“Now there’s Lizard Men and a talking dog? Why did I start reading this comic?” I know that’s what you’re thinking.
I apologize for the lack of actual panels in these pages. Keep in mind, this graphic novel was intended to be printed as a hardcover book and this was just supposed to be one of those transitional pages with little information; more about mood than anything.
For some reason in the past when I’d show these pages to friends, more times than not someone would stop me here and compliment the textures. I never understood why a page with textures could out preform a page with line milage overkill but it seems to work in this case. I do admit that I’m pretty happy with them myself so I’ll leave it at that. I still don’t like the dog drawing much here. I rescaled part of him right before I uploaded it. I think it’s final now.
The last two weeks have been a bit rough. I’m not partaking in a sob story so feel free to keep reading. I learned that I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol (which are both bad, incase you are as ignorant of health related things as I am) so I decided to add a few things to my already packed schedule. At 6:30 A.M. I have to get up and go jogging every other day now. This is a ridiculous thing to demand of myself being the kind of person who hates exercise but now it’s a must, so I’m forcing myself through with it. I already had a week of sore muscles and I’m starting to feel like I can do it regularly. The problem is, now I even less free time to commit to the late nights on this graphic novel. Glad I wrote my time management post a while back. Problem solved. Ha.
But seriously, it still amazes me how much more we can add to our full plates and still get things done. I’m not saying it’s going to be a walk in the park, maybe a run in the park, but I’m committing to this thing. Both running AND the graphic novel in case you were wondering.
I spent the whole week so worried about changing my life habits that I didn’t get any new pages colored. So yesterday (Saturday) while my son was taking a nap, I buckled down and set my timer and two hours later I finished my quota for the week. Two nicely color pages. Whew. I’m still about 3 months ahead of what I post here but I still stress out if I don’t move forward every week.
New Click to Enlarge Page Feature
My IT guru friend, Rand, added a new feature to the pages on this site. You can now click anywhere on a page when you are viewing the comic and the image will open up in a new window for full size viewing. So hopefully this will solve some of the reading problems that I’ve been hearing comments about. No more bifocals needed. Just click to enlarge.
Shirt Status
I still have about 10 shirts in Medium and Large left so order away. If you don’t get them then I’ll just have a sweet collection of reMIND shirts for every day of the week.
I sent off all the gorilla packs on Friday so anyone who ordered a shirt within the U.S. should be receiving them today! (Monday) The gorilla pack was not all that I was hoping it would be as far as marketing extras. I was hoping to get stickers and another bigger flier in there but cost was becoming a huge issue. I was already taking a hit on it so it was hard to rack up the bill further. Plus I still can’t find a good method of printing custom stickers. Anyone? Anyone?
All the packs did get a few nice postcards though, but they printed strangely dark. I think my color profile was wrong when I sent it to the printer. This just proves to me that I MUST get proofs made for the book and not just assume it will print like I think it should.
Extras
Since this week has little to show as far as drawings go, here are some extras from previous pages just for fun.
I'm thinking the texture gets such high praise (or at least raised eyebrows) because it looks like a painting, you know, "REAL" art, not that easy comic book stuff that anyone can do. Also, texture adds another dimension to it. Not just color and line but the appearance of something tactile.
Agreed. Painted textures were a big deal for this project because of how it stood out from the crowd. I’m also blown away with how people respond to original art these days. It’s so easy to produce everything digital now that when you break out actual drawings or paints it really impresses people. I keep toying with the idea of painting my nest graphic novel instead of just making it look like it’s painted. I can always add anything else I want in Photoshop later but having original painted frames to sell would blow peoples minds. I’d probably have trouble letting go of them.
Ah, having kids and getting high blood pressure, somehow that relationship is only obvious once you’re there. ;^) My wife’s taking Simcor w/ Niacin for her high cholesterol. She says it works wonders, and knocks it in half. Might be worth asking your doc about. Cheers.
Thanks for the tip. I might have to look into that if this exercise thing doesn't work. Haha but yeah, kids and high blood pressure.
I love this page for the very same reason as Nathan mentioned, the texture of the painting reminds me of a splash of sea against rocky cliffs, but very abstract. Awesome. I'm not a graphic artist by any means, but your style is quite refreshing compared to some others out there. Thanks for sharing with us!
Oh yeah, I can see what you are talking about with the abstract splash of sea against rocky cliffs. Haha. Glad you are enjoying the style. It's been very fun to do.
Texture is also very expressive, regardless of how it’s created.
The text size is still at the lower-limit of readability, but the enlarge feature certainly helps.
Is it because of the compression that the text is hard to read or just the size? It seems to be about the same size as many other webcomics out there when it’s seen at full size. I have also been toying with posting single pages when possible so that they automatically appear at full size.
Its a size issue for me personally. The compression seems fine, but I do my fair share of squinting.
I wouldn't be so concerned, were I you. The intent is for print, not online display. Frankly, with my comic I find the print to be way bigger than I want, because it is meant to be read online. With yours, I feel more like I'm seeing a preview of the print version, so the smaller text doesn't bug me as much. And as Arioch says, the full-size option fixes it a lot of the way.
And incidentally, this page has a very abstract and "painted" style that counterpoints the others very well, so I didn't notice the lack of "panels" as such. I just took the page to be a single, large, panel, really.
–M
I was just thinking about uploading the nest few pages a bit bigger to see it that helps anyone. I just don't like the idea of them being too big online. Luckily Bluehost has unlimited bandwidth so that's not an issue.
