Here’s a little silly project I did last night in Flash. Over the last couple days at work, I’ve had to do a little animation for a project I am working on. I started messing around at home using the same techniques just for fun, and this is what happened. So maybe this is a little idea what Asimov would be like truckin’ around on Mars!
Great news! One of my favorite webcomics (by a good friend, too!) returns today – Tales of a Checkered Man! I’ve talked about Denver’s comic before, but if you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out on some really fun stuff. The Isle of Terror continues today, head over and get caught up!
Will the fun never end at the Dell’Aringa household? Not if I have anything to do with it! Yesterday we got a wonderful package at the door: A Lionel Hogwart’s Express train! Whoo hoo! How did this happen, you ask? Well, as you know I finally decided to read the series – along with my two daughters. We are all currently on book four and really enjoying the series. My daughters, well – maybe they are enjoying it a little TOO much! 
Anyway, I’ve had this N-scale train for years (since about 2001) that we would set up at Christmas. Nice train, high quality, but small and it didn’t run all that well on the bumpy floor under the tree. Knowing the girls would love a Hogwart’s train (and knowing I would too) I decided to sell a few things to see if I could raise the money. Sure enough, I was able to sell my train, along with my electric guitar/amp combo I no longer use. The result – well, see below. You can tell that the girls were, well, a little excited.
The train box is opened for the first time
My daughters go bat-crazy over the train
All set up and running under the tree
I’m definitely impressed with the train, it looks great. While running, the cars are all lit up (along with the engine light) and it has the smoke and even a whistle. Certainly it’s not quite the craftsmanship of the old days (lots of plastic abounds) but it’s pretty well put together.
Although I had trains when I was a kid, this is my first ever Lionel set, so I’m pretty excited. Gotta go, I’ve got a train to catch!
Reader Evan Hodgins (of the webcomic “of Noobs and Men“)alerted me to a really nice piece of fan art he made when he was inspired by last week’s strip “Inward not Outward.” I really like the concept, and it was well done – thanks so much Evan!
Happy Friday everyone. Here’s a bit of fan art I did for a new webcomic I am enjoying called “Our Intrepid Crew” by Reiss and SquidDNA (hey, that’s their names on the site! Note: comic would be PG13 for language). There’s some really great art in the strip, and some great character design. This particular character is Eloree, she seems to be the main character. I thought she was cool, so I took at whack at it. Here’s what I ended up with. (Click for full view)
This week I fell into the mood to make a plush. So last night we had family craft night, and I made one of Asimov. It’s obviously quite simplified. He’s all hand sewn, first time I ever sewed with embroidery thread. I used a lot of backstitching which seemed to work well. I made one small mistake where a knot fell out on the left side, kind of a bummer, but I was able to keep it all together.
(click for bigger view)
I wasn’t sure if I could make the antenna work, but I was able to sew it together and then into the body itself. You can’t quite see it but the antenna ball has sparklies in it! I also used the puffballs for the buttons. He’s about 10″ tall.
Not sure if I am going to keep him or auction him off. Hrm…
Today I’ve been trying out a different kind of inking/coloring technique. Instead of using a hard edged round brush with full flow, I’m using a mostly hard edged diamond brush with lower flow. It’s actually Daniel Lieske’s (he of The Wormworld Saga) “detail” brush. It’s really a brush for painting but I like the softer feel of it. Here’s a preview of Lian in the next strip. What do you think?
I quite like how she looks here. Whether it will work as a whole or not, I’m not sure. But I’m about to find out! I’ve also tweaked Lian’s suit and hair color a bit. I like the thicker top section on her neck, and a slightly darker hair color. It seems I can never stop fiddling with things. Oh well!
Here’s a little sketch of Lian and Voon for you. It’s been a busy week and I’ve not been able to do any drawing other than this quick one. But I did spend a bit of time reading through my “episode map” which lays out my story, so I have a better feel of where we’re at now. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the things I had forgotten I put in there! I still am liking the story quite a bit, especially once we get to the real juicy bits!
The map has 67 entries left (including the one for this week) to complete the story. Generally an entry maps to a strip, but not quite. There’s usually a 10-20% “overage” in the end. So I figure there are about around 77-80 strips left. (Although there’s always a chance it could be more because I find something I want to pursue – sometimes that happens!) If we say 80, at my current rate of 1 update a week, that means there’s another 20 months to complete the story. Yikes!
I’d much rather move the story along faster and have it 10 months. It moves slowly at once per week, and honestly, I want to complete this and move on to the next thing (whether it’s another Marooned story or something else is irrelevant.) I’m going to try and look at ways to tighten up my production schedule and see if I can try and get back closer to 2x a week. I’m not sure I can do it, but we’ll see. It would be nice to be able to finish it in a year, at least. If it is another 80 strips, that would end the story at strip #391.
I still don’t have a title for this episode yet. Hrm.
I’m hoping to have this weeks strip done for Friday. It’s written, I just need to draw and color it. See you then!
I’ve always wanted to paint digitally, not just “color” a comic or illustration. I’ve had quite a few failed attempts at it. Then recently I found some process videos by Daniel Lieske, an amazing artist who also has a webcomic that you definitely should check out called “The Wormworld Saga.” The artwork is beautifully painted – every panel.
I had tried to add some painterly effects to strips in the past, but I really never knew what I was doing. Also, it takes long than the traditional way I color things. Anyway, watching Daniel’s videos helped me to understand his process and I really wanted to give it a try. I’ve already had one failed attempt, but I think this second attempt might be on the right track.
What we have here is John in the cockpit of his ship. It seems Asimov is not in his proper seat. Maybe John is the cause of this? I don’t have a title for this yet, maybe you all can suggest one. The piece at this stage is at the drawing stage. I’ve done the “premlim” grayscale layer, then drew over that. (Truth is I did a sketch first, then prelim, then redrew). The next stage is to begin painting it.
Hey folks, just a heads up that I wrote an article for Jason Brubaker’s Making Comics site called “How to Use Photoshop Actions to Speed up Your Comics Work.” There’s also lots of other good articles on comics making there as well, so be sure to check them out.
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