[Insert relevant title here]

After going out a couple of nights, having a few days of hayfever induced aggravation, my drawing mood has finally returned. My schedule is completely wack, but hey, it's my comic, I'll do it when I feel like it damn it. It's a shame the mood came at 2 o'clock in the freaking morning! Arf. So yeah, I spent about 2 hours researching, and then drawing. Only did two characters, and one was an afterthought really (and actually, a bit of a shiptease really, considering these two are never a couple. But hey, I'm shipping my own story. That's pretty bad...)
















I still have the urge to draw now, but no ideas. Plus it's 3:30 in the morning. Fargnuggets (unusual swearing much?)... So yeah, I think I'm gonna go to sleep now, thankyouverymuch.

So, from the poll, it seems I'll be drawing Aquagirl. Excellent, good choice everyone. I'll chuck a quick male one here, then, I'll have it so these polls finish in 4 days after I've posted them, meaning I do a man and a woman pretty much every week. Maybe I can keep to that schedule. Who knows?

Lastly, I stumbled across these two things as dress making programs. Yep, I'm pretty sad. Still, I think I made some cool designs using em (well, of course I do. I designed em using what they provided ;))

1 - The first one
2 - The second (and last) one

I think they're pretty cool maker programs, anyone interested in design should give em a go.

Proto cover

No new comic today - instead, you get the proto cover for Knighthood, featuring the five main characters (Omega, Starlite, Gaea, Johhny and EVGA X-18). It's nowhere near finished yet, but I thought I show I haven't been a completely lazy arse today! ;)

A contest and two polls

Right, so two things are happening in this post. One relates to my story, and the others relates solely to my drawings. There is a contest to design a character for my story, a chance to decide what superhero you want to be drawn as, and the other is to decide on a character who I'll draw this week as well. Yep, I'm stealing from the wonderfully talented Falisha now. Shock horror! We're all a bunch of thieves here anyway, aren't we?

Part 1 - The 'contest'

In a superpowered world, everyone needs some form of protection. Some are villains, others are just cillivians. Regardless, if you need a job doing, and you need it done with style and so many consequences, you can totally hire, The. Seven. Deadly. Sins. All are deadly killers, if you are in need of such a task. They are bodyguards, mercenaries, former military and child soldiers. They'll accept any task, so long as you pay them.

Listed below are 5 of the 7 Sins. All are related to their Sin name in some way, albeit either inverse or completely in line. Come up with a character, and it may be put in. Just no silly characters - this is a serious group, for serious people, in a serious England, on a serious Earth...

Pride
Leonard Prisky
Muscular black male, gauntleted hands with half finger gloves, armoured vest and t-shirt, armoured boots, sword on back, guns on hips, knives in holsters around forearms
Leader of the group
Biological nanobots provide enhanced strength, resilience, stamina, senses and total recall

Greed
x
x
x

Lust
x
Busty white female, flowy but revealing costume
Wields a bow with poisoned arrows

Envy
x
x
x

Gluttony
The Mannequin
Thin figure white male, completely covering costume, clear data input helmet
Four additional arms with web shooting capabilities, mind control through his dolls with the targets DNA on

Wrath
X
Standard figure white female, sensible flight costume, slightly flowy but sealed trousers, armoured torso, mechanical legs and wings for flight, with additional tail, four breather tubes going to backpack
Slight combustion powers

Sloth
x
Standard figure black female, tight full costume with half finger and open palm gloves, green leather with darker green highlights
Power, memory and skill absorption through touch

Part 2 - The first poll

Simple enough - provide a picture of yourself, or a description if you'd prefer, and a superhero/villain you want to be. Then I'll draw it. Simples

Part 3 - The second (and final) poll

What character should I draw? They're listed on the right, shame I can't get the pictures on em :( Ah well, ya win some, you loose some...

