ArtBlawg

VARULV Page Creation Process

2011-11-18T06:52:00.000-08:00

So by now you've probably noticed the new look VARULV has been given for its latest incarnation on the web. It's probably not hard to guess that it was influenced greatly by the look and feel of traditionally animated films and shows. It's become apparent in the last year that I'm catering to a significantly younger audience than I first thought I would be, and that, if I was going to do an online serial, I'd better put some color to this thing in order to keep up with the competition. Too, I think color lends itself well to the story -- frankly, lots of my characters, in their wolfy forms, look an awful lot alike. Color gives them obvious distinction that I can't so easily achieve in black and white pages, alone. Plus, and this is a big plus for yours truly; changing up the style a bit is a great way to keep yourself entertained as an artist, when you have to draw page after page after page of lots of the same thing.

So! How did I do all this? Let me show you...

As I would were I animating this thing, and as I've done for all the comics leading up to this one, I started with a thumbnail and small-scale storyboard (which, sadly, I can't show you -- I didn't keep any to scan this time around) and through that, worked out the layout of my pages. In VARULV issues 1 through 4, I would head straight to drawing everything -- characters, backgrounds, you name it, directly onto comic board. But I didn't go that route this time:

The image above a good example of everything I put on comic board for a page, this time around. Actually, it's not. It's been cleaned up quite a bit -- I start sketching with blue pencil on layout bristol that's chock full of guide lines and all that other crap... Then take that mess into Photoshop, straighten it, adjust the levels, add the borders and THEN I'm left with what you see above... but you get the point. But where are the backgrounds?! Right here:

For my birthday, Matt got me a set of liquid pencils. They're basically various shades of grey that go on like a mix between watercolor and graphite. When they dry, they're even erasable! I had lots of fun with these and knew they'd have to be a part of my next VARULV story straight out of the box. So! Taking another blank piece of comic board, I painted all the landscapes I'd need for the pages I was working on, and took them into Photoshop to add color. The color layer is a multiply layer, set over the original graphite, allowing the paint to show through. I added very few highlights to that color, and in no time had a full page of various backgrounds I could use over and over again. Now, as for the sky...

I painted that in Photoshop, then adjusted the tones to give it that night time look. As with the landscapes, I have lots of clouds to choose from, and can drop my land overtop of any of them, and adjust the colors of both accordingly depending on what time of day it is. Neat!

So I bet you see where I'm going with this. Mimicking the process of traditional animation with static backdrops and "cels" of characters layered overtop of them was really helping to give me the look I wanted.

As you can see in the above image, the only major thing left to do at this point, was color in my characters...

I started with the base colors. To save time, I find it easiest to line up as many pages as I have ready for coloring, and tackle them all at once, one character at a time.

And when the bases were done, the shading and highlighting was added. Shadow layers were done, again set to multiply over the base colors, with a slight tint of blue added, since it's dark out. Highlights were then placed over the shadow layer. All I had to do after was add my dialogue bubbles.

So there it is! Hope you've enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at how VARULV comes together. Also hope you'll enjoy the new look of the series. I know I do.

Until next time!

VARULV Concept Art 11-7-11

2011-11-07T06:09:00.000-08:00

Some sketches of the dudes of VARULV Book II for you, today:

Lots of people ask me how I manage to break down the human head to its simplest components so it can be navigated by the artist, more easily. The above is about the clearest way that I can answer that question. Again, these heads are intended for male characters (that's not to say you couldn't use them on a female character, however). More effeminate head structures are composed differently, and I'll get into those sketches, next time.

Head models for Kjell, Stig, Kit, Tau, and Alo.

Kjell breakdowns and turn-around. I'll be using this structure (stretched and squashed as needed) to render the majority of my dudes, with one exception...

Kit's breakdowns. Don't you just want to cuddle him???

Torso concepts for Stig, Alo and Tau. I'll be tweaking these a bit... Mostly just playing with what lines are important for each, at this point.

More to come...

Sketchdump 10-21-11

2011-10-21T07:24:00.001-07:00

So I basically wore myself out and didn't realize it until now. I took a legitimate (or as some hacks would say, legit-o-mite) week off, if you didn't know. Not that I'm known for taking vacations anyway, this holiday was still different from all others that I can remember in recent years. And by that I mean, with my books finished, and my convention schedule clear, I did precisely jack.

No sketching. No writing. No nothing. Just sat around and collected my thoughts. And only then did I come up with some of the things I've got to share, here:

When I finally did want to do some drawing, I found that I couldn't... It was too hard. So Matt suggested I draw a trombone. And then some other people suggested I draw the ferrets. The above are my best attempts at both, working only from memory. Hey, you try to get a trombone and a pair of ferrets to stand still long enough for a decent portrait... I dare you.

Then I thought I'd draw my hero, Charles, being dead. Actually, I started this when Brendon said, "Hi guys, no more show. Going on tour now. Seeya bros!" and only this week went back to finishing it.

Then, because I haven't stirred up any controversy lately, I played off of some research I'd done on the Occupation of Denmark during World War II, and drew Caj in a Nazi uniform. Not sure if I'll be using the story that I came up with for this image come January, but it's a good possibility.

And then, playing off of the Disney sketches I'd been doing of Nita for the animation I've been working on during my free hours (wait, what free hours?), I thought I'd switch gears from my would-be Baen-Shee book to my would-be Book II of VARULV, and throw some of the attributes of that style into Keni, in the image above. I very much like the results...

And here's just a quick sketch of Keni's "werekitty" form. I watch way too much Thundercats. Shut up.

Similar experimentation with the rest of my VARULV cast produced equally good results. Kjell and Stig looked the best in my first attempts to modify the style in which I could potentially be drawing them. I keep these two sketches and their accompanying notes handy in my workspace, to use as reference.

More modified breakdowns. Male/female head models again tweaked with a slightly Disney-esque style, or at least, some things I've taken away from doing animation in the style again.

Nita sketch. Warmup for...

