~ More Cthulhu Tank Crew pages... ~

Inked page I promised last time; plus an additional page done after the last post.

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Sketches of some Vampire Supremacists. They regard the original Nosferatu as a kind of political demagogue, promising a program of shed blood for every working family. (In their eyes, the equivalent to what the fascists and socialists were offering in terms of "Bread and a fair wage for everyone"):

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The Slumberhexe. I'm not sure if she induces sleep, or is merely a functionary of a greater entity that induces sleep. Perhaps she monitors what we know as REM sleep via some kind of vague telepathic/empathic feeling as she floats through villages; or, she might induce sleep walking in select persons for whatever unknown reason. Or maybe she's just like most any other homeless ghost, unaware of where she is or what she's doing - maybe she's the somnambulist. (And if you don't have a dictionary on hand, that'll learn you.)

~Call me Lazarus... ~

...So seems to be the case as of late. Anyhow, semi-monthly update.

Some explanations for the drawings are in order: The several pages here are a continuation of the Chthulhu tank crew page I posted several months back. The blue pages are the most recent (last night); the others in red were back some months ago - the crimson was pretty much at the same time as the first page posted (somewhere below in another post); the scarlet were a few months after. In fact... quite a few of the things posted here have considerable gaps inbetween, some going back to almost a year ago. Hooray for procrastina... I mean, progress.



If you pieced them together from oldest to newest, they'd be somewhat consistent as far as being sequential. As far as actual story... these are more screw-around pages, to keep my mind fresh with drawing something sequential. I think I spent more time trying to figure on how the steering mechanism operates the tank rather than where I was going with any of this.

Panels below are separate. Pen and ink somehow found their way onto the pages. Not entirely happy with every panel, but some of the individual character drawings turned out alright. The large panel that takes up half the page (right side) is an artifact of that screwing around I mentioned earlier. Find myself doing more and more of these - what are these called... friezes? - as of late. I blame Klimt.

(There was a second page of ink. Will post another time.)

Some early sketches of these characters. Probably the 3rd pass, right after I did the initial two comic pages. You can see a gradual codification of the faces, esp. in comparison with the first comic page and character sketches (somewhere below in another post).
Some more random sketches from some months ago.

I really like how this last one turned out for some reason. Maybe it's the environment being something more down to earth rather than sci-fi or abstract. Or maybe the shapes on the nurse. Definitely not the Grim Reaper lurking in the bg; no...

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And as an aside, wanted to try to repost some of the color pieces I threw up (quite literally) back around November. Adjusted the saturation levels between the Cintiq and the monitor to compensate for how pastel the tones were looking on my computer back home. (These were done on another work station). Not sure how these'll fare out on most other monitors though:

I'm growing to hate the process of translating color to digital, since it seems like no matter how much color correction you hope to achieve on any one monitor, you still have to troubleshoot how the color is going to turn out between several other monitors before you can settle on a palette that you not only feel comfortable with, but that will translate well once it goes to print. Have had enough bad experiences with locking in to one work station (monitor, tablet, Cintiq, etc.) while painting or color correcting a scan, only to find that it looks like f**k all once you see it elsewhere on another format.

Anyhow, some additional panels:


Think the key is to punch the core tones and shadows to a nice level of vibrant, while wrangling in the light source tones (both primary and secondary) to a point where they remain both bright and vibrant - at the same time not being washed out, etc. Which is tough; you want those secondary light sources (or shaded areas) to not draw the eye away by being too saturated.


In either case, I'm sure someone will comment on these being too dark. Which is probably correct, given that Wacom and Kinko's seem to have as a mission statement that no matter what I do, I have to constantly guess what the actual color I'm painting in looks like. To quote Robin Williams; "It's like hunting with Ray Charles."

~ Surprisingly not dead... ~

...but getting there soon enough. Some vignettes, with color, despite the Cintiq and the 2nd monitor getting all womanish on me and deceiving me eyes with the tones.








First two were from months ago, around the same time I did the daytime vignette studies (below a few posts); spent the past hour doing cleanup on the lines. Yes, they are cleaned up. Still working on how this will end

Next 3 were from this past month. The entire sequence of 20-something panels is actually finished, with the panties playing a vital role near the end. But then again, when do they not.

Last 2 are more recent; still working on the sequence, but I have an idea of where it'll go. Although a decided lack of underwear, a jetpack and a Chthulhu will more than make up for it near the conclusion.

~ More Moleskine... ~

Older pieces from the sketchbook, from a few months ago.

~ Cthulhu Tank Crew sketches...~

Done on an 8.5 x 11 Moleskine sketchbook. (Redid some portions of the above pen & ink piece in Cintiq. I really need to keep from uploading before letting these drawings sit for a few days, to catch the mistakes...)
Another page after this, but I just got done finishing my taxes, and I'm tired.

Morituri te salutant. Or rather, 'So long, adieu - Auf Wedersehen, good bye...'

~ Color Studies, or: Comic Panel Procrastination... ~


Wanted to do some studies in color. These are around the Golden Hour, sunset. I have another set of panels set during mid-day; I'll post those next time. The negative space is presumably for word bubbles. The panel layout was kind of an after-thought.

I'm noticing that I need to open up my character expression vocabulary a little more, give them a bigger variety of emotions and expressions. As is, I'm tending to start these scenarios or scenes with the introductory shot of someone looking dire or morose. I blame Russian novels.

Besides this, I need to work more on being able to pace a scene out, find where to bring the emotional level up during an interaction between characters. Plus, there are more than a few ways to make a scene interesting without having to resort to yelling and/or violence. I blame Tarantino* and whoever made Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.

(*Although he's gotten better. Reservoir Dogs is the only one that I've seen that's annoying in that respect.)

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Something from the sketchbook this past week:On a side note: Fabric softener is probably one of the best inventions of the modern world.

~ New Years' Sketch Resolutions... ~

... Resolution - other than to make better scans of my sketchbook - is to actually get better at sketching all around: composition, lighting, human form, etc. To really loosen up, even in the more realistic pieces, if possible. (Looking at the above, I've got some ways to go on that front.)

Claire Wendling's been known to completely redraw a sketch from scratch several times over until the look and feel of the thing catches the balance she's looking for. Good idea... another reason why I shouldn't run off posting anything I've done several months remove, just to look like I'm making progress.

Looking at the first color sketch-up I did of the Wehrmacht characters above (the post before this one, below)... well, was done several months ago. Caca. Hence the redraw above from scratch. As much of an excuse as this is, Cintiq's a pain to draw in; and being on work hours doing these studies doesn't help much. I will say though, looking through this book's helped alot.

Anyhow, more recent stuff from the sketchbook below:

~ Mega Dump... ~

..Or post, as is more polite. Some profile pages drawn in Cintiq, sans rambling story text. I like how these turned out.

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And some WWII sketches from... eons (months) ago.

[First pic deleted, as per the rule of not posting shyte drawings.]

Colors turned out ok on this one.

This one... I really tried to make the lighting as balanced as possible. Considering the number of light sources, and forcing the balance so that the eye's directed where I wanted it to go... Eh, needs work. Fire's a pain to render in daytime settings.

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Some Boyar Bots. Da, Cintiq:
And our favorite heroin having LOTR dreams involving said bots. Must be the drinking milk after midnight.