do it in front of anyone, not even my partner. I have no idea why. So this throwaway comic is for all that, more serious than I thought it would be and it allowed me to explore some stylistic things as well. I'll likely continue with this style to some extent in Ghiroy, though not so wrinkly. I can easily see painting more with this kind of style and will likely do so.

This is the longest piece I've done since Tamino ended. Not sure what, if anything that means.

Page 30 of what is definitely not the happiest comic I've ever done. One more to go. Then I'll likely go back and edit the thing as a whole. I've had some feedback here and there on it, and it's quite obvious that I didn't do this all at once. The style change from page 1 to now is quite startling. Then again, I kind of like that, too. It's almost as if we're watching Smatt grow up.

Inked another one of these. I might well ink them all. At the very least, it preserves the drawings better than leaving them as pencil only.

Today's live stream went pretty well. It started out a bit quiet but that's ok. At the very least these things have helped me be really consistent in getting work done. Seems like a good addition to making Ghiroy and I plan to make it a part of the process. Pencil sketch, finished page and the poster I did for the live stream. This is not the happiest comic I've ever done. That's ok.

One other thing I did today was to update the Gumroad page that has Tamino on it. I did this because they now allow multiple images, which is something I think has been very lacking. I also sent a link to the comic to io9 because they say they're always looking to showcase 'cool' artists. I'm not that, but I've seen worse promoted there. And since the comic is free, I would think it's a draw. I wouldn't mind the exposure at all. I do wish I had a functioning web site, but even my clanky old one is down for good now. Too much to do, too little time...

Two more inked images from recent pages of the Smatt and Terry comic. While I don't want to go back and change the look of the comic, I did enjoy inking these and like the way they turned out. I miss ink and all that that implies. If anything.

Snuck in another page yesterday. Didn't do it as a live stream as I wasn't planning on getting to draw and didn't want to overcomplicate things. That being said, it went just fine. Today, I decided to ink the pencils just because it's been a long time since I inked anything and I miss my ink. That being said, there's things to be said for either approach though I'm glad I went with the direction I did. One thing likely lost here is that the caption at the bottom actually applies to Smatt, not the unseen characters. The point of the bottom captions, originally, was to translate the graffiti-speak because my partner (and likely others) couldn't read it. Then it became a way of interjecting some humor as well, as the captions obviously were sort of the 'polite company' version of what was being said. Now they're translating for things that Smatt simply can't say or express, and that's the point of the comic. A lot of men in American society are still made to expect that showing emotion other than excitement or anger simply isn't 'manly.' As such, they can be somewhat broken inside, unable to express what they feel without worrying about showing weakness. Smatt is very much like this and, to some extent, so am I. What was a little throwaway comic has become something of an expression of my feelings of loss over my mom two years ago. So there you go. We all deal in our own ways.

Here's the comic as it stands right now. Kind of interesting to pull back and look at it abstractly. Will it work when it's all done? Guess we'll see. Likely there will be tweaking when all is said and done.

Including something different here, one of the ref photos I posed for. Tried to look as fat as possible to mimic the mouse. Too fat for my liking, really, but that's what 50 will do to a person. Four pages to go. The pose won't change again til the last page. While doing the live streaming for this today, a couple of artist friends and I were talking about the 'typical American male' and his approach to emotion. Well, here's Smatt doing exactly that. He's broken and will likely never deal with the guilt and remorse he feels about this because that's just not what MEN are supposed to do, right? Streaming is helping me out a lot, especially by being able to connect with other people. So I'll keep doing it through the end of this comic at least.

Newest page for Smatt's Journey (though I think it's going to be called Smatt's Odyssey when it's all done). Another page done while live streaming. I'm only getting a page a week done this way, not finding time to do them otherwise, or am I saving them to have content for the stream? Could be some of both. In any case, it might be worth keeping all this in mind when starting Ghiroy. If I do that combined with a Patreon, something I would never expect to actually 'pay the bills,' it might be the motivation I need to keep a regular schedule. And it doesn't matter if I get the page done during 'the show,' as long as it gets done and a good amount of work is done because of it. As far as this comic goes, there's five more pages to go, and those a lot easier to draw as the central figure won't appreciably change.

Hey, I can bitch about this HERE because it's my blog and only one person reads it, right? Anyway, I was going through a list of supposed 'top level,' 'hot' character designers from animation, games and comics. Each had a page with representative images from their blogs, portfolios and published works. I didn't get a third of the way through it and I nearly wanted to puke. So many of them are filled with the same old pin up girl T+A crap. Haven't we gone further than this? Why is this kind of thing still lauded and expressed? It's just so awful. And some of the artists, I'm sure, think they're making "strong women characters" by having the usual nude or bikini-clad girlie carry a gun or sword, though she still has kissy-lips, a pout or is adopting a pose that's nearly physically impossible. This is a rant, indeed. It's just so ridiculous to see this kind of crap still being produced and people still being proud of it. The male characters aren't much better in that they have to be these gigantic, muscle-bound morons. It's like there can't be but one kind of each sex. I don't know. Maybe I expect too much.