Jun 17, 2012


A long time has passed since my last post. The reason is that my picture story has undergone a major change. I've realized that as much as I love reading and creating comics, I love watching and creating movies more...

The sunflower clan needs to be an animated movie. The way I think when I make a comic is cinematic and I find myself editing out a lot of information that will be too much for print. Attached below is a rough idea of what went through my head before I converted it to the comic book format.


This was a sketch for a trailer I thought about making for the movie but I've since realized the best way to prove myself as a director is to make a short film. I'm currently writing a new short story that's set in the sunflower clan world but does not touch on the original themes and characters.

Anyway, the picture story is not stopping, only changing course.

Hope you like it

Oct 22, 2011

Color

I don't have too much time lately to finish many new pages but I assure you they are in the works. In the meantime, here's the color for page 19.

Sep 15, 2011

My process

I thought it might be interesting to share some details about how I work. Maybe it'll be an excuse for why I'm slow... The last page I did is a single complex image so i feel it'll be a good example of my drawing workflow.

Here are the various stages:

1. Thumbnails


This in many ways is the most critical stage because it is where I decide on layout, (in multiple panel pages) composition, poses and overall flow and feel of the page. I do as many thumbnails as necessary until I feel I've nailed the major issues. It'll be a lot more difficult and frustrating to fix big mistakes later. You can see in the top left thumbnail that my first idea of how the drawing should look like had a weaker pose. The hand that clutches the poor bee is too close to the spider's head to make for a clear hierarchy of elements. I fixed this in the other thumbnails.

2. Rough drawing.


Here I'm mainly interested in the flow of the gesture, the over all composition and camera angle. I try really hard not get too involved with specific details. I usually don't succeed because I'm way to anal to leave the details alone. I like the blue color because it makes me feel like an animator (I'm not).

3. Volume study.


I usually do this with complex structures and characters that I'm unsure about their construction. The idea is to break down the drawing into basic shapes and be very aware in regard to their volume, direction and placement in space.

4. Unify volumes

Here I'm beginning to draw more tightly and tie together all the volumes. I'm constantly searching for ways to make the proportions and shapes more appealing. I'm also beginning to add more detail.

5. Details

Now it's time to go nuts with the details. It is smart, however, to keep the extra details on a separate layer in case you go overboard and need to erase some. I always go overboard with details. god help me.

5. Line cleanup


Now it's time to choose which of the details to keep. Thicker lines seem closer than thin ones. I always try to use all of the manipulations I know to direct the viewers attention towards the most important areas first. In this instance, it's the bee in the spider's hand and the spider's face.

6. Basic tones



To emphasize even more what is important and what is less important, What is near and what is far, I change the tonal values of the contours. I also add basic tonal values inside the contours, filling the shapes.

7. Final rendering

This part can be tinkered with for a long time. I can reach very realistic tonal values or keep the drawing more graphic, which is what I did.

Alright, That's that for now. I'm starting a new steady job next week so things will probably slow down with this project in the near future. Life has a way of getting in the way of my plans... I promise I'll keep working and uploading pages as often as possible.

Aug 10, 2011

Color

So... I couldn't resist doing at least a basic color pass on the last page. I think this seals the opening chunk nicely and sets the tone for the rest of the story. From now on I'll upload batches of pages in grey tones and color them all later.



Aug 4, 2011

New page in gray tones and a question

Hello again

Remember me? Sorry I haven't been making swift progress with my baby here but I've been busy making a living, drawing stuff much less exciting than samurai bees. Maybe I should marry a wealthy girl that will take care of me while I work exclusively on my passion project... Oh well.

I've finished the gray tone stage of the next page and uploaded it. here it is again:


I've been toying with the idea of uploading the next few pages in grey tones first and then doing a color pass on all of them. It means I'll be uploading stuff quicker but the lack of atmosphere added by color will take away some of the effect of each page.

Right now there is very little of the main story on display. basically, none. You still haven't seen the main character or the main conflicts. I really want to tell the story quicker but I'm afraid the lack of color might be damaging. What do you think? would you like more story and less pretty pictures (at first) or the other way around?

I hope there's still someone paying attention to this blog. I've neglected it for too long...