Oops, how does it always get to 3am so fast?
I started inking random pages from part 2 of Hearts and Holes after weeks of being too miserable to trust myself to work on it. It feels good to be back!
After I pencil, I ink random pages to keep my pages looking consistent, so this one is actually closer to the end of the chapter. I still have to ink the background but here’s a giant heart. I added a lot more tubes to the heart than is actually anatomically accurate… but it’s for drama!
Also, a bonus!
Below are a bunch of sketchbooks books I made using leftover copy paper from the last comic I produced. I was inspired by a great post on a great blog called from your desks… about about Marc Johns and his working space. I really loved when Marc showed off his self-made sketchbooks made out of regular ol’ office paper. It seems so ordinary but it forces his sketchbooks to stay their course– as non-precious-mistake-ridden-with-sometimes-wonderful-ideas things.
I was so moved that I actually made some for myself. The raccoon is just for show but he does make a handy paperweight.
Back to work on Hearts & Holes.
Finally finished the pencils I was working on from the last post. I had to change the layout again because I realized that when Maxwell grabs Mary’s left hand, she needs to be on his left side when she’s facing (rather than the left like in my draft. Well, that was really boring. Here’s the final drawing.
I said I wanted to finish pencils for part 2 by the end of 2010 but I still have 1-2 pages left so as always, I’ll be fashionably late.
Happy New Year everyone!
I’m making it my mission to finish penciling part 2 of Hearts & Holes before the end of 2010. It will be about 13-14 pages so I’m almost there!
Here’s progress from page 10. I love when people post about their process so it’s only right that I share my own. I haven’t finished this page yet, but here’s what I’ve done so far.
1. I mapped out the entire story before I started real work on the comic so I begin with the initial sketch of the page complete with stick figures.
2. My scripts should really be call “scripts” because by the time I got to drawing this page, I’d decided to reorder a few events and split the page in 2. Sadly, I had to start from scratch to create this layout.
3. Here I’m trying to rearrange the text to see how it’ll fit into each panel. A chatty panel is like the kiss of death for my attention span… at least in my opinion. On this page, Maxwell collapses so it was important to get the pacing right in the script.
4. Once the script is finalized, I start working on thumbnails to guide me. I’ve found that this makes drawing the panels a lot faster since I’ve already worked out the angles.
5. The final draft begins. I haven’t finished it yet but I have a map to where I need to go so it shouldn’t be the long before I get there.
I’ll post up the final page when it’s done but for now, enjoy the partial pages!
I’ve been trying to get together the little details of H&H like the inside cover text so here’s a little doodle from it. It’s been nice taking my time through this part of the process of putting the book together. Usually I’m late with the pencils/inks so it’s a minor miracle that I was diligent with my schedule this time around. Anyway, here are more hearts.
I was just thinking about my high school art teacher Ms. Soohoo, so I googled her and found out that she passed away a few days ago this month in 2006… Freaky coincidence or message from the other side?
So if you’re reading this somewhere in the universe: Thanks for your pushy encouragement despite my resistance. I was just using the brayer roller that you gave me to make the below print which was what made me think of you. Hope you’re adventuring wherever you are!
How do you make an idea come to life? First start with this:
The anxiety starts to set in…I can’t bring myself to start… A blank page can be really intimidating and scary. That’s why I did this:
Hearts & Holes started off as drawings on a notepad I took home from work. That’s right, it looks like your 5 year old sister did it, but it gets the point across. It’s surprising how much a scratchy drawing even as bad as this helped me visualize what I needed to do.
That was really ugly though so I refined it once again:
Drawing the page again helped me visualize the scene a little better. I wanted my characters to be in the space of the forest, not on the outskirts of it so I had to readjust to fit more trees in. Other than that, I didn’t change much of what I started.
After that, I felt better drawing on the good paper. It took me about 2 hours to get to here:
I still have to fill in some pencils for texture and shading but I’m mostly done. I like to keep my pencils loose and save the refinement for the inking part. I’d say I’m pretty laid back about not having my inks line up with my pencils, so sometimes my inks look completely different from what you see above. I pencil all my pages first before I ink so I’ll make another update about inking later.
Inking is my favorite part!!
Progress! Now that the inks are done for Hearts & Holes, I’ve been scanning in pages and cleaning up inking mistakes in photoshop. A lot of people use white out to fix their mistakes, and so did I for a while, but I’ve decided that the best way is to just use photoshop. Whiteout can be messy and it gives the paper a bumpy smooth texture which means that your second attempt at inking may not work out as well as you hoped for either. Could just be that I’m better at using my wacom than a brush.
Also, this is the cover idea I’ve been working on. I prefer simple and vague.
All of my other side projects have been stalled while I finish this book up. There are still about 40 pages left to draw, ink, etc. My friend’s planning to apply for the Xeric grant in a few months and maybe I’ll apply… But I’m afraid that if I commit to it, my comics will become something I’ll have to make a schedule for and finish. Basically I want to avoid calling it “work.” So let’s just have fun for now and see where I am in a few months!
I’m late again, sorry!! I said I would put up a pic of Mary but I never did, so here’s some extra special pictures to make up for it. Mary is the unconscious one.
Here is Mary after she accidentally pulls the stitches out of Maxwell’s chest.
I’m almost done inking the entire thing! Hooray for me! Then I have to scan everything in, clean the images up in Photoshop, prep the files for printing, and then either print the books myself or send it off to a printer… So I’m not really done.
