Satisfaction Tastes Good

Today marks the completion of the first chapter of Rose With Thorns! I am stoked to have completed one chapter, only ten pages though it was. The last page is up and can be found here. There's no textless version of the page this time, since there's no speech bubbles on it anyway.

Also Thatch's color guide is done! I've concluded that these color sheets have little to do with their face design. Neither he nor Rose look right on theirs. But the outfit and the colors are there for me to use, and that's really all I need.

Random Update: This Was A Bad Idea

Over the past week or so I've been working on Chapter 2 of Rose With Thorns. To be honest I've been dreading it because there will be at least three complex backgrounds for just this chapter, at least one of which I am unlikely to use again. It's tempting to have a majority of the story take place somewhere easy to draw but I'd rather not put a cap on creativity.

So here's my first real obnoxious setting, a playground. A photo of the playground outside my apartment was used as a guide.

I also started something that I've been meaning to; a color/outfit chart for Thatch. He'll make his debut in Chapter 3 but I'd like to be ready for that. Hopefully he'll be finished on Friday and uploaded with the last page of Chapter 2.

What's His Face

Though I technically don't have a weekly art goal anymore, I still want to do as many drawings as I can that aren't comic pages or covers. A lot of them will be concept art for the comic since it's a huge project, but there will also be things that aren't.

This week is for Rose With Thorns, however. It's the third of my main characters, whose name so far is just... Thatch. Possibly his last name. I don't even know. He made a few varying appearances in this blog last year but I think his design is finally nailed down.

It's important that I state that he is not Rose's love interest. She isn't going to have one. As it stands, no one is. I want to try a different route and emphasize platonic and familial relationships in this story.

2015's Starter Pistol

You haven't heard from me on this blog since New Year's Eve, so I'd say it's time you had a little update.

My hope is to officially publish the first page of the comic on Friday, January 9th. It will be a weekly production with one page per week (with a few exceptions). Since December 31st I've been working on these feverishly hoping to have four pages and some sort of cover art done by the publishing date so I'll be ahead. So far, so good.

Just to tease, here's some small screenshots of the first 3 pages, without their text. The third page teaser isn't quite done being drawn yet, but I decided I'd share anyway. It's alright if they're too small for you to see what's happening exactly. That was the idea. ;)

Week 44: The Stubborn Girl Part 2

Once again just barely in time, Rose's outfit/color guide sheet.

Rose is actually half Mexican and I recently realized that would probably make her name "Rosa", but she goes by "Rose" just to lessen any bullying/complications with classmates/racist jerks. Though she's just finished high school so I guess the former is no longer relevant.

Her clothes are no baggy as a fashion statement. Her clothes are baggy because living with an abusive step father does a number on your appetite and you don't eat much. Her birth father was awesome, just so we're clear. He's also where she gets her Mexican blood from.

Week 43: The Stubborn Girl

This week was spent working on a re-design for Rose, trying to make her look less plain. She did not cooperate well, especially for the frontal view. I think all has ended well however, so here's her turn sheet at last. I shaped her eyes differently, gave her a heavier set brow, and made her lips larger.

I'm uncertain if I'll do her outfit/color guide next like I did Charlie's, but there's a good chance.

Week 41: A Guide of Sorts

The reason that there were no progress shots of this week is that I sat down and did it in about an hour... if you exclude two attempts before this one. I don't want to think about how long I fought with each of those before giving up.

Anyway, the old guy's name is Charlie. I don't think he has a last name yet but that's not really a pressing matter. More concerning to me are the outfit and colors that I'll have to repeat possibly several times per comic page. His height isn't determined yet but somewhere around 6 feet seems reasonable.

Charlie is a half-Native American veteran. Which tribe and which war specifically aren't yet determined. The former will depend on where I set the story, which I haven't figured out yet besides it being an urban area. I will say however that I plan to represent him in a respectful, non-stereotyped manner, and will do my best research for it.

Week 40 - The Process

At some point my plan was for Week 40 to be big, colorful, and epic. Due to some health complications, that did not work out. But realizing how far along in the year I am did bring about the decision to light a match under myself in terms of a massive personal project.

A webcomic I've been thinking about for a couple years still needs quite a bit of work done on it in terms of characters design and... almost everything really. I've posted other works of other characters (Rose and Thatch if you remember them), but the third major character had no face until this week.

This is my process of designing a character. Some practice with references of people with the age/body type I'm leaning towards, some free sketching, and finally something cemented once I think my character is "them".

Next week I plan to do a full body drawing and color chart for him... and also dig up whatever document I have his name in because I honestly forgot it. Oops.

Week 30: Striping Crew Ahead

Not to be confused with a stripping crew.

I thought the stripes would be a pain but they were actually really fun! The only bad part is that my scanner ate the nice color gradient on his hair.

His name is Kane and he contorts/controls fire.

Week 30: Reduction

The detail on his hand might not be as nice as it was, but it's more proportioned now and that makes me happy. Once he's colored he'll be orange wit darker color stripes. His hair might be his stripe color. Seems like a good idea.

Week 30: Dude Your Hand...

I just now scanned this and realized it looks like a bee (or several bees) stung his hand. I'm gonna fix that before it drives me completely up a wall.

Week 28 Is Enough

July 12th was one of my close friends' birthday (the day after mine!) so I drew him a little gift of two of our characters hanging out. Mine is obviously Kat, the er... cat. His is Kyle the hyena. He's like her cuddly little brother.

I had plans to do something full color and all for this week, but it didn't work out. This turned out well however, so I decided it would work for this week.

Week 14

The art bug was biting hard today so I not only finished this but did several other sketches and started some concepts for Week 15, which I will post tomorrow.

I briefly considered leaving his hands white, but then it just looked like they were unfinished.

Week 14: Look the Other Way

Drawing another original character re-design this week, sort of as a match for last week. Maybe eventually I'll do other characters, but for now it's just Kat (last week) and Duke.

Like Kat he's not wearing his "official" outfit but what he wears under it. I also decided to emphasize his weapon of choice like I did hers (her hands). It's kinda weird drawing him from an angle where you can't see his eye patch. He looks about ten years younger.

Also that gun is way too big, good grief.

Week 13 Fully Realized

It's colored.

I'm tired.

Thank you all and good night

Week 13 Took Some Sick Days

During the 3-ish years that I lived alone I forgot about the concept of sharing everything with whomever you live with. In this case it's my mother and she shared a cold with me that knocked me flat all weekend. Suffice to say, drawing was not on the schedule between being miserable and sleeping a lot.

It's been a while since I did anything finished of my character Kat, and since I've been redesigning her lately I decided to give it a shot. It will be inked and colored, probably tomorrow. The sad thing is that I started it last Tuesday and didn't touch it until today. Oops.

Week 9 Keeps a Secret

Week 9 was rough. My mind wouldn't settle down and let me start anything until either Friday or Saturday, and by then I was feeling creatively sluggish at best. I reached a peak in wanting to design a crazy detailed outfit with fun patterns and emblems and a brand new character specifically for said outfit and others like it.

But that didn't work.

Instead I decided to be satisfied with simply designing the character and giving her a cuteish but simple outfit to introduce her.

She has no name yet, but I like her. She's a rare plus-size model who mostly works for a specific company that designs attractive clothes for larger women. She also wears wigs most of the time, I haven't decided what color her hair actually is.