This was actually mostly done in ink. Kate got me some pens for my birthday and I had to try them out this morning... now I'm itching to go to Michael's and pick up some fine brushes to test the liquid pencils Matt got me, and perhaps add shading to this.

Vacation's over, but it's been good to take a break... even when it comes to the creative stuff I love to do. So now there's really nothing for me to do except get my ass back to work..!

Female Anatomy Study Sketchdump 9-3-11

2011-09-03T12:08:00.001-07:00

Hi!

I have so many things on my plate today, it isn't funny. In lieu of drawing something new... which I really wanna do... here's some stuff that's been sitting around in my sketchbook, for some time...

Most of it is for the yet-to-be-named "Baen-Shee comic book". In fact, all of it is. For as little as I have nailed down for this story, I can't keep my mind off of it... so research has become my primary objective thus far. That's in all areas, mind you. I'm reading tons of newspapers right now, because I think reading the news (note I didn't say watching the news - that doesn't count) is always a good way to get ideas for stories. I'm boning up on many many intricate details of world history in the last milennia. I'm even re-reading the Bible, a little...

I bought the sketchbook at Matt's insistence... Apparently I'd been bitching too much and for too long about taking the time to give my knowledge of human anatomy a kick in the pants for the first time in three years. I wanted to take it further though. This time, I wanted to not just glance over medical books and take notes, but also to take notes on my own stylization and the reasons that I draw people the way I do. Especially chicks...

Females have become so easy for me to render to my own satisfaction that I basically don't have to think about what goes where and why. And that's kind of a red-flag for me. It's a safe spot. I don't like to be in safe spots, creatively. I have to be sure that what I'm doing makes sense before I get too comfortable and forget to try anything to improve...

Anyway, let's get to what you all came here to see: HARDCORE NUDITY.

I looked at a bunch of my drawings, and this is pretty much a breakdown of what I consider to be important lines on a woman's torso:

Breaking it down to different body-types would look something like this:

I draw lots of heads too, and here are some sketches of basic head-shape, the way I normally go about drawing those...

Pay special attention here, because this is super-important -- Different chicks have different kinds of boobs. As illustrated in this sketch:

Then I have this strangely-angled render of Sparkles' torso (with breakdown). I see so many people drawing ladies with very manly six-pack abs or none at all. If you're going for muscles on a girl, there's a nice in-between you can achieve, if you take the time to look at pictures of, or are lucky enough to coax modeling services out of real women...

Nita sketches... Typical hourglass figure renders, etc. etc...

Caj sketches. I wanted to go a little more realistic on her differently colored eyes, so I spent a lot of time researching heterochromia in cases of people with brain tumors. The color variation is caused by blood clotting behind the iris, which would likely show up speckled, as in the sketch, below.

I also looked at lots of pictures of David Bowie (though, no, his eyes don't display heterochromia at all -- one of his pupils is permanently dilated due to a beating he received as a kid.)

I get all kinds of excited when people ask me how to draw people of all different body styles. It's honestly not so different from one person to the next (see the line-up near the top of this entry, for example).

But I'm not always comfortable with it, either. It's challenging. But it's important to remember that no matter how much or how little fat, muscle, aged skin or other things are piled on the body, the rules of proper proportioning don't change and neither does the underlying structure. Here are some drawings of Cherry which have helped me a ton in getting her figure down, correctly:

More doodles...

And more to come... :)

For the Love

2011-07-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a nice chat with a friend of mine. This friend works at Kinda-Big Comic Book Publisher. He's pretty important, as he reviews submissions when they come through the mail, gives them consideration and passes them off to a couple of other important guys. Our conversation didn't turn into a pitch so much as one of those "I've been thinking about doing this kind of story..." things. Important Guy liked my idea, and what I'd been doing with my artwork these days enough to offer me some advice on the matter (even though the company he worked for wasn't the one I'd necessarily be seeking out for this endeavor -- how rare is that?):

"I think you need to make it a series. At least a few books."

The only problem with that of course, is that I was fully intending only to do a one-shot.

Everything I know about pitching a comic book revolves around the idea of getting it done with as much quality and as few pages as possible. One-shots offer a complete story in a single go, are a better bet for the publisher when it comes to consistency of work within, and are less a risk for them to take on, in general. A series, even a miniseries, has the potential to fail right off the bat for the simple fact that its story can't be told in a single sitting. A series contract is offered only to people with insanely good ideas that have the lowest chance of a miss. Have I therefore officially made it and wasn't told?

Nah, that would be delusional. What my friend meant was, that the story I have to tell, would probably be marketed best as a series -- hence I need to rework a few things if I'm going to have a shot at producing my one-shot. And believe me, a series would be great but with the schedule I keep, I really only want to do one... at least for now.

"But Dawn!" You say, "Why cut your success like that?"

Well first of all, what publisher in his right mind would let me have a series straight off the bat like that? Were that the case, I'd suspect brain damage. More to the point, as far as my interest goes at least, I think the reason comes down to love. I love these characters, but I don't love the story I'm intending for them... yet. In order to do that, I have to get through model sheets and plot timelines and probably a good dozen pages before I really get excited over it all. Love is the reason I do comics, and it is in my opinion, the best reason to do anything. When I have the love, I'll have a series. Until then, I have a potential pilot.

I read a forum post, a very OLD forum post, just yesterday. Some guy, who apparently was banned from the forum later on, was asking people (some of whom had several successful titles under their belts) how much money he could expect to make on his comic book. His wife was apparently worried that maybe he couldn't bring in the $3,000 a month ditching his old job to do comics full time had cost him, and he apparently had the best idea in the world and was looking to set up his accounting in preparation for the great success, he was sure, was just around the corner.

I give the people on that board credit. All of them were nice, and some of them even went so far as to provide their best guesstimates in best and worst case scenarios, yet none of them were sufficient for this guy. Only when a major editor from a major company stepped in and said, "Look man, if you're not doing it because you want to do it, no amount of money is going to make this right for you." did the guy shut up.

