Work demo, an iPad copy of a Matisse self portrait. This, I think was one of my better ones.

Ghiroy, page 24. This page, I switched to using a graffiti font I found online. If I ever choose to publish Ghiroy, I'll have to find a way to get a license for the font or redo all the lettering with something else. It was just taking too long to do all the words by hand. I think the text of any given page was taking as much time as the art, which is nuts. And does it matter? I don't know. The lettering doesn't bother me at all but we'll see.

In other, unrelated news, my buddy and I finished the 8th episode of our new podcast, due out soon. It completes the first series, more or less titled, "You haven't seen that?!" as it involves a movie only one of us hasn't seen before. Links for it here soon.

This one has a lot going on, even for me. There are three separate drawings in ink, one of which was warped and twisted to make three. The colors are kind of neon, there's a hidden drawing that will make itself known and the text goes around the outside. Busy, but I like it. I think this is my favorite page of the current song, certainly. Well, that's just me.

Another page of City Silent. Also took a screen shot of what it looks like in AD with everything selected and outlined by their vector paths. Kinda freaky. Did lots more with the iPad with this page. All the windows come from one drawing, manipulated in Procreate. Bricks, too were made there and warped there. The text as always is done there, made to fit. Just Silas is inked. Makes things both possible and faster.

Drew this goofy little Rooster today for no good reason. Even though I killed him off, he doesn't seem to want to go.

Haven't posted one of these in awhile as I haven't really been doing them. A work demo, this time copying Lautrec. Turns out he's actually really good to copy at work as he's so sketchy and that lends itself pretty well to the iPad. Had a few people really interested come over to talk, which is the point. The little ones on the left are the originals, mine are the big ones on the right. Was pretty happy with these even if unfinished.

Worked a little on images for the next page. I want to move into a little weirder, visual area and so tried to push Silas around. Some of these are fun and I might use them. I worry that I might confuse what few readers I have if I do. We'll see.

City Silent page 46. I will admit that this isn't my favorite page. That being said, it does what I envisioned to some extent. I want the pages, as the song progress to get a little more trippy, a little more dreamy, so this is a transition page. I just have to push myself more and more or the effect and 'play' won't work. Have to keep that in mind.

City Silent page 45. I've only posted up to 43 online as they were out of order. Used the iPad more than anything else on this page; Silas was pencilled and inked as usual but the window, bricks and graffiti were all done with Procreate not least of which because I could distort those elements far better there than anywhere else. To my eye, they work together fine and I don't think anyone would think they were made with such different tools. I'll admit that this song is, visually, a bit one-note, but I wanted a typical night spent by the crow and that's what this is. There is a 'payoff' page at the end, which I am dreading because it's a lot of work. I think, in the overall, it will work fine. And there will be time and place for things to get a lot wilder later on. The comic proceeds, I'm happy with it.

This next part really is just for me. There seems to be even more ugliness online these days, having to do mostly with politics and bad behavior all around the planet. There's no way to even tell what's truth and what's not. I honestly think we live in a time nearly devoid of it and no sure way to determine truth available to the average person. I don't react to it online as I think that's both a waste of energy and emotion. I am outraged but shaking my fist at the internet does no one any good. I vote, I do my job and I treat people as they ought to be treated which, being in retail, means a lot. All that being said, I am somewhat coccooned, and I know it. What I am doing is trying to make something of beauty while I'm alive. That's what these comics and art are all about. I don't expect others will go for them. At the end of the day, I hope I can at least say that I didn't add to the ugliness of humankind. It's sad that this is now considered a huge step. And beauty is relative. I think I achieve it here and there. My movement forward, as small as it may be.

I've been feeling dissatisfied with the look of Ghiroy. Poking back into the comic, I kept settling on the opening image, the 'cover,' more or less. It's the only image where the characters are drawn that way and I don't know why that is. They seem the most cartoony here, the most solid and the most fun. Since then, the characters have slowly slipped into something more 'realistic,' more defined and complex. This isn't what I want or the feeling I thought should be expressed. So I went back and did some model/design work on the characters then did this page. Francesca doesn't look so different yet, but Mikilo does. I really should have done model sheets before this to really tie down the style. Well, from here forward, I will try and keep some consistency. Page 23.

Same drill as the last page; layouts on the iPad, finish on the mac. Managed to get TWO pages of two different comics done today. To be fair, the character and graffiti for the City Silent page were done before, but I don't think that matters. Just made me a little lazier. Ghiroy is a fun little nothing. I still really like drawing the characters and shoving it all together. Wish it didn't take so long to make as it feels as if the plot is slow and yet it's only 22 pages into the story.

