Some Friendly Notes

Alive, and a book exists!

2010-08-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

Dang, keeping up with the internet and doing comics stuff gets kinda crazy sometimes. Here's a breakdown:

1. The book is done and exists! It premiered at San Diego Comic-Con a week-and-a-half-ish ago. The nice folks at SLG set Joe, Lauren and I up each day with a spot at the SLG booth for a few hours. Each day passers-by could take a peek through A Friendly Game, talk with us, and pick up a book signed by all three of us if they wished. Thanks again to everyone who stopped by, and to SLG for being so rad to us newcomers!

2. It looks like A Friendly Game has been taken off the pre-order list on Amazon, so you can order it now from there as well! Not sure on the status of other online and physical stores, but we did get a nice compliment from a fellow in Canada who has it in stock and enjoyed it...Whether it's in stock everywhere will probably change in the next week or so.

3. We were interviewed by Tim O'Shea from Comic Book Resources for his column Talking Comics with Tim. You can read the article over here.

That's the quick rap-up. Again, thanks to everyone who stopped by to look at and get a copy of A Friendly Game at San Diego, and to SLG for having us there!

2010-02-27T02:56:00.001-08:00

and then there was a movie...

just cus i'm tired, i will say... watch whip it. dont watch valentine's day and karate kid is still awesome.

whip it is a total "girl power" raise of the underdog with a secret from her parents to follow her dreams" type of movie. it does every turn expected and and the characters are as generic and flat as you could get. HOWEVER. as a director, i was quite surprised by Drew Barrymore's perception of the script and the performances, all-around are quite cute. YET i do not say this with negativity, rather quite the contrary. ITS A MOVIE ABOUT ROLLER DURBY GIRLS. it's just fun. if the movie doesnt strike an interest within the first minutes, it is most likely that it will be a bland experience. BUT if given the opportunity... it's a very enjoyable flick. AND of course.. because it's my scratching comfort...
the soundtrack is really good.

Printing Blue-lines (or red, if they need be)

2010-02-18T18:05:00.000-08:00

Long overdue, it's time to reveal the secrets of printing out pencils in blue lines to ink on real live papers. Here's what I'm workin' with here:

400 lb Vellum Strathmore brand Bristol Board. I enjoy the texture of Vellum, but you can print on Smooth if it's more your thing. I usually buy a lot of it when Dick Blick has a reduced-shipping sale for around $10 a pad or less (11 x 14 size).
HP 9800 large format printer: This fellow was over $300 when I first invested in him a few years ago and getting this particular one is probably much cheaper now. I'm not sure what the latest model number is. This guy can be really fickle about grabbing the paper, and you will have occasions of yelling. I believe they can print up to 13 x 19 inches in size. Friendly Game ink pages are at 10 x 15.
Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Windows: Not sure if the settings I'm using have gotten moved around in CS3 or CS4, or if they are different in prior versions. You probably will be able to find them based on the screenshots
The pencils that I'm working with are scanned at 300 resolution and saved as TIFs. You don't want to go below that resolution, or you'll get pixely printouts that will make you go cross-eyed.
I couldn't shrink these screenshots too much without loosing Photoshop button readability, so they will be a bit on the large size when you click on them.
Since I'm printing this page, I'm using CMYK colors in the color picker. Ignore the RGBs.

Here we go!
1. First step is to open up Photoshop and grab your penciled scan. Depending on your computer's memory, the size may slow it down. Cropping in close to the border will slice the size down a bit and help it print faster. I usually only blue-line and print one page at a time to be safe. You'll need your image mode to be Grayscale for the next step.

2. At the top, go Image > Mode > Duotone (or Grayscale if you need to first). The Duotone menu will pop up, and clicking on the square of color will open the color picker. A lot of artist have different settings to get the light blue(Cyan), and you may have to try a few settings depending on how bright your monitor is. Mine's like the sun, so mine looks pretty light but will print darker.

3. A curveball here: I'm printing this particular page in red. The reason being is that if you're using a tri-color cartridge like the 9800 has, you will eventually suck down that one color. To have it last longer, I switched between Magenta-heavy colors instead of Cyan. If you can find a large format printer that has individual cartridges instead of tri-color, go for it. You can also save these color settings for later from the Duotone Options box, which is a great timesaver.

4. From the top, File > Print Preview. Your page will not fit, but that's fine because we're getting ready to tell the computer all about the size and printer. From here, click Page Setup.

5. By default, your printer will probably be at Portrait, but check to be sure. Choose Printer, then select the HP9800 from the dropdown if it's not your default. Next, click Properties.

6. Under the tab Paper/Quality, you can set the printer to take the large-format size. 10x15 size is close to Tabloid, and you'll want Other Brochure Paper, since that's a thicker paper type. You can also save your settings for this screen as well like I have (Comic Page). Click Okay.

7. Now the screen will look more like it's supposed to when it's printed. Hit the print button, and stay close by to watch that the paper is grabbed correctly from the tray.

Sometimes the page prints fast, and sometimes it'll take 20 minutes. Again, this will depend on your computer and if the printer likes you. (No, really.) The computer and printer I used for printed Friendly Game pages usually enjoyed thinking about printing for 10 to 15 minutes, then spit the page out in about 3 minutes afterward.

Additionally, I've found inking over a page printed with red ink is sometimes a little more strain on the eye as opposed to the blue. It's all about what works best for you when inking the page and will let you use as much of the ink from that wee printer cartridge as possible.

2010-02-09T00:15:00.000-08:00

so, the lettering and the toning are going better than assumed and we're looking at a good schedule to finally have this book finished, however, i'd like to talk about something i've been observing. working on films as a storyboard artist, i've noticed a few key differences in the language and i think it has to do with with the... facts that comics are drawings, films are real people. i know that sounds dumb and obvious, but it is the predominant difference.
the simplicity makes the difference. live-action films tend to be straight-on shots, as oppose to comics, where it's insisted that shot compositions are designed with dynamism.
in terms of shot-labeling, 3/4 profiles, medium shots, medium close-ups and so on, are not the same in one medium as they are in the other. live actions tends to be more distant, where in comics, medium shots are closer in to characters. even if the drawings are realistic or cartoony
...it's funny how it makes a difference...

