Another sketch from (probably) spring of ’98. This sketch as done with blue pencil and inked with a couple of sharpies. Many professional comic book artists do their penciling with non-photo blue pencils. It apparently saves the inker from having to erase the original pencils after he/she has inked them. I wanted to see if I could save time working in this method. The blue pencils are too hard for me to read and so made inking more chancy than I like.

On a different note, I hereby recommend Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I was reading it on the bus this morning and missed my stop because I was so involved. This happened even while I was sitting next to a gentlemen who positively reeked of cigarettes. Normally the smell of cigarette smoke doesn’t affect me much but his smell was practically solid and I was looking forward to getting off the bus. And still the book sucked me in.

I’ve mentioned before that I sketch more than I write. It finally occurred to me yesterday that I’ve got a big stack of sketchbooks that I could use for filling up the empty spaces when I can’t get anything written. Which is most to the time these days.

The first thing I realized while looking through my sketchbooks is that I really don’t know when most of the content was created. I can guess approximate dates based on the subject matter. So after almost forty years I’m going to start dating my sketches as I do them. Not that this helps with anything that’s likely to get posted here.

Today’s sketch was probably done in the spring of 1998 while Nizzibet and I were putting together the first incarnation of Glyph. This was the magazine version. I had sixteen pages of Bonecage Graffiti, my follow up to Misspent Youths, in each issue. This sketch is of Moe, one of the many protagonists, at different ages and states of fashion.

Mainly I’m posting to demonstrate that I’m not dead.

Nizzibet and I are getting audited by the IRS. It’s not something I’m worried about. It’s more a nuisance than anything else. I fall into thoughts of; “Aren’t there rich people they could be bugging?” befoer I get philosophical and decide that this’ll probably happen to everyone sooner or later. Then I remember that I’ve been called for jury duty FIVE friggin’ times in my life – SO FAR – and start planning to be audited every 4 and a half years for the rest of my life.

Page eight of Oz Squad is sitting in Photoshop, getting colored in fits and starts.

There are way too many dirty dishes in the kitchen right now.

One of the Niz’s “properties” is being considered for a movie adaptation. Exciting in a “never count on anything coming from Hollywood” sort of way.

Cheers!

Chaosium has posted the cover art for Secrets of Kenya with the accompanying cover text. My first thought is, of course, “That’s not how I would have done it.” Because I always think that whether I’m looking at an illustration that someone has done of one of my characters or if I’m looking at the lettering and/or text put on a comic page I’ve drawn. It’s never a comment on that person’s actual work. It’s more an acknowledgement of what had been sitting in my imagination. Then I forget all about what I’d been imagining and start getting used to what’s actually been done.

There’s still a small amount of work to be done, stuff that’s likely only noticeable to me. It’s the sort of stuff that probably wouldn’t show up in a jpeg so this will be the last post for this illustration. I’ve got a “real job” work event that I need to attend tonight so I probably won’t get the final noodling done until tomorrow morning (or tomorrow night if the siren call of the warm bed overrides the bugle of Art and Beating Deadlines). Thanks for stopping by! I’d send you a link where you could pre-order the book but neither Chaosium nor Amazon seem prepared to offer that service.

In a good magic trick, or a well told story, or even a simple joke, timing is important. The flourish, the punchline, comes at the end. Once you give that to the audience, you’re done.

I’d been intending to save the blue sky for my final post. It was supposed to be the big change that makes the whole image shine. And then I would be done. But I’m not done. I was so exhausted yesterday that I just couldn’t face noodling away on wildebeests, little shadows and minor highlights. I needed to work on big loud things to stay awake. Hence the blue sky.

There’s at least another hour or two work to be done. I’ll post the stages as I go but they’ll be quieter adjustments, smaller changes.

I don’t tell jokes too well either.

I’m functioning on way too little sleep. Nizzibet and I went down to Northern California to be part of a surprise birthday party. The party went great. The guest of honor was well and truly surprised. Much food was eaten, many great conversations were had, much alcohol was drunk, a car was pushed out of the mud, a porch collapsed, new people (and old friend’s new children) were met and a grand time was generally had. That was Saturday.

Sunday Nizzibet and I were supposed to fly out of the Oakland Airport at about 4:50. So we were dutifully there at 2:30. Where we quickly learned that our plane was delayed. And delayed. And delayed. We finally boarded and flew out of Oakland at around 10:30. After getting our car out of a long term lot in Seattle we made it home by about 2. So I didn’t get any new artwork done this weekend.

Last version before Monday. I’m not going to have access to my computer until Sunday evening at the earliest. We’re still in the making tiny adjustments stage. I think I’m finally satisfied with the idol that our heroes are perched upon. It’s finally almost dark enough.

One of the challenges I’ve got is that I’m working on a early iMac. It’s a great little machine but the monitor has gotten a little tired. Everything looks darker on it than it does on other machines. So while the idol looks practically black on my home machine it’s been looking way too cheery and christmassy on when I look at the jpegs on the Mini here at work.

I like to leave myself something big for the end of the process. Something that makes a splash. Right now we’re in the Lots of Little Details stage. Much of that is adding shading and tone to give the image texture and depth. Some of that seems barely noticeable even to me.
And so much of it is brown. Brown. Brown. Want to make an art director crazy? Tell them that you’re going to give them a brown book cover. You might as well tell them that you’re going to do your best to make sure that their book doesn’t sell and that they never hire you again. And, boy, is this image brown. Highlighting will make a difference. That comes after I’ve finished the shading.
That final big splash of color will make all the difference. But later. Patience.

And here is what the illustration looked like at 6:45 this morning. This is with all the layers on. The progress fascinates me. I’m trying to recreate an image that I saw with my mind’s eye. What I end up creating will look sort of like that image. It will never look exactly like it. The image in my mind has movement. It’s a movie clip. I’m trying to draw a frame of a movie that doesn’t exist.