Page 8

It's been a very busy and distracting past few months and I have not been able to keep up work on my book. I really wanted to be able to finish a preview, or have my first issue ready by this Comic Con, but I've been too slammed with other work. Xiola is a labor of love, and it's going to take longer to finish as life keeps getting in the way. I think I'm going to have to scrap my Comic Con plans this year. I need to take as much time as I can to get my book finished, or at least farther along. The last year I went to APE, Comic Con and Wondercon and I learned a lot. I think the biggest thing I learned was that I need to be honest with myself. So now, that's what I'm going to do. I will continue to post and keep you updated on my progress, but it's going to take longer than originally predicted.

Page 7 painting complete

So I finished the painting for page 7. It turned out pretty well. There's a lot of sky in the panels as I've got a lot of word balloons that are going to go in there. All in all I'm happy with the end result here. The wispy clouds in the sky look nice. The distant cliffs and hills look as if they are seen through a lot of atmosphere. And the faces came out well. The one thing that bothers me now is that when I drew the ox eating in the first panel I thought I should put his horns down, and as he lifts his head in the later panels his horns rise into their natural position. But I didn't really think about that the ox doesn't really rotate his head much to eat, it just lowers down from his neck as if in an elevator. So the firest panel with his horns down looks like a different kind of ox than the one in the later panels. Oh well. It's just a comic book, right?

The skies I did by painting cerulean blue, leaving trails of blank paper for the clouds, then adding a little bit of ultramarine blue to the upper sky to add a bit of depth. And I dashed just a bit of cadmium yellow on the tops of the clouds to get a hint of sunlight.

On to drawing page 8 tonight.

The Possum and Spy Guy

Wondercon is going very well so far. I'm getting good feedback from a lot of different folks. I always enjoy talking to other artists. It's great to learn how others are approaching their projects and what difficulties and challenges they are faced with, as well as feeling that the grass is always greener for somebody else. I ran into a few old friends and made some new ones.

I've got to give a shout out to a pair of brothers who are kicking out some great comics. Blair and Mike Kitchen are the creators of The Possum http://www.possumpress.com/ and Spy Guy http://www.ultraist.net/. They are turning out some of the best comics I've seen in a while. You should pick up their books now before they get too famous. They're located at booth AA117. Check them out if you get a chance. They're Canadian, but don't hold that against them.

Wondercon this weekend!

Wondercon is happening this weekend at the Moscone Center in SF, and I'll be happily seated at my table in the small press area at SP14. I was able to get some prints made of my Xiola cover which I'll be selling along with my Wanderings prints for $5 to anyone who wants to buy something. I feel like kind of a schmuck that I didn't get a preview of Xiola out for Wondercon, but I'm not going to be too hard on myself. I work full time as an animator, take on contract storyboard gigs, spend time with the wife and kid, and somehow still manage to plug away at my book. If only I could only ditch one of my other responsibilities .... hm....

Well, I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of cool artwork, reading a bunch of great comics, and meeting some nice people. Hope to see you there.

Also, I designed my street apinting image for this year's Italian Street Painting Festival in San Rafael. The theme is "Bella Terra" (Beautiful Earth) It's supposed to be representational of the relationship between humans and nature. For some reason this was the first image that popped in my head. I've never actually done a piece that was based on the theme of the festival, but this came out so naturally I thought I'd go for it. The contrast of dark greens and deep purple should look great in pastel on the pavement.

designs

Here are a couple of designs I needed to work out. One is of a tertiary character named Benn, based off a friend of my son's. He's going to be the guy helping Kodo climb to the top of the cliff.

The other is Benns' ox. I did the drawing on the left first, and I liked the silhouette of the body and horns. I played around with a more curved horns, but think I'll go with the long horns. I tried out a few different kinds of feet until I came up with a three toed version. The two feet on the left are a camel's and a cow's respectively. The rest are the final three toed feet from different angles.

I did a profile shot of the loaded ox based off refeerence from camels I found on the internet. And a close up of the head. It's basically a long faced, three toed ox with a beard, long ears and horns. I didn't stray too far from an actual ox, but that wasn't really the point. I like just taking things a little out of bounds. I still want this world to be believeable... somewhat.

Page 6 pencils started.

I'm starting page 6. Here's a little bit of my process. On the bottom left you see my layout for the page. On the top you see a panel of Kodo climbing up to the crest of the cliff. On the bottom right I took a photo of my son climbing on his bed for reference. I did a test drawing in my sketchbook on the top right to make sure I figure out any weirdness before drawing it on the page as I can't do too much erasing on the watercolor paper. On the top left is the pencils onthe watercolor paper. I still need to add a background of distant mountains, but this is kind of fun to look at how I approach each panel.



And here's the final page 5 page. It turned out pretty well. I wish I'd put more blue and less brown in the shadow areas of the rock. And I may go back over everything with a wash of cerulean blue to mute the color of the rocks a bit. I'm not quite sure.

Wondercon is coming up in a few weeks. I was hoping to have a preview issue out by then, but it looks like it won't happen that soon. I will try and get some prints done of my Xiola cover for sale, though. The last run I got came out slightly blurry.

Page 5 painting coming along

My page 5 painting is coming along. I like the first three panels. The middle panel is not quite finished. Some of the darks are not quite dark enough in places. And I'll probably go over the 3rd panel again with some darks as well. The last few panels should go fairly quickly. I'll probably finish it by Wednesday night, unless something comes up.

I ended up returning that Brother all-in-one machine I'd bought. The scan quality just wasn't good enough. It made my clean washes turn out all chunky. I guess I'm back to taking photos until/unless I can find a quality scanner for a decent price.