Just got this back from Apple; it's the 'definitive' version of Tamino done as I always meant it to be. The paper is heavy and glossy, the colors deep, the blacks super black. The comic was always drawn with the idea of four pages shown at a time, and in this format, I was able to do so. There's no extra stuff in here, no behind the scenes, just the comic. And that's fine. This version cost me over $100 so there's no way to ever print them this way for sale, and really, who would buy it? It was worth doing if just to have the one copy of the comic that I can look at and know was done 'right.'

Cast update image. I've been working on the comic in the background (mostly in my head) which has been a slow moving process, I admit. That being said, I think it will be a stronger story because of some time spent with and away from it. One of the big changes is the coloring for Mikilo. The reason for this is that the world the other characters is on is foreign to them. There are elements of magical space travel in the story and I wanted to differentiate one race from another more than just with words. Since I planned for the flora and fauna to be wildly different from what we know, and planned to had odd colors I finally decided that Miki's usual coloration made no sense. It sets him apart from the other two and allows them to stand out from him a bit more. There's also a hint of maturity in these versions that's missing from some of the earlier ones, I think though everything still feels cartoony, which is something I want. Hopefully, this will allow me to move a bit forward. I could use that kind of push.

Another one for the day. Not my favorite of the bunch, partially because of the pose. There's a reason that artists don't generally do portraits with open mouths;they're much harder to do and make flattering to the subject. Still, good practice. Forgot to scan this one in pencil first.

Another day, another portrait. This time, it's an ex-coworker who kind of dared me to draw him via Facebook. I really liked his awkward, goofy grin. The photo referenced was less cheesy than the one he originally sent me to use. A bit of fun, a couple hours diversion. Pencil and ink.

Had an itch to draw and didn't want to draw me again. I've drawn me or painted me over 60 times. So I took a freeze-frame from a documentary a friend of mine made and used one of our co-workers as a model. Tom Devlin, now owner of Drawn + Quarterly was once someone I worked with at the Million Year Picnic. All that hair and the scruffy facial hair called to me to draw them, so I did. Pencils and then the inked version just for comparison. Very much glad that the effort didn't end up looking like me. And my partner, who's met Tom once instantly recognized him. So there's that.

As work on the story progresses, things change. Since the world that Crow and Francesca are on is not their native one, I thought about having the flora and fauna as odd and alien as possible. To that end, though I've got elves and such, it occurred to me that changing their colors from the obvious palette might make them feel a bit more alien. And so they do. Mikilo is now violet in color which not only really makes him stand out from the other two (perhaps too much) but the green sky and deep orange sun help make everyone else stand out, too. I will be making the foliage in colors other than green and brown. The world is supposed to suggest faerie but again, an alien one. So here's a step, even if a small one.

Spent today working on a mock page for the comic. Haven't done any visual development on it in awhile and there are some problems I know I have to overcome. The fonts are one of them. I'm not totally sold on this one, but it's closer to what I think I want. Each character will have his/her own but I still want the words more integrated into the art. Crow, being the least sophisticated I gave a kind of runic font. It works ok but requires that I do it all by hand. The background is generally what I want but I need to play it out better. And there won't be any panels if I can help it. Don't like panels. Don't know why, I just don't. That being said, Crow's not as good looking as he was yesterday. Then again, he was a little too cute yesterday so this isn't a bad balance. Really, I have to nail all this down so that I don't try and switch styles in the middle. This isn't the best page, but I think it looks pretty good and is a step forward. I could use some more of those.

Did a little messing about with Crow today. Trying to keep him as fluid as possible, which means a slight change of approach. Haven't drawn anything from Ghiroy for a long time. Too long. So, this.

Biography continues on, in tiny little spurts. This one came from my starting to read the big, heavy Drawn+Quarterly 25th anniversary collection/celebration thingie. See, I know the current owner/publisher. We used to work at the same comic store way back when. I knew him before that as he worked at the local Diamond warehouse (comic distributors). I used to drive him home on the way back to making the delivery at the store. He slept on the way. Tom's gone on to do exactly what he wanted; publish the kinds of comics he really likes to read. It's hard to compete with that, though really, I'm not in competition. As is usually the case, I veer away at the very end, not really delving deeply (heh) into my true feelings on this matter. I guess that's a theme in Biography. Hints and sudden turns. Can't confess even to myself... at least not publicly.