2010-02-06T19:27:00.000-08:00

lettering: full speed/engaged-all systems-GO! operative 5.37xv-post-206---
toning: readings-reveal/top-secrete alt+0.4= crank-up the awesome knobs and switch-a:^_^
oxygen:atfullcapacityandeverythingseemstogoaccordingtoplan.

let the wOrK be done.

Speed coloring Basics. Tips for getting it done

2010-01-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

Coloring for comics these days is usually about knowing color theory and being able to apply it when your handed a 20 pages a weeks later than you expected them. It took me a while to learn what worked for me in order to effectively use my time and get what I had to done. These are some basic things I have learned and hope they help you speed up your processes

1. Setup the Pencil Tool

On your photoshop tool window you can select either the "Pencil" or the "Brush" tool to color in your line art with. The difference between the two is in the edge of the brush. The pencil tool is Aliased- meaning there's a jagged quality to the edge of your marks. The brush on the other hand has Anti-Aliased edges-meaning the edges are blurred in order to give a more smooth appearance to your lines.

Alised edge (left) VS Anti-Alised edge (right)

The aliased edges of the pencil are made for the selection tools to easily grab around right along its edge. If you select a mark made by a brush tool you're unable to grab the shape right up to its edge, on account of its blurred effect.

Selection tools grab onto alised edges easily

Why does this matter?

Shading with Pencil Tool

Shading with Brush Tool

Well lets say you're shading a face of a character. You've found that the shadow isn't the right shade you want. It needs to be changed. Instead of shading the face again, you select the color shape to change its color on the fly.

Selecting shapes made with the brush tool

Offset Fill

When you select the shading you made with the brush tool, its offset on account of its soft blurred edges. Therefore when you re fill this shape with a different color you get these off set fill edges of the color you've just tried to get rid of.
By using the pencil tool. you're able to select the entire shape without it being off set. Then select and fill it with no problems. Fast and easy.

Selecting shapes made with Pencil Tool

A clean fill!

I know the lack of liquid smooth edges that you loose by using the pencil tool is a concerned for a lot of artist going for a specific look. But you know what? When you aren't zoomed all the way in and actually view and image at the PRINT size. Aliased lines look pretty defined. They save you a lot of time. After a piece is finished you can go back and blur things out again with a filter.

Before you continue using the pencil tool while doing a page, you have to make sure your eraser and selection tools are also aliased. Its a simple as just un-checking a box up at the top of the screen labeled "Anti-alias"when you have the magic wand/ eraser selected.

Switching your Eraser tool to "Pencil" Mode will give you an aliased edge. This is located up at the top right next to the "brush size selection"

Selection tools can be made aliased by un-checking the box at the top of the screen next to your tolerance setting.

2. Extra selection tips:-Contigous/ Tolerance:
When using the "Magic Wand" tool there are several options and settings that are good to be aware of.

Tolerance is the sensitivity of your selection tool. If you have two colors that are very close to one another in hue/ value, the wand may not recognize these as separate fields of color at first. You can change how "picky" the magic wand is by lowering the tolerance. The lower the number, the more the tool will differentiate between the minute details in your colors.

Contiguous is a command that sets your Magic Wand Tool to select just one shape at a time. If this box is unchecked, the Wand will pick up ALL shapes of the same value (based on your tolerance setting). This makes selecting whole groups and changing them much quicker. Otherwise you'd have to go though and select all similar colors by hand one at a time.

With Contiguous unchecked you can select multiple shapes with the same color value all at once. Contiguous is located next to your Anti-Alias option and tolerance setting at the top of the screen when you have your "Magic Wand" selected

3. Know Hot Keys

Hot keys are key board commands that do an action automatically without having to navigate a to a separate menu or click away from a tool you're currently using.

Normally to fill in a selection you would use the paint bucket tool. But why waste the time? By pressing the key stroke: ALT/OPTION and DELETE key your shape will automatically fill with whatever your top swatch is.
The key stroke: APPLE and DELETE fills the shape with bottom swatch

While using your brush tool you can automatically flip between your eye dropper and back again simply by striking the ALT/OPTION key. This enables you to switch your colors quickly without bothering with swatches or having to go back to your tool window.

4. Pick a Palette.

Picking those exact colors to use for a page can be a great time waster. This is something for the most part just gets easier and easier to do over time. As selecting colors depends on your own personal taste and aesthetics. As well as the style of the piece you may happen to be working on.

HOWEVER- It is important to stick to a palette of limited colors to keep a page consistent. Inspiration for palettes can come from a variety of sources. Look at nature. Observe. Ask yourself...if i was to recreate the color that road/ apple / street lamp. what would I mix together? Keep and download images of pages and colors you think are successful.

http://www.colourlovers.com/

Color Lovers is a online community of people who are interested in color theory. There are millions of palettes and swatches posted by users. If you're stuck- its a good place to go.

5. Rinse. Repeat.

Speed ultimately comes down to practice- just like anything else. The more you practice you're own methods the more you get down your process to a science.
Keep your layers down to as few as possible. Nothing is a bigger waste of time than trying to find that ONE layer you put that ONE skin tone on.

Keep your eyes open to learn what others are doing and try to apply it to your own working methods. Half of the things I've shared are things I learned from other colorist. If you can pick up one tip or trick to make your own process go smoother its worth sitting through a live stream or breezing though a tutorial on deviant art.

Happy Coloring!

-Affe

2010-01-17T02:40:00.000-08:00

i want to thank Dan Vado for the ery informative conversation we had last thursday. now Lindsay, lauren and I are picking up
the pace and finishing things as fast as we can. lauren has been doing a great job at toning. and lindsay, as always, the ever responsible has just finished what we hope to ve the final cover fo the book we've been working on for so long. i on the other hand occupy my time with freelance work, personal projects and... at some point, a personal life.
in the mean time. i will simply say that it is late, i am tired and i am glad to be working with such a team.
just becuase there;s booze int he ssystem i will say a big shout out to the periscope studio, the entire norris hall and those who have been supportive and hopeful to our
project.
its been a long road, and it seems surreal to be at this point.
thaks again...

everyone...

