The Little Mermaid

I haven't posted a painting in a while, but I actually have been painting a lot since last summer doing freelance concept design. It was fun to sit down to paint this and realize that all that freelance work has upped my confidence when it comes to digital painting. I've done digital paintings that I've liked in the past, but I always felt that they were 20% deliberate design and 80% unpredictable blind luck. I felt entirely in control painting this. It's so nice to be at that point.

Two revelations that have helped me paint better...

The first: Chop the painting into a few (but not too many) logical layers. In this case, I worked with half of Ariel's hair on the top layer, her face and body on the middle layer and the rest of her hair on the bottom layer.

The second: This one might be a little more complicated to explain. But here goes... and I stole this theory in part from someone at DNA Studios, but I can't remember who now. I'm sorry!

Think about the world in terms of shape, flat color (which can also mean various shades of black and white in something monochromatic) and volume (shading within a shape to make it seem more three-dimensional). Then make two of those elements more pronounced than the third. In this case, I'm focusing on shape and color. I've kept my shading to a minimum.

It would be so fun to see a remake of some of Disney's classically animated films. I know, gasp, hand to heart. But hear me out... I adore classical animation and the original films are of course beautiful and breathtaking, however, we all love seeing a beloved story retold in a new way. Who doesn't like going to see another Batman movie? :)

Page One Redo

Hey Sarah, quit reposting things.

But wait, it IS different than the original version and since it took me so darn long, it gets it's own special post.

I plan to redo page two as well, so everything matches, but I'll finish page five -- a new page -- first, which will wrap up this opening scene.

Page Four

Page four! This sequence will wrap up with the next page and then I'll announce a title, set up a webpage and all that.

If the girl's dialogue seems random up there at the top of the page, remember this page follows page three. And if you are stopping by for the first time, here also are pages one and two.

Buttercup and Westley

For Toonclub's Favorite Stories topic.

I'd love to add some kind of background to this, I'd also love to draw the rest of the cast. If you haven't read the book, you should. And if you've tried to read the book and gotten bogged down in the introduction part, I say skip it. It is kind of boring. But the book is just as much fun as the film, if not more.

Page Three Again

Page Three, take two.

As eager as I am to get rolling with this story, I want to make sure I commit to a look that I'll be happy with when I'm knee deep in pages. I also want to find a way to do this comic that doesn't take too long, because I work on it in my spare time.

This page is digitally inked and I've redone my colors, which I think look less muddy than my previous version. I've also made some changes to the drawing, such as I made the girl's hair more disheveled and I removed the man's mask.

If you want to compare the two page threes, the first version of page three is here.

Once I finish posting all five pages in the opening sequence, I'll announce the story title, set up an online archive of the pages and all that. Thank you for following along and being so supportive. :)

Small Design Change

A quick redesign for my blind character. I think he'll be more expressive with visible eyes and eyebrows. I also like his hair silhouette better this way.

Page Three

Page three! Did anyone notice the bat in the last page? Maybe not. He was pretty little.

I mentioned in my last post that this page would be digitally inked, but at the last minute I stuck with what I'd already done by hand. I'm still a little undecided on exactly how I'm going to do this comic. For new readers, here is page one and page two.

Baby Night Fury

So my daughter is sick and she has been watching the new "How to Train your Dragon" Christmas special. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't seen it, because it's pretty charming, but by three-year-old logic there is a reasonable expectation that at the end of the film you might see a baby night fury dragon. And you don't. So to cheer my little lady up, I told her I'd draw her one. :)

Also, this is a bit of a test for me inking-wise. Thanks to Josh Ulrich of Jackie Rose awesomeness for the heads up, I got a very cheap copy of Manga Studio during the Black Friday deals on Amazon and am now trying to figure it out. I'm a pretty nervous inker with real ink, but I love the look of it and really want to ink the new comic. So far, I have to admit, I'm pretty in love with this program. You will get to see more of my MS dabbling when I post page three of the new comic...

Page Two

All systems go! Well, almost. I'm still waiting on a cable to connect my Cintiq to my new computer, but other than that, get ready for some comic pages! If you are just stopping by for the first time, I don't have a webpage set up for this story yet, but you can find page one here.

Panel One of Page Two

Page two is complete, but since my computer died this week I'm unable to post the whole thing. In the meantime, here is the first panel of page two. :)

My husband and I were talking about story this morning and it got me thinking about why I believe story structure is so important.

To me, story structure is like a puzzle. There are no set in stone rules, but like a puzzle, every piece should fit into the overall image. And when you have your puzzle assembled correctly, you should be able to look at all the little pieces and have that "Ah! So that's why that needed to go there," feeling.

Thank you for your patience. I hope to have new pages up soon.

Page One

Here is page one of my new graphic novel. I'll share the title after I post this opening scene. It's not called 'Blue'.

I'll post the first few pages here on the blog, and when I post the title page, I'll set up an archive on my website.

I will try to post new pages as often as I can, but since I'm juggling several projects, not to mention being a stay-at-home mom, I'm not going to commit to a weekly post. However, I do hope to post new pages regularly and will do my best to update twitter, facebook and google plus when I post to make it easier to read along. If there is interest in a mailing list, I'll set that up too.

Happy reading! Or... well... maybe unhappy reading... you don't know what sort of story this is yet. :)

More Character Designs

Here are more character designs for my new graphic novel. My outline/script is written as of last Thursday, and once I nail down two more important character designs and sketch a couple of pivotal locations, I'm going to start drawing pages and posting them here. Exciting!

I want to keep what the story is about and even the title a secret until I begin posting, but I will let on that the female designs I posted last week, as well as the first two girls in this post, are sisters.

New Story

Sharing the Wellington Division was more fun than I expected and now that it's done, I wish I had another graphic novel to post. ...So I'm writing one. :) I've been thinking about this particular story idea for about a year, and unlike the Wellington Division, which was already complete when I began to share it, this comic will be posted page by page.

I'm still polishing my outline/script, but in the meantime, here are a few character designs. There are several female characters in the story, and they need to look very different from one another.

Thank you to everyone who has commented about the Wellington Division. I really appreciate all the feedback. I hoped to respond to every comment personally, and still plan to. Thank you for your patience. And thanks for making your way through all seven-hundred and sixty pages!

After I posted the last sequence of the Wellington Division, my family and I took a trip to see extended family in Canada. While we were there, I dug through old boxes of artwork and unearthed early Wellington Division character designs, as well as a map of Daklore. I'll share them soon, but be prepared, it's ten year old artwork and probably deserves to be hidden in a box. :)

The Wellington Division - The End

The final scene of the Wellington Division is now up.

It's bittersweet to post this last sequence. I've come to really enjoy posting the Wellington Division week by week. It's been such an interactive, interesting way to tell a story. Thank you to everyone who has been reading along. And thank you to everyone who has taken the time to comment or let me know their thoughts about the characters in an e-mail.

So long Tearse, Jase, Elsie and Tyler.

Painted Jackalope

Mild mannered rabbit by day, avenging Jackalope by night!

This is a birthday present for one of my nephews. You can find the original drawing in this old post.