It’s been a long time since my last update, and apart from being busy, I’ve also been besieged by a number of technical problems. Computer failures, hard disk failures, blackouts…all intent on happening when you least expect them to. I still haven’t fixed it yet, because I encountered the Windows Blue Screen of Doom twice yesterday. I guess the bad news is, I may have to get a new hard disk, and then reinstall crappy windows. The good news is, Warcraft III still works.

 

Book signing: There’s going to be a book signing for “The Dreaming” in Canberra, on Saturday March 11th. The place is Impact Comics, and it’s a “Aussie Comic Creators – Wonder Women” event, 3 days after International Women’s Day. It’ll be a showcase of 4 Australian women comic creators, which apart from me, includes Trudy Cooper, Nicola Scott and Liz Argall. I must say I’m looking forward to meeting everyone. Those who are fans of Trudy’s Platinum Grit can either show up or die of jealousy. And I met Liz at Supanova, so I’m looking forward to seeing her again. So:

 

What: Book signing for “The Dreaming”
Called: “Aussie Comic Creators – Wonder Women”, also meet Trudy Cooper (Platinum Grit), Nicola Scott (Penciller for alot of US comics) and Liz Argall (Writer for Aussie Anthologies)
When: Saturday, March 11th, 12:30pm
At: Impact Comics!
Address: Level 1, 45 East Row, Canberra ACT 2601
Phone: (02) 6248-7335

 

The Dreaming: The script is all done, the second book is due for a November 2006 release, and I’ve finished Chapters 8-9 completely! *Fanfare* There’s still 5 chapters to go, but here’s hoping to hire some friends as toners so I can speed up the rather sedate process of using the magic wand, and then the fill tool. They have to prove that they can tone like me first, so I’ll probably ink some chapter 10 pages and have them cut their teeth on that. Sample pages – as you can see, I’ve eschewed the digital balloons for hand-drawn ones, which look better. More organic, and with better tails.

 

 

 

Working on it: Here goes my new art style. Remember the good old days when I never toned much of anything, and drew pure black and white comics? I wish those days would come back, but it seems that even when I try and do high-contrast imagery, I can’t escape the tone monster. That said, I’m not working towards a more mature, photo-realistic style of art. Haven’t got it pinned down yet, as the below picture will attest. One thing about photo-realism is that (a)you need thin and thick lines in the fight places, and no lines in certain places, and (b)you need a photo reference. I had neither in the picture below, not to mention a number of minor lighting and anatomy problems. I also used a brush pen, which I shouldn’t have if I weren’t familiar with it.

 

 

First of all, it wsn’t done with a photo reference, so the lighting is all mucked up for the house in the background. Secondly, the contrast of gradient tones isn’t strong enough, leading to a washed out grey look about it which makes it not as striking as it should be. Unfortunately, the ComicWorks tones I used for this doesn’t have very good gradient tones, so for now there’s nothing I can do about it. I also overlaid 2 screen tones on the dress, which = disaster in print. And the same neck-and-arm anatomy problems are still there. That said, I’m now downloading some high-contrast greyscale images of Old Town Macau to use as practice, to see whether I can get the contrast of black, white and tone right if I use a photo-reference. I think it’ll take a few more tries, but I’ll post the results up here.

 

Baseball Manga: This was fun. It’s the first time, I’ve directly imitated the drawing style of another artist (for good reason, but it’s secret), and I’ve only got the line thickness and toning whacked. I think the original was done with brush pens, but I need a better PDF version of the original before I can determine that. The toning is dodgy, probably be cause the tones in ComicWorks (once again) wasn’t fine enough, and the scratchiness of the look doesn’t help either. It’s mean to be a smoothly reflected helmet, but it doesn’t look it. Bah. That said, I didn’t copy this. I “borrowed” the art style to create a whole new panel.

 

 

That said, does anyone know recognise this art style? The originals were sent to me by PDF, so I don’t know which manga this is or who drew it. It looks familiar though, like Kaiji Kawaguchi’s art, but I can’t be sure. He’s a vey skilled artist though, and quite frankly, trying to draw as well as he does is difficult. It’s not the line thickness or toning, which can be fixed – it’s the precision inthe anatomy. The original manga had a great grasp of anatomy, and that’s where I fall short. It’s one thing doing cartoony people, but I seriously felt the differences when I drew this. Time to dig out the anatomy books again. I need it for my photo-realistic art anyway.

 

Radio Interview with me: I don’t listen to the radio, but my Triple J Interview was indeed played on radio, and was heard by people. I know because someone posted here to tell me about it, and later posted the link too. Thanks to Fiona Hogg for this interview. I remember when it was taken too – in my hotel room with a portable electronic recorder thingo that Fiona had just been given by Triple J.