Paper beats Screen or Screen beats Paper?

2010-01-16T12:01:00.000-08:00

That cover Joe mentions is a major win. Lauren will make it a 15 out of 10 because of her awesomeness. Stick with me on this post, since it's gonna be a bit of a doozy. I'll throw in some screenshots to ease the talkies.

While it's fresh on my mind, it's time to address an issue that's been creeping into comics over the past few years: traditional methods or computers for drawing.

To keep things in perspective, this article is focusing on the aspect of inking comic pages or illustrations with pen and ink on paper in comparison to inking with a computer. I'm not touching the hand-painted, computer colored issue or drawing something straight out of your head onto either paper or into a computer file. This stuff's for inkers.

The total page count for Friendly Game goes past 200 when you count the unused pages and promo work, and as they are pages that have all been inked on 10 x 15 bristol with a series 7 sable brush or some form of nib, they are the epitome of traditional inking methods. With the exception of laziness regarding inking panel borders on every page (I gave up somewhere around the 115th page when my lines didn't look straight enough and vowed to use Photoshop on the rest), I've gone through bottles of ink, stacks of Bristol pads, probably a pound of those crappy 102 nibs and countless paper towels for cleanup. This is what I'm used to, this is what I've learned at SCAD, this is a comfortable inking system for me.

Around 7 or 8 months ago, my then-fiancee and I had stumbled upon a student-discounted edition of Manga Studio EX. James does a webcomic and had been getting frustrated drawing his comic on bristol, inking, scanning, and cleaning up his traditional linework for something that was published online. After we bought Manga Studio, we were introduced to a computer program that is actually tailored toward black and white comic art. While there are plenty of methods to drawing and inking comics in Photoshop, Manga Studio had numerous features that sped up James's comic production greatly and cut out a lot of extra work the traditional methods created for him and his webcomic work.

I used Manga Studio for inking some of my pages for my comic projects during my last quarter at SCAD and found that my confidence level in inking my own work was much greater than when I inked traditionally. This is super beneficial since my next project after Friendly Game is also a webcomic.

Backstory aside, here's an overall pros and cons breakdown of traditional and computer inking:
Finacial - Both James and I were fortunate enough to receive a Cintiq as a wedding present. For those unfamiliar, drawing comics with a Cintiq is even faster than using the Wacom tablet as the Cintiq mirrors your computer's screen. This removes the awkward eye-hand co-ordination issues that pose a hurdle when one first learns to draw on the computer with a tablet.

However, they don't come cheap (hence, putting it on a wedding regstry instead of tupperware). In the matter of traditional artwork, sequential artists are much better off than oil painters or sculptors in that our usual supplies aren't that expensive.

A quick search of Dick Blick art supplies tells me I can get a series #7 sable brush size 3 for under 20 bucks right now. Considering how small a brush is, that is still a little expensive, but when you add the pad of 400 series bristol for another 11 bucks (or less or more, depending on your size) and some ink for around 4 bucks, it's a lot more affordable than the Cintiq. The additional traditional inking elements such as rulers, specialty brushes, white out also vary in price but are generally affordable and don't need replaces as often as the ink-brush-nib-paper combo. My bristol alone isn't even half of what the Cintiq is. Throw in the usually price for Manga Studio or Photoshop and the price tag's even greater. On this subject, traditional wins.

Availability - So say you have the possibility of inking something either traditionally or digitally. You go traditional. You're rocking along, jamming out pages, and are out of ink. Like, literally, none in the house, and you no longer live nearby crazy art friends that you can bum off of. It's midnight, you need this done now, and obviously online shopping isn't at the point where it spits the product out after you've ordered it. You're boned.

A situation that extreme has not happened to me, but something similar has happened as far as my tools go. I'm currently in a town where the major art supply comes in the form of the Michael's and Hobby Lobby brand, and those stores seem to center more on fake flowers than selling 3 packs of the really nice Japanese nibs that I got myself addicted to before leaving SCAD. To it's credit, Hobby Lobby actually stocks more variety of art supplies than Michael's, but anyhow....I have had to order online a lot more, and in some instances did not go for the awesomer stuff that I could pick up at the store in Savannah because of the price of ordering it online. I had to be sure that I kept up with how much of which tools I had left and on occasion had to work with dead brushes and nibs and make the most of it.

Digitally, only very severe or extreme situations will block your tools. Power outages are at the top of this, and are completely out of your control. Cintiq's gotta have juice going to it to work. Right after that is computer hardware or software failure, and depending on what happened, you could be set back a few days, a full month, or be turning back to drawing on paper and heading toward Kinkos to scan and send it off. Despite these extreme situations, the your digital inking still wins this one, since it holds all the tools you could possibly have to run out and buy.

Comfort/Feel - This may not be the best word to describe everything for this section, but how about working with brush and nibs and ink compared to a Cintiq and Manga Studio?

The paper I usually use is 400 series Vellum. It has a nice tooth, good thickness and I enjoy the textures that I get from it. This unfortunately doesn't always agree with using nib pens, and I've frequently sworn and chucked ones aside that have managed to catch on the paper too often, despite my carefulness.

Drawing on a Cintiq or tablet is more equivalent to using smooth-grade bristol, which I personally do not enjoy. I feel like my drawing arm is sliding everywhere and that my ink is going to fall off when I use smooth bristol, and that applies the same to the Cintiq. With regular tablets, I have heard of some people who place a sheet of paper over the tablet, which allows the pen to still work and gives the traditional feel of paper. This doesn't work with the Cintiq since what you're drawing appears on the same screen right under your pen.