Page 22. Trying to decide if I want a 'meanwhile' page between this one and the last one. Probably do.

Page 21. The comic's already longer than I thought it would be. And it's gone in a direction I hadn't foreseen. And that's ok. I'm going to miss Rooster. He was fun to draw. I've noticed some odd tension visually as I look at the pages. Because I chose to have most of the action moving from right to left, it leaves an odd feeling, at least to me it does. I have no idea why I chose to do it this way. I'm not sure it works. When the story's over, I can flip things back the traditional way to see. I'll likely leave things as they are as this comic, like most of mine, is an experiment and experiments are allowed to fail. I don't think this comic fails. Dunno. I like it.

Page 20. There's going to be one more page of Rooster. That's all I'm going to say.

Page 19. Was productive today. Seems I needed to get away, in this case to Canada to see an old friend or two. Great weekend, and it seems, it recharged my batteries as well. I've been drawing and thinking about Ghiroy. Rooster's gone off on his own. For a reason. Gonna miss him.

Page 18. Good to get back to a little action.

Page 17. Turning point. By the end of my 'career,' such as it is, I think I will have fleshed out every single background character I've ever done. Rooster was nothing more than a symbol, a commission someone had me do for an event. He was a lot older in that version and a lot bigger. "Rooster," because of his hair. He was a trailer-trash kind of guy, angry for the sake of being angry though there wasn't even that much thought into him. He was just a drawing. The commissioner liked it and that was that. Well, now he gets his turn just as Smatt and Terry got theirs.

Page 16. Now if I can only figure out how to end this little journey to nowhere...

Haven't really drawn anything at all in a long while, and nothing on this comic in months. So here's another page. Glad I got it done, anything done. When I showed the comic to Scott McCloud in February, he noted the areas of 'negative space' and found them interesting. I think I see what he means. I think he meant that there's a certain tension in the pages because of that space. Well, good for me even if it wasn't planned. :"D Don't think there are many pages left of this one, and it's another story about nothing but that's ok. The style of this one was half the point.

Haven't done a new t-shirt in a long while. A LONG while. Decided I wanted one of the skater mice, so chose one of the more recent images I liked, fixed it up and sent it off. We'll see how it looks and if I like it, it'll go live. I've never received any money from RedBubble, which means that I haven't made enough for them to send me a check. I order all my own shirts because I like them, so there's that. Also, I've let Smatt's Odyssey sit unfinished for too long, so I was doing a page of mice yesterday to try and get in the mindset of drawing them. This isn't a comic with much of a story to it, just another illustration of the apathy of the day. It's 14 pages so far, which is the longest thing since C+C's comic a couple years ago. And it's a different aesthetic. So it's work worth doing.

Had lunch with an old friend in Canada last week. He's since had a look at one of my older short stories, "Sound and Fury," and while he was somewhat complimentary, he thought it was too short, that there was at least a little more to Joe than I'd done. He's not a fan of the animal people and in this case, I agree with him. Joe doesn't really benefit by being an otter, and I don't think the average person would get that anyway. Is there more to him? Don't know. Tom thought I needed to commit more to him and flesh out the story or rather he wondered why I hadn't. I meant it as a snapshot, something quick, a glimpse of a lost young man. Maybe there is more there. Have to redesign him if there is, or something. Still, it's nice to have someone IN the biz give me a different perspective. I get so few (thanks, Vince!).

Took that last drawing a little further. The problem with using ref sometimes is being too slavish to it, or not being able to easily pull away from it. So some details are put in just because they're there, and one's own style can get lost. This Marcel came out looking a little like an old man, but that's ok. I just really wanted to draw SOMEthing and this made me feel good. So it served its purpose.

Did another one of these today. Felt good to draw. It usually does.

