A busy month

Three weeks left before the summer holiday arrives for us at the Game Assembly. The rest of Sweden's students tend to end about... two weeks before that. On one hand, a bit jealous, on the other... we've got a lot of stuff to do and a lot of it is fun, and I know what I need to practice on during the summer.
We're currently working on our fourth game - a turn based strategy this time. It makes three weeks left seem short :O
I've also been a volunteer at Nordic Game (fun!), visited SPX/SIS together with Think Ink and sold comics and had fun with old friends and new, and been part of a game art exhibition. Additionally, Amanda and I have passed the 150 comics benchmark on Champions and Heroes (!!) and are preparing for one but possibly up to three new fanzines for next year, in addition to Think Ink's yearly new fanzine.

In other words, I've been quite busy and had a lot of fun, though I think I'll appreciate a breather when the summer break finally arrives. As much of a break as it will be.
Meanwhile, I've started experimenting with a new scribbly style. My comic teachers always told me I needed to stop fiddling with details (sorry, not quite there yet XD) and let go of my careful lines and add more black spaces. Well! I've been drawing some of my (huge horde of) characters from my NaNoWriMo novel that I keep working on, doing just that. And it's fun! And faster than my usual pace.

 

 

 

Evidently I can't decide on what to write about them, but on the plus side, characters who I've only had work names for before now have proper names. So that's... what I've been doing with essentially all my time this past month.

One month in

And the Game Assembly is... so much work. Rewarding work, but so much work all the same. I am so very, very tired when I get back home and just want to go to sleep. Suffice to say, I can think of very little to say, other than, here is a completed former WIP and some new WIPs.

Dasin and Thendys Noori, all done. All cheesy. But all done, just before the course started I think. Something like that.

Then we have Orianne, a roleplaying character in a Vampire: Dark Ages game, just the quick sketch of the base. The hand got fixed pretty quick XD But it's the first time I've actually liked a quick digital sketch I've made, so! Here it is! I've gotten further on this but... it still needs a lot of work.

And finally we have a Shmil WIP. Shmil who is a character in my continuing NaNo fantasy story. He'll get hair, I promise. And a body too. Maybe even a background (gasp!). I only just started on him last night though, and managed to sneak in some fur and seams work during breaks today, but I'm liking his angular face. And I'm looking forward to November and NaNo, because he's finally going to be a point of view character, bumbling around the Heartlands being socially awkward and eating babies. As you do.

March... month of fun?

On Friday I will disappear from the face of the world for a couple of days. The long awaited Dragon Age 2 will then be minemineminemine. But while waiting for the game's release I am still working. Mainly catching up on my concept art course, but there are a few other bits and pieces that are getting dealt with while I am procrastinating.

Corrections on Substitute have been made, I've finished the sketch for Think Ink's Absolutely Scandalous Stories cover, the sketch for our talented guest artist Teru has also been completed. Additionally, I've finally sat down and fixed the text in Ilta Dalharuk and as of the 13th of March it will update every Sunday.
The Red Planet's prelude Myths of Mars has been updating three times a month for a little while now, and I've completed four of the five first pages of The Red Planet itself. The fifth needs rescanning...

The zombie anthology is giving me a rather accusing look from the other side of my desk, and I think I'll be working on that next to get away from my studies. At least all procrastination isn't wasting time?

Pin-up

Moving and preparing a trip and... well, a lot of things happening all at once.
At least I'm done with the pin-up for the calender :D

And yes... drow are still awesome...

And it's over...

My year at Malmö Comic Art School is over, and I must admit to feeling a little bit lost. There is some comfort in the fact that I will be taking their summer course (though, to be frank, as I have already received one year of education I am essentially there to have a place to work) together with a couple of my classmates. This also means that it doesn't quite feel like it's over, just... strange.

I did manage to finish Ilta Dalharuk in one month *victory pose* I still need to fix those sound effects because they look horrendous, but... whatever. Still counts!
I've also been re-working the character designs for most of The Red Planet crew. Still not entirely pleased with the outcome, but it's better at any rate.

The good, the bad, the sad

My year at Malmö Comic Art School is coming to an end, and it's down to the last week now. Likelihood of tears: 72%
On a more positive note: We are going to have an exhibition: The end is here and you are invited If you have the opportunity to come and have a look, don't hesitate.

On a related note: the second years at the Comic Art School had their final examinations yesterday. I was there and observed last year (two of my fellow Think Ink-ers took part of it, after all), so I knew what to expect. I was still caught off guard when T Wadbro chose to present the comics in video form. Bo Ashi and I were the opponents, but I was so in love with the semi-animated Prison Boy and Fernando that I couldn't think of a single question at first. Luckily, my partner had his wits about him at the very least XD

3 weeks of work on Ilta Dalharuk and *drumroll* it's almost done. Unless things really blow up in my face, I'll manage to finish the 11 page comic in one month. Dry Spell, also 11 pages and no backgrounds worth mentioning, took me two months.
Progress: I like it.


The break from Mars has already paid off. I've made changes to the plot of The Red Planet, altered the introduction of a certain character, made some changes to designs, etc, in a single moment of massive 'oh!'. Not only do I like this beginning better, I think it will flow smoother and pay off later down the line.

The thing about titles...

... is that they ought to have 'umph'. A title with umph will make you pick it up and have a closer look. It sticks around in your brain, getting friendly with your grocery list and teases your imagination. They are also painfully hard to come by and I am notoriously picky and often forced to settle for less. I had no less than 20 potential titles for my drow story, but I've finally chosen Ilta Dalharuk ("her son") because it was relevant and yet neutral. Several of the other alternatives gave too much away or were just horrendously difficult to twist your tongue around.
So far I've inked 7½ of 11 pages in a period of about two weeks (!) and, well, it's looking good. I'm quite pleased with how this experiment is turning out. Unfortunately this would-be one-shot wants more attention than I originally wanted to give it. Three more scenes are clamoring for attention and... well... we shall see.

I think of it as my little break before I sit down and do some serious work on the Space script, letting my brain rest a little in dark caverns below ground before it's off to Mars again.

Now that I have a little bit of spare time again, I'm working on the iphone game once more. Trying a new style there too, to have the illustrations blend with the other artists' work. Interesting, to say the least.

Komiks.dk

I finally managed to finish Myths of Mars at long last and I brought it along with me to komiks.dk. Maria, T. Wadbro, Fanny and I sat and sold our fanzines and posters at the Genki table. Met a lot of interesting people and got a few things signed as well :)
Got home at a reasonable time last night, ate, and went to sleep. Back to school today, and the inspiration-lull that I've suffered from since SPX seems to have evaporated at long last.

I'm currently working on a drow comic, and it's surprisingly easy. Maybe one week of work and I feel like I am almost half-way through the sketching stage. I'm revisiting one of my old characters, Sszafein, who's been with me for not a full ten years, but close. I haven't played with him in years so in a lot of ways it's like meeting an old friend you haven't seen in ages.
However, drow means spiders. Searching and looking at the spider references brought tears to my eyes out of sheer disgust. I wasn't even aware of how much I disliked spiders until now. There were some pictures I couldn't even open because the preview was so awful. That is not to say that they were horrible. It's just me really, really not liking large spiders... especially not up close.
I secretly wish that drow would hang out with some more pleasant animals. Like dogs. Or horses. Though I recon it wouldn't be half as intimidating.

First time drawing infants too, and it went surprisingly well. I think I'll try some new techniques for this 11 page comic, to see if what we've learned in class is something I'd like to make use of in the future. And since the spider-drawing is over and done with now, I might be able to enjoy the rest...