It's a work in progress. . .

 

Hey people.  I have been pecking away at making a cover image for the first chapter of Renovation.  Here is part of it, a work in progress shot if you will.  I think I will include more progress images of stuff up in this joint.

Have a FANTASTIC weekend.

J

The Trouble with Tribbles

Well it has been a week and here we are again.

I should admit something.  Technically I have cheated, and I don't know if I feel bad about it.  The comic above was made several months ago for the University of Manitoba's newspaper The Manitoban.  I have never posted this anywhere else and so that's why I don't feel bad about reusing it.  But what the hell, a new Star Trek movie just came out and it had a Tribble in it.  Look I am topical.

In addition to being topical I chose to throw this guy up because I have been hard at work on other projects and frankly didn't have time this week.  That said I can guarentee that there will be a new Renovation out next week.

Till then, cheers.

-J

Renovation Page 3

Hey people it is that time again!  Sorry for being late with this comic, I was having some computer trouble, but that is all smoothed out now. Besides, I got this thing out the next morning so get off my back.

So lets get back to business.  Soundtrack for this one is mostly Iron Maiden and Beastie Boys.  If there was more then I forgot.

 I think I should mention before hand that a friend of mine, Ian, gave some good suggestions that helped the layout quite a bit. That said, I jumped the gun a bit and I think this page could have been a bit clearer.  Specifically, I think that I should have put the foot on the break panel earlier on in the page.  Other than that I am happy with how things turned out.

I decided to tighten up the linework a bit in this one compared to the last page.  Maybe that isn't the right word, but whatever.  I have a thing with lines, they strike me as being all really similar.  Hear me out, this isn't as stupid as it sounds.  I find I have a habit of making lines a bit too curvy and too think for fear that they won't be seen.  Best examples of this can be seen in panels 1 and 2.  In panel one, the interior of the car
 bothers me, and this isn't an issue with variation in line weight.  I know that I might have a problem with having too uniform of line weight, but what I don't like about the work is more that when lines get thick I don't like how they look.  Secondly, the curvieness of lines I feel like I never make straight lines, like they always have to swoop.  So, what have I learned form all of that?  Well next comic you can expect something very different in terms of line.  I am thinking of thin thin lines that don't very in weight that much, also a lot less swoop.

Colour was interesting this comic.  I knew that I wanted to have all of the exterior shots of the cars and stuff have a yellow orange haze that hinted at a day that is a little too sunny; then with interior shots, stick to cooler colours.   Not sure how well it worked out.  Also, in the battle of painterly vs. graphic I think I hit a reasonable middle ground.  Earlier versions of this comic had the gravel road and fields really worked with a bunch of grays browns greens and yellows.  It all looked a bit cluttered, and the colour began to fight with the lines so I smoothed things out a bit.  While I allowed some of the nuance to come through in the gravel and grass I think it isn't too distracting and gets the point across.  So I guess I am saying that I am happy with colour for once.

Well that's it for this week, so have a great long weekend and I'll be back again next Friday.

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New look!

Hey people, you have probably noticed if you are reading this but I updated the site!  Hopefully things look a bit better around here, but if you don't like it or if you have any suggestions tell me and I will try to make things work. 

This Friday you can expect the third page of Renovation.  I am already biting at the bit to write about it because frankly it feels like the first real page and I have some opinions about how I could have done it better.  Anyway thats all for now!

Godzilla part 2

Hello people and here we are again at the end of another productive week.  The dramatic conclusion of the two  part Godzilla epic is finally here.  I didn't really plan to talk about it like I do Renovation, but I sort of feel like it now so I guess I will do it while I have the energy.

Again in the interest of full disclosure the music I listened to while drawing was a mix of Tenacious D, the musical Assassins 2004 reunion, Beastie Boys, and then a bunch of classical and some podcasts (mostly The Morning Stream).  Also, this cover a friend of mine made of Cry Little Sister.

I have noticed that I am getting looser (maybe sloppier?) with these black and white comics, and I sort of like it.  I think it might have to do with painting nothing but water colour paintings all year.  You would think that nothing but water colour would make me cleaner and more anal about linework and stuff, but it really hasn't.  If anything I have learned to go with the flow more and let stuff bleed over onto other stuff.