And thank God he did. Comics is expensive. I'm lucky to break even on VARULV at this point -- very lucky, I think. The books cost me money to produce and I pay for my own copies and promotions with their sales, but even that isn't the norm. If you do work for one of the big 4, I'm going to guess you've seen a healthy paycheck come your way, now and again, and I'm also going to guess you don't solely make your cash on the comics you produce for that company.

When I was first getting started, I heard someone say that if you expect to get rich overnight you'll almost always be disappointed. If you expect nothing, you'll be more than pleasantly surprised and well rewarded for the insane amount of effort that goes into producing a book. And that's true. A series, a one-shot -- no matter what it is, all comics take tons of effort. And I have to say that just finishing one of them is a big part of that reward. Which brings me back to my series and its impending pitch...

Anyway, I'm definitely reading too far into this, from all angles. If I find the love, then maybe I do a series, but not before. I suspect the love, if it should come, will be here sometime before the year's out, and before I start anything. Because as Matt told me this morning, you gotta believe in your work before you ever do any of it. He always has a way of making me think.

Either way, it's nice to get solid critique, and equally encouraging to get praise. My friend minced no words during our talk last night and told me to take that most dreaded of plunges; to change up the characters too... make them a little more animated, tweak some backstory, and hit the boards.

To that end, here's (what could become) part of a model sheet for the new Nita Nirvana...

More to come...

Strong Female Characters

2011-06-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

I don't like taking breaks as much as I like writing in this journal and drawing... especially drawing. I went through my work HD and found a billion and a half things I'm working on right now, and most of them, happily, had a common thread I feel I can put into a blog post... Huzzah! It's art dump time!

“We don’t see strong women heroes, and we came up with this girl who is just the best in magic, but still has that tough edge, while still being very sexy for all readers. There will be a lot of humor in this title, too. Men and women alike will really get into it.”

That's comic book pseudo-legend Rob Granito, talking about what he believes to be the qualities present in the strong female archetype, to be featured in one of his upcoming projects which, much like the creator whose brain said idea was shat forth from, I'm certain will be highly original and successful.

I think I speak for everyone ever when I say, Rob, you're a train wreck. Quit talking.

But seriously though... what makes a strong female character truly stand out? How do you begin composing one? As with everything, I'm not an expert, but I know what's worked for me, and if nothing else, I get more compliments on the girls I draw and write about, than the dudes. Biased as people tend to be towards the sexy ones, it means so much more despite that, or because of that (remember, sexy people read too) when someone comes up to me and thanks me for creating not just a believable girl character, but one whom they can relate to and see in themselves.

Sexiness, power, and a tough edges are fine nuances if all you intend to do is follow what Mr. Granito and the mainstream would have you believe about what goes into a femme fatale, but there's oh so much more if you care to make someone that "men and women will really get into"...

Natural Leaders. Note that there's a difference between this trait and just being a leader... And what I mean in basic terms is, you can't just be crowned queen and expect people to like you. Natch, I get the most nods for successful femme-character craftsmanship these days, for my work in VARULV. Ragna and Greta are people I'd love to hang around with, and so would many of my readers. They are compassionate, well-capable warriors who are still learning as they go. I'm not saying you can't have a monarch, rich bitch, superstar or even a dictator as your female lead, but I am saying it's important to remember that, as in real life, positions of power don't bring with them experience, and often will simply make someone more able to become the person they already were going to be, without them... good or bad. Some people are just easier to follow around than others.

Images are near-finished profile pieces for VARULV.com.

Standing Alone. Or passed out on the floor alone as is often the case with this one. People like Caj, even though she started out as a lowly fan-character, because her personality is in no way strung onto her male counterpart. In fact, she hates him, and that provides even more opportunities to mess with her. She has her own history, her own sordid past, and her own problems to deal with -- none of which have to do with finding a kinship with anyone... and I'd go so far as to say that even includes herself.

Image is a pencil sketch which I'll be painting in Photoshop for the 100 Themes Challenge over at deviantArt.

Kicking Ass. Literally or figuratively. This is that element that I'm just not sure how to define, but it's there. Kilbash scares the shit out of me. She's undead, feels no pain, and exists only to crush skulls and spill blood. The way I have her laid out in my head (take that as you will), it'd be hard to remember that she's a girl. And I guess that's the key... Your strong!femme should probably be just as appealing to you, without hooters or short shorts, and as a character, should be able to work as something that needn't be defined by its gender.

Image is another work-in-progress which I'm coloring for the hell of it.

Heart. And with these powers combined, you'll get Captain Planet. No... And I realize I've just posted about strong females not needing to be sexy while littering the page with girls in skimpy dress and catsuits, but... Really though, would you give a damn about a character who doesn't have an effing heart? Keena, when I introduced her as a little girl in the PR comic I did over at tArt, was one of the youngest female heroes I ever created, but it didn't stop her from taking on a Tyrannosaur when it came to what she most valued: defending her tribe. It's so easy to shove girl characters into the usual pigeonholes: waiting for a hero, searching for something that is missing, being horribly unfulfilled... The reality is that people, real people, need to be driven to accomplish something, and in order to do that, as one of my track coaches used to say, they "gotta have that heart beating" -- they have to be pretty complete already.

This too is a pencil sketch, which will be used in another of the 100 Theme Challenge pieces, aptly titled "Drive".

...God, I love these artsy posts!

VARULV Book II Sneak Peeks

2011-06-23T07:51:00.001-07:00

Let's see what we have in my goodie bag, today...

Oh boy! It's a look at the unfinished cover for the Book I compilation coming out in September! Sweet! But that's not all...

For Book II, I've been talking about new characters and now you're finally gonna get to see them...

Meskhenet "Keni" Nefertari. is a pirate queen - a mercenary and thief, but not a villain. She is often found in the company of a lavish convoy, and makes her home wherever her travels take her. Keni has a connection to Greta that I've not yet defined. She is Ulven as well, and takes on the appearance of a cheetah-like creature in that form.