I've done very little in the last month. There's been some work on Ghiroy, mostly in the plotting department which is fine, but the project just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Perhaps it's starting to frighten me? Probably not that. Probably it's that looming fear that, like everything else, I'm making something that will have almost zero appeal. Easy enough to say, "Make things for yourself." I bet not a single successful person who said that ever really thought that the project they were in the middle of was likely to bomb. Great advice in hindsight. Anyway. Whenever I've had time, I just have had no spark to draw. Nothing. I sit at the computer wanting to draw and having absolutely nothing come to mind, nothing drives me. There are many days I feel that I'm done, that I've made what it is I'm likely to make in this life and that's it. It's not depression exactly, just BLANK. The worst part is that I love to draw. I love ink on paper. There is just no passion, no ideas. In the last few days, I've done a few throwaway drawings, which I'm posting here because it's been a month since I've posted anything here at all and that bothers me. Will this change soon? I have no idea. I can't recall feeling like this ever. But my support network is essentially gone. I have my one reader here (thank you, Vince) and really, that's it. No one asks me what I'm drawing, asks anything beyond the vaguest of 'what's up' questions and, when I don't really elaborate is satisfied with "not much." All the artist friends (except Vince) are gone. Those I still speak with, again, don't show interest in what I'm doing, not doing, want to do or whatever. So I have these three inked drawings to show, which amount to nearly nothing and that's that. I suppose they're something, just not much. Not inspired, not interesting, not anything. But not nothing. I'm actually amazed that I'm typing this. Be more amazed if I post it. Sometimes now, when I look at my work, I'm a little surprised to remember that I do indeed draw. That I made that. What's with this? I don't understand.

A little character design for today. This guy won't exactly appear in the comic, rather this is how Francesca will expect Crow to look based on all the stories she's heard about him. What she's greeted with won't convince her to go on the little adventure. That will have to happen from another source. I sort of based this on some of the heroic statues in Budapest. They had a Heroes' Square there and there were all these wonderful, energetic statues of brave men with the most amazing mustaches ever. I should go back and use more of those as reference and inspiration; they really were astounding pieces. Otherwise, progress continues, just mostly in the background and in a non-visual way.

So there's this, too.

I've been watching and surrounding my thoughts with an independent production out of Denmark called "Tales from Alethrion." These folks really have it all together in my opinion. Link to their Kickstarter right here. Their first film, "The Reward," was a successful KS project and now they want to do a web series. I love their mix of anime, European and even a little American styles, I like their characters, their world and really, just about everything about what they're doing. I want them to stay independent and I want them to succeed. That being said, as is often the case, when I see something I like, I tend to want to play in that sandbox if even for a little while. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it gets me to think about my approach, flexes my skills and allows me to experiment. Bad because it causes me to doubt my way and my own work. Regardless, as I was sick over the weekend, I didn't draw anything for awhile so when I was well enough, I drew some stuff in their style to play around. Now I'm done. I have to keep focus. And really, I DO like the style I came up with for Ghiroy. This was fun, though. And I can see where there's a lot more room for expression in the way they draw things than, perhaps, the style I've chosen. So we'll see.

That other thing I do

Here's a link to the latest episode of my movie review blog, "The Movie Wrench." This time around, I tackle, "The Man of Steel." Came out a little longer than I wished; perhaps I had too much to say. Probably did. Next one will be shorter:

Movie Wrench: Man of Steel

So, this. Got a new Tom and Jerry DVD in the mail today. They're not as good as the Looney Tunes for sure, but the animation, at least in the ones done by Hannah and Barbera is really good and sharp. I like the music and hey, I don't have to explain. I like Tom and Jerry. So I did this. Tried to adapt the Smatt and Terry style to these two. Strangely, I like Tom better than I like Jerry. Oh well, back to the comic.

Haven't had anything visual to show lately as I've been writing and re-writing the outline to Ghiroy. For some inking fun, and connected to the last post, I did a quick Marcel and then I re-drew it, pushing the pose and coloring it. Nothing new, but still fun. I like to up the number of posts I made over the past year, but this one might be mostly about development. Written first, visual later.

This is a little one day diversion. Someone I follow on tumblr is doing an animation project where each frame is planned by him but drawn by different people. Seemed something I could contribute to easily enough so I signed up yesterday. I had some time in the evening, so completed and sent back the assignment. The pose and placement is his, mine is everything else. I'll be sure to post a link to the final project. For now, people can follow along at the project's bloodspot: Art-Imation

Finally got back to these guys. There's only a couple more pages to do. As should be obvious, this is another little comic about nothing at all. I think it's sort of a theme about comics I do set in the present day. Anyway, included the pencils for these, which I really enjoyed drawing. There's something about the physical act of drawing that really just gets to me. These guys have been very freeing in some ways. Scott McCloud (McLeod) saw these recently as we had dinner after a talk he gave and he said one of the things he liked most about the pages was the small areas of blank space in the compositions. I'll take that as a good thing. I don't think they were purposefully left in or decided upon but I'm not going to go back and fix them either. I think these look better with the contrast turned up a bit higher than they are here. Maybe I'll go back and do that. For now, two more pages.

