Hourly Comics February 1, 2013

Hourly Comics.
So I guess it is always the first of February, and I have seen it the last few years, but this is my first time giving it a go.

Things I have realized:
1. I draw myself slightly differently every time it seems.
2. If I am going to keep doing this I am going to have to work smaller, and less detailed.

While I was at home I bothered to try to block out some panels...

I look a bit like Anne Burrell until I comb my hair.

in case you can't read it, first panel says: you could make a cat out of all the dog hair.

Perspective is hard. Might help if I used some guidelines, but meh.

That German torture art was cool... they also had one showing a witch being dunked in a lake in a cage.

My dog is the best dog. Also, I'm breaking in a pair of hiking boots, so that's good.

Song is: Love Letter to Japan by The Bird and the Bee

These were like I mentioned, done on the floor in a gym and at a bar... My husband's students are all pretty great.

Aaaand back where I started.

Now time for a nap, or I am going to be useless for the baby shower and party later today...

Cucumber Quest, Oz & Avatars

So ever since watching Summer Wars, I've wished that Oz was real and that I could really make a custom avatar like was displayed in the movie with all those options. Started sketching around right after I saw it the third time or so... That was months ago now. You can see the direction I was going. The squiddy one is one for my husband.

Already here I was going toward Animal Crossing, Cats and Kimonos

I've left off it and been working on other things. Been thinking I need to get back to webcomic doodles. So the next one on my list is Cucumber Quest by Gigi DG. This comic is so awesome that I backed their Kickstarter because I want a print book of it so freaking bad.

Follows and unlikely hero, Cucumber, in his quest to defeat the Nightmare Knight, along with a whole host of characters. I am totally in love with the art for this comic... It like it has parts of oil painting and watercolors and pastels, parts of children's cutout books, pop up books, samurai jack sponge-painted backgrounds, fanatastic lighting and color. It's got the best parts of Animal Crossing and video games and RPGs and magic. It has cuteness and humor out the wazoo.

Anyway I wanted to draw something, so I just started doodling what I might look like as an inhabitant of Dreamside.

Everone is bunny in Dreamside, so far, I think.

Today I realized that there is a connection between these two different thoughts... I think. Then I was thinking about the previous avatars I have created and Animal Crossing. Anyway I have also been thinking that I need a new Twitter avatar so I did some more doodles today.

I tried to get a full 360 of it in my head. Nailed down her kimono design a bit more. It is a totoro design kimono. Animal Crossing ish shape. Cat like head and calico ish color spots. Cat/Rabbit ish ears. Tail which curls like my dog's. Eyes outline = glasses.  

Bottom left is an idea for a ParaNorman/Scooby Doo Fanart.

Started then thinking more about that twitter design... Might have to fix this since I have her holding the stuff in the wrong hand. I am lefthanded. Might just take it out all together.
I will probably color this.

Slowly getting back to comics

So, I have finally set up my new office to be in somewhat working order. It's a great space and all for me! I am contemplating doing the 30 Day Monster Girl Challenge, but I won't start that just yet.

In the mean time here is a warmup for me, going back to cataloging and doing fan doodles for the webcomics I read. Picking up where I left off...

Cat Versus Human by Yasmine. Basically just a comic about cats and the effects they have on ladies, life and relationships. Super cute and minimal look. I live for the rare strips she does about dogs. I can generally appreciate all the cat humor as well, since I do love cats, I just literally cannot live with them. Some of my favorites: This one and this one.

Was going to do a full fledged doodle, sketched out some ideas and realized that a two week hiatus was extremely detrimental to any skills I might have been building. So, instead here are caricatures of me, my husband and puppy inspired by Cat Versus Human.

Rice Boy Fan Art

Rice Boy by Evan Dahm

Rice Boy is actually a story unto itself, but is also the name of the website. Evan Dahm has created an entire complex world compete with histories, races and fantastic environments. All of his stories take place in this world, called Overside. He is also the second half of the blog, The Exquisite Beast, I mentioned before.

