And… here’s page 144, drawn in Manga Studio:

So, yesterday I showed a random page of pencils using my newish digital technique. I was thinking that to show my process I would live blog a step by step of each stage. I never quite got around to it, but I did take a screen cap every few steps so you can get the idea of the process.

So, first I start off with a blank template page with faint grid marks for a 6, 9, 8 and 12 panel grids. Then I start sketching out my thumbnails. This can involve moving panels around, shrinking them, blowing them up, or moving them to another page altogether to make room for what I need. sometimes I’ll do a few different angles of a panel saving each on a separate layer so I can pick my favorite later. This one turned out pretty straight forward.

Then I reduce the opacity of the ‘thumbnail’ so I can see better and start drawing, panel by panel.

When I’m done, I make any last minute adjustments You can see that I shifted the middle tier up a smidge to make room for the dialog in the bottom tier. Then I make the panel borders and we’re done and ready for lettering and inking.

There a few more steps in between, but they’re hard to show. I’ll often keep characters on separate levels so I can scribble and erase and transform one without affecting the other. But, that’s basically all there is to it.

I’m slowly working my way through the final 70 pages of Wahoo Morris. I roughed them out in a space of a few weeks, and I’m now in the process of cleaning them up. My original plan was to just get the basic construction done digitally, then print them out, slap them on the light table, and do the clean drawing on the final Strathmore before lettering and inking.

My ‘roughs’ are turning out pretty close to finished pencils, so I’m thinking, instead of wasting time tracing them on the the light table I might buy myself a large format printer and just print them out in blue line and ink directly over that after the odd touch up with pencil.

Anyhoo, that’s still a decision for a few weeks at least into the future. In the mean time, here’s a random page of digital pencils.

If you liken my blogging to a rolling stone… well… it’s covered in moss and ground deep into the dirt.

It’s not like I haven’t been busy or had anything to say; I’ve just gotten out of the habit of writing about what I’m doing or showing what I’m working on, and getting that stone rolling again has been a struggle.

Part of what stopped the stone rolling in the first place was the nature of what I was working on last year. In May of ’08 I started storyboarding on TOTAL DRAMA ACTION and I was under a Non-Disclosure Agreement. There really wasn’t anything I could show, and I’m not even sure I was allowed to talk about it. The show is on the air now, but until the final episode airs I’m still a little iffy what I can and cannot show/talk about. I also worked on an Australian production called SUMO MOUSE, which was kind of fun, but I have no idea when or where it will be airing.

All in all I was kept pretty busy through to February which I took off to get Married. So life was pretty busy until the beginning of March, but by then the blogging momentum was totally shot.

I’ve been off since I got back from the honeymoon, though I spent most of March and early April job hunting as well as trying to get the house and life back into shape after the blur of the previous 10 months. I spent a few weeks in April writing, finishing off the script for the second half of Wahoo Morris and breaking down the outline and script for the project I plan to follow up Wahoo Morris with. And since late April I’ve been working on the pencils for Wahoo Morris.

I roughed out the layouts for the remaining part of the second half (about 70 pages, bringing up the total page count to 197 pages) and I’m now tightening them up into inkable pencils. I’m doing them digitally (a new method, at least for WM) and the plan is to print them out in blue line for inking. I don’t have a large format printer at the moment so I’ll probably finish penciling the whole book before I can afford to buy a printer so I can start inking.

I’m supposed to be starting storyboarding on a new show in a few weeks (which will help pay for a new printer) so we’ll see how far I get with the pencils before I can start inking.

I’ll pop some pencils up this week to show my new method.

I wish I could say that I had a blast at TCAF, but alas, no.

It had nothing to do with the show itself, which I love, or the organization which is great. The new venue wasn’t as picturesque as the last one, but the location was convenient and the floor layout was better, so no complaints there. It was nice seeing colleagues and friends, and meeting new ones, which is one of the main reasons I like attending shows like TCAF.

The problem was…. I was sick as a dog.

I was recovering from a Chest Cold as the weekend loomed, but I seemed to be better by Friday. I flew in early Saturday morning and was feeling a little under the weather and spent most of the day fairly quiet, but I figured a good night’s sleep and I’d be back in the pink for Sunday. Sadly I was mistaken and I spent Sunday feeling like I was trying to breath under water, and chain-eating fishermen’s friend cough lozenges in attempt to not spend the day in one continuous coughing fit. And near the end of the day I started to get a lower stomach issue, which pretty much had me in agony all day. Well, maybe ‘agony’ is a little melodramatic, but I was not in the best shape, and I pretty much just sat there like a lump waiting for it to be over. I was not the most social person, as talking without coughing was a chore, and my salesmanship was nil.

I never even wandered the floor at any point in time to check out every one’s stuff and to buy and trade. I didn’t buy a single comic! Which tells you how sick I was as that’s my favorite part of any show.

If I managed to infect anyone, friend or fan or casual browser, I am reeeeeeaaaaaly sorry!

Hopefully I’ll be a little healthier next time!