Temporialis - 4

- Temporialis - part 1 - page 4 - Tuesday 8th June 2010 - 5:15 pm -

Viewable on DeviantArt as well [here]

Commentary

Well then, today is brought to you by the letter S. As is sorry for slipping up, being shit at keeping to a schedule, and just generally be rubbish at this whole comic thing... Not that anyone reads the comic anyway, and therefore nobody reads the apology, and therefore nobody cares. Wahehy! As you can tell, I'm in a bit of an apathetic/feeling crappy mood. Oh well, sometimes it happens. I'm sure it's just the fact I don't have a job, and will be sitting on my arse for many months... Quite possibly that.

Anywho, I digress. On to the important stuff, like the commentary. Yes, this one is a bit of a rush job, and I may or may not get the last part of the Temporialis intro out today as well (here's hoping). I jus don't know yet. And yep, this does delay Knighthood, but hey. That's generally how it goes around here. Of course, I'm quite tempted to just write Temporialis and Knighthood, and leave Vampire's Reign for the time being. I have a guest artist who is going to do a couple of pages for that one, so I'm tempted to alternate between those two, and Night Watch instead. Just see how it goes and all that. But this last week and a bit wasn't the best time to start doing the comic really - preparing and entering a Warhammer 40K tournament over the weekend, up in Nottingham, well, kinda hard to do a comic along with that...

On the comic itself, you may have noticed that I can't truly define Skeletron right now - I have the idea in my head, but the idea doesn't include shoulder width description, so I'm still experimenting with it atm. The third/fourth panel I'm really not happy with. I feel it's a good idea with a bad execution - it's meant to show Skeletron talking to Herbert, crossing sides, and as his face disappears behind Herbert when we look behind him, his face changes to what Herbert is seeing of him. This is because Skeletron wears a holographic device that makes him look human. I'll explain more about this in the actual comic, but suffice to say, as the dialogue implies, he hasn't been like this for too long. It's new, he's getting used to it, roadtesting his new body. Hopefully you got that in the comic itself...

I'm actually quite proud of the second panel depiction of Skeletron - I think it's a winner when it comes to his basic design and proportions. Of course the design itself is still pretty damn hard for me to illustrate, but I think I'm getting there. Hopefully the page meant sense, and my laziness didn't impact too much on the story. Let me know, I really need the feedback on everything here.

Thanks for reading everyone

Temporialis - 3

- Temporialis - part 1 - page 3 - Thursday 3rd June 2010 - 9:50 am -

Viewable on DeviantArt as well [here]

Commentary

Yep, I slipped up again. Well, I'm getting used to this schedule, so it's bound to be cacked up in the first week or two. Still, I'm already improving it - just like how I paint, I like breaks in the middle of the drawing. I'll be doing some in the morning, then finishing it off in the evening and posting it then. We'll see how that goes, and whether it works. I expect it'll be better once the tournament is done, and I won't be traveling to my friends house. Instead, I'll just be drawing and being a lazy bum.

Now, I know what I said yesterday about backgrounds, but I'm really not doing very well with the whole schedule thing, and was getting quite fed up with drawing last night. Not at all happy with 'yesterdays' page, not one bit... Still, at least I did it I suppose.

This page was an odd one anyway, as it was the last page I scripted, but the third I drew. I'm just not a fan of fight scenes. I'm terrible at drawing them, and unless they're really well done, they just seem like padding to me...

Now, pay attention to the symbol on the guy's back - this isn't important in it's own right, but I'm giving everyone a free notice at a Lantern Corps reference. There will be others, along with other DC/Marvel/Dynamite/other webcomic references.

Anywho, I can't really concentrate any more. There's builders in the house, and it's damn noisy...

Temporialis - 2

- Temporialis - part 1 - page 2 - Wednesday 2nd June 2010 - 11:20 am -

Viewable on DeviantArt as well [here]

Commentary

Ok, so yeah, I've already slipped on my schedule. Suffice to say yesterday was very busy, traveling between separate places, back and forth. Anywho, today is better, I got my scheduling sorted out. Anyway, since I missed yesterdays, you do still get todays as well. That'll be up in the evening, with it's own commentary. Promise.