City Silent page 41. Finally got this one done. Did myself a favor, though and did the background stuff on the iPad instead of by hand with ink. Why is this a favor? It went SO much faster this way and I was able to distort things the way I wanted without resorting to using those tools in my cranky copy of AI CS5. Also, making straight lines in Procreate is so much easier. The window and fire escape were done in three separate parts on paper first, so I could use my ruler. Then I took a photo with the iPad right in Procreate and inked right there. Play about, export as a jpg then vectorize. Much, much faster and no smudging. I'm not sold on doing my character work this way, but it's now a hint where before it wasn't even a whisper. Four pages into this song now. The last page is going to be a pain, but there you go.

One of my favorite things is to pull back and look at a bunch of pages of any comic at once. This is the first 21 pages of Ghiroy which is about half as long as City Silent at this point, which is fine. What strikes me is that it does look like graffiti; this is a good thing. Graffiti was one of the major inspirations for this comic and to see that haphazard, wall covering sensetivity actually apparent. So, this.

Spent a lot of today watching a course I bought online for learning Procreate. It's a really good course but I then wanted to make something. So while watching, I sketched the next page of my neglected comic, Ghiroy, using some of the tools I now know how to use. All pencils are in Procreate, the rest of the comic is Affinity Designer as usual. No scanning. This is a good workflow and, again, the iPad is proving itself useful in ways I could not have foreseen.

Haven't added anything here for a bit. Had some company which meant no drawing. And that's ok. I was working on another project while my friend was here; a podcast to take the place of the Movie Wrench. These three pages have been bothering me as being somewhat bland. So before making any others, I decided to try and pump up the color and darken the mood. I'll be using this criteria from here on in with this song.

Page 44. 41 will be next but will take longer as it's more complex. Still progress.

Page 43. Another simple one. Makes this song feel different than the other one. All colors are sampled from a video I took in the 80s of the night sky over Harvard Square. It's a perfect example of that orange night glow I love so much.

Totally out of order. This page was done when it was because I could complete it before work on a week when I had very little time off. So I piecemeal when I can. This song will be like that. It means there's still forward motion even if it's a bit hopscotch.

Another quickie, just to draw. Scum, my skivvy-wearing skater coyote. After this, I did work on some stuff for City Silent and am moving on with it. This week is going to be slow as I have little time off, my one day off is full and a friend is coming to visit next week. I think, too that this song will likely just be released all at once.

A little bit of nothing. Haven't drawn anything lately partially because I was working on the thumbnails for the next song of "City Silent," which I got done. That being said, there was little time to actually draw anything AND the final page of this one is going to be a pain in the ass; lots of detail. And, friday, my one real, full day off, I just wasn't in the mood to draw. Happens sometimes. So today, I just needed to get SOMEthing out. Therefore, this. Not much, but something.

Haven't posted partially because I had to do the thumbnails for the next song of "City Silent," and haven't had time to do much of any other art. I did this demo earlier in the week and forgot about it. It's a copy of another Matisse done on the iPad. This one's a hard one because it's all brushstrokes which is hard to copy. Also got interrupted a lot. So here it is.

Working on the tweaks for song one. Shouldn't be too much to do. First up is page 28. Changed the color on the middle window to match the overlay on page 39 and added some graffiti to label the song. Always kind of thought of throwing up some graffiti in the BG for this. Now's the time.

And, because I can, here's a screen shot of the first 40 pages (more or less) of City Silent.

City Silent page 39. This one was kind of a pain, even though a simple set up. I did the figure, inked it, had it all set in the page and then realized I really wanted to draw the eye to the lower right corner more. So I flipped the inks and was glad the drawing worked just fine. That's really the test of an image; if it can work both ways it must be pretty solidly done. It's an old artists' trick to look at things upside down or in a mirror to see flaws. Glad there weren't any since the drawing was done. Then there was all those tags in the background. All separate layers, a few have some overlays to darken them. Think it works well enough. No to thumbnail the next song out. Should take time to do tweaks on all the pages in this song, too.

City Silent page 38. Had to work on this one a little. The lettering just wasn't fitting and I wasn't sure what I wanted for the background, but I liked the three figures I drew and inked for it. Did some fiddling around and everything finally came together in about a half hour. With the iPad's help. Procreate and the iPad are now indispensable for making this comic. Really. Also added a gradient overlay in hard light and loved what it did to the line work, especially in the lower right corner. When the song is done, one page to go, I'll have to tweak this and the last page to better work together. But that's ok.

Work demo, a copy of an Egon Schiele self portrait. Didn't get it -quite- right but not terrible either.

Another work demo I didn't get to finish. Got pretty far, though. This is one of Van Gogh's better portraits, or my copy of it. Van Gogh is a perfect example of name and reputation = dollars, even if the work isn't top notch. I love a good chunk of his stuff, but there are some real dogs, in my opinion and there's not just a couple of them. His portraits involving babies, for example, are generally awful. Not everything is gold. But they're held up as if they are because of that signature. But I'm off topic. This is a good one and it was fun to try and copy.