In terms of composition I have always LOVED cheesy family photo blurred in bust technique.  That is probably not what it is technically called, but you know what I am talking about.  Speaking of composition you may have noticed that this comic doesn't make much sense when it comes to physical space.  In the first two panels I mean, I think the third panel makes perfect sense.  Normally I don't like to overly explain myself when it comes to stuff like this, but today I was thinking why do I actually do that?  Why not make Godzilla blowing up some monsters while sum41 plays on the rooftop like I had originally intended instead of this weird photo-montage sorta thing.  I have come to the conclusion that I think it is just the pure unexpected novelty of it all.  I would rather have a sorta funny, sorta stupid comic that I haven't seen anything like before than some generic action shot bullshit.  Not that I have a problem with action or violence or anything, my problem is that as a nerd or movie buff or whatever I have seen so much of it.  And frankly so much of it is the same old power fantasy shit over and over again.  Now I think I am rambling and so I am gonna cut this thought off, but I will conclude by saying that I think this comic series' goal is not to be a good comedy, or good action, or good drama or whatever but just an attempt to make something new and novel to look at.  God knows there is a shit ton to look at out there.

I have just noticed that there is this gray streak between the bottoms of panels 1 and 2.  Up until now I had thought it was a stain or smear on my computer monitor, and so now that I know that its a fuckup I cant help but laugh.  That is why I am leaving it in, so enjoy.

That is it for this week.  Next Friday yall can expect a page of Renovation in which something sorta thrillerie happens.  Till' then have a great weekend.

Renovation Page 2

Well hot damn people it's a comic.  On Friday, just like I said it would be.

So this is where I talk about making this thing.  In the interest of full disclosure the soundtrack to making for this was was roughly equal parts Slayer, Girl Talk and the Spice Girls.

I said I was wanting to make it much cartoonier and so that is what I did.  I have to say that I had a hard time not crosshatching the hell out of this thing, but I managed to resist so that is good I think.  I may have mentioned before that I have a weird relationship with colour.  I am not too sure why, but I have never been too comfortable with it.  Maybe it has to do with having more of an Apollonian personality, though that might just be a bunch of bullshit projection.  In any case when I use colour it tends to be more washed out.  However, in my recent watercolour paintings I have been using bolder and bolder colour, so maybe I am getting use to it.

When it comes to style I am not so sure who I am riffing on.  The handling of mouths is defiantly influenced by Penny Arcade.  I have always liked Mike's handling of mouths as just one swift movement and depending on all of the angles it gives off different expressions.  One other thing I have always had trouble with is eyebrows.  I tend to think about them too much I think.  In cartoons they give a ton of emotion and they don't have to make sense always, but I don't handle things not making sense too well and I think that is the root of the problem.  There is this way of doing eyebrows that ya see in anime a bit where you see them through the bangs, but only the line-work.  I've always liked that idea, but I never really used it too much before this because I felt that when I did it it was too much of a clutter of lines up in the hair that didn't make any sense. 

When it comes to layout I knew what this page would look like before I was done page one.  I knew I wanted to have the full phone call in one page and quite suddenly I came up with the idea of having just four or five vertical panels that were defined by the windshield.  I was worried that the page might be boring because it is quite simple and nothing really changes, but in the end I think it turned out ok.  Really this page for me was about nailing down Jeremy's design and playing with facial expressions.  I am not sure how happy I am with the speech bubbles.  I had an earlier draft that didn't have black outlines on them and it made them look a bit cuter, but I thought they were harder to look at.  Also, I am in love with the idea of each person having a really distinct looking speech bubble.  The first time I saw this was in Gaiman's Sandman series and it struck me as such a good idea.

So that is it for this week.  You can expect the dramatic conclusion to the Godzilla comic next Friday and page three of Renovation the Friday after that.  Hope you all have a great week.

Love and Peace,
Jeff K

PS:  I do not condone driving while talking on the phone.  Personally the idea always freaks me out and so whenever I get a phone call I either ignore it or pull over.  Remember people, safety first.  :P

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