All quiet on the western front.

Apologies for the silence that past couple of weeks, I'm trying to get myself onto a teaching course, as well as a few other things, so doodling has fallen by the wayside somewhat. The next page of my comic should be up soon.

This then, is a fill-in post, and not nearly as busy as the regular ones.

I picked up Manga Studio the other day, and have only had a very brief chance to mess around with it. My main intention was to add tones and so on to paper-drawn comics, but I may use it to draw on as well. I haven't messed around with brush settings or anything on there, and it already feels incredibly friendly and easy to use.


Compare the paper-drawn:

With the computer-drawn:

Clearly I have picked entirely wrong tones, and the font is utterly terrible, (we shan't even talk about the lady's shoulders/torso) but I feel like it has a lot of potential, particularly as the drawing was very quick.

Here's another quick example, the pencil-on-paper version is in a previous post: 

There's still all manner of mistakes, but I think I'm going in the right direction, and the ease is pretty phenomenal. 

Edit - I forgot to add the following: 

They say it's your birthday.

Sometimes I do little pictures for friends' birthdays. This, for example, is for Amanda whose birthday it is tomorrow:

She quite likes Optimus Prime.  Here's another I did for her a couple of years ago: 

This is a picture of The Beatles I did, in a vague attempt to roughly show their evolution, for good chum Mike. I forgot to scan it at the time:

A couple of years ago I made a kind of Comic Book cover for him, with a Magician-type hero character version of Mike on the front. I don't have it and I never photographed it/scanned it. However! It nearly looked like this:

Before I had a sudden rush of common sense. The final drawing was roughly based on this: 

On the subject of rough planning sketches, here's one I did for a picture for my brother's birthday. He'd quite like to play for Barcelona. The final had ticker tape and all sorts of excitement. 

I think this next one was for Penny's birthday. Was it for Penny's birthday? Not that fond of it in 

retrospect. Penny! Feel free to demand something new for a holiday-in-which-gifts-are-given.

Finally, here's a Christmas Card I did a few years ago. Can't precisely remember when, but it was whilst I was at university:

Edit: I have been told off because I forgot this, of Rebecca. I'm disappointed with it for much the same reason I am of Penny's. There are others I've likely forgotten too, I'll leave you to imagine them:

Adventures in the Airtrade.

I don't really want that to be the title of this comic, you know, but every time I try to think of one it keeps bubbling up. Annoying.

You'll note that these are very spartan, very white. I intend to add tones, but that's for another day. A day in which I know how to add tones. Also these are literally the second, third, and fourth comics I have ever drawn. I'm not making excuses, after all, this is purely for my own enjoyment, but just so that you know.

Also my lettering is abysmal. This will also be fixed.

Also...Well, you get the idea.

(click on them to make them bigger, if you want)

More to come, obviously.

The next post is almost certainly about birthdays, and birthday doodles. 

O Newton, release this apple from its earth shackles.

You will have seen from the previous post that amongst my rough ideas for the children's story was a dirigible/airship. This was originally intended to appear in the second part of the story, although I'm not so sure that it will necessary happen that way anymore. In any event, my mind flew off in a different direction once the balloon came into play, and I started planning a very different story. 

I'm not going to give anything away, but maybe you'll like some of the idea sketches. 

As a drawing, this isn't very good, but I liked the character straightaway. At the time she wasn't going to be used for anything, but was drafted in once the idea formed. 

I went with the bottom one in the end. 

Fleshing out hair/clothing ideas, and getting the personality completely wrong at the same time. 

Next time: the first three pages. Sort of. 

Sit down by the fire and I'll tell you a story.

I love stories, and writing, and the sheer act of storytelling. Love it. I write an awful lot, usually short stories, but I've a few longer projects. That said, it wasn't until very recently that I tried my hand at the noble art of comics. I would like to show you my very first attempt; a single-page nostalgic story about going to my dad's cricket matches as a child. I seem to have mislaid it though. As a cover-up here's a little planning sketch I did for it:

Doesn't tell you much does it? 

Here are some other basic sketch ideas I've done for a children's story I'm going to be writing. I think it will be more an illustrated story than a comic. Obviously these are very rough.

I've not actually even begun working on this story, so you might be wondering why I've bothered to share these. Well, the doodles for this rather lead into my current story, which I'll write about next time. 

Odds and Ends.

Here's another section of some unconnected bits and pieces. I've tried to do something different with each one, with varying levels of success.

Audrey Hepburn

Rapunzel. This Prince seems particularly pleased with himself. 

True fact: I will mispronounce Rapunzel nine times out of ten, despite knowing its proper pronunciation.

 

It's a lady whose hair becomes the sea, naturally.

Be Mine Kim Pine.

The other night I asked a couple of people for suggestions for really quick doodles. Both suggested Scott Pilgrim characters (that the film had recently been viewed was obviously coincidental). These were genuinely rapid, probably obviously. First up, Stephen Stills: 

Next up, Wallace Wells. More specifically, Kieran Culkin's Wallace Wells, but in a cartoony manner: 

 

I think it's okay-ish?

A while back I also did a Ramona Flowers. This wasn't really rushed so much. I mean, still not super-careful, but not rushed. 

On the somewhat unlikely chance you don't know, obviously these are all Bryan Lee O'Malley's creations. And if you haven't read the books, I highly suggest you do. 

Used to be one of the rotten ones...

A couple of months ago I went to see Pavement play as part of their one-off reunion tour. This was exciting, since they're amongst my favourite ever bands. Unknown to me 'til arrival though was that Broken Social Scene, one of my favourite current bands, were supporting. Pretty terrifically exciting.

Anyways, afterwards I decided to try and draw Lisa Lobsinger:

It did not go very well.

I decided to persevere, and do an intentionally simplified, cartoony, version: 

This, too, did not go very well at all.

So why am I sharing this? Because it frustrated me no end, and I like to think that little frustrations are interesting. 

Oh, to be real.

Occasionally I'll do drawings direct from photographs. I'll try to put my own spin on them, or try to keep the lines specifically clean or messy, but the basic idea is a straight copy.

In this one I've tried to match the slightly more realistic sketchy drawings, as above, with my more typical cartoony ways. Not sure how successful it was. 

Very rarely I'll try to do them digitally. Even more rarely I'll try using colour. As you can see on the poor lady's face, colour is something I need to practise with an awful lot more.

Early days.

To get this thing off the ground I'm going to try and do a fair few entries over the next few days, containing a number of drawings from the last couple of months. I'll try to group them in to roughly related topics, but we'll see how that bears out. 

To begin, a few little nonsensical things: 

These don't really have a theme so much as they are assorted little nothings. It's maybe worth noting that all three, and most of the pictures I'll throw on here, are done in a little A5 notebook. It's not the greatest place for decent quality pictures, but it's a nice little place to practise and flesh out ideas.