Additionally, if you're into using your comic pages to completely cut loose when it comes to inking, there's nothing more satisfying than splattering, blotting, or scratching ink all over a piece of bristol. It's therapeutic in the way and gives you the feeling you had when you were small and someone handed you some pencils and paper and said "Have at it, kid." In this regards, tradition is a winner if you're not a fan of smooth paper or if you like the physicality involved in over-the-top inking methods. But if you don't really care either want and just want to ink, than it can go either way. This leads up to a trump card.

Speed - This one is tricky, because this one relies heavily on the inker to determine some parts. When it comes to inking traditionally, mistakes can sometimes be a bitch to fix. Electric erasers and whiteout are awesome, but on occasion, you overshoot it and have to correct your correction. Then, the most controversial matter of inking in comics history: spotting blacks.

I personally hate the little x's that are used for penciling, but I know why they are there. It's a speed thing. The pencils have to be done quick, and giving a suggestion of placing blacks is faster pencil-wise with an x than using your graphite. In both Friendly Game and in his other pencils, Joe does not view the page as complete if the graphite is not in the black-out areas. While inking his pages, this made it easier for me to visualize how those black placements would look on the finished page than the x's, which would lead me to thinking "Yeah, that sounds cool," or "Screw that, I'll spot it like this instead" and tweak it.

A lot of inkers in the industry now may not even use the ink on their actual pages, they wait to fill them with Photoshop. And although I agree with Joe in that the page isn't done without the black placements, I won't deny that it takes longer to black out areas on paper than grabbing that little bucket on the computer and clicking.

Going back to the trouble James had with his webcomic, the time it took to scan and adjust his lines to color it in Photoshop added up. As far as Friendly Game goes, not only was there scanning and adjustments involved, but I didn't ink over Joe's originals, I printed them out. This took time as well, some extra provided by my computer being a screw-up. This is a major point as well, as a computer that is unwilling to notice your tablet or Cintiq as plugged in may result in you have to restart, reinstall, restart, yell s'more, and loose and hour or so, depending on the situation.

When Joe brought up how quick we needed the cover punched out, he mentioned Manga Studio. I have been in a traditional mind-set for Friendly Game's pages and at first wanted to do the cover with paper and ink as well, but the time crunch was evident, so computer inking won. And yes, I punched it out a lot faster since I skipped the steps of printing, scanning, and re-scanning as far as putting it into the computer.

This leads up to the biggest catch with digital inking: The ability to create fast possibilities.

Because the cover was on the computer, and since the computer has that infamous "undo" button, I could play around with different textures, placements, line width, styles...All sorts of things that would take much longer to create traditionally, can happen in an instant. They can also be gone in an instant. Because of that, there's a greater danger of trying to create too many scenarios with your inking that could keep you from getting the job done. And when it comes to deadlines, that is very dangerous.

Extra Cash / Space - This is kind of an extra to consider and is brought up a lot by traditional inkers. Should your comics be created on the computer, you have no original artwork to sell. You can sell prints, but they will not have the same value an original, one-of-a-kind page will carry. Playing devil's adovacate, if you just finished a 200+ page book and only sell some of those pages, you have stacks of physical pages you'll be lugging around whenever you move and then stuff into shelves and closets.

I could probably keep rambling about this, but those are the major points to consider when you're choosing how to ink your comic. It really becomes a case-by-case basis and a matter of personal preferences and knowing your weak spots as an inker. Whether or not you would work out those weakness through traditional inking or digital depends on how much exposure you have and how well you take to either method. Try out everything as much as you can, and go with what works best for you.

2010-01-16T10:19:00.001-08:00

well, happy new year internet. tho you dont care about us, we have missed you.
it is a new decade and i think it should be driven like a pogo stick: with both feet int he right direction. this week we got in touch with our editor, Dan Vado, and he was, as always, a dear. letting us know the details to lettering and, pretty much how we have to be working on the cover for this book, like... now...
fortunately, we are succeeding,
as that very day, i penciled it and just last night, lindsay has inked it. now, with the speed of a motherfuking cheetah, we will see lauren take on this image and crank it to 11. maybe 12.
so, for the first time in, like... a while, i'm getting a bit of a cold and i dont li
ke it, specially cus it makes the nose itchy and that's just obnoxious. but, as it normally goes, i will get better soon,a dnin the mean time... back to work.
a wonderful day seems on the rise, so. let's assure it occurs.

2009-12-28T18:35:00.000-08:00

so, i finally saw that film that everyone was telling me great reviews. i just had to see it for myself, and MAN, i'm so glad they removed the talking bat from the new version of "ferngully".
"avatar" to me was, pretty much like a bimbo: beautiful to look at, but not a whole lotta substance, and used a few times here and there. whenever i told people i saw it, they asked the same question: was it good? well... it was definetely worth the cash i payed to see it in 3D... and i really was impressed with how they made it look, but... flying mountains dont awe me and giant flying creatures are always cool, but not a novelty. what i was most surprised about was how james cameron decided to use as many cliches as he did, and unfortunately, i was disappointed on how unoriginal "pandora" was a an alien world. this i type because i am fan of previous cameron films, but as i sat through this film, i wondered why was i watching a 161 version of disney's poccahontas and atlantis... i understand the plot devices and main story arc, but the film left me wishing cameron would have taken a different direction.
there were many instances in the film where characters stepped.."out of character" in order to push the plot, get a reaction of another character or to "just to explain something about the alien world for the audience." like i said.. forced.
butm, what do i know... it's just my thoughts, and the film seems to be quite popular. one way or another, it is entertaining, and worth seeing in 3D for the thrill of it. however, i do not conscider to be part of cameron's best repertoire.
dances with wolves/last sumurai are pretty much what the film is about, only on another planet that doesnt really require too much explanation other than "hey, we're spiritual, dont fuck with our home tree just because of your political interest in our soil for fuel."
on that same riff... he acting, i thought was pretty spiffy from all accounts, so, hurra to weaver, saldana, rodriguez, worthington, lang, moore, and of course... mr. risbi. always funny.

Merry stuff happened!