When I started reading this comic, it was with Rice Boy. It follows Rice Boy who is suspected to fulfill of a prophecy. Then I got caught up in the Order of Tales. Order follows the last of a race of storytellers. And now I religiously follow Vattu. I have also devoured everything in the short stories section.

It is hard to classify these comics... I guess the best way to describe them are as "epics".  Most follow a single main character through their experiences, but rapidly bloom into a much larger scale conflict that this one character is caught up in the middle of. There are reoccurring races and characters which help to give every story depth, once you have read them all.

If I had to pick a favorite character, it would be T-O-E (The One Elecronic). He is super cool... carries himself kind of like yoda, dracula, and the lone gunman. I kind of relate him to Roland from the Dark Tower series...

Anyway, I am really enjoying Vattu so far and since it is the latest, I wanted to doodle her. I like Vattu's city a lot and while I started sketching her sneaking off to a sword practice with the War-man, I started giving her a companion. So here again is that Kenku kid from before.

This Kenku is actually a character I created for a DnD campaign that never went anywhere. But I spent a lot of time thinking about a back story and purpose and goals and things like that. So Chrypi is a girl kenku (which is hard to tell, similar to Vattu) and she grows up on the streets of Sharn in Ebberon. That city in the DnD lore, is gigantic and full of tons of races and hierarchy and lords and all kind of stuff. I felt like Sharn is a little like the city that Vattu is in since they are both full of all kinds of races. Chrypi one day finds a Bard mentor who teaches her to sing and make a little money storytelling. I had the idea for her to have a custom scimitar that had a harp built into the curve of the blade, a harpitar. Never sure where she learned to use a scimitar, so maybe some lessons from a friend might be fun.

Nedroid Picture Diary Fan Art

Nedroid Picture Diary by Anthony Clark

Favorites: Mosquitos, Bartholomew, Tacos, Pizza, pretty much all of them...

Follows Reginald and Beartato (rhymes with potato) and their life, adventures and friends. If you looked at my favorites you can tell that it is quite silly. Anthony is a joy to follow on twitter and tumblr because we get to see all the other cool stuff that he works on. His coloring skills are amazing! You cant really tell from these comics but he does some amazing things with light in photoshop. I also love to see all the cool wizards he draws.

Ok here is the doodle:

Fun times... drew in graphite, inked with a black marker, scanned into illustrator, converted to line art, pulled into photoshop, layers of color and panels beneath the lines, saved to jpg. Fact: I had three different comics all thought out... this one is different than the rest.. perhaps I will draw Reginald and Beartato in the Halloween costumes I picked out for them (of a Pizza Slice and Hamburger (respectively)) at some time in the future.

Daisy Owl Fan Art

Daisy Owl by Ben Driscoll

This comic is for all intensive purposes... dead. I am sad to say it, though. It remains in my reader because... well... because I am lazy and do not like to get rid of things that I liked. Not to say that it is a finished work, but because it has not updated in two years.

It is a bit nostalgic to go back and read through it again. By the end he really had a nice clean style going and fully defined characters. There were a few pretty dramatic perspective shots that he did too... and nice coloring when it had it.

Follows two kids and their dad, an owl, and his friend a bear. Kind of slice of life I guess.
There is a lot of humor in it; situational and stand up. Deals with work and raising kids and space. You know, normal stuff.

Anyway, here is the doodle. Sketched out in graphite, scanned into Photoshop, converted to line art in illustrator, and then imported into Photoshop again and colored in gray-scale. I had an idea that I wanted to draw a space picnic. I drew the overly smart daughter, Daisy, first and knew I wanted Steve the bear to be eating... The other two, Cooper, the boy, and Mr. Owl fell into place after. Tried to make it a little continuous with the last strip. I had a lot of fun with this... the limited palette was kind of liberating since I sometimes have difficulty mixing and matching colors.

Rosscott, Inc Fan Art

Today's comic is Rosscott, Inc. (aka. the System) by Rosscott.

Started reading this one in 2009. I knew it was one I would keep up with forever, when it spoke to my soul in this particular comic: The Crap Sandwich. Since then it has made me laugh on a regular basis.

