Sarah's Sketches

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! 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 .

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, 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. :)

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! 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 .

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...

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.

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.

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. :)

  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.

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,...

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.

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.

The second to last sequence of my graphic novel is now up.

New comic pages are up... Just a short scene this week.

New pages are up. Thank you to everyone who has been leaving such interesting comments. It's really fascinating to hear other people's thoughts about the story and the characters.

New pages are up. Thank you for your patience. I was out of town yesterday and had no way to post this. Yelrah is one of my favorite characters, but I suppose you wouldn't think so considering her story, particularly this week. Only a handful of sequences to go. Next week's sequence has a huge plot revelation.

This is a sketch of a character from a story I wrote a few years ago and am about to start editing. She not supposed to be Nordic, though, so I think I'll have to loose the helm. Also, the next Wellington Division sequence will post Tuesday, rather than Monday. I have a busy weekend coming up. :)

New pages  are up. Five sequences to go!

New pages  are up! Another battle, maybe the last. Meanwhile, Tearse makes a few discoveries.

So the very talented Jennifer Vu did this awesome walk cycle of my goth girl!  So cool! To see more of Jennifer's super charming design and illustration work, be sure to check out her blog and deviant art page. :)

New pages . Battle's won, but things never go as planned for Yelrah.

And done! Thank you to everyone who voted for who I should draw. For those of you who may not know who Nessa is, or perhaps have forgotten her (she's only in the comic for a short while) she first appears in the Wellington Division in this sequence.  She's a sweet, sometimes petulant, stubbornly nude mermaid, and is one of several characters who befriend Tyler in Emperor Viperal's private museum. Since I've drawn my share of mermaids, I wanted to do something different with Nessa. I thought with all her flowing hair, it would be interesting to attempt something Mucha-esque. I would like to draw one of the male WD characters next (because I've been drawing so many girls lately), but again, I'd love your input and will draw whichever character has the most votes. So please let me know which boy, or guy, or man, or evil villain (or talking dog?) you would most like to see. :)

New pages are up! This is one of those sequences I would have loved to have properly finished. There is so much going on in these roughs, finished art would have clarified the action better. If you find page 648 confusing, it is meant to be looking over the character's shoulders, down into the valley below - the reverse of the last panel on page 647.

New pages up! Tearse should probably stop leaving Elsie alone on the island.

New pages are up, beginning Book Six, the last book of the Wellington Division. It's exciting to think I'll soon be posting the end of the story. :)

It's been a busy week and my Nessa pin-up art isn't done yet. I've been carrying it around with me as I play with the kiddos, penciling as I go. It has narrowly avoided splatters of milk, and the embellishments of an eager one-year-old artist. But since I like to post something in-between graphic novel posts, here's a little painting. :)

The final sequence of Book Five: Mistakes is now up. Only one more book to go! Thank you everyone who offered suggestions as to which Wellington Division character should have a pin-up drawing. There is some Nessa art in the works... :)

My very talented writer friend, Kara Ashley Dey was kind enough to interview me about my art and storytelling as a part of her ongoing "Spells of Artistry" series. You can read the interview here ! Be sure to also check out Kara's other fascinating interviews, featuring two artists I admire, Deanna Molinaro and Audrey Knight , and as well as the accomplished musician, Hollan Holmes .

New pages are up! And next week's post will complete Book Five! Since the majority of these pages are roughs, I was thinking it would be fun to do more polished illustrations of the Wellington Division characters. I'd love some input as to who to draw first. Whatever character (and I don't care how random) that has the most nominations by, let's say, Wednesday, will be the subject of a fancy pin-up. :)

Here's a color page for Extraordinary. Also, I just realized how nice the blog templates are now, so I fancied up my blog a bit. :)

New pages are up! Checking in with Jase and his ladies.

I thought I'd do a new profile picture, but I didn't like how it looked tiny (profile size), so I'm going to keep the old one.

New Wellington Division pages!  If anyone is curious, the painting Tearse is looking at on page 551 is of his island.

Here's my pin-up for Mike Maihack's new Cleo in Space book . If you are new to Cleo, you can read Mike's awesome comic  here .

New Wellington Division pages are up. :)

I've been doing a lot of random drawing lately, just trying to spend more time with my sketchbook in hand. Today these ladies appeared.

New Wellington Division pages ! Just a handful this time. Some hackers saved over my homepages a few days ago. If you had browser warnings, never fear, my entire FTP site has been wiped and re-uploaded.

Because the rabbits in my neighborhood need better protection. I'd also like to give a certain little Canadian some just-for-him artwork. If anyone who knows that little Canadian sees this, shh. This will be colored in some way or another soon.

New Wellington Division sequence . Twenty-four pages this week. :)

New Wellington Division sequence . The story gets progressively darker from here on out, but this scene is particularly grim. And not to throw out spoilers, but not every character lives to see the end of the Wellington Division. Yet somehow this creep does! Also, Brian Gardes at Stumptown Trade Review gave the Wellington Division a really cool review . Hurrah! :)

Testing some painting techniques. If I were to spend more time on this, I'd give her a few more necklaces.

A new sequence of the Wellington Division is now up, beginning book five.

I'm rereading the fourth Harry Potter book. I love the Yule Ball scene. In it, Hermione wears floaty, girly dress robes, rather than a dress. I thought it might be fun to draw them. :)

So here's an awesome illustration of Kyte by the super talented Sarah Schanze! Thank you so much, Sarah! Sarah has a really cool vikingtastic web-comic that you should all check out too... Thistil Mistil Kistil. And as I mentioned in my last post, my family is visiting, so the Wellington Division will continue May 23rd. Happy Mothers Day to all you other moms out there! :)

Here is the conclusion to book four . The next Wellington Division update will be Monday, May 23rd. My family is coming to visit for a few weeks. :)

  So, who is this little girl who wanders through the woods breaking into houses? I tried something new with the colors here, using more flat shapes and layers. :)