Street Painting

I participated in the Italian Street Painting Festival this weekend. I did a piece from Xiola. A few day ago the main character Eleya had been sacrificed to the gods in the high arena, yet survived the ritual. During the ritual, her mother's necklace had been torn from her neck. But a young boy retrieved it from the arena floor and, determined to give it back to her, attempted to visit her in her tower, but was turned away at the door. Looking up he saw Eleya crying as she looked out over the city, so the boy decided to scale the tower and give her back her necklace.

I had a ton of help on the painting. My Sister Elizabeth, who is an amazing artist, created both characters. I wish I could take credit for how great they turned out, but I had nothing to do with it. Elizabeth is not the type of person you need to manage very much. Just the occasional "Great job, Liz."

I worked on the arena and tree and a bit of the sky, Fred Aquino and my brother Jordan Domont worked on the towers and cliffs. My son and mother and step-father helped out with the sky as well.

I had a lot of help and I needed it. But I was happy I was able to pick something from my story. And even that was Elizabeth's idea. Thanks to all those that helped, and now back to making comics.

By the way, check out the original sketch below in my May 28th posting. I altered the image the night before starting on the street, and it's interesting to note the changes. I ended up taking reference photos of my wife and son as the two characters so their posing and dimensions are much more realistic. I also adjusted the look of the tower Eleya is in, and made the characters larger, as they seemd too small in the original sketch. Then another idea from Elizabeth I implemented was to turn the distant rock formation housing the arena ever so slightly so you can just make out some archtecture within. It makes it much more interesting. Then I added more yellow to the sunset and added a ton more colors. I think it came out great.

Character design slowdown

I think I'm finished with the character design slowdown. I needed to work out my main character more and I thinkI'm finally ready to kick ass on the cover painting. I keep getting held back by random things. I've only got a few hours each evening to work and if one problem comes up the night is shot.

Tonight it was that I needed to prepare for a second print run of my Wanderings book so I can get them printed up before the con. I am going to try and finish my Xiola #1 cover to go on the back of Wanderings as an ad, but I needed to contact the printer to find out how much time they need for another print run. I want to print up 1000 and sell them each for a buck. Whatever I don't sell there I'll give out to local comic book shops in the Bay Area to sell.

I'd like to have my Xiola #1 cover and a few more pages finished by the San Diego con so I can decorate my booth with artwork from the new story.

Yet I've still got the Italian Street Painting Festival this weekend, and I need at least one night before Friday to tighten up the image. I'd like to get more detail into it before we start.

If only I didn't need to sleep so much.

some sketches and what-not

I've been playing around with Eleya's design because I wasn't totally happy with it. Before doing the cover piece I want to make sure she's looking good. I originally had her with a cape, but it busied her up too much, so I took it off. Now I'm playing with the idea of giving her tails on her vest, like a pianist. Basically, I want some more flowing robe type stuff for cool lines. Compared to Robel she was looking kind of plain, and as she's my main character I want her to stand out more. Here's some sketches I did today. I'm going to try to tighten her up this week and bang out the cover this weekend. We'll see.

Also, I'm looking to buy a saddle stitch stapler. My print company told me they'd give me a better deal on printing if I stapled myself. Heck, I've got a garage. I may end up creating my own print shop in there. Buy a printer that folds and staples and I'm done. Those run somewhere in the thousands, so for now I'm just going to settle for a good saddle stitch stapler.

Looking forward to the convention. Not a lot of time left. I've still got to get accomodations, print up more copies of Wanderings, get this cover art finished for Xiola, and probably a ton more stuff I'm forgetting.