2009-12-27T19:16:00.000-08:00

Just dropping a line to hoping people had gooooooood holiday celebrations and continue to do so in the following week. I finished inking the last of the redrawn pages two nights before my husband and I flew out to visit his family in mid-December. Since then, it's pretty much been lots of visiting people from both our families and hanging out and wondering if that weird twitch from not doing comics for over a week is normal. Back on the horse this week though! Have an awesome new year!

2009-12-22T05:57:00.000-08:00

the merry season is here and it's not snowing like it is in the town where todd and kevin live.

we're progressing and i would like to wish anyone who read this a very merry season of the holydays.

2009-12-03T00:57:00.000-08:00

well, you know november is gone, it;s gone away, said wise 2-D and here's december with nthing but a chilly weather and awesomeness in the making.
i'd like to be that wise ass who says "i've been very very busy doing lots and lots of artwork, but i cant show any of it, so woppidy ziipidy doo dah!"
it's prettymuch the case as i sit in my crappy spiny chair at this time of night with a nearly empty micron pen inking some storyboards for a fantastic music video from a really awesome band.
i believe that's all i'm allowed to say as well as i have been doing concept work and cute illustrations.
however...
in the horrid traffic of LA, there;s always moment when the highway is moving at less than zero miles per hour, (then you find out you're actually set in reverse.) so, i've beed amusing myself by taking these instants when the car is quite stationary at a red light or being delayed to work cus of some accident and doing these quick little mental notes i manage to place on paper.
starting really soon, i'm gonna post a few of those...
in the meantine, here's a small version of the illustration i did for the grand swedish band DETEKTIVBYRAN which should be visited at www.detektivbyran.net in order to enjoy... joy...

Slightly behind

2009-11-28T10:43:00.001-08:00

So November's been a bit more difficult to finish inking than October was. Combination of out-of-town family visits and some deadlines at work that zapped a lot of my energy. It looks like I'm not going to finish the redrawn opening pages by the 1st of December. At this point, it looks like I'll have less than 10 pages left to ink by then.

I ran into a doodle in an old sketchbook the other day using Friendly Game characters that dated back to August of 2005. Four years is a loooong time to still have these kids floating around, but that was back in the really early days, right around the time one of us or the other decided Joe should pencil and I should ink. We had started in the reverse of those jobs....Actually, when this originally started, it was a 24 page short story that Joe wanted to submit to a comic company as part an assignment in Comic Book Scripting.....Crazy business.

Back to the grindstone....Starting Saturdays with inking until the afternoon is pretty boss, but I'm pretty eager to jump into the lettering and get these kids talking.

2009-11-11T00:05:00.000-08:00

last week, my friend dan dowding approached me to storyboard his idea for a dorito contest. on thursday morning he handed me the final draft of the script. by 7 pm, the boards were in his hand and the next morning the man was shooting. by saturday and sunday post was tackled and now... here it is:

http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/video/4767

check it out and tell yer friends.

Act 3 = DONE

2009-10-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

Finished inking Act 3. And on Halloween to boot. Next up is to knock out the redrawn 25 pages of the opening, whoo hoooo!!

Closing the Gap

2009-10-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

Been missin' a while, October decided to drop some strange stuff on me, mostly in the form of health issues. After a strange day of getting excessively exhausted at work, followed by my already-scheduled-yearly-blood-work, I had a doctor warn that I was either hypo or hyperglycemic. Or maybe diabetic. Or maybe I was prone to seizures. Either way, I lost a vacation day of day-job work for a 6 hour blood sugar test and a sick day or two prior to that for brain-and-thyroid tests. Bye-bye 3 day inking buffer!

HOWEVER, I have managed to set it back to a page a day for the rest of the week. Depending on how socialable I am in regards to Halloween, Act 3 should still be finished by the end of October. But if it spans into November 1st, I guess that's not so bad....

Watched "The Pagemaster" tonight, a live-action-mixed-with-animated movie from 1994. Never had seen it before, and was actually more impressed than I originally thought I would be. The story's essentially about a boy who's too paranoid and scared of everything to really be a kid or have experiences. Winds up at a library during a storm, and BAM, cartoon world for hero's journey narrative. The animation was pretty nice, although there were a few weird spots (like a character saying a line but no lip movement...) . One of those awkward 90's pseudo-dramatic songs was spontaneously stuck in the middle of the movie, not sung by the characters (think Fern Gully). The most impressive part was the awesome use of color and silohettues to make dramatic, somewhat creepy moments. It's still kinda funny to me that one of the themes of the film involves reminding people that books are fun...seems counter-productive to the movie industry....

Back to inking!!!

where the wild things were...

2009-10-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

last night, after a very particular week, i went to see a movie for which i had unspecific expectations. where the wild things are seemed to be one of those films that had big shoes to fill due to its immense reputation as one of the most popular children's books of all times and for being directed by spike jonze. on top of that, it did have to carry the weight of being a children's film but still make the "fans who grew up with the book." in a way, it's as if the film had the same responsibility as max did when he arrived at the island of wild things: to make everyone happy or else, you get eaten."
tho the film is quiet and a at points too subtle, it delivers great emotion and makes about as much sense as the book does. visually beautiful and in sync with wonderful music written by(surprisingly) yeah yeah yeah's karen o. who does great arrangements and combinations of tribal sounds, choir-like uprisings and indie-orienteed guitar riffs, it's captivating and grasping turning a simple plot into a sympathetic emotional journey of a 10-year-old's tantrum about what's for dinner.
in short, it's very much worth the watch and discussion over.

2009-10-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

well, it;s been abit and so many things have occurred,but none the less... for the past week and a half i've been storybaording a couple of shorts and a music video, so, it makes these days more interesting, plus, a nice pause from cmic pages, which i still do.
because the mail is not perfect, tho they try really hard (thank you USPS for all your efforts and delivering my bills) an important document was LOST in the mail and now, we had to redo everything that was stake. it wasnt that big of a deal as much as it was something that was already out of the way, so... in the words of every punk "here it comes again!" hehehe... and now.. back to inking...

Calendared....