On the actual comic itself, well, this went through alot of revision. Originally 5 panels, and in a completely different layout to how it actually ended up being, this is something I'm learning when scripting and drawing a comic. It gives me a feel of both ends, and therefore I become a better writer - knowing where panels look better bigger or smaller, which ones make the better action shots - that kind of thing. Of course, it's still not perfect. Panel one is kndof redundant, what with it being highly similar to panel 4 of page 1. But hey, I'm still learning. And yes, I know I cocked up the fourth panel of this page. It was meant to be a zoom shot, and I just completely cocked it up, 'timesuit man' (names generally come to me during the post production process, which isn't a good habit when you think about it) and all. I'm sorry

When I wrote the script for this issue, I figured it would be in colour, and so the box-outs would be in different colours. Now, due to me now not colouring them, I needed a new representation. Obviously little pictures are the classic solution, but being at half a cm wide, they're a bit too big. It's a learning curve, and you'll see this comic evolve along with my ability to both write and draw it.

Now, I'm not sure how regular comic/web-comic artists do backgrounds, but I feel they're best left till last, as they aren't as important as the foreground stuff, where all the action takes place (obviously). But some artists on the web do cop out a little, which is a shame. I understand perspective can be hard, but it really does give you a feel of where you are, even if it's just small things. I'm terrible at them myself, but I feel the area I designed has enough 'action' in the background as it is. Plus I do leave huge areas of blank space, as I'm just not that good at the whole design an environment thing. People, yeah, sure thing. Places, well, erm... Not so hot on.

Oh, and I'm hating drawing that chair and bookcase. I wish I'd never put em in here... And I'm sure it's highly inaccurate of German design during the Third Reich, but, well, the sticklers who really love historical accuracy will just have to deal with it. As I'm more of a mythological accuracy (if such a thing exists) kind of person myself.

Temporialis - 1

- Temporialis - part 1 - page 1 - Monday 31st May 2010 - 10:30 pm -

Viewable on DeviantArt as well [here]

Commentary

Right, so here we are. My comic, on the internet, at last! This, my friends, is Temporialis, a time travel comic. It's part Doctor Who, part Stargate SG-1, and part Skins. And this is chapter 1, page 1. Good lord, it's nice to have done this. If I continue to do things like this, well, we might get my schedule up to five times a week. Wouldn't that be lovely?

Well, due to a major cock-up on Adobes part, making Photoshop not the ideal thing for me to use for my comics, unless I start by drawing it straight on Photoshop. As you might have guessed, I thought this was very stupid, and so I gave up on the whole Photoshop thing for the comic. I'll give it some more tries in the next few days, but I have a feeling that it'll continue to be a useless bugger. So you'll have ta suffer these photo quality pictures. Sorry

Something I was tempted to try out, but decided against (because it looked stupid in my head) was to make the vortex effect the only thing coloured on the page, another reality seeping into this comics reality. Instead, I showed things touched by the vortex temporarily changing, morphing and warping before snapping back as the vortex pulls back in on itself.

Now, as the story itself will iterate, traveling in the vortex is a damn nightmarish experience - it'll rip flesh to shreds, it defies physical boundaries, it's mentally unnerving. Plus, who knows what else exists within it?

The expanding comic panel effect I used here was something that came to me when actually drawing it, *not* when doing the scripting process. In the script, it was just four equally sized panels with the 'camera' drawing back away from the T junction of the corridor.

The beginning of a new era

Now, as all my readers know (all three of them anyway), I love to tease you guys about my story, what's gonna happen in it, and all that. Well, for all those who hate me for that, good news! You only need to hate me for a few more hours. As, for the next three weeks only, I shall be writing and drawing every Monday to Friday, giving you 15 comic pages for everyone to drool over. Aren't I generous like that?




















So, due to the way I'm terrible at deadlines and all that (as anyone who knows me knows), I'm really forcing myself to do this. They're not gonna be coloured, but should well be inked. And now, for the important thing: the scheduling. Now, what's that I hear you say, you already told us the schedule. Or did I?