Alo Koruh is one of Keni's two travelling companions and might or might not be her boyfriend. He's the strong, silent type and hasn't spoken a word in years. His Ulven form is that of a coyote.

Tau Feng is the second of Keni's companions that the story will introduce, and a very pivotal character throughout Book II. He too is Ulven and another true werewolf. Like Kjell, he has the ability to wear silver as clothing without succumbing to "silver sickness" and will do much to explain my main wolfguy's history. Additionally, he is in possession of one of the Artifacts when we first meet him. He is the one who initially leads Keni's posse to Blaidfastt, seeking refuge with his old friend, Greta as he is also being hunted by...

Wyn, which isn't her real name as she claims to have "no name which any mortal could pronounce". Wyn is the Iele character I have been making reference to in previous blog posts. Iele are, as appearances go, my version of Dark Elves or Drow -- as I've said, they are in fact near-immortal wind spirits. They have mesmerizing voices and can transform into these gryphon-like creatures -- a concept I borrowed from stories of Harpies, Banshees and the limited sources on Iele mythology that I could find. She will be introduced as a bad guy in Book II... but it's still up in the air whether or not she'll stay that way.

Finally, Stig with short hair and Kjell with his hair pulled back... AKA Chuck. Pffff. Neither of them look happy with their makeovers.

Why have I done this? You'll have to wait and see...

Digital Toolkit

2011-06-07T06:33:00.001-07:00

Back in this here post, I detailed all the things I use to create comic books like VARULV, in the traditional sense. Of course, I left out a significant portion of my little bag of art tricks in that entry, and that is all the wild and wacky crap I do with the computer to get the book out every other month! And it's such a big part of how I create art in general these days, as well as something I seem to get the most questions about, that I can't ignore it for long...

If you take a gander at the image I've posted at the top of this entry, you'll see two comic pages. Actually, you'll see one comic page in two states: before Photoshop and after.

This page, from VARULV #3 ([shameless plug] available this Friday! [/shameless plug]) is a good representation of some of the things I do to a comic page before it makes it into the final book. The process goes something like this:

Draw comic page

Scan comic page

Adjust levels

Make alterations to artwork as needed

Add page and panel borders

Add tones

Add lettering and typography

Import pages into layout

From there it's just export as a PDF and off it goes to the printer/distributor. But what if we were to break some of those steps down? Obviously drawing and scanning are pretty self-explanatory, but what about the levels and lettering and the other digital stuff?

Back in the day, when the internet was a baby, all the cool kids who posted their art online were using Adobe Photoshop. As a kid with limited experience and success with things like using the computer to color artwork, seeing what could be done in Photoshop inspired the first criminal act of my illustrious career, and I quickly downloaded a bootleg copy and crack of this miracle software so I could make beautiful artwork as well!

But of course, there was a problem with my plan... After getting the thing loaded onto my computer, I couldn't figure out where the "color the picture perfectly" button was hiding. In fact, Photoshop didn't appear to be set-up for ease of use to those of us who wanted to color simple sketches at all! It almost looked like it would require effort to use! I had to be mistaken -- so many people made beautiful artwork on the computer using this exact program. It was done all the time, and Photoshop was what made the pictures super-zazzy -- it had all the bells and whistles built-in, how could it be that Photoshopping a picture wasn't as easy as pressing a button???

My mistake was a classic one, as many people to this day still make it (and usually, it's people who are clients of mine, who pay me to "play on Photoshop all day") and I like them had no idea it was wrong to think otherwise... My mistake was thinking the computer is meant to do the work for you, instead of realizing the computer, Photoshop, and all that comes with it are one thing. They are tools.

That's right, Photoshop is a tool. I don't have magic buttons that automatically draw borders around my comic pages, I don't have a "create dialogue and word balloons" button, and I certainly don't have a magic wand which, with one click, tones a full page in grays for me... But with enough practice and clever template creation, I can make it seem that way...

Working digitally is the same as working traditionally. You have to find the right tools that work the way you want them to, to create a desired effect. If you want your picture to look one way, there are ten thousand ways to make that happen, and all are correct.

As it stands, I add borders around my pictures in Photoshop, as well as adding tones and creating alterations (in fact, if you look at the above image, you can see just how many alterations on this single page of the book I made... The Vicar and the bars around Stig's cage aren't even in the original image for a full panel and a half, and were duplicated entirely in Photoshop). I'd say for the average page, about 50% of the work is digital...

And then you have instances like the above image, where the WHOLE PAGE was pieced together in Photoshop, from several different drawings. Is this cheating? I'd say not... it sometimes, very truthfully, takes more effort to compose a page this way than it does to draw it by hand (which is another reason I tend to prefer working by hand) but that's me...

And I'm just happy I get to save money on comic boards.

VARULV Concept Art 5-24-11

2011-05-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

More stuff to share from the early days of VARULV... Most of these sketches were done over a year ago, which makes them practically ancient. I do love revisiting old art, though...

Fun to look at old ideas and get inspired for new ideas. Some of these concepts, even those I "scrapped" may yet show up in one way or another, therefore. Enjoy!

Kjell's first design... Much younger, and very much looking like a friend of mine who likes to wear makeup down one side of his body, LOL.

The "other Kjell" as I called him then... I'd shown snapshots of him in a previous post, as well. I did eventually borrow some things from this guy, and later translated them to Stig's character...

Lots of Ulven concept sketches, and Trolls as well!

Some rough drawings of two girls. The original idea for Greta was to have her as sort of a mage or cleric, and I of course, don't get inspired by healers as much as I do warriors, so that idea was scrapped pretty early on. Still, I love her outfit. The other chick, in one form or another, you will see later on...

Mini-Paintings Sketchdump 5-11-11

2011-05-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

Lately, if I have a minute to spare between projects at work, I've been doing some painting in Photoshop... What a great escape to just let my brain loose on some creative backdrops! These paintings are all tiny, meant to be used as cutscenes for a gamefiction I'm working on.