2009-10-10T17:24:00.000-07:00

Since I like having pictures with posts, here' s a weird screenshot of my computer not knowing how to copy/paste files into a folder and keep things tidy....The bizarre green and yellow dots are from a service I subscribed to called Carbonite that I'm trying out. I can be excessively paranoid sometimes, even more when I consider the fact that my laptop is 4 years old (considered a dinosaur by computer standards...) and I've got waaaaaay too much digital stuff, including the soon-to-be Illustrator/Indesign/Photoshop files for lettering Friendly Game. Carbonite basically lives on your computer and shoves things into a personal online storage place for you whenever you save something. I feel better everytime that little Carbonite lock glows green after my Control-S's in Photoshop..... In short, should I set my computer on fire, this book will STILL get done. Safety!

Meanwhile, I finally pulled out one of those little day-planner calendar books and realized that I could (potentially) have Act 3 of Friendly Game inked by the end of October. Actually, at inking a page a day, I'd be done by around the 28th or so, giving a nice 3 day buffer for all the stuff that might get in the way. Barring any unforseen occurances (Like life, grrr), the redone opening 27ish pages should be done by the start of December. Which is a really weird feeling, the idea of being completely done inking the pages. I know it'll feel weird when I print out the last pages and don't have to fight with ol' HP 9800 over the fact that the pages ARE in the printer, daggnabbit.

The major concern after that would be my built-up dislike of computering after my day job. Friendly Game is (with the exception of a few sound effects and special panels) going to be digitally lettered. I don't even want to turn on my computer when I'm home during weekdays, much less have to stare at it like I'd already been doing for 7 hours at work. Hopefully, the concept of being on this semi-final piece of the book will be a boost.

Hooray for Lauren's first post! The screenshot looks super-hot lady. Sorry SCAD threw some junk at you but......colleges like to do that. Ask me about my Winter quarter of senior undergrad. Go on, I promise I won't laugh hysterically and cry about it....

Also, Joe is awesome for wishing me happy birthday a few posts back, and I say HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! back for his from a few days ago. Because if Joe hadn't been born, I wouldn't have left art school with as much as I did. Hugs, buddy. :)

Found the grind stone

2009-09-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

I'm not as scared of the internet as one might think..Okay maybe I am. BUT Look! I'm making an effort. Prepared the next ten pages of Friendly game for toning. Working backwards and taking them one "scene" at a time. That also will hopefully make the task of this book less daunting.

And looking at other people with awesome toning skills for inspiration...

Like this guy! Rafael Albuquerque!

The beginning of the semester was a bit of a blitz. Long story short- Savannah is going to be my home for a while longer and SCAD will be graced with my presence for a semester longer. I realized that there shouldn't be any kind of rush to move back home and away from other artists that can help/ inspire me. Looking for a new place to live however will be....an exciting adventure

Staying Positive

-Affe

Inking Blues

2009-09-27T18:28:00.000-07:00

I'm bad at this writing frequently thing....The last couple of weeks, I put Friendly Game pages aside to compose and ink the above illustration for an art competition. It's around 8.5 x 15 inches, which proves I'm still attached to comic-page-ish dimensions. I actually blew up a doodle from my sketchbook and finished the actual pencilling in Photoshop to print out and ink the final image.

Unfortunately, when I went to get my ink refill at Wal-Greens that I was so excited for in all it's inexpensive glory, I learned that the company stopped refilling the apparently single use cartridges due to "electrical problems". Apparently though, all the different cartridge refill outlets both online and in-person have convinced HP to lower the prices on new ones a bit, as well as advertise about their inks being 65% better than those bargin ones.....Considering a large portion of what I print is going to have black ink drawn over in anyhow, it's not that much of a deterent to find some sort of refill station. The claims that refilled catridges sometimes broke printers howerver.....that's just rotten. I dunno how true they are.

Anyhow, I seem to take longer in inking things that are mine as opposed to inking over someone else. Most of that is the nasty habit of leaving things only kinda-drawn in because "I'm inkin' it, I know what it does, dur dur dur!" Somehow, I still find myself slowing down and questioning things too much though. Which is why it's important to always have that cut-off point of "NO. It's DONE and if you do anymore, you'll mess it up, so don't pick at it." You could work on a page forever and never consider it done.

Reading wise, I finished Stephen King's "Different Seasons" a week or so ago and enjoyed getting multiple good stories. Essentially, the book contains four nouvellas - the awkward middle child of the short story and the novel. They weren't all the level of super-awesome, the final story "The Breathing Method" took a while to get going and get to the meat of the story, but overall really good stories. Of special interest is "Apt Pupil", featuring a creepy kid and a disenchanted old Nazi. Probably not the best summary, but I'm sure you're interesting in finding out more now, right?

Anyhow, scanned the new pages for the start of the book. It will probably be a few weeks before I'm done inking the end of the book and can get to inkin' these new beginning pages, so here's a puppy for you till then:

2009-09-27T07:43:00.001-07:00

AHUGE late congrats to lindsay who turned a different age last tuesday!
we love her!!

finally read it!

2009-09-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

the comic "garage band" by gipi i've been wanting to read for over 8 months now finally became accessible to me thanks to the venice library in los angeles, california. and boy, i gotta say: it's better than i expected.
it's a simple story about a 4-members (drums, 2 guitars and vocals) band who are given a space to practice by the main character's dad. the rule is simple: stay out of trouble and you can keep using the space. simultaneously, the singer's dad gets him in contact with some record label man who has decided to give them a listen. a few days before their "audition"... an amp blows up, which means... no sound... which means... they're screwed out of an audition. after that, the story only gets better.
it also does a good job at balancing out a between how much to talk about each character, how much to talk about the band's conflict and how much to show them playing in the garage (cus' let;'s be honest, a large part of comic;s charm is to read the band playing and jamming). each band member is given a significant amount of time on their own so the reader can know where they are coming from. Stefano (singer)'s tense relations at home are well paralleled with Alex's awkward life with his mom and aunt but interestingly contrasted by Alberto's tender relatinship with his father AND guiliano's sweet relationship with his girlfriend. Still, once they are put in the same invironment, they have their own antics against each other but work well together because of the music they make.
overall, it's a soft and simple story well told about a garage band of teenagers.( something that many can identify it) it's very realistic from a story sense, tho the art style takes some "getting use to" (in my opinion, i think its a bit sloppy in some areas and could have used some richer colors in some spots)

if you find it. it's a good read.

comments must be made...