Week 1 (May 31st - June 6th)
Monday to Friday: Temporialis
Saturday-Sunday: Offline due to a Warhammer tournament

Week 2 (June 7th - June 13th)
Monday: Temporialis cover
Monday to Friday: Knighthood
Saturday: Knighthood cover
Saturday/Sunday: optional sketch dump

Week 3 (June 14th - June 20th)
Monday to Friday: Vampire's Reign
Saturday: Vampire's Reign cover
Sunday: optional sketch dump

Week 4 onwards (June 21st)
Tuesday: Temporialis
Thursday: Knighthood
Saturday: Vampire's Reign
Sunday: optional sketch dump

Around Week 6 (July 5th)
Thursdays become a double day, sharing it's place with Night Watch

Around Week 8 (July 12th)
Vampire's Reign comes to a temporary end, and is replaced with Lone Wolf Origins. This is a limited series, showcasing Odin's beginnings. When that arc is over, Vampire's Reign returns in full force!
This is also my birthday week, so hopefully that won't impact too much on my writing

Week 15 (August 30th)
My time at my current house comes to an end, I start needing to go back to university in September, and I'm not entirely sure what's going to happen. How I think it'll work though is that I try and write Temporialis, Knighthood and Night Watch during the week, and then chuck em all up on the weekend. Vampire's Reign will come to an end for this time quite likely, concluding in a spectacular Temporialis/Knighthood crossover, starting a new era and evolution for all my stories

Ta-daa. And actual, official from me, written in keypad and posted online (as opposed to stone, which is pretty hard to make legible), an actual hard schedule. Now, as an explanation for this schedule - the first three weeks are setup weeks, giving people a brief look at the characters involved, how their world works, all that kind of thing. Then it cuts to them being once a week as their stories truly happen, in who knows what ways? There will be twists and turns, laughing and crying, life and death, and all the bits in-between. But until then, I leave you with what I suppose will be my sign off from now on (everyone seems to have one of those):

"Try not to die."

Have you felt the fear yet?

OK, so admittedly, this is ill timed due to Falisha's excellent Scarecrow week having ended for to make way for her Poison Ivy week (still great drawings, just not a fan of the character ;)), but hey, timing was never my strong point ;) So, here's a character from my story I just quickly did a few sketches of, as I've been stuck inside all day due to the weather :( - got jobs that need me going outside dammit!

Anywho, here he is, a twisted sick individual whose story shall not be divulged here, as it is a true mystery story that will be unveiled over time in the tale itself. Suffice to say, the first arc this character appears in is under the working title of "Knighthood: Formidilosus Gaea", with one of the chapters being known as that classic of titles, the entering of the villain, "Enter: Frightmare". But that's all I'll say of that for now. It's an early tale, and hopefully it'll have a truly creepy vibe while being a decent mystery story.

By now I'm sure you're all fed up of my rambling, and so I'll leave you with my drawing. Not a fan of the head though, gas masks and bent witch/scarecrow hats are hard...

Crossover post?

By popular demand (all of one request for each drawing), here we are. One quick doodle, and one quick Photoshop, to tie in with Jason Todd's blog (right here), and the other because I was unhappy with the original and told to do it again. So I did. Still not happy with it, but it was a rush job, as I just couldn't get it how I wanted :/ Ah well, you win some, you loose some, and today my drawings are just dire...

So yeah, without further ado, to coincide with JT's Spider-Man Noir review, here is my, well, drawing of a themed Spider-Man:




















Isn't it horrible? :D Oh, and here's my Cassandra Cain picture. Another bleh...