What's a gamefiction you ask?
I have no idea!

Kidding... You'll see. The project itself has no set release timeframe, since it's just a thing I'm doing on the side for fun, so enjoy the concepts until whenever that might be, happens.

VARULV Concept Art 4-20-11

2011-04-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

I’m busy working away at VARULV #3 as of last night. I took an honest-to-God 2 week break from drawing the actual comic so I could have issue #2 and all the preview material for it ready for the stores, get the wiki started, go to shows and promote the comic… Yes, that counts as a break, right?

It’s been great having all the support from the first two books to drive me as I continue on into the third. Plenty of inspiration is coming to me too, thanks to the wiki and the notes I’ve made within it. I’m feeling like I’m writing for something with a good, solid foundation now, and with that in mind have a few pieces of art and conceptual stuff to show, today…

Here’s the cover artwork for VARULV #4.

Here’s the line art for that cover.

Book three has many scenes taking place within a Troll community. With the wiki to help me, I decided on a look for the entrance to a Troll city. Inspiration came from everywhere on this one – old Viking camps, of course, but also Ironforge and Orgrimmar from WoW… or at least, the idea of a metropolis built into a natural structure… in this case, a cave.

Remember this post where I showed the initial design of one of my new, feline Ulven? Well, she’s been updated, quite a bit as you can see… Her name is Meskhenet, though she’s commonly called “Keni”. I wanted to give her something to make her special, and the more I thought about it, the more a cheetah-morph made sense with her design… She’s not the strongest character, but she’s obviously quite fast.

I touched on the Iele character a while back, as well. Here she is – well… here’s half of her sketched up, so far. It might interest some of you to know that I oftentimes sketch the transformed or Ulven forms of my characters first, so I can be sure their clothing will make sense on them. I then transfer that over to their human figures, which this sketch illustrates.

Story-Crafting Survival Tools II: Have Wiki Will Travel

2011-04-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

I'm pulling some notes given in this post, for this here one... So, sometime last week I noticed all my story notes were not fitting as well into my little black book as they previously had. I also noticed my little black book was often nowhere to be found when I actually wanted to reference something I had come up with. I figured this would be a problem... BUT THEN I DISCOVERED THE INTERNET.

I went to Wikia and started a Wiki. So far, it's been a surprisingly good way to keep everything I have in my head or in my little black book or on scraps of paper somewhere strewn about my desk, in working (and my god!) searchable order. I was even considering opening it up to public edits eventually, and seeing what kind of vandalism... er, additions friends, fans and random people on the internet would contribute. For now, though, it's pretty much become my bigger, more accessible little black book -- I invite you to take a gander at it, here:
varulv.wikia.com

Character Versus Plot Versus Audience

2011-04-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

So I guess the big news this weekend in the realm of nerdy throwbacks is this trailer...

Not gonna lie -- it looks damn cool and I'll definitely watch. I got to thinking, however... You know what's hard to do when going redux? Keeping that element of giving a damn about the characters.

Thundercats was made to sell toys. They were action figures with 30-minute long commercials cleverly disguised as kids' Saturday morning programming... after all, it was the 80's. But does anyone remember the plot? I sure as hell don't. Only after reading others' reviews of the trailer was I reminded of the whole thing with them being kicked off their original planet and being constantly hounded by a mummy and yadda yadda yadda... Then nothing much else, thereafter.

About three years ago, I would ghostwrite brief, often crappy fiction I don't care to have my name associated with these days, for anything I could find on Writer's Market. With the promise of nothing more than a quick hundred bucks, I got very good at turning out several 3,000-word plots in a few hours' time. In fact, if I still had the computer where I kept those stories, I have a feeling I'd still be pretty happy with the overall action and drama of some of them. It really helped to boost my drive to do more of the huge and complex arcs I'm told I'm known (and hated) for, these days.

But it was also quite obvious to me that something was missing from those quick little drabbles, and it was the connection the audience was supposed to make to the characters. You could read these stories, you could get the gist of them and even take a lesson away from most of them, but even I knew that my characterization was nonexistant as I was, in my head, treating the people, places and things in my stories as mere items of plot devising and nothing more. If I wanted to become a better writer, and especially if I wanted to have something marketable, I knew the time would come when I would have to sit down and work on a character-driven plot once again.

Fast forward to today, and I still find myself writing the same way I always did, and my stories are, for the most part, still very much action-driven. But I learned a few things about characterization as well, and have consistently been most pleased with the compliments I get that pertain to the characters I create. How did I achieve this miraculous turnaround? Not through writing courses, or even books on the matter... No, for my magical ability to make characters interesting and believable that people actually latch onto, I have that unholiest of evils which I am only jokingly badmouthing here, to thank: fanfiction.

You want real feedback on your character-building skills? Have the audacity to write something about a franchise with an established plot and post it online. Go further and create your own characters and throw them in to mingle with the pre-existing cast. Especially if your characters are of the opposite sex to the majority of the main cast. Especially if you pair them up with canon characters in the romantic sense. Especially five of them. You might not make friends, but you will get very honest opinions. But I digress...

I feel that the guys doing the new Thundercats have their hearts and their heads in the right place. I won't bring up Thundercats: The Return, which when first released was called a sad fanboy sexcomic or something like that... But bondage innuendo aside, I'm not worried about what appears to be a very good plot setup for the new show (because it actually has one this time, amirite?)... Still, it's important to focus on what drew the audience to the series back in 1987. Even though their original material was created to fly off toy store shelves first and foremost, the guys at the helm for Thundercats 2011 need to look back on those days and make sure those of us who couldn't tell you what one single episode of that damn show was about, will make an immediate connection to it. They have to sell us on the characters as well as the cool new story. Because to anyone who has ever loved something in its original form, until an officially licensed remake proves itself, it might as well be fanfiction... on TV.

