Dave Gibbons teaches you more than just how to use a cintiq.

Four videos of Jeff Smith teaching you how to make comics from beginning to finish. When he starts inking, make sure you’re watching closely.

And, the reason “recently” is in quotes above, because I’m sure i’ve posted these next vids before, but who can’t get enough of Doug TenNapel talking about making comics?

Graphic Novels:
BREAKDOWN – 300+ page book. Written. Briefly on hold while I finish the following mini-comics. Once done with those, this becomes my sole focus save for the occasional short (less than 10pgs) story.

BLACKIE – Being written. Waiting to finish Breakdown because this will be another hefty book clocking in with over 200 pages.

Mini-comics:
HELLHOUNDS ON MY TRAIL – 85% done. Once the art is finished, I’ll be “editing” it, and redrawing pages that might need to be redone considering the sometime gaps between working on pages.

BOSTON STRONGBOY – Finished. In the process of scanning and putting together a PDF for sale soon.

MY GEEK FAMILY – Written by Doug Hahner, and penciling has started. It’ll be 26 pages, and printed by Gray Haven Comics once it’s done. It’ll probably be available digitally as well, but that’s up to them.

FERNANDIDO e BARTOLOMEO – Needs to be written. Waiting until the other mini-comics are finished before beginning this. Most likely it will be inkwashed, which is why I want to make sure to just be focusing on this.

SHORT STORIES COLLECTION – Ongoing. Each short story will be available for free digitally, and eventually collected (once I get about 100pgs worth) into a digital book with some unseen shorts done specifically for the book.

Webcomics:
FARMER BOY – Written. Currently drawing and updating one page every Friday. It should end up being 50-60 pages and take the entire year to finish. Once done, it’ll be collected in a digital book with extra materials.

THE LEGEND of TANIN – Currently updating on www.grayhavencomics.com every week. I assume the site will collect the story into a mini-comic. If not, I’ll definitely be collecting it as a digital book for sale once it’s complete. The book will have plenty more material than being put on the site.

http://www.grayhavencomics.com/2012/02/15/legend-of-tanin-chapter-2/

Be sure to check out the rest of the site for some more fun comics, too.

Here’s an image I did for fun yesterday, for the series. Intended as an ad (of sorts) just to post here, or to include when it eventually collects. I wanted to include some text that sort of encapsulates the story and felt this poem did it better than I ever could.

I hope you’ll enjoy where I’m going with this story as much as I’m enjoying making it. Most of the work I do tends to be based on history, gloomy, and set in the real world. THE LEGEND of TANIN is a complete change and forcing me to use my limited imagination.

It’s totally fun.

THE LEGEND OF TANIN will be updated every friday on the Gray Haven comics website. They’re the fine folks that put out THE GATHERING anthology.

TLOT is an adventure story starring a little boy. It gets a little more complicated to explain beyond that. New webcomics are going up on the site on a “trial” basis. Readers vote to see which ones get to continue after 13 weeks. I hope I get the chance to stick around.

http://www.grayhavencomics.com/

Here’s what will probably be the cover. I’m still debating on that, and if I want it to be in color or not. The goal is to have it look like an old album cover.

Here’s a couple of pages, including the deal at the crossroads. (second page)

One in progress.

The end page. Like a movie with final caption monologues explaining the person died. I usually hate those, but I wanted to give some insight into RJ, and show that sketch that I was really proud of but now hate. No real spoilers. I mean, if you don’t know he’s dead you’re probably not going to be reading the book.

I showed this pic in the last post, but here it is again, with a little more explanation.

Like I said last post, a lot of the pages in this book were redrawn 4 or 5 times using different brushes, quills, inkwash, and blue and sepia watercolor tones. The reason for that was to find the right tone for the book. I want the overall feel of it to reflect Johnson. I tried old quills and brushes, techniques used by people like Herriman, McCay, Segar. Cartoonists of around that era. It didn’t feel right. I tried inkwash for the same reasons, but just didn’t find my voice with it. I used sepia and blue watercolor tones to get the feeling of old photographs, as well as to seperate current timeline from memory, but scrapped that idea because I thought the reader would feel hit over the head with direction.

After all that work, I ended up settling on a .50 rapidosketch pen for all the line work to get the same static, tin feeling you got from hearing him play the dobro, from his singing, and a feeling like this was done by him, in a jounral to keep his thoughts.

I hope when the final product is all said and done, people enjoy it.

Here’s my “new” space.

It’s in a little corner of an unused room. Bought that comfy as hell chair for $20 from a family that was moving.

I’ve had that drafing table since I was a kid. My parents bought it from some big box store. I converted it into a light table by attaching the light box my pops made for my.

Most of my supplies are on shelves in a closet next to the desk.

I work late at night when I’m off from my regular overnight job, and I usually steal my wife’s laptop to use since mine is kaput.

Some of the tools.Two plastic candle cups used as inkwells, and inkwash wells sitting on top of a pint of white acrylic paint. Various brushes and pens. Yeah, that’s duct tap on one of the brushes. It helps to keep the hand from holding the brush too tightly, causing knuckle pain.

The sharpie is for inking borders on my journal comics in my sketchbook. I refuse to use sharpie markers on actual art for a comic. The lines fade to yellow over time, and I value my art more than that.

This stack of pages is for my bio-comic on Robert Johnson called HELLHOUNDS ON MY TRAIL. Most of those pages are old ones I redrew. Some were experiments with quills, brush, inkwash, watercolor tones. I drew some pages 5 times, just to see how the story played out using different techniques.