I am amazed this page came together as quickly as it did. I started it after dinner, after an episode of "Face-Off" with my partner and still got it done before 11. I did take a reference photo the day before, but still, I'm amazed. And I'm really happy with it. Even though it's a 'filler' page, one meant to show movement, action only and gives a break in the song, I like how it turned out without really any prior planning. The way things fit came as I made each piece. Once in awhile, things seem to just WORK.

Six months between pages. Well, it happened in Tamino as well. Maybe I needed a break, maybe I needed to deal with things, maybe I had to wait for that fire to re-light itself. Don't know. While there's no audience for this comic, it's nothing new with the rest of the catalog either. Maybe I've come to better terms with that and can continue on. Because I want to see this done. I still believe that this will be my last long-form comic. This page is one of the reasons; consistency is not one of my strengths and the difference between this page and the last is rather stark. Looking back at the comic as a whole, it really stands out. Well, so be it. I'll embrace that. I changed materials; none of this was done on paper and it went a lot more easily. Procreate has become my main art-making tool. I'm sure at some point I'll have some kind of issue with that, like finding old drawings whose ink has faded or turned color. Nothing is forever. For now, I hope I can keep going with this. 61 pages in and I've only just got started.

Late last night, morning abstract. Been watching people make abstracts on YouTube and I kind of missed it. I miss real paint a bit, too. While the iPad and Procreate are awesome, there are things that feel utterly different with paint. So there may be some rolled canvas and house paint in my future. My sister liked this well enough that she wants me to make a print of it for her. So... success?

Did a test fit tonight. This is the new Basher, minus the black makeup around the eyes and mouth. It's HEAVY. Think it looks good, though. I'll do a follow up tomorrow after I've died. :"D

It's Orc Season Eve! Tomorrow is the first day of the local Ren Faire. My partner and I will do our usual cosplay which is somewhat involved. For whatever reason, I've never documented the whole costume. I changed almost the whole thing from last year. The only parts that remain from the old costume are the pants, boots, mask, gauntlets, chain and goodie bag. The armor, kilt and shoulders are all new. This adds a lot of weight I managed to strip off but I think it helps Basher look more rough. The Lorica and cloak I had made him look too clean to me. We'll see how it goes. There's usually some adjustments along the way. The kilt is the only hand made part and it was a pain in the ass. My partner did most of it. He also did most of the initial grunt work in drilling holes to attack the yak and goat fur to the pauldrons as well as the padding that will make Basher look about twice as broad as he actually is. It's all good fun. And we get a lot of people who want photos. This year, we got one more fan than we knew about: the Faire itself. My partner texted me this poster the Faire is using to help sell tickets. Makes me kind of tingly to be noticed that much. And before anyone asks, no, there's no compensation for this and that's fine. We don't want to be beholden to the Faire in any way. Then they get to tell us where to be, what to do. We go as customers, not workers. That way, we're free to do what we want.

I started re-reading the Sandman comics. It's been a long time. Decided I wanted to do a quick sketch of Dream. Since I'm the easiest model for me to use, I used me. Quick, easy sketch and it worked out pretty well.

Finally finished this after having a whole day of bad attempts. I kind of wanted something very painterly but it just wasn't coming together. Sometimes I think the image knows what it really wants. After looking over my recent attempts at portraiture, I saw that I was going back to lines, something that has been central to what I do for a long time. So I inked the sketch instead of painting it. That was a misstep but I came back and inked it again and this time, I think it worked. Something came to me either in bed or the shower, two great places to get some thinking done. I decided to ink only him to help him stand out. All the rest of the shapes were done separately in Procreate to keep those nice, textured strokes. This tested Procreate as I went way past the limit of 14 layers at the size and DPI of the file I was making, so I had to keep making marks, exporting then clearing layers to get it done. In the end, the folder with stuff made for this holds 65 elements from original sketch and brushed shapes for shadows, highlights and details to the vectorized versions of the same. Once I got the process down, it actually went pretty quickly. I wanted to spend the most time on his face and make the rest of the details less defined. I think it works. For the palette, I sampled colors from one of Rembrandt's self-portraits. I do love brown but wouldn't have otherwise chosen it as with the inked style, I tend to lean towards brighter and less natural colors. I think the browns work well here, even if I cheat and use them for things they wouldn't really represent, like the lights. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. Dr. Hutchinson, though, won't let me hang it in the house. :"D

After having watched all those portrait shows, having ordered a really good book of contemporary portraits ("500 Portraits; 25 Years of the BP Portrait Award")I wanted to try something with a lot more background to it, something more of a scene. As it turned out, I had managed to snap a photo of my partner while on a crowded T train when we were visiting Boston last year. His expression seems rather vulnerable and candid. It's both him and not him and I really wanted to paint it. So I spent a bunch of today working on the drawing. Just had time to start with the digital paint tonight. I think it's going to be black and white with only slight color but we'll see. Here's the WIP.

Two alternate views of the Straker image. One has just the grey parts, each used for a different color in the final, and the other has the grays and the black lines of the portrait. There's something to be said for all of them.

As per the advice, and my own feelings about those textures, I decided to plan a portrait out with the idea of using the textures ahead of time. This meant a different approach, not unlike, I'm guessing, setting up a silk screen print. I did all the main work in Procreate, using a grid and reference photo. Then I inked the lines. After, I made a new layer for each color, filling them in with black so that I could vectorize the results without trouble. Pulling it all into AD, I had to play with each layer to get what I wanted and even then, I think, in the future, I will stick to fewer textures or at least try and get a better idea of how they all work. For my first real attempt at doing something like this, I'm pretty happy with it and think it would print well. Might be worth finding out.