My God, never have I felt so privileged to be working on something these days, that came out of my own tiny head...

Character roughs...

2011-03-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

Greetings again goons and goonettes. I want to open yet another blog about VARULV (yes, apparently, it's officially in all caps now, since I've yet to see a press release or bio of yours truly where that wasn't the case..!) by mentioning how very excited I was to meet old and new friends alike at S.P.A.C.E. this past weekend who came out and got a copy. I actually have to order more of them because of you guys, and I couldn't be more delighted to do so! And I'll also open with a shameless plug: the new VARULV.COM (is the .com always capitalized too, now?) is also live!

So issue two, as I believe I'd mentioned before, is coming along quicker than expected and should be online come April, with print copies available in May, if not sooner! As I'm working on it, I'm also roughing out some concepts for the book's not-so-distant future.

One of those things is conceptualizing aspects of the third race -- the fae-folk of my saga. These are the elementals: Iele/Veela/Harpies (air critters), Mermaids/Sirens/Naiads (water critters), Dryads/Elves/Faun (earth critters), and Salamanders (and their Golems -- fire critters).

Above are some rough sketches of the Iele and Dryads which show the very human traits of both races. I wanted to keep my fae diverse, but retain a few human-ish traits for some of them. In fact, at this point I have it in my head that the Iele will often take human form.

This happy creature, which is a sketch approximately one inch by a half inch in size, is my only *good* drawing of what might become a Salamander. Again, it's only a rough concept in my head, but I have visions of creatures made of either fire or molten rock... something with no shape that requires a vessel to get around lest it burn everything it comes in contact with. I like Golems and the idea of archaic robot technology, or magic capable of bringing rocks to life. Actually, I think I probably just have a power armor fetish when it comes to writing, and like it when the big beefy monsters have some pathetic or otherwise useless beastie at their core. This is a nice way of saying I like to have a guaranteed easy-out when one of my protagonists comes in conflict with such a thing.

I think I spoke of new Ulven (werewolf-people for those of you just joining us. Ironically, Werewolf-People was my first choice for title of this book, but I digress) to be making appearances in future editions of the series as well, and the above drawing is the first concept for one such character. Early on, when I said that I won't just be putting werewolves into the book -- that there technically could be were-*anythings*, I was asked specifically about the possibility of were-lions. Being crazy, I said why not? Why not were-zebras too? Or were-ferrets? You could call them werrets.

Africa is oh-so diverse with its animal population, and with the idea in mind that Ulven are, in essence, all the same species despite their different physical characteristics, I came up with my first were-lion concept... though I think it looks more like a bear at this point. The girl is nearly spot-on, though. I took much of what will become her outfit from slips worn by women in ancient Egypt.

As always, more to come...

How to make a comic (or look good, trying)

2011-03-07T06:06:00.000-08:00

I keep a lot of art crap around my house. Way too much, in fact. I have stuff I bought but never opened, stuff I used once and discarded... I have backup stuff for my stuff in case my stuff gets broken. Despite the fact that some of them are in perfect working condition and many of these items cost a good amount of money, I could pretty much care less about them...

But my art bag is a different story. It is a magical place that contains a medley of things all suited to one task -- pencil work. And it is my happy place.

Inside my art bag are my tried and true can't-live-without-it items. I get asked a lot what kind of stuff I use when drawing, and especially when drawing comics, so consider this your comprehensive guide to such things from my perspective, only. In other words, feel free to go out and buy some of this crap, but take the time to find out what tools work best for you...

The first thing is, of course... pencils! A penciller has to have pencils, and people will tell you that you shouldn't use mechanical pencils to draw anything. These people are known in the comic industry as idiots.

I am a pencil SNOB. I'm serious. The way people feel about coffee, guitar picks (sorry, honey :) ) and other minutiae, pales in comparison with how utterly stuck-up I can be when it comes to pencils. If I ever wake up to find my house stocked only with #2 pencils, I will lock myself in my room and not come out again until I have something better. Not that I don't use #2 pencils -- I do, a lot -- but having one pencil is never enough.

The black Papermate pencil you see in this photo is the GodJesus of pencils. It weighs approximately 20 pounds, was crafted by Agnar the Mountain Troll, and was originally meant to be used to slay dragons and stuff. It has no eraser. What is done with this pencil, cannot be undone. Ever. It is loaded with the same .05 Graphite that was given to Moses on the same day that he received the Ten Commandments.

THE BLACK ONE as I refer to it, even in real life, in all caps, is mighty and quite expensive, but just as useful to me are the other two pencils in the picture, and indeed they are sold at the price of approximately $5 for a pack of ten. I try to keep a bunch of them on hand, in both .05 and .07 graphite. I find .03 lead to be too small and lacking in "give" when it comes to drawing. Those fine lines are nice, but for my purposes, they don't really show up when I copy/shrink my comic pages down. Speaking of lead, I prefer Staedtler, but Pentel HB works in a pinch.

Equally wonderful and useful are my colored pencils. I say colored pencils because that's what they are -- Prismacolor (nothing compares, let's be honest) despite the fact that they are not colored, per se: cool grey 50% and white. I use these to block in large areas of shade when I don't want the rough look of straight black lead. The white is a nice thing to use for highlights and doesn't allow for regular pencil to cover it, easily. Since I've been digitally toning the pages for Varulv, and erasers are my preferred highlighting tool in small spaces for detail work, I find myself using these guys less and less, but in covering a huge area of an 11x17" page, they are life savers.

When it comes to erasers, as it is with pencils, one is never enough! The blue thing is that magical item you may have heard me raving about on Facebook the other night... I finally got batteries for it! And let me tell you, I've been using these things for five years and am convinced there is no better erasing tool available anywhere. Fine details are a cinch with this puppy. For those of you who've never heard of an electric eraser, the concept is simple: Press button. Eraser tip spins rapidly. Anything you touch is erased without the need to rub incessantly. Everybody wins.