Rosscott uses the universal imagery that we see on signs everywhere to make this comic apply to everyone. However, some of the subject matter is rather specific to one or another group: e.g. office worker, graphic designer, bike commuter, coffee drinker, etc. It also has some just plain weird and silly humor in characters such as Jimmy the Murderdog. Puns are often found here as well. Comics also often remark on technology, gadgets, social media, and fonts. If you like any of those things, you might give it a try.

Notes on this doodle: Started as a pencil sketch in my note book and then once I had the idea and panels arranged, I drew the characters in Illustrator from scratch. Didn't feel it was right to just use the icons he does. Text font is Helvetica New Medium Expanded. The dog eyes in panel two are actually the lowercase letter "o" from ITC Avant Guarde Gothic. I use that font in several of the logos and brands I work on. Since I work from home, often there are design decisions that I need to make, but I no longer have the luxury of asking another designer for their input. I hope that it is not just me who talks to myself, and my dog, when stuck on a choice... I do miss having coworkers...

Webcomics and their effects

As a person who occasionally does doodles of her own, I have a healthy respect for those who can produce work, good work, consistently. I think that is part of the reason I love webcomics. The more of them I collect and follow, the more I realize, why not me?

Add on the ability to follow your favorite webcomic artists on twitter and it is as though I can get a glimpse into their lives. They don't know me, but I sometimes feel like I can identify with them and see how they move past their bad days and keep going. This process of doing fan art helps me try to look harder at what I look at every week. And maybe I can find my own passion and ideas in the process.

"Do what only you can do best..."- Neil Gaiman  
But what can I do best?

So, last weekend at A-kon, I had the opportunity to meet an artist, who's comic I follow, in person. I have to admit that I went a bit fan-girl. Not even sure I remember what all I said to her, but I got a new piece of art, that she signed, got to shake her hand, and look at some finished and unfinished work. Might have taken all of 5 minutes, but I was giddy the rest of the day. Why? She's just a person, like me, doing what she loves to do. She's taken that step that I have not, though. She has put herself out there, with style.

That's a crutch word I use... someone has a "style". That is the big thing I am searching for in my own work; that I envy in others. The ability to have something be recognizable as yours, even if the subject isn't of your own creation.

I don't know what it is like to simply be a reader, to not want to be able to create something like I read. I desperately want to be able to create something unique, that can draw others in and have an effect on their lives. But maybe by studying what others have done and continue to do, by consuming so much good stuff every day, and by trying in my own way to get there... maybe I can become that cool.

Hark, A Vagrant Madonna!

And now for something less completely different... or: back to webcomics!

The next on my reader list is Hark, a Vagrant! by Kate Beaton.

Honestly, this is one of my favorite comics out there right now and I'll tell you why... If some of these had been shown in my history classes I would be less bored by history. I have found that putting difficult subjects in comic form makes me want to learn more about that subject; make sense? Not really. Ok, I will try again: History is totes boring to me. Always has been. Except for Art History, that is... and what little "actual history" gets put into art history for context is all I care about. This pains my husband, who is a history graduate and teacher. Part of what makes it so likeable, is that the famous (or not so famous) people in these comics are all humanized. Meaning I can relate to them in some way, which makes their plight or circumstance something that maybe I might just give two cents about.

My favorites: the covers, the peasants, and sexy Tudors, or anything with wolverine, the pony or her younger self too. Even when I have no idea about the subject matter, I still end up laughing and maybe even learning something, after I go look it up. But SHHHHHHH, comics are silly and rot your brain right?

My doodle for this comic has been daunting. I knew I couldn't pass by without doing one, but like I said, I don't like history enough to try and learn something new just for a doodle. I thought about drawing my husband in her style, but I can't cause she's too good at capturing that essence of a person in so few lines. Then I thought about asking him what his favorite historical figure was, but then again I might have to go look something up, so no.

