I started work on a short story a few weeks back. I’m doing tight pencils so I can send it out as samples to various editors in the hopes of getting some freelance work. But I’m also doing it as a fun break in the midst of doing a 220+ page graphics novel (Wahoo Morris). Sometimes you just need to complete something short and fun to keep from drowning.

I’ve pencilled the whole story, and I’m slowly tightening them up in my spare time. Here’s the fourth page for your enjoyment. Goofy Sci-Fi fun!

For the last few months I’ve been inking a daily comic strip, about cars and lizards from the center of the earth, called THE MIGHTY MOTOR SAPIENS. It is created by INSIGHT STUDIOS GROUP and runs daily on ROWDY dotCOM, a social networking site for NASCAR fans. It’s a bit of an odd couple combination, but the strip is designed to be reminiscent of Scooby Doo and 80’s Hanna Barbara cartoons, and it’s kind of goofy and a lot of fun. It’s been running for 8 weeks now, and all of the archives are free. Check it out.

Here’s the first pass of the pencils for a possible comic re-print of my Sîan story. I’ll post the inks when I’ve got them done.

I first worked on a tablet, drawing directly on the computer, for my last animation contract as lead character designer on CAILLOU season IV. My job had me spending one week drawing any new characters and costumes on paper one week, and the next week “inking” them digitally and breaking the character down into movable parts for the animators to use. Since the first day playing around with the new tablet at work, and seeing the range of pressure sensitive brushes available, I’ve wanted to try my hand at inking a comic digitally.

For the first run of the Chelation Kid, I drew everything by hand. I ended up doing a lot of reuse of poses in the sequences where Bob as the narrator would be talking directly to the audience. Instead of doing what most other strip artists would do and cut and paste the poses, changing the odd facial expression, I would light table my pose, then trace it out on the pages and re-ink each pose individually. So, I decided a while back that when I was able to return to CK that I would take the plunge and do it start to finish digitally and take advantage of the quick cut and paste options that digital would open up to me.

A lot of artists I know through The Engine message board, and now Panel & Pixel, swear by Manga Studio Ex. I played around a little with the demo and wasn’t convinced, but two weeks ago we got enough funding to do two new weeks of CK, so I took the plunge and downloaded the $50 intro version of the software. After a bit of playing around, I found with the intro version I could import photoshop art and export the finished art to photoshop (my only main requirement) and then discovered I could rotate the canvas like I would turn a physical page while inking. I’m going to have to pick a few brains to find out what the $300 version has that I might need that would make me need to upgrade. So far this luddite is happy with the dumbed down version.

Anyway, so far I have completed one week, and the second week has two days that need to be finished off. It’s taking a bit of getting used to, but I’m getting there. While the cut and paste option is freeing up some time, it’s taking me a lot longer to draw and ink, so it’s about equal, but I’m sure the speed will come in time. One advantage of working digitally that I think will eventually speed me up is that I can now do a large part of my initial drawing in “ink” cutting out a chunk of the pencilling stage. I do a lot of my pencilling with the eraser, refining what I’m drawing by erasing the lines I don’t want. Well, digitally it’s as easy to erase ink lines as it is pencil.

The first digital week of The Chelation Kid (running right now) is, to my eye, not the best of CK, but a couple of the strips of the second digital week I feel that I’m starting to match my traditional work.

To illustrate, here’s an example of one of next week’s strip’s “pencils”. Much rougher and sketchier than I would ever start inking from on paper.

And now here is the final “inked strip.

One of Manga Studio’s main features are the pre-set zip-tones. I haven’t use tones in my work in over a decade, but they are just too easy to use in MS to resist.

I’d be curious to hear comments on what anyone thinks of my early digital attempts. I can’t imagine changing to completely digital on all my projects ( I love the feel of pencil, pen, and brush on paper too much) but it is definitely a skill I want to cultivate, and for the time being the Chelation Kid is acting as Guinea Pig

Yup, after a nine month Hiatus the Chelation Kid is returning for a two week run.

Hopefully the return will spur some more donations and we will be able to keep it going a little longer. But, in the meantime, come back every day this week and next for your fix of The CHelation Kid.