Another page of Ghiroy down. Sometimes I'm just in the mood. Ghiroy is meant to be fun, lighthearted. And to that end, I can often get pages of this done quicker than anything else. This page, from start to finish, took me a little over three hours, which is kind of a record for me. I don't think I skimped. The composition was very much the last thing as I added stuff, moved it around, changed my mind right til the end. The only layout I did ahead of time, well, no, I didn't do any. Sketches on the iPad, the rest on the Mac. Still used some of those grey bits underneath which really helped the three characters stand out from each other while still allowing them to be see through. Anyway. I'm taking the comic in a different direction. While the dungeon crawl is central to the story, I think we need to get them out and learn more about them. So I'm aiming them at town.

New Ghiroy page for today. Page 27 on the 27th. Did something new again with the text. Not sold on this style but I just don't like the original version, or at least, I don't want to continue to spend as much time on the text as I do on everything else. Still working on it. Also pushed the new coloring style here, too. Still doing everything in greyscale then throwing colored transparencies on top. Somehow, the colors come out much more vibrant than before. So that experiment will continue.

Because it's that kind of day.

Ten minute demo from work. Looked at my own copy of a Rembrandt self portrait and came up with this. Sometimes stuff just kind of flows out of nowhere and works. That being said, don't ask me to do turnarounds or anything with this.

Forgot to post this from last week. Latest page of City Silent. This little sub-section is definitely something that's only going to work as a whole, not so much in pieces. I like it, but, well, whatever. This is one of those days where I really wonder why I try to make comics.

Also had a spare fifteen minutes for this. Don't do Biograph as much as I used to even though there might be stuff going on. Most of it is self doubt and sadness over the fact that no one is reading the comic. Well, I'm getting some hits on Instagram, but no one downloads the free PDFs and actually READS the comic. I wish I knew what was wrong with my sense of taste and art that keeps my stuff from being appealing to people. I can only guess that it really is horrible and that the occasional beauty I see is all just fluff my brain makes up to keep me going. Or something. Biography is HEAVILY edited from what I'm really thinking. Only those few pages I posted with the words covered and one page I didn't post are really close. Maybe it's better that way.

City Silent page 55. This sequence was not planned, the lyrics were not in the original script. I realized that the city spirit's fall didn't have enough emphasis, was too much in the background. So I needed something between the last song and the next, where Silas realizes he's alone. That being said, I think the sequence is working pretty well, and I'm not only happy with the imagery, but the change in palette. I know the dull orange is my fault, and it is kind of perfect but something different is nice, too. This sequence will only last a few pages and then I'll move on. It should be part of the last song, so I'll have to adjust the PDF. The text is supposed to remind the reader of Howard and his opening section as if he's still there and narrating. I used the lettering style from his stuff to this end. A little bit of ink, a little bit of Procreate and mostly AD are what I used.

Another page in Ghiroy. This one isn't entirely successful. I think the poses are kind of dull. I still struggle with the character design, to varying degrees with each of my mains. Crow is the most fun to draw, Mikilo second and Fran, well, I sometimes get by. This one is also done entirely in grays with overlays that gives an overall color scheme I do really like. The fog, too works better with a gaussian blur. So, little step even if not an exciting page.

City Silent page 54. This section has been hard to thumbnail. I worked on the next song and was, for some reason, diverted into Marc Chagall, an artist I hadn't really thought much about before. I got it into my head that I'd use his sort of wild playfulness for this next song and go with it. Then I set aside those thumbs for a week and realized I had no idea what I was thinking. Also, the city spirit's 'fall' wasn't nearly as obvious or as much a 'thing' as it needed to be. So I went back to the songs and wrote in a little interlude, a dream sequence for Silas. It's short, but I think does what the story needs it to do. This won't last long, four pages, I think, and then will lead right into song #4. Don't know why this one's harder than the rest except I really don't want to just do images of Silas painting and nothing else. Eventually there will be other characters, but not til act 2. So I need to keep things interesting. Maybe I will use that sort of Chagall-like approach.

Ghiroy page 25. Been two months since I posted for this comic, but that's ok. It's meant to be something I do when I feel like it. And since almost no one's reading it, I don't feel pressure. Took a new approach to the comic this time. I'm trying to get back to the character design I established in only one image, that of the 'cover.' It's more fun and cartoony. I think the style was getting to 'realistic,' and I wanted to fix that. This time, I did the whole page in shades of grey and then used a blue overlay for the whole thing. It's a bit monochrome but I think has a tiny bit of creepiness the other pages didn't by being so colorful. Also made sure the fog was blurred, which I think helps. Don't mind the font as much as I thought I would and it makes things go a lot faster. So, page 25. Which means it's half as far along as City Silent.

I kind of like to draw Crow. Wish I had the same passion for the others. Time will tell. Might very well use all of these for the next page, when I get around to it.