2009-09-19T08:02:00.001-07:00

so, over the last couple of days i came across two art pieces that are really really cool, so, i wanna comment on them. the first one is Renne Lott's very first graphic novel titled "festering romance" out by ONI press. the story takes place in our dear past home, Savannah and it's about a girl (janet)attempting to make a new relationship work out without having to let go of her past. her better half (derek) is on the same boat. it's straight forward, sincere and yes, very cute. it begins with a very light feeling and not overwhelming at all for the course the story will be taking, which is a good thing, 'cus it doesnt make the reader feel forced into something, rather the story unveils itself in a simple manner as it goes along. basically, the story develops as it goes so it's a very well told story. the art for the book is highly cartoony manga-sque , which creates a neat contrast with the more serious undertones of the tale and one thing that can be said about renee's art style is that it is unique and authentic. she creates her own icons and lenguage to a character's mechanics. overall, it's a fun and enjoyable read. the art is solid and it's definetely one of those books with a strong message. check it out at

http://blog.fridgewithfeet.com
http://www.fridgewithfeet.com
http://www.myspace.com/fridgewithfeet

the second art piece that i bumped into was muse's new album the resistance. finally. after 3 years of waiting since their album "black holes and reveleation" here it is... and... there it was. first off.. i'm a muse fan, and it was interesting to see the band go back to the previous style they were using during the origin of symmetry and absolution isntead of the more dancy-but still enjoyable-techno rythms they did in black holes and revelations. the albums starts of with a "boom!" on its first track, and yes, we've all heard that "uprising" is very similar to a bunch of other songs, but, y'know what? so are those songs similar to others, and wtf, it's an enjoyable tune. after track one, the resistance only makes the album better and gives you a reason to pump the volume even higher. a big similarity to origin is distinguishable in "unnatural selection" and just as expected just as delivered. the song is a powerful melody that makes you wanna scream along " i want the truth". the biggest surprise in the album is the upbeat track "i belong to you" optimistic and unexpected, still blends well with the entirety of the album. and last but not least, yes... exogenesis... a 3-track symphony that tells a story of redemptions and regrets.

overall, the album is really good, but two things concern me: it's somewhat repetitive in its rhythms and specially in its lyrics. guitarist and singer matt b. talks about falling and questioning a union, as if there's more left unsaid on the page track that what he actually wrote. and the second concern is regarding the music, there are parts where it seems as if it does not go to the lengths muse has surpassed before. exogenesis could have been a whole lot better. but for what it is, it's a fun album, it's a well created album, well produced and i will say, impresively successful in blending styles such as chopin's writings into their united states. listen to it. it;s AWESOME. i'm about to it right now.

2009-09-17T09:28:00.001-07:00

penciling around the clock is fearly tiring, but exciting, specially fter 45 minute drives twice a day. oh well. so, it's early in the morning and while Affe is toning and Lindsay inks, i pencil other comics and prepare a demo for the future artists. the night before last i spent it inking and having a nice sip to some Tecate celebrating the 199 years of my independent home nation. I think all i gotta say is BIBA LA MEJIKO.

yey...

wattaweek

2009-09-12T01:17:00.000-07:00

well, i finished my first week at my new job, and i gotta say, i love it so much. the only down side is taht i dont get a lot of time to do other sketches, cus i'm already working on another comic, but, in general, i think i have one of the most wonderful jobs ever. not to mention, i do think it;s quite ironic that here we are working on a story about kids in adult scenarios.. and then there;s this job.

on another note, saw whiteout and lemme throw a huge shout-out to steve leiber, illustrator of Greg rucka's story. the film was awesome and very well followed the steps of what rucka and Leiber did. tho i do gotta say.. not a huge fan of the soundtrack, but, it was fun...

well, back to inking,,..

typing is productive for a non-writer

2009-09-05T23:52:00.000-07:00

what a weekend... and it's only half way thru.
so, before i go on ahead and upload some sketches i have been working on, first i wil announce to myself that i finally have a printer/scanner. i couldnt be more pleased.
also, the joy i get from knowing that lindsay got the pages just fine and dandy, cus... since i sent them before i had this little epson... lemme tell ya... i did not make copies, so if those pages didnt get there...

wow... dont even want to think about it, but, meanwhile.. i shall continue storybaording and working on other comics and, taking new responsabilities as a burbank resident.

gnite.

A Friendly Box

2009-09-02T19:58:00.000-07:00

So I finally got around to organizing (a little) in the studio space at home and found my Friendly Box. It's not the first Friendly Box, but this one's been around for a little over a year and during my go-abouts from Savannah back to Paducah for summer and winter breaks from college, I would stuff any and all Friendly Game related things into it, mostly my inked pages. Sometimes there'd be other stuff floating around, but mostly the inks. Specifically, I feared foul play would happen if these pages were left in Savannah when I was gone over the breaks, so they would travel back with me just like my computer and fancy printing junk. I hadn't touched the box since moving a month ago, and I knew there was a lot of last minute non-book stuff that was jammed into it during the frantic moving business, as well as complete disorganization left over with some pages being in the box and some being in a portfolio from the SCAD Editor's Day.

In the pile-o-stuff picture, clockwise from 1 o'clock you have 125 inked pages (some that are going to be replaced with changed scenes), a stack of thumbnails, character sheets, and Google-image reference pictures (some that were rather icky...), Joe's copy of the script with his notations and coffee-stains, and a few pencils that managed to somehow hitch-hike back with me, also from Editor's Day scramble.

