A few finished panels

Making good progress. I'd like to have the first half of Book 2 (40 pages) digitally finished by the end of the year. As of today I have:

26 pages penciled...

of those 21 are inked...

of those 17 are digitally halftoned, lettered and ready to go! Making good progress. 

Here are a few of the recently digitized panels. There are a couple of things that really excite me about the second book. 1. The kid's new clubhouse! Which they spend a lot of time. 2. The addition of Glory's older brother J.T. and Chopper's older sister Doris as regular characters to the story...strengthening the theme of family.

Early Work - 2002

I recently found the scans of my very first comic pages and character sketches for my comic File 49. I unfortunately did not make comics when I was a little kid...though I did draw. I was 25 years old when I discovered comics and severely out of practice when it came to illustrating...but this is how I started...

...oh man...i didn't even ink the panel borders...i don't know why.

After awhile I dropped the inks and wanted all my pages to be rendered only with pencil. Which this page was the first  layout I was pretty proud to show folks. Still no panel borders!?

A few months later...still using pencil and still no bloody panel borders! It's fun to see my early explorations of materials and aesthetics. I was not only trying to find my voice as a storyteller and illustrator, but trying to combine all the elements it takes to be a comics creator...and it took me awhile to find my stride.

New Art Print

Created a new promo art print for The Ghosts of Pineville. It will be screenprinted...large...in the next few weeks!

Details:
5 color screen print
on 110 lb. whip cream cover
edition of 45
signed and numbered
16" x 20"

These are now available in our ETSY store!

Finished pencils for Part One!

A little less than a third into my story!

And a few little, funny panels. Apparently the storm-cloud-over-the-head is making multiple appearances!

Inks to come! Happy with the progress and momentum!

More inked panels...

Inked panels from the intro minus the halftoning/Photoshop treatment.

Revisions & some Finished Pages!

While penciling Part One of the story I'm also scanning, halftoning and lettering the Intro. I made the mistake with the first book to wait until all the pages were inked to start halftoning...and man, that was too much halftoning at one go. 60 pages at once? No thanks. This time around, I'm going to intermingle halftoning with other steps of the process so it won't be so cumbersome at the end. Here are a few panels that are ready for the book! (I know, no words. You have to wait for that.)

Tools: Epson Scanner Photo 1660, Adobe Photoshop, & Adobe Illustrator

Another inevitable step of the comic-making process...the editing! As I'm coming to pages of the written script to thumbnail and pencil...I'm discovering things that I want to change; things that I think will strengthen the theme of the story. This is my rewrite. It occurs on the page, as hand-written notes and dialogue. As the tangible script is what I'll use to letter the pages...not the digital Word document.

I'm moving right along with with the pencils of Part One...currently penciling page 16!

Beginnings of Part One

A couple of things I've done...

I just returned from SPX early this week...and it was a blast! The Ghosts of Pineville and the associated mini comic The Cherished Collection of Emily VanWart were both well received! Great crowd. Outstanding creators. I'm sold on the convention. Good, good time.

I also had my second meeting with Megan who has completed her script and is now thumbnailing her pages! The conversation with her combined with the remaining high from this weekend's convention totally geared me up to keep working on the second GOP book!!

Penciled the first couple pages of Part I of the book! Doris is introduced!

Using the script (of course) and some preliminary sketches of the kid's new hangout!

AND...I finally inked the first panel (on the first page) of the Pineville city scape! I'll be adding more dimension once I enter the half-toning phase on the computer.