TWCL

[smbhax.com]

A* has just recently begun episode 11, in which I hand off to a new main character--the person (OMG SPOILERS HERE if you haven't read in a while) who was one of the primary antagonists in the previous story, and who was killed by that story's hero at the end of the last episode.

Good idea? Horrible idea? So far I haven't had anybody go all fan-rage on me, so...hopefully it works out. This character is much more action-oriented, so it will help me work more action and more scenery into the series. Also, she's way more fun to draw. :P Plus I guess her own back story is more complex and ties into the main background plot in much more direct ways as shall be seen, etc etc.
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[smbhax.com]

Framed prints of my work will be showing at the Rosebud Restaurant & Bar (Capitol Hill, Seattle) from tomorrow through June!

If you saw my earlier Ballard show, these are mostly the same pieces, although I think there are a few more that we couldn't fit in at that previous venue. : )
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[smbhax.com]

Hey been a while.

Been making a lot of changes lately for some reason! I'm now hand-painting the pages in traditional ink wash, which is tough but lots of fun. :)

Here's a recent ink wash page:



And since I can scan them in at 1200 dpi, and they look pretty good in high resolution, I got the idea of having a subscription mode on my site where for a modest annual fee, you can view the strips in high resolution (nearly double the dimensions of the regular-size one you see above; 1080p or larger monitor needed to avoid sideways scrolling!), and ad-free.

I dunno if many people will go for it but *I* like it, anyway, and conveniently I get it for free! ;) But I will have I think a sorta permanent free preview of it on certain pages; I'm running a free preview of the upcoming subscription mode now, anyway--really big comics, ad-free, etc--details and entry point are here.

EDIT: Even made a giant banner for it :P


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[iaviv]

Recently read the whole thing. It's pretty great!
Not crazy about the ink washes. It looks nice, but it really doesn't mesh for me... not really the best idea for a science fiction story, you know? It has a very "romantic" feel to it. Would look great for pretty much anything other than sci-fi. When it was all digital it made sense and it looked just as good.
I'm not gonna stop reading it or anything. Just saying.

[smbhax.com]

Thanks for the feedback (and for reading!)!

That's an interesting point about ink wash being more appropriate for particular genres. This particular passage of episode 13 has been quasi-romantic, so in a way I didn't specifically plan for, it actually kind of fits! Perhaps I've even been handling them in certain ways with that unconscious goal in mind?

But I think I see what you mean. I'm still tentative with the washes in places and when that happens it detracts from the crispness of the image. I'm striving to get more confident with them, and just sharper and bolder with my use of the brush in general, and I think in time the paintings will come to have a punch comparable to the digital Lasso Tool technique I'd been using.

I did--and still do--like the Lasso Tool and the effect it creates quite a bit, but I decided to switch largely for ergonomic reasons, as drawing on the computer day in and day out was starting to cause parts of my body some distinct discomfort. :"| And maybe I was just wanting to try something new, I dunno. It's definitely been a fun challenge to try to handle a brush again after all these years (I last painted in college about 15 years ago).

I also have some hopes of selling the original art. Coincidentally even, I've had three meetings with local art gallery managers this week, and they seem much more interested in the originals than in digital prints--which I guess is not surprising. And I want to be able to offer the originals for sale through my web site, but I gotta work out the inventory management side of that with PayPal's code (so once someone buys one, it's taken off the "for sale" list, essentially).
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[smbhax.com]

By the way, I just checked out your site, and I'm quite impressed! =o Your use of black and white, and particularly your handling of grays, is quite wonderful; I also love your lines, handling of anatomy, detailed backgrounds, layouts...gosh, pretty much everything. And the fact that you're telling a silent story just makes it that much better as far as I'm concerned.

Really good work!!
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[smbhax.com]

By the way again, I'd be interested to know what you thought of these initial practice ink wash sketches I did--they have more traditional sci-fi scenery then the current section of the story (which is rather intentionally set in a typical-looking love hotel, in a manner of speaking ;), so I wonder if they look any more appropriate to the sci-fi genre to you, despite their use of ink wash:





I *am* rather itching to get the story back out into space! :D
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[iaviv]

Thanks! Glad you like my comics

Well, these two practice inks have actually helped me see things differently. First - this technique works great as long as there are

no machines or machine-like objects present. The second practice ink looks great - but there's no machinery, so no wonder.

Another thing I just realized is that these washes really make lovely reflections (I'm referring to the scene with the mirror).
I guess there's an upside to every technique just as well as a downside. So, really, it doesn't matter that much in the end. I take everything back haha. You'll probably get better at using the brush and it will work better and better over time, so I wouldn't worry about it anyway.

[smbhax.com]

Uh-oh the latest page is almost all machine-like objects! ;)

Those would probably come out better if I used like a ruler or tape or something instead of just eyeballing/freehanding everything. ;DD

Oh also that last practice ink was on "smooth"-surfaced Bristol board, which has less texture, a brighter, whiter surface, and kind of makes for a more crisp look as a result. But I had a hard time getting the blacks as black and even as I had on my rougher sketchpad paper, and the wet brush sort of stuck to the smooth surface in a way that was more unpleasant than how it kind of skips over rougher paper ("vellum"-surfaced Bristol), where you can also do dry brush techniques with the grain of the paper picking up loose bristles, etc. Supposedly the smooth Bristol is for wet media like ink whereas the vellum is for dry media, but eh I find the rougher vellum surface much more fun to paint on, even if the result is grainier.

I *was* pretty happy with how that mirror came out; the washes allow me to draw in gray, which my digital Lasso Tool technique really didn't--so I kind of went nuts with gray on gray drawing for a few pages there (a few before the mirror bit, I mean) that ended up probably lacking in contrast a bit as a result.
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[smbhax.com]

Aah your comic just disappeared! Are you moving it? I wanted to link to it in a blog post. I hope it'll be back! =o
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[iaviv]

Yep, moving servers. The site should work again sometime next week. I'm hoping Monday, but who knows with these things.

[smbhax.com]

Oh, whew. Will it be at a different address, then?
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[iaviv]

I'm having some troubles with that at the moment, but it should be the same address, yeah. Never switched servers before... more work than it should be, apparently. It, uh, may take another day to get the site running again. Tuesday sounds more tangible than Monday, right now.

[smbhax.com]

I've never done that before, either. Good luck!!
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[iaviv]

Hey! Thanks for the link! And for writing such nice things about my comic