You can find me other places on the internet if you must… and you must!

Facebook.

Twitter.

Instagram.

You can always just email me about stuff too.

Blah.

It’s a work in progress but there will be progress…

Speaking of which, finite episode 3 in underway!

And while this may look like a mess to you it looks like progress to me. It’ll all most likely change but it’s a great start!

I’ll be selling most of the stuff ive been slinging for a while but ill also have a new book. finite episode 2! This will be it’s first show and i’d like to show you how i made the cover for her before i just throw it out there for you to see. Here we go!

It all starts with math. I laid out the base elements (two suns, some hands, the horizon fo the desert planet and a few aliens on mounts) here in Adobe Illustrator.

Next i work in some elements from the bottom. The planet was in 3D. I found some photos of hands and filled in the foreground ones with rough drawings.

Here i figured out my interlocking suns. It’s not all exciting.

Here i added some scans of tiny rough drawings that i’ve done on scraps of paper during the day job.

The logo as well as the sphere/ship make an appearance! It is a must to leave room for your books logo. Duh.

And on to the inks… or at least the digital inks. Up to this point weve been in photoshop. The inks here were layed out over the previous image in Manga Studio. I like this program.

We add some color to the lines…

Then some color between the lines. Sounds simple right? It’s not…

Some highlights and shadows here and there help define the depth of the subjects.

A few gradients, some noise and some black for the cold death of space and we are mostly done. Mostly.

Don’t forget to give yourself credit on your cover. It’s also a good idea to let them know what issue it is… or episode in our case. We are pretenous!

And i’m tired now. Goodnight internet!

When birthday parties roll around i am often ask if i could draw something for the child rather than just buy a gift. I have no problem with this. It’s more personal and much more fun than randomly grabbing something off a shelf at a toy store.

This time it was for two kids. Nephews of mine. I was told they liked Iron Man… and the Hulk… and Spider-Man… and that i could just pick one. So, of course i drew all three. But don’t let me get ahead of myself. First i started with a layout!

I wanted to go with something simple to start out with. A nice symmetrical design. An X!

I then roughed in some bodies fighting. Not being a fan of Iron Man or tech in general i pushed him tot he background. (it should be noted here that these were done on notebook paper at work. That’s why they have horizontal lines in them.

Step three; i clean up the rough scans a little in Photoshop. Sizes change. Positions shift. It’s all in flux.

Then i clean them up a lot. A lesser person would have stopped here… i am not a lesser person.

I took my “rough” into Manga Studio and “inked” it. I use “quotes” a lot.

Here i dropped in some color. This was done back in Photoshop for those playing along at home.

I add some adjustment layers to round out the shapes a little…

Here i did a few things in one step. 1-i added a star field in the background to break up that solid shape. 2-i “blue-d” up all the colors to bring them in line with one another. 3-there is also a slight recycled paper texture over the whole thing now to again bring all the elements together.

This entire process took a few hours. I’d say 7-8 maybe. I don’t think that’s bad.

I’d like to talk about the evolution of a character. These are a few drawings of the Perceptionist from finite.

She started out a bit more rounded in the hair and face than i intended… then she got lean and buff. Things change.

This was the first drawing of her with the intention of being printed.

(i’m not going to really talk about anything but her head here. Yeah she only has 3 fingers and a toe on her heel. Thats not important for this.) Her hair was rounded. Her face a bit fuller and the eyes “dead”. This didn’t really work for me.

Heres the same drawing but not poorly inked on paper. This one is poorly inked in Manga Studio!

Note the slight differant in the nose. I wanted to push the african ascetic. Her eyes still dont shine the way i wanted and her expression is… missing.

I figured out the problem right after i got 100 or so of those back from the printer. She had no brow!

Here she is in the book. She has a brow and it moves! It instantly gave her an expression. She could not emote! By the way her eyes are modeled on octopus eyes. I like the fact that they are not round pupils. It’s cool.

The further i went into the book the less round her face was.

This oblong shape makes the round shape of the eyeballs stand out more. Also notice her hair continues to lean more and more to one side. Symmetry isn’t natural. People are not perfect. Actually they are often the opposite.

Here she is in the latest (and only the 2nd) issue. Sorry about that.

The shapes in her face are perhaps a bit less feminine than i intended but look at the eyes! They have personality. They are each looking for/at something and relaying info back to her.

It’s all a work in progress.

Somethings get better. Some don’t. You just hope that they don’t get worse.

Thanks.

Let’s start with some comicy goodness! Here is the breakdown of a page from my next comic “finite: episode 2″.

We start with a really rough thumbnail. Really rough. I draw these about 3 inches tall.

Now we throw some math and shapes at it to claen those lines up. I usually handle this in Adobe Illustrator.

Now i grab some still from a 3d world i built. I have the planet in Cinema 4D so that i can get the geography right from ever angle. This saves me time. It’s crazy work up front but worth it. I even built a rough ship and some dudes.

Now i do some rough digital pencils over my shapes in photoshop. This is where all the personality comes thru. Remember this stiff 3d shapes? I dont’…

I take the digital pencils into Manga Studio and ink away. I ink in multiple colors on different layers so that i can color the lines as i see fit for the next step. Speaking of which…

Behold my flat colors! I take care of this back in Photoshop. Only 3 more steps!

Here i have added the shadows and highlights. I just slightly hit at the shapes of things with a light adjustment level for each variation. I’m crazy.

Now some glows. For the suns and such. It makes it a bit more spacey right?

And it’s lettered. There is a whole “write the script part somewhere in here but that’s an update for later.

Good night everybody.

I was on a great podcast.

Myself & Mike continued our own podcast.

I finishe my western, Iron & Ink, and have a preview of the first issue up on my site. All four issues will be collected soon and for sale in my store… soon.

Other things have happened as well but i don’t have links for them.

I promise to update my lil site more often. Promise.

If you need a fix of me int he mean-time i am on twitter!

Come on out and see me at Table C11. I’ll be the big bald guy with a beard in between a much slimmer bald guy in a hat and Uko Smith.

I should draw a children’s comic someday.

There are some problems with it but over all i think i did pretty good. The coloring is top-notch in my opinion.

I might post a “making of” in a few days.

but… it is also the coolest! These are two brand new books that i will start selling today at the ICE Expo!

I wish that I could have done more prep work to push this convention appearance but life gets in the way sometimes. The important part is that i’ll be there and will have some pretty awesome stuff to sell.

I’ll even have Mike (from the podcast Collected Issues and co-creator of finite) with me.