Of course, where would I be without my kneaded eraser, also? This magical item (the one pictured is hardly the one I'm using currently... you'll notice how clean, intact and, frankly, hairless it is) can be molded to be as big or as small as you need, and can be smushed clean. Kneaded erasers are strong enough to remove charcoal, as well. And if you're bored, you can roll them up into balls and bounce them off your walls.

The tan one is a gum eraser. Good eraser to go after a big area, and not leave a mess. The white one is a plastic eraser. This thing will erase the paint off your car if you press hard enough.

If you're going to do comics, you're going to want decent art boards. I have always gone with Blue Line Pro and have forever been happy with their wares. I like both their Premiere and Pro line of comic art boards, but find their Pro boards, being a little rougher, work well for pencil blending. You can get them here. I use traditional, not full trim.

Here you can see the size of an 11x17" comic board (with art for Varulv #2) in comparison to an actual comic, and the size the artwork will be when shrunk.

As far as drawing the actual book, I've snapped another picture of a page in progress for Varulv issue 2 so I can better explain the process. The bottom portion is finished, and the top is a good example of the kind of figure breakdowns I do before finalizing the pencils for each panel. I'll take a page, and working off thumbnails (which I referenced in the story crafting post) draw in the borders of the panels, then rough the breakdowns of characters, backgrounds, etc. After that, I'll put detailed pencils over the breakdowns, and kind of "tighten up" the artwork as I go. I say it all the time, but it's almost like chiseling away at a sculpture, for that reason...

Whatever you end up using for your own art, and especially your comic art, it's worth your time to try several techniques. As you go, you'll find out what works best, what is necessary and what isn't. Then, like me, you'll have your go-to art set...

And 10,000 other things you'll never use again, in your closet.

A Look Ahead...

2011-02-28T11:28:00.001-08:00

Today, I switched printers. Thanks Comixpress -- you used to be cool, but your inability to get back to me in a timely fashion combined with my order still sitting in your "pending" bin after over a month has caused you to lose me as a customer. I know PODs like to play "hide the contact info" on their websites and otherwise remain out of touch, but come on... Nothing like doing everything last minute!

Rant over. Moving on...

Having finished the first issue of Varulv, I'm by no means afforded a break. Chapter 2 needs done by June, and then it'll be time for the third installment, then the fourth, and I've still got a whole new book to scope out, after the first 4 issues are done. With that in mind, I did some sketching just this morning...

One of my favorite things about writing this book has come from using real-world mythology as references for my own. My werewolves are pretty tame when compared to other mainstream versions of that sort of thing, but a lot of that is because fantasy is no fun to me without a writer's unique interpretations thrown in.

One critique I've gotten so far is that I'm not making enough references to Thor and Odin and the other Norse gods in my book, and while I want to and eventually will touch on that, I stayed away from straight-up referencing Scandinavian mythology with this one, because I like keeping things vague and using them for design elements, only. The less people think I'm re-writing the Poetic Edda, the better... which is a nice way of saying I don't like getting yelled at when I get something wrong.

Kidding! But really, I didn't want this to be a Nordic-tales-only book, either...

Another fun thing about writing comes when you get to add new characters to your cast. This is tricky business, and nothing to take lightly, but oh-so satisfying when done well and in a way that compliments the world you already have.

On the agenda, a posse of world travellers and some Ulven who can shapeshift into big cats and other exotic forms. In Book 2, we'll begin to get a sense of how far the Ulven culture stretches, and see other creatures based on the mythology of Egypt and the rest of Africa, China, and Romania.

Speaking of that -- if you're one of the people who noted me and asked about Stig's homeland of Ardeel sounding strangely similar to Ardeal, AKA Transylvania, then you win one internet.

Varulv Character Profiles

2011-02-22T09:14:00.000-08:00

I'm making a website in anticipation of the release of my book, this week. Among the things the site will feature -- character profiles (but of course)!

And here's some art to go along with them...

Varulv Cover, Book 1 - Chapter 2

2011-02-08T08:37:00.000-08:00

On the chopping block this week, one whole chapter for the first Varulv book.

I decided I could tell the story in four parts, versus five. I also decided to go with the whole one-wolf-per-cover motif after wrestling with the idea of featuring scenes from the interior. I rather like the look of these...

And the lines as well...

Falling in love with your first draft...

2011-02-02T09:13:00.001-08:00

Never a good idea, is it? If you can't be flexible with your story, especially early in the game, don't be surprised if you find yourself discouraged to continue it, later on.

TV shows have pilot episodes for this reason. Comic books have the rare ability of being able to and indeed are practically expected to, evolve as the artist and writer matures in their craft. And one of the things that still draws me to the medium, especially in the middle of the golden age of information technology, is the connection between story teller and audience. I love books, but I think comics are even today, more accessible. For that reason, whenever I put out a book -- even before I do; the critiques start a-flowin'.

One of the first ones I got when I published the first character models for Varulv was, unsurprisingly, "All your characters look like chicks". And I couldn't have agreed more. It's not always the case that I agree with critique -- I obviously do what I do, most of the time, for a reason... But right before I went to work on the actual pages, I decided to consider this girly-man-ness, and put a different twist on, of all characters, my main protagonist. Once again, it's not always the case, but this time in doing so, I became better connected with the character. Here's a before and after shot to show you what I mean, in the visual sense:

That's a pretty basic Photoshop-only mock-up, I know... but it works for my purposes. Dude is now more muscular (helps, especially when doing a black and white comic, to distinguish him from other characters), has an older face (As I said in an earlier post, I scrapped the idea of young-character-grows-up-before-our-eyes) and I even darkened his locks to dirty brown (again, a moot point when creating a b/w comic... but it suits him better, I think).

As a character, Kjell became wiser, more experienced than his initial concept. He was older, better suited for combat, for sure, and more of the typical leader type. You might think I sort of "sold out" in that department, but really, until I started developing the characters around him, I honestly hadn't thought too much about what we could expect of him. Now I think I know better, and he definitely fits in the dynamic of the whole team of main good-guys, much more believably.