Today I thought, OK, if I did a comic like this, it would be about art history right? So pick something from that... duh. I wanted to do a comic about Dali in his limo full of cauliflower since that story has always stuck with me, but it is funny by itself. So I started looking through all the images I have kept from my art history classes... Oh lord, the Spiral Jetty... that is only funny to a certain few of us I think. Ahah! That will do.

This painting, so strange with the proportions... With a neck like that, it's no wonder Mr. Giraffe liked her. And I am pretty sure that babies do not look like that.

Skipped Webcomics 1

UPDATE: Sin Titulo is now back!! See this great Comic's Alliance article for another perspective.

So the list of comics that I read is ridiculously long (I counted today, there are 96 items in my RSS) and some of them I do not think I will do fan art for and some that I simply cannot, for various reasons, do fan art for.

Since I am super busy today, going into memorial day weekend, I will share the two comics that I have thus far skipped over. I expect as I skip more in the future I will do a few more of these posts, because even though I skip drawing them, they are all good for one reason or another.

First Up: Sin Titulo by Cameron Stewart
This comic is not like the rest in my reader. It is dark, scary, gritty, full of unpleasant things to think about and some stuff that I cannot quite classify. This is a story! Unlike a lot of comics, you have to read this in order, and I would even say close together in time, to maintain your understanding of what is going on. Parts of it remind me of the Sandman comics, parts of it are vaguely Sin City or the Watchmen. It has not updated in a while, but I keep it in my reader because even though I am vaguely afraid of it, I want to know what's going on! It rapidly hooks you into wanting to unravel the mystery presented to the main character. The basic plot follows a man who goes to a nursing home to pick up his grandfathers items after he passed away, along with the items he receives a lot of questions, which lead him along a dark road for answers. Check it out if you want to be confused like I am.

Secondly: Married to the Sea by Drew and Natalie of the Sharing Machine
Possibly one of the most opposite comics to Sin Titulo that I could pull out of my reader... This comic is all one offs. By that I mean they all stand alone, usually. Each and every one could almost be on a t-shirt and often are. It combines an old-style ink line drawings with snarky up-to-the-minute dialog and jargon. You have probably seen one or more at some point as they are very clever. The topics range from politics, food, internet memes, video games and life in general. Be warned, there are over 1700 comics and the first time I found them I spent a good many hours reading through them all.

Hope you at least take a look at these two.
Monday I'll be back with something (and a doodle hopefully) relating to Hark, A Vagrant!

Tiny Kitten Teeth Fan Art

Today we move from the clean lines and yellow color of Savage Chickens to the bright and lush world of Tiny Kitten Teeth and Tigerbuttah by Becky & Frank. I think it is best to use their words when try to explain what this comic is about:

"Tiny Kitten Teeth is a hand painted online comic... The comic follows the slice-of-life adventures of Mewsli, a fish out of water in Owltown, a compact metropolis built around a particularly affluent arts college. Every week we take a break from the story and go visit our friend Tigerbuttah, a little tiger who doesn’t know much about life yet."

Personally, I sometimes find this comic's story hard to follow, but the art style is to die for and it reminds me so much of Animal Crossing, which I LOVE. The vignettes of Tigerbuttah I really like best and so for today's doodle I decided to try my hand at one.

I decided to sketch this one out first but left it un-inked since there are no black outlines in this art style, instead the colors create the creatures! I also used what I learned when working on my doodle for Para-Ten and tried to color this image with the watercolor Photoshop brushes I made, that did not work so well so I went back to the way I normally do things... And since any excuse to draw a totoro is a good excuse to draw one, I thought it might be fun to have them interact.

UPDATE: "...we absolutely love your fan art and thanks so much for sending it to us!! It's the absolute best!!" - From an email received 9/5/12

Savage Chickens Fan Art

Today I am sharing Savage Chickens by Doug Savage with you. As one of the more popular comics I read, I should hope that you are already familiar with this one. A few of my favorites are: Meh and I Love You More, the most visited of all time are also all really good. Since "jerk" is one of the most common endearments that I use for my hubby, the latter is especially meaningful to me. The simple style is so nice and clean that the jokes stand out on their own. Also, it is always exciting to think what the next guest character might be. This comic covers subjects ranging from Star Wars, movies, and office politics, to romance, poetry and cats.

