Working a little on the next track of City Silent. As usual, I want to change things up again. I've been looking at some other cartoonists' work and thought I'd try and add a little texture to the figures. Also I want to keep the distortion but do it in a kind of different way. So, this. Digitizing the more textured brushes is a little bit of a challenge but I think it's going to work ok. 

 Oh right, and I finished this today as well. Added some props up front and considered it done. But there needs to be a transition page before it. Ah, well.

 I utterly changed my mind. I didn't like the color version of this at all, but the black and white was somewhat appealing. So I went back to grayscale and will leave it at that. Not a serious portrait but a bit of fun. I think that's what it's best left as.

 Tried to make another sketch for the head. And while the sketch turned out ok, I couldn't get a painted version to work. Will try again tomorrow or will scrap this portrait. No big deal.

 Finally vectorized this and set about doing some color. And...I'm not happy with the pose. Will take another stab at this tomorrow, trying to make it less stiff and more natural. But it was still fun and worthwhile to do this way.

 Small but significant changes on the portrait. If I have time tonight, I might try and go for some colors. We'll see. Still thinking about splitting some of the current tones out. But I like it better than I did. Still feels very solid.

 Did some more work on this. Getting there. I'm worried it's too posed? Don't know. Might or might not put words behind it. We'll see. It is fun to do, though.

 Got some more work on this done. The hardest part? The lettering. I wanted it to be correct but I didn't want to trace it. And I'm glad I didn't. It has an organic feel I want while still looking like a logo. I'm not sold on the expression; I'm a little meaner in the current Procreate version so will likely work on that a little. Also might do this in more than the usual three of four colors which means I'll have to go back and take the hair out of the details layer. No big deal. Still, it's coming along. Time to sit on it and come back to it with fresh eyes.

 Might not seem like a huge difference but here's the updated sketch. Stretched it just a little and moved that one eye down a hair. Otherwise, did some erasing, editing. I think it's a lot more solid. And, frighteningly, I can see both of my parents in my face which I never could growing up.

 Should be finishing that page and making one that transitions between it and the last one but no, I'm doing yet another self portrait. I've been mentally planning this one for awhile. I noticed while looking through my gallery on flickr that I didn't do nearly as many portraits last year as I thought or hoped. Don't have a lot of subjects in mind currently so there's always me. This one's going to be a 3/4 length but I wanted to focus on the face first. It looks a little off, so I'll poke about with it in Procreate but this is the unaltered, freehand, no grid sketch I did this morning. The gesture and the t-shirt I'm wearing are what will sell this, I think. For now, this is how far I got.

 Made only a little bit of progress as this was a three movie day. First up was the new Looney Tunes movie which I rather enjoyed. Nice to see 2D animation done well for a change. Second was the new episode of "Severance" which was even more enigmatic than the last. Finally, the Rifftrax version  of "Birdemic 3: Sea Eagle" which should NOT be seen without the Riffers. So only had a little time for this. I did take ref and make a sketch of Silas that will go over most of this image. More later.

 Made a little progress on this tonight. Colors are not final at all, but man, that pink really makes the figures stand out. Silas has made a mural of him dancing, showing joy, painting just to paint. He's reaching that point where he's broken free. But how will it go over? One more track before we find out.

 Doesn't look like much yet, but this is the next page background. All those damned bricks. But I read something from artist Bill Sienkevicsz back in the 60s that said one should always do things like bricks by hand as it gives a more organic feeling. That's stuck with me all this time. It also adds a lived in look to the city, which is very necessary. So I spent a couple hours on the sketch and then a couple hours on this 'inking.' Should have some time in the next few days to finish the page. We're in transition between tracks.

                                                       

Another artist and I were chatting on and off. Out of the blue, he asked if I'd do a drawing of the main character from his comic. I don't know that anyone's ever asked me to do that before. I decided I would though wasn't sure how soon I'd get to it as, well, other things. Also, his character is well outside my norm, being much bigger in frame than I usually draw. I more or less had an idea for the pose but went through one of my oldest reference books and found one I liked better. That guy is pretty thin so I had to bulk this character, Roshim more than once to get even close. Top image is the final, second is the pencil sketch. Then, I did something I pretty much never do; red lines. I generally know my own characters well enough that I don't have to do this sort of thing. Since I wanted to do a good job, I took the extra time. He hasn't seen it yet as he lives in Finland and is asleep. Here's hoping he likes it. I think it came out well.