Anyway -- that's a whole lot of explanation for what is basically just having a character go shopping at the gun store and later, getting a dye job... but lesson learned nonetheless:

If something is rubbing you wrong about your initial work, and I don't care how major or minor a part that thing plays in your story, don't be afraid to change it.

Story-Crafting Survival Tools

2011-01-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

Let me introduce you to my two best friends.

My notebook:

And my sketchpad:

Most people who've seen my writing can tell you that I like to write huge sweeping story arcs that take weeks to read. In my opinion, this is because I'm lazy. I forget who said it, but I live by the mantra "I'd write a shorter story if I had the time". And that's the truth. Editing takes forever.

Comics are no different, for me. I don't know about you, dear reader, but when it comes to me, I can't not be thinking about whatever it is I happen to be writing at the time. That's why I always carry with me the two items you see, above.

Both are wonderful places to jot down any and all ideas I may come up with on the fly... and I definitely think my best ideas come at the least opportune times: The shower, meetings, and while driving long distances, to name a few. Granted, in each of these scenarios, it'd be tough to jot down any kind of note, so more often than not, I won't do so right then and there. But that's fine too. It gives me time to think things through and add to them, then put them in my notebook or sketch pad, in a (usually) better developed form. Not final, but better than the first moment they popped into my tiny brain.

The notebook contains many little snippets of good ideas. It also contains a full plot synopsis -- one which has things added to it, constantly. The way I write goes something like this:

Plot out story and write a rough outline. This is similar to laying out a full art comp in circles, lines and panels.
Draw a few scenes, and see what comes to mind while doing so. This helps me visualize where the story can go, how the characters act and talk, what should be said, and even little twists and turns which could arise later.
Write down any dialogue, characterization notes, important plot points or twists in the notebook, paying special attention to where they fall in the scheme of the story. This is my version of making a timeline.
If it's a comic book that I'm working on and I'm confident enough in a particular scene, I'll start to draw a few pages of the actual book, at this point. If not, I might draw the cover, or a frontispiece. Else, I'll go back to drawing sketches here and there. The same process of thinking up new things, drawing them out, and adding to the notebook, then drawing more sketches and etc., repeats itself from this point, until the book is finished.
?????
PROFIT!

And that's about it. The notebook is very important, and oftentimes contains several stories at once. It's a must, when you're taking on something that will eventually require you to develop several characters, all at the same time. If you don't care about trying your hand at believable continuity, or just would rather confuse yourself and your audience, then feel free not to use one.

The sketchpad is just as useful as the notebook, both for those initial first sketches and what you can likely see from the above photo -- thumbnails of finished pages. I'm obviously very visual, and no matter what I'm doing, drawing always helps to make it easier to achieve.

Coming up next, I'll show you what's in my drawing bag...

Varulv Sample Page

2011-01-06T12:31:00.000-08:00

Before the text and junk gets in the way of the art... And a better look at "Jame Hetfield"... :)

And these are the pencils before the tones are added...

Varulv Cover, Book 1 - Chapter 1

2011-01-05T09:06:00.000-08:00

Cover..!

And the lineart, too...

Enjoy! :)

Varulv Concept Art 1-4-11

2011-01-04T06:33:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to another edition of TURN OLD CONCEPT ART INTO A BLOG POST. I say another despite this being my first go at that sort of thing on this blog... But who cares? Let's get started!

About two years ago, a concept came to me of the most ridiculous variety... and like all ridiculous ideas that pop into my head, I immediately pushed everything else I was doing, aside, to sketch it out. The idea was simple -- werewolves! And not only werewolves... viking werewolves!

I drew the image you see to your right. --->

Before a story can form in my head -- a real story and not just some characters who share a singular setting; I have to draw some of it out. It really helps in visualizing characters, backdrops (which, the way I was taught, you should treat as characters, anyway) and the capabilities and limitations of each. This is because I suck and I like to work backwards on everything.

More sketches followed... I started to conceptualize the werewolves themselves. The character that would later be called Kjell, retained some of his tattoos in his transformed state -- most notably the one over his eye. Ragna, my troll girl, would keep her horns. I later scrapped both of these ideas.

My first instinct on Kjell as a human was to make him much younger than he ended up being. I caught myself before, once again, I wrote a story centered around a young character growing up before the audience's eyes. For fun only, I'd been writing some more complex stuff over the past year: Multi-faceted plots with characters who didn't always grow up and didn't always make it out alive -- thank you, fanfiction! I think I wanted to try something less predictable for that reason, so I scrapped "Young Kjell" here, post-haste.

My next attempt was much edgier... In fact, it was way too edgy. Still dig the eyepatch, though. And I kept the chinfuzz.

I would put the project on the backburner for a few months, go to a couple conventions, and scope out what my peers were doing with their own books. Over time, it was decided between my manager and I (mostly by her, at first) to go forward with the idea, but to make it more kid-friendly. Not Barney and Friends, but no worse than what kids were exposed to during their 12 hours spent playing World of Warcraft each day. She told me the concept was good, but with everyone under the sun putting out blood and gore comics these days, it wouldn't stand out and might come off more than a little stupid. She also reminded me that things catered to young'ns often end up in the hands of their parents, so my scope would be broadened if I could make it good enough for all ages. Then she stroked my ego and told me I was very good at what I did and I decided to continue on... Because now it was my idea to do a young-adult book, and I was good at what I did. She earned her 15%, that day.

Anyway, I bought a WoW account, watched a lot of Disney's Gargoyles (one of my favorite shows ever) and went back to the drawing board. I came up with these:
Now my wolfuses were wearing clothes and didn't have to be naked, all the time. Cool! Eventually, I did these...

And then I made a logo... Three times!
And that's just about where I am with it all, now. It was enough to get me started, and I'm happy to say that I've got quite a few pages in the works...

That handsome monster's name is, presently, Jame Hetfield.

Yes! Jame...

More to come.