I'd forgotten that Joe had given me his print-out copies of the script he used while thumbnailin' / penciling...although I was the one to ask for it. Joe basically fixed any and all awkward pacing that I had going on in the script, scenes that were 2 pages evolved into 5 or 6 and worked out much better that way. Needless to say, such additions switch around where and what pages dialogues happen.
Because the pile of inked pages were SO THICK, I thought I'd measure them for grins. The carpet kinda interfers, but it looks around 3 inches thick, give or take considering the curl on some of the pages. So many spot blacks.......

The difference in artwork is really drastic, considering the first pages of this stack were started in the last year of our undergrad at SCAD and go through until the end of the 2 year MFA degree Joe and I both beat ourselves up with. There's the first fight scene page, and then the fight scene I was working on the other night......What's kinda funny is that all the original inks for such a grisly story have been carted around in a box that has one of those obnoxiously fluffy toy dogs on it. But it fit 11 x 17 paper so....eh.

My brain's tired, so here's a few comparison and close-ups of my Friendly Box contents. Maybe by next time I'll have made it to Wal-Green's to get those ink-cartridge refills and print s'more blue-line pages.

2009-09-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

still no new pictures at the moment, except for this one that i found and i think it's pretty cool. currently i am working on another comic where i get to pencil, ink and letter myself, and man, do i miss lindsay going over my work. not that i hate my inking or anything, but it makes a big difference.
as lindsay knows and probably hates me for it... i tend to overdraw sometimes. lindsay, so far has been great at simplifying my textures and details. also, she's really good at keeping things neat. when i ink my own work... i kinda go all over the place: spaltters are everywhere, textures and wakky and the random marks to indicate dents and scratches. essentially, when i kin my own work, everything looks like it's been knocked around a bit here and there. but even better, i'm so glad lauren is now helping in the project 'cus if there are shadows or shapes that must be added, lauren tackles those with her tines.

well... back to making a mess.

no image this time/...

2009-08-28T01:11:00.000-07:00

so, i had to make a quick trip to San Diego and visit family and i'm typing on their computer, in which i have no data, so, no image this time to go with the post, HOWEVER, i am typing this post for a particular reason.

i took my mom to the movies tonight to see what i thought was gonna be a mediocre film, and to my surprise, i enjoyed every bit of it. to all of those who are currently working on an on-going project and sometimes feel a bit down on the not so bright side of places... this movie was definetely a pad on the back. it's called "julie and julia."

it's about as girly as a movie can get, but it's also as motivating as a movie can make you feel to continue working on those projects that sometimes we wonder "who even gives a crap anyways". i wont go into details, cus then i wont shut up. normally i tend to dork out on these kinds of things, but for the moment, i will just say, if you wanna see a "feel good"... this is an awesome one. charming, sweet, funny and optimistic but at the same time, believeable and very entertaining.

smile. life is cool and things will get better.

P.S.
thank you Dan Vado for giving this story we are still working on the opportunity to see the light of print. thank you for your support, patience and honesty. we, the friendly squad are ever grateful.

Workin' two shifts...

2009-08-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

Lindsay here...will this mention I'm the one posting? I will freely admit to never touching these "blog" things you kids talk about and am clueless about the complete workings. For someone who's a website developer by day, I feel like a 6 year-old that's been chucked into the deep end of the pool...

Anyhow. Having a job that sticks you in front of a computer all day gives little reason to be tempted by the likes of Facebook and the various distractions of the internet (such as blogs...) This is actually a very good motivator when it comes to working on comic pages traditionally. I've kept a pretty consistent schedule of inking a page a night when I sit down to work, usually between 7 and 10 pm. It's not every night, granted. Moving from Savannah (GA) to Paducah (KY) took up a lot more time and energy that I thought...The weekday schedule's pretty consistent as of now: Day Job, Make/Eat Dinner, Mushy-Talk with Husband, Inking, Bed.

I've almost exhausted the backlog of blue-lined pages to ink that I had printed out before leaving Savannah, which means a trip to Wal-Greens for an ink refill to print more blue-lines. I'll post something about the wonders of the large-format HP printer used in the comics world to print at 11 x 17 format.

That's all I got for now, almost betime to start the schedule over again.

back around...

2009-08-25T02:19:00.000-07:00

Ah, thumbnails... such an interesting process. it's like the rawest shape of the translation from text (THANKS Lindsay) to visuals. and tho most of the time it's just little 1''x1.5'' doodles (yeah, nowadays i thumbnail my pages in one by oneanaahalf areas.) it takes such a mental effort to attempt different ways to tell the story. it's really cool in that sense.
well, that was rich! the reason why i bring that up is cus i think i lost the sheet with the thmnails for the last pages. WOO!!!
but i'm happy to be back doing pages after a weekend of storyboarding and emailing and... drinking a lot, so... all in good times. but yes! back to the drawing board. the only problem is that now there's a bit of a set back cus i have to rethumb some stuff.

hello sunday...

2009-08-23T03:21:00.000-07:00

well.. so far... what a weekend...

the pencils are nearly finished except for a few more pages, and after that, lindsay and affe take command. meanwhile, miscellaneous sketches and whatnots will probably be a regularity, i guess, i dunno. just the other day, the durbinsky, lauren and i were discussing ideas for what could be a possible cover, and i dunno... we had a good dialogue session and thre some stuff around, but i wonder if that's gonna be more of vado's call. let's see what happens...

in other news, because i spend long hours awake and on the desk, i listen to a lot of documentaries and behind the music and behind the scenes stuff and lemme just say.. after watching a not so good film, i bumped into a documentary on the grand les paul (may he rest in peace) and boy oh boy... the dude was such a genius.
thank you mr. paul.

now.. back to drawing storyboards!

introduction...

2009-08-21T03:33:00.000-07:00

being the first post, i guess, i would like to type briefly about the nature of this project.
"a friendly game" has been a graphic novel that lindsay durbin, lauren affe and myself have been working on for quite some time. It is still being developed, but every time i more gets done on it, every time i am proud-er of this.
well... here goes some posts...

2009-08-20T20:48:00.000-07:00

sound check-
sound check-