From Paper to Machine - the Fairy Tale ;)

I apologise for being slack today in replying - I was busy at work for alot of the day, and then got sucked into doing a drawing Miss Megan Gwynn, aka Pixie. Now, obviously I had to spend time and effort on her, what with her being my favourite Marvel character ;) Damn happy with how the wings turned out ^^
Now I just have to dread the Pixie Strikes Back #3 issue :/

The hand-drawn version:




















The digital lineart version:





















And then finally, the coloured version:

Nekron updated

Well, since I'd done the drawing, and I needed to test my tablet and CS4 at home (hadn't had a real chance to use CS4, and hadn't got the tablet working on the old laptop), but now I had, and the best drawing to update was the one I was unhappy with. So here's Nekron again, but done on the computer.

I still think the scythe is too small though :/

Quick-ass Nekron sketch

I don't know why, but I felt like drawing Nekron today. Was just looking up some Blackest Night/Brightest Day stuff, and boom, yep, let's draw Nekron :D I'm not too happy with the left leg (it's squashed around the hip), the scythe (it looks too weedy) or the face (I couldn't get the contours right), the arms aren't right, but it was a quick sketch, so I didn't really care :D it's really quite bad, but hey, it's a nice sunny day outside, and I need to do my shopping *shrug*

Slightly more comic related

Right, because I'm a lazy arse when it comes to my own reviews and generally just comment on others now (because we're reading mostly the same anyway ;)) - I'll perhaps get back into a routine if there's a good un. Or I'll review straight after I've read em, without looking at others posts first. Probably a good idea. What does everyone else think?

Anywho, on a fan-art related matter, I've been doing some drawing today, and found a unfinished drawing I'd forgotten about as well. I do mean to finish it at some point, but my goodness, it is a complicated one.

In the end I got to getting inspiration from X's favourite series ever, and then decided I would change the characters round a little bit. I gave up after I found Pixie not going how I wanted (quell surprise on that character choice, eh? ;)). But I did get Wolfsbane with a sword (I imagine her as the new Vaklyrie), shamelessly stealing from a classic WW pose, Husk in a mix of her normal and AoA costume, and the basis of what I might do with Pixie. When finished it'll include Psylocke, Namor, Emma Frost and the Stepford Cuckoos as well, and then some others who I haven't decided on yet... Any choices guys?
















Then I thought I'd treat you guys to the madness that is my room :P well, my desk anyway. It's a bit of a mess, and a squeeze, and is the first time in a little while since I drew at my desk. And yes, that is a RotF Ravage on top of my PS3 :D













































Finally, this is the drawing I found. It's a elegant Lolita princess, for use in an RPG game world akin to Final Fantasy or something. She'd use a bow, with her quiver being in the bottom of her umbrella




















This will be my last post of the day, even though it's 5pm I'm tired and want to go back to bed. Which means waking up for work tomorrow. So yeah, go figure...

A Fan Art Drawing post

What happens when you get someone who's back on their drawing roll, has tones of ideas at his disposal, and a huge amount of paper?

A fan art drawing of Miss Martian of course! If you don't know who that is, for shame. SHAME!

Next up will be Ultimate Psylocke, depending on when I draw her. In both these cases they're sortof practice for my own character, Orchid, whose story is so very complicated I can't be bothered to explain right now. But yeah, for now, enjoy my take on our fish out of water White Martian:

I'm not entirely satisfied with the hair, and definitely not with the face. But hey, it's hard to draw braided beaded hair dammit. And faces, well, I hate drawing faces ;)

Holy new post Batman

My goodness. A month has passed without me posting. Wow. Oops... Not that anyone reads these anyway :D Anywho, I might as well talk about couple of comics while I'm here, and show the quite dodgy line art of the Red Hood as I imagine him in Arkham Asylum.

Batman & Robin
First things first, that most variable and well, quite quite mad writer Grant Morrison's latest writings of the Batverse. What oh what to make of these. Grant always has some great ideas, but is let down by his craziness, stupidity and just mad and mostly nonsensical writing. The Batclone from Blackest Knight. Professor Pyg and his pink iPod dance. Damian Wayne. Flamingo. Whatever happened to Bruce's profile/where is he now/what's Hush doing/what do the public think of Bruce etc. Damian Wayne.
Now, I know I said that last one twice, but I'm sure we all agree the only person who should be allowed to write Damian is Bryan Q Millar.

