One Year Already?

Today is the first anniversary of this blog, so I thought I'd post some cool stuff as well as the usual artwork. I'll begin with the artwork, so here's an illustration from the untitled third Juliet Prime hybrid comic (I'm still trying to write it, but it's progressing very slowly). It's an updated version of the Juliet's apartment picture. If you've seen the original, it's just her hair that's different.

Airbury Academy is still on hiatus after completing Volume III and Special Edition last year, but I'm still drawing the characters for fun and practise. Here's a piece of promo art featuring the character Natascha, mimicking that of the Battlestar Glactica spinoff series Caprica. The quote on the left isn't in the comic anywhere, but I'll put it in at some point.

Next is a page from Constantinople, my autobiographical comic about my uni years. This page introduces the character of Beardo Tech Dude. This was a guy who was serious about his work – maybe even too serious.

Packaging isn't a particular interest of mine but I like the design, colour and typeface on these Berri juice bottle labels. The die cut on them is a jagged edge, giving them a 'torn paper' effect.

The following pictures are from the Daniel Cunningham Collection Of Stuff What Came From Japan. As you know, my obsession with collecting little Japanese toys shows no sign of slowing and Dan's collection is off to a good start with these cup noodles, soft drinks and snacks.

Got yer, didn't I? The above items are actually erasers! Notice the detail: the white lids on the noodle bowls and the bottle caps are also erasers, and the two drink bottles (all 600ml bottles in Japan are that shape) have their own little shrink wrap. Too good to rub out pencil with, I think.

Meiji, a popular brand of chocolate in Japan. Eat this one and you'll break your teeth, or at least require a lot of prunes. It's a plastic puzzle. Unlike the food erasers, whose logos are meant to resemble actual products, the Meiji logo and packaging looks exactly like this. Below you can see light sabre chopsticks, a kit of blocks that form up into a bird, and the food erasers.

It's been a good first year on the blogwagon – the World Cup, Gorillaz, Sydney and the joys of crap photography. Thanks for stopping by, whether it's been from day 1 or day 365!

Stages Of A Drawing

Page 0101 of Constantinople is a full-page 'splash panel' of a cityscape which is basically the first page of the story. I took photos to show how this thing was put together.

First of all, the pencil stage:

The image was drawn in curvilinear perspective. This basically involved drawing a circle inside a square, marking off equal measurements along the square and then using a compass to draw arcs from the top and bottom outwards, and diagonal axes through the centre point. The buildings were then pencilled in along these lines.

Why bother? Well, I wanted the opening visual to be unusual. You can't see it too well but that's me (the 'pencil' character) falling in from the top. I've used some pretty cheap yellow transparent paper, which isn't recommended, but it's all going to be scanned anyway.

Moving on to the ink stage:

Now it's all inked in with fineliners, except for the lettering on the signs and buildings. As you can see, it gives a spherical effect that isn't used much in comics (because it takes so long). The whole scene is cropped in by the circular border so you can't see the ground, which made things a bit easier.

Here's how the final image looks:

Not too bad – minimal shades of grey and hardly any shading, which would make it look more like a ball. Text added in and a black background, and there you have it. One page down, only a zillion more to go.

Constantinople

People say to me, "Hey Pete (or Jim, or Bill or whatever they tend to call me), you've led a pretty interesting life. Why don't you tell some of your real-life adventures in comic form?" And I reply, "Ah, go peddle your dumb ideas some place else."

But finally, it is time for an autobiographical graphic novel. I've begun working on it and it's looking promising. The title of it is:

Who's John Katz? Well, I've had to use a pseudonym in case any of the people in this comic (who have also had their names changed), recognize themselves and fly over from Perth to beat me up. The little pencil guy in the above image is me. In every scene I'm about half as tall as the other characters; I get to milk some great comedy out of that one idea.

How true will it be? I was bored enough to keep a journal during my years at uni, which is where most of the material comes from. I was pretty good at remembering people's quotes word for word, so the dialogue is legit. The characters and locations look as I remember them.

Here are the first two pages of the 'drug house' scene. You'll notice that all the backgrounds are grey. That's intentional, only the characters are coloured. Enjoy.