Also, it might be noted that the finals are somewhat different than the pencils. Illustrator has become more and more like an inking stage for me; final decisions have always been done here, but now I have no problem taking elements and resizing them or moving things around. That's a major benefit of the tool, right? Composition always seems to be done up til the end, though now at least I'm drawing the characters together and not on separate pieces of paper.

Well, that didn't last long. I couldn't leave well enough alone. I redrew Crow and Francesca, the main hero and my mage. Just wasn't satisfied with them. Now I'm a lot happier. I tried to redraw the elf, but I ended up liking him the way he was.

Spent about a day and a half on this. I really wanted to hunker down and do at least one image that felt, all the way around, the way I wanted the comic to look. I wanted a composition to start, a setting, a background and I wanted to pose for all the characters. I came up with an idea that I think worked pretty well; I set my camera really low on the floor using a mini-tripod. Then, using the timer, I kept the camera in exactly the same position as I posed for all the characters. That way, they should be all in the right perspective and placement relative to one another. Beats hiring a lot of actors. It did require some moving about but not a lot. I could get over this by putting tape marks on the floor, but I don't know that it's really necessary.

I'm not 100% happy with the image, but that's ok. It taught me where I need to look and, stylistically, what needs to be worked on. First off, I don't like Francesca. She's too stiff. I went to redraw her but found that because of the way I took the photos, it was really hard to get a new drawing to fit properly where the old one was. So there's that. Also, I could easily push my acting a little and will do so. Thirdly, in the case of two of the goblins, I stuck too closely to the reference and they, too are a little stiff. Have to remember that I'm cartooning here, not copying. I was happy that I was able to get all the different body shapes and clothing cues even though I never changed what I was wearing. Might try some costuming. At the very least I think I need to buy a cheap bathrobe if I keep Francesca the way she is.

Speaking of her, she needs something of a redesign. I just don't think she's that interesting looking a character and she needs to bear the same weight as the guys. I won't have her being anything less than equal. While Crow isn't all that interesting looking, because he's wearing different layers, he's got more to look at than her. So I will work on that. Still, I think this came out decently and does have what I want for the comic. It took a long time to do, which tells me that the comic's not going to be any quickie at all.

The best use for Photo Booth on my computer is doing expression reference. I could use my usual source for the expressions, which is an excellent book on animation design but why not draw from life? What this means is that I'll have to do more acting, learn how to show the emotions as each character would express them, not just a generic reaction to something but I hope that will add some sincerity to the comic. It will also force me to cartoon a little bit more as I learn where I can exaggerate or edit these expressions to get what I want. These are all just quickies but already I've learned some things I can and can't do with Crow's face. His nose is a little pug where Mikilo's won't be. I'll also try to have the lines of the expressions flow more with the shapes of their heads. More work.

Playing with styles is fun and a total pain in the ass. I do it because it's fun, but it's also counter-productive. It makes me second guess and waste time. This image isn't complete; there's another version of the two figures here, but they're more twisty like the ones I did yesterday. My partner had a look, wrinkled his nose and said no. Or something like that. And he's right. For this story, the characters need to look more towards the realistic side of cartoony. So I did this today with a more full background (though it still needs some detail) to get a better idea of how this is all going to work. And I think it is. There's a vague sort of Loony Tunes vibe to it, which is good. The composition is a little boring, but that's ok. I think it's a big improvement over the original version of this image. And that gives me heart.

Ok, one more demon exorcised for the day. That's all.

Exorcising some ink demons. As I noted before, I get kind of tight with my stuff and sometimes I just need to scream, or, in this case, let it out through some goofier drawings. The one of Crow is far more twisted. The one of Mikilo is just goofy. Which is fine. These are just some curvy, inky fun.