Kick-Ass
I haven't spoken about this at all yet, because it's hard for me to say anything but I want to see this now. Trailers look awesome, comic was awesome, it's funny, graphic and it's written by Mark Millar. Nothing else to add really :D

The Veritable Army of Green Hornet comics
These are coming out from Dynamite, who I'd never heard of before, about a character I knew nothing about. But then I saw the covers and who was writing them: Alex Ross on some of the covers, Kevin Smith on the main line, Matt Wagner on Year One. That's some good names right there. They're actually quite interesting, though it seems Green Hornet doesn't have any major villains, which is always a problem. Sometimes this is nice though, but it does seem he mostly fights faceless mob goons and mob families, which is something that has been done ALOT before...

Blackest Night and Brightest Day
I'm sure we'll all exhausted by Blackest Night now, it's dragged on a little too long, the main issues haven't really moved anywhere and there's been too many formulaic plots in the extra tie ins. If it had just been Blackest Night, GLC and Green Lantern, with one or two extra comics it would be much better. But I'm a bit fed of up it, though the story is good, art's mostly good, there's just been too much of it. I mean, it's been going on since September.
And it leads straight in to Brightest Day, no respite whatsoever. Here's hoping it focuses less on the Flashes, and more on, say, I don't know, Aquaman. The original and best. And none of this stupid stuff they're doing to Green Arrow and Roy. Let's have Aquaman booting the old one up his arse, bringing the glory of Atlantis back, being pissed off because Tempest is dead, rejoining the Justice League, and making himself a more landbased character, with lots of intercontinental politics, environmental protests and that kindof thing. Seriously, there's so many stories that can be told, let's start cranking em out and having ourselves a ball with our favourite Atlantean.

The Losers
I just got the combined volumes 1 and 2 the other week, and it is sweet. Andy Diggle and Jock, one of the best writer/artist teams there is, telling a pretty cool A-Team esque story. I enjoyed, it's funny, good story and the art is good (save for the bit by the other guy who I can't remember atm for issues 7&8 - I think, might've been 8&9. Can't remember and too lazy to go and grab it to check :D). Movie looks good too, with alot of things from the comic included. Looks to be another good un'

Runaways
I've had a brief flickthrough of both Rock Zombies and Homeschooling in the shop, and I know I'm going to buy them at some point, along with the Civil War and Secret Invasion Young Avenger tie-ins, because I really like the Runaways themselves, but urgh. The issues do not look that good, sound pretty rubbish, and well, I don't like Kathryn Immonen. She's butchered Pixie in her own series, so I don't whether I'm going to like it, and the summary of the issues doesn't sound too good. And when I've got those four collected editions, it seems as if that'll be the last of me buying Runaways for quite a while, as we wait for Marvel to finish 'retooling' them...

Red Hood
The basic lineart of my design for Jason Todd as the Red Hood in Batman: Arkham Asylum. Obviously I'll be redoing this on the computer when I get a chance, but as of right now I don't have the proper tools to do this at home, only at work...

PotD among other things

A non comic orientated PotD, as I found it online and thought it looked cool ;)


















As well as that, you get some stuff I've drawn. Good news everybody indeed, eh?

This is the light coloured version of my character Talon. I prefer it for seeing the details, but the actual colour isn't that desirable to be honest...



















While this one is the darkened version, the one where the colour more matches my vision, but unfortunatly, it screws the lineart a bit :(



















Oh, and while I remember, here's the lineart:

No Reviews

Because I've been busy been tired from getting home from work late etc... Sorry. You'll get double helpings of reviews next weekend.

So, to make up this laxness, here's some pics I've made for a character, known as Asguardian, for my stories. You can easilly tell where my influences come from, and I hope you enjoy this as a semi please forgive me offering.

Asguardian















Asguardian with spear















Asguardian (electric Mjolnir)















Asguardian with helmet















Asguardian with helmet and spear