Two pages in one day. That never happens! This particular page was a simple layout with no background, so I could knock it out this evening. Thought I'd try something a little different and leave out the extraneous details, keeping just with a simple outline. This is actually a look I had planned to use in the beginning but couldn't let go of my brush. That being said, I kind of like it better. It feels a little bit more modern and in line with the subject matter, at least to me. Also had an @duh moment tonight. Felt really stupid. The graffiti is something I've been doing either first or somewhere along the way. Tonight, it suddenly occurred to me that I could get the page nearly done, airdrop the image to my iPad and THEN do the graffiti in Procreate, making sure it was going to fit. Gah. Wonder why it took me so long to figure THAT out.

Page 36. Had to play with this a little. The spray cans and right hand stencil were not in the original background drawing. As a time saving measure, I decided to add the cans and stencil by using the iPad instead of drawing things on paper, inking then scanning them. Worked like a charm. To my eye, you can't tell that they're not a part of things. And, as props, I can move them around however I want after the fact. This is going to be more important as the comic goes on, I think. Getting close to the end of this song. Then on to the next.

Another work demo, this time something a bit more painterly. This is a copy of a painting by a British artist I'd never heard of called John Duncan Ferguson. I wanted to do something a little less linear and a little more painterly. It's MUCH harder to copy something so loose with brushstrokes so thick and obviously quick. Still allowed me to get something somewhat buttery, even on the iPad.

Morning warm ups from yesterday and today. The top one is from today, based on a photo taken of me looking into my computer screen. The other one I just call, "Monkey Boy." Both done on the iPad, an art tool I'm liking more every day.

Did a quick Silas tonight after going to the gym. Red is a good color. I saw a report somewhere that said that paintings that had a lot of red in them sold for higher prices than those of any other predominant color. I'm also partial to yellow. Green... not so much. While I like Cezanne in general as a painter, he uses a LOT of green, and it's a green I don't much care for. Studio Ghibli films, too tend towards a spring green. Gah. Anyway, red. Silas.

Today's work demo. Sadly, I can't remember who painted this. I want to say Vlaminck but I don't think that's right. I really should know. Probably one of the Fauve. Was fun. Paint was nice and flowy, though strokes not as well defined as real paint. Only had about 30 minutes on this one but I got most of it done.

EDIT: It's Matisse.

Yesterday's work demo, another Picasso portrait. There's something comforting about Picasso, at least his more cubist stuff. I also get into good conversations with people about making art, which is a bonus.

I sort of lied; there was one more adjustment to do on page 34 but there was no way to know I'd need to do it until I'd fully made page 35. Now I have a transition as well as echoes of page 34 IN page 35. This will likely be the easiest page to do of the whole comic as it's purposefully sketchy and minimal. Maybe part of this section is happening inside Silas' head. Anyway, both pages shown here to underline the transition.

UPDATE: Looking at the next page's thumbnails, I noted that the transition from this page to the next was going to be more complex than I wanted it to be. I had to get Silas out of the subway an to the walls he'd be painting. That meant more images per page than I was comfortable doing. I don't believe I have to show every moment for people to follow my comics (even if they can) but going from drawing in the train to painting on an alley wall was too much of a jump. A solution popped into my head as I looked back at some Tamino pages; change what he's drawing and then drop him into the drawing. The page after will have the painting done more in the style of the rest of the comic and that will finish the transition. No need to show him walking out of the train, up the stairs and down the street; I think the audience will get it. If they get anything at all.

So I went back to the original drawing for the bottom of page 34, put a new piece of paper atop it, sketched a rough 'city,' which is what he'll be painting and used PS to merge the new sketch and old drawing together. Then, back to SV to make a new set of lines. Finally, had to refit the new lines over the old ones so I didn't have to redo the color layer. About 40 minutes of editing which will save me hours of work. For once, I was actually retroactively efficient.

Page 34. This one came together pretty quickly, though I had to transpose two of the stanzas because I'd misread my thumbnails. This is easy because they're so messy. That being said, I think the song works better this way anyway. The last page was only supposed to have the first half of the verse printed and this page the second. Things don't need to go that slowly. With the next page, we get some echoes from Tamino which is also reflected in the text. In my head, it makes sense.

This was an experiment. I was talking to a customer at the end of my day at work and she was an artist, too. She had never heard of vectors or a lot of what I use to make my stuff. She was buying an iPad and new iMac and so I was sharing some of my work while looking at hers. Also shared some of my process. Which got me to thinking tonight about vectorizing my work. I generally just do black and white or, for the graffiti, about 15 levels of grey. I've never tried to do something close to full color. So tonight, I took one of my recent self portraits in Procreate, upped the color slider in SV all the way to 32 and let it do its thing. Then I opened the following file in AD and exported it again as a jpg. This is the result. Top version; from AD. Bottom version; original Procreate. I'm kind of impressed.

Edit: Found out there's a new version of SV that can export in up to 64 colors which is three times the what the version I have could do. So I bought it. I included its output on the bottom. It's a little softer, but obviously has a greater color range. This has a lot of possibilities and is 20 bucks well spent, I think.