Got some work done on these today thought not as much as I might like. Got all the background elements done which includes the bricks and drips for each page. Took reference photos and managed to get the Silas figure done for the first of the four. His sizing really should put the mural in perspective and I like how it's working out. Four pages, four lines. I think there's one more stanza after this and the first track of Act 3 will be done.

I suppose it doesn't look like much, since I already finished Silas' painting, but getting this split into four pages, evenly spaced from the top was a bit of work. There will be a suggestion of bricks in the background but they need to be thinner than the brush I've been using. There also need to be props and some overspray so the image doesn't look too perfect, or perhaps just some drips. Something. I also have to decide how big this is, how big to make Silas in comparison. And he has to sign it. So still a ways to go, but then four pages will be added to the stack.
 

 Got this far today, after doing the grocery shopping, mowing the lawn and doing the podcast. Might get some more in, but this is the background for the next four pages. Well, the painting ON the background. And then there's Silas to model, draw and render as well as the text. Things are moving, which is good, still a lot to do.

 Got this part of the next four pages done. Doesn't look like much now, though it's already something like 33 layers. This is only part of the background as it's meant to look like something Silas painted. There will be alley stuff underneath this, I still have to paint Tamino atop it then Silas and the lyrics. Funny, I've been dreading dealing with Silas' own work for a long time as I wasn't sure what style it would take, what it would look like, how it would be different from other graffiti and then I just did it. Here's hoping it works.

 Getting started on the next set of pages for the comic, I want it to look like Silas is painting that spread I just recreated from Tamino. The colors will change a lot as usual but I wanted the strokes to show and will likely throw some drips in there somewhere. The one thing that will change a lot is that Tamino will not be a ghost figure. This will spread over four pages just like the original. If I can't reference my work, who can?

 And done. It wasn't so hard as I thought it might be though I didn't realize til I was about 80% through that I'd zoomed in the background a bit on the original. Oh, well, not going to change it now. Doesn't really matter. I still like this image very much and it's still my favorite spread of that comic. I would like to get it printed someday and now I can. It makes me happy.

 On Facebook today, a 'memory' popped up. Seven years ago, I was working on page two of "The City Silent." Seven years ago. Page two. I am not on a speedy track. But that's ok. I decided that, instead of posting the 'memory,' and what I had to say at that time, I'd post the finished page two, the current finished page and an image of my books. Had to fake some of the books; couldn't find my copies of "Fite!" which is disturbing as I don't know where they would have gone. And there is no hard copy of "Fite Comics Shorts." So I just shoved their cover images on top of a photo of the physical books of "Biography," "Harlon," and "The City Dreams of Tamino the Cat." It's a reminder to me that I have accomplished something and that I can and will finish "City Silent," even if it's not tomorrow. I need to do these things every so often. It's good for me.

 What the hell is wrong with me? I'm referencing my favorite spread of Tamino, the prequel, sorta, to City Silent. While it's been fine so far to simply draw over the original scans of the elements of those pages, I've always wanted to be able to make a print from that spread but have never got around to stitching the pages together to be able to do it. For some reason, I decided to do so tonight. Since I have all the original elements, I thought it would be easier to just vectorize the original scans, which were made at 300 dpi and go from there. And only now do I see the limitations to that program. The top image is a screen shot of the original drawing, livetraced in AI back when I used it. The bottom one is the best I could get it in SuperVectorizer. I was a bit disappointed. Might be that I simply don't know how to fine tune the results from that program as its smoothing of my work has become part of the process as I make comics now. The bottom image was just too muddy and I couldn't deal. Problem was, the originals scans are all cut into four parts to spread over four pages. What's worse, I cut sections out of the drawings corresponding the space between said pages. What to do? Take each section of the outlines, which AD has decided must all now be totally separate bits with their own separate layers, copy them over and try and stitch them together by hand. That ended up looking like this:

The top one shows me partially along but you can see where the splits are. To make these as seamless as possible, I had to zoom in really, really closely. While a pain in the ass, it honestly wasn't all that bad. And when done, I WAS able to merge all the stuff together into one, big outline so I didn't have to have four different layers with who knows how many sub layers...well, sort of. Regardless, this is where I'm at now:

It worked out pretty well, and the lines for the buildings, because they're so much more squared off, look fine as they are, so I won't have to be messing with those. The entire panoramic background is one big piece. I'll recolor the whole thing and then think about how I can make a print out of this. I might tweak the colors somewhat as the old version was a bit monochromatic. All in all, even though there's no real reason for me to do this, I'm pleased with the results. I'm just glad that I can still work those files. Someday, I won't be able to any more.

 And I got a chance to finally finish this as well. Took a lot of tweaking, a third version and, in the end, I went back to one of the previous ones as I liked it better. I think there's a kind of old Dutch portrait feeling to this. Joe Wilkinson, a very dry, British comic is also a very brown personality, right down to the brown suit he always wears. I think he's really funny, personally and he almost always has this kind of dull, disaffected expression which is what I was trying to capture. It wasn't easy.

 Finally got a day off so I could finish this page (and watch this week's podcast movie). Each page is often a puzzle or a problem to be solved and this one was no exception. That being said, it wasn't that hard to solve and I'm pretty happy with the way it turns out. Silas has to start taking a stand and believing in his work so I tried to make him feel more confident and broad in his moves. Before, the only time he showed that was when he was angry. So here's a few more expressions. It's hard when your main character can't talk and has a bill. 

 A little progress. I work too much and absolutely hate my job. So moving ahead can be harder than I'd wish. Still, it sometimes helps the art. I moved the characters from the left side to the middle, stretched them out a bit and I like it better. Still not sure how I'm going to get the text in but I'll figure it out.