In this instance I chose to combine my love of the Chickens with another person who likes chicken, from one of my favorite movies of all time, which you should know. I knew I had to draw it as soon as I started cackling to myself just thinking about it.

As a little bit on the process of this doodle, I first traced the square size of my sticky notes (4x6) on to some blank paper to try and get a layout I liked. Then drew in the comic in pencil. Since I do not have a light board, I got my clear lap desk and put my desk lamp on the floor and traced the image from the paper onto my sticky note and then inked it in. It was not a bad process but my neck is killing me from hunching over my lap for so long.

Para-Ten Fan Art

Para-Ten by William N. Gibbons (Ashwara)... not sure how I found it. Might have been from Happle Tea, or the other way around. It is complete and no longer updates, but I have not removed it from my reader because I love going back and looking at it. It has a style of watercolor sumi-e ink wash paintings and it is very beautiful. It started out being hand inked and then digitally colored and that was inspiring to me. Shortly after starting the author switched to all digital and it was fascinating to see how the style changed to fit the new medium, which was not very much at all!

It follows the main character, Paveline and as the author states "was washed down a river and winds up far from home. She embarks on a journey home, encountering fantastic things, beautiful things, horrible things, disgusting things. It is an exploration of balance, patience, and courage."

I like best when she was traveling around and thought that maybe once her journey was over that later she might still like to wander around with a new found companion. I tried to capture the colors and feel of this comic in my doodle. It was very hard and I tried to learn new ways to set my brushes in Photoshop to create a kind of watercolor affect. I have a good feeling this is NOT how the original was made. :)

Just fyi, that thing is something from the comic and they call it a Millipede...just sayin...

Johnny Wander Fan Art

OK so next on my list of web comics is Johnny Wander by Ananth and Yuko. Found this comic because I used to read Applegeeks, which Ananth also worked on. Applegeeks has gone by the wayside but had some really cool stuff going at certain points. Anyway, Johnny Wander is more like journal comics about their real life. What keeps me coming back is the charming style that Yuko has when drawing EVERYTHING! There occasionally are stories and characters like Death and Cecilia or Lucky Penny and like everything else they have a style that I love. I also follow Yuko's tumblr which is great if you like looking at pictures of dragons, Garrus or ASoIaF stuff. I should also mention that she is one half of two people who are working on a project evolving a creature called the Exquisite Beast, which is also really cool to watch. So obviously they are awesome and they do a ton of great things.

So here is a little tiny Yuko and a dragon. I too like drawing dragons, though I have not in a very long time so it was fun to do this again. I was also surprisingly terrified to add the lines for depth and shadow to the line drawing for this image. So I scanned it first without and then again after I added them, glad I did since it makes it feel more complete I think.

Happle Tea Fan Art

So, moving on. I've decided that I need something else to draw, something fun and something that might last a while. While reading through my RSS feeder this morning I realized that there was plenty here to draw. So for a while I will be doodling my favorite characters from the various web comics I read. Maybe it will help expose you all to new ones you might not know of.

So going in the order in which they are displayed in my reader the first up is Happle Tea by Scott Maynard. Do you like mythology? Of course you do, who doesn't... Then this comic might just make you laugh. Mostly revolves around Lil K and his dad, Sasquatch. Lil K meets all kinds of folks from all kinds of myths and legends. One of my favorite returning characters is Cat God.

So I started out drawing Lil K eating ice cream because it is summer and I wanted him to have a nice time with Cat God for once, who generally says some unpleasant things. Then, since I am obsessed with Kenku, which are loosely based off karasu tengu from Japanese mythology, I thought hey, lets add a kid one in. Who else better might hang with a kid Kenku then Lil K, plus they have similar fashion sense in they are always shown wearing hooded clothes. :) Not sure what type of ice cream truck would have frozen treats to appeal to all three, but I bet it would exist in this comic.