It is a strange world trying to bridge the internet and print. Glad this doesn't bother you though. Maybe it's just more incentive for people to buy the book when it's printed.
Thanks for the extras. I've been checking for them since the original post came out. One day -being a famous artist already – you have to do a screencast of laying those textures down.
btw: love your roughs. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one starting with very loose sketches.
Sorry, I kept you waiting so long with the extras. I totally put it off until the last minute and then I was too tired to find the right files.
I'll totally make a tutorial of the texture stuff. I'm working on a 7 part series on how I color this stuff. Thanks for the comment.
I like how the dog's haircut matches the background really well.
haha Thanks
Seriously, a teaspoon of Apple Cider Vinager every day with juice or water (taste better with diet gingerale) brings blood pressure down. At least it worked for me. WIthin a few days to a week, it should bring it down by 10 points. Let me know how it works if you try it out.
Also jump rope is one of the best cardio workouts, and you don't have to do it for as long.
I hear you on not having enough time. I have to color 30 pages a month for my job, plus I am updating my comic 2 times a week. Sometimes I feel like all I do is draw and color.
Great health tips! I like the idea of jump rope but I might drive my wife nuts doing it that early in the morning. Maybe I should get one and test it out.
Yeah, doing art for a living is not a bad thing but it always feels like a job when it's for someone else. If I do it too much for work then it ruins my personal enjoyment of doing art on my own projects. It's a fine line. Vacations are greatly needed.
Jason–a question about your art. Are you drawing your individual panels separately and then compositing them onto spreads later? i noticed all your little notations next to each element.
BTW. you're doing the right thing creating art with print requirements in mind. I've seen too many pixel-y looking printed things because they just thought they could rez up web graphics. Yeah the size can be a bit inconvenient but i just zoom in manually on my screen if i have problems. Usually its fine though
As far as printing–depending on where you got them done it was probably ganged up. Meaning they just run every job through one after the other with generic color settings. If the guy in front of you was printing dark, yours may come out that way. Thats usually the price you pay for cheap on demand kind of stuff. When I went to digital press with my self-published coffee table book, I saw and signed off on a proof of every single page. My printer actually required that all jobs have to have that. There were some things I caught which they needed to tweek so its worth it. In the biz we call that a "press check" and its factored into the print estimate. Be wary of any printer that doesn't allow you to sign off on a proof before they start any kind of sizable print run for you. You can ask me more about that stuff later. I have some tips on stuff you should ask. =)
Yeah, I pretty much draw all the frames separately now. When I started, I was trying to draw everything in the right place on a large sheet of Bristol board but that just got too hard to do and I kept ruining my large sheets of paper. I also had to scan it in sections which took too much extra time so I decided that it was better for me to just draw single or double panels. I've been doing it ever since and I really like it. Plus it gives me more originals to sell.
Yeah, the printing of this all is a bit nerve racking. I'm still having problems with the CMYK files and the solid blacks. I need to look into 'trapping' I think. I'm not sure if this is something that can be done after the fact right before printing or if I should have been paying attention to it all along. If you have any helpful hints for that, I'd be grateful.
But yeah, when I do the final printing, I'm going to be taking every step possible to get the colors looking right even if it delays the printing for months. This is way to much money to just wing it.
Thanks for the advice. I'll probably be asking some questions soon enough.
trapping isn't something that designers usually do on their end anymore. That's usually a prepress thing that most printers don't want you messing with since they have computers with tricky math for that. Trapping also usually has more to do with type printing correctly (keeping things crisp and not getting counters, joints and serifs filling in) It mostly comes down to prepping your PDF print file correctly. Also if you're printing offset or digital that stuff matters as well as the paper has a HUGE impact. Coated papers give you rich darks. Uncoated sucks the depth out of your colors. Inkjet proofs lie to you.
Most of my experience with solid blacks is with using type. If you make the blacks 100% K you get dark grey. To get that solid lush printed black You have to build a rich black with other percentages of CMYK. There are different recipes for that i could give you.
About your art technique—thats actually really refreshing to see thats how you do it. Thats how i'm doing my stuff. I design the page through thumbnails, but then i draw each element by itself. Its the only way that makes sense to me and its less pressure. I can make it as big as I need. As a designer i'm used to cropping pictures and fine tuning placed images. Also changing design as I go. Just because its a full spread now, maybe its a panel later or so on. It makes sense to do it that way with art since i have that power with the software.
Also i have this incredibly stupid neurosis with expensive art supplies. I can't use them because i'm like ":OOHH MYYY GOSSSH THIS PAPER COSTS $3 PER PAAAGGGE…it must be museum quality!!!!" and then i just completely screw it up. Its hard for me to fill up a moleskin cause of that! I have to use cheap supplies to do my best creative work. =) I rock the Ticonderoga pencils from Staples and i'm not embarrassed at all! ok just a little.
Well that's good to know that trapping is more of a automated printer thing. I guess that would make sense. Now as far as getting the black to be a nice deep black. I think that's one of the biggest question marks I have. For instance, in the last pages that I uploaded, when I just select the line art and goto the channels and select blacks, the lines are super faded. It's only when I turn on all C, M, and Y that it finally forms the full line. It's obvious that my lines are not really black and I'm not sure if that matters or not.
I would be interested in your recipes for getting the solid blacks richer. Would that be something I would entrust to a printer as well or is this important for me to perfect before handing it off.
I'm the same way with expensive art supplies. When I did storybaording for a living I had a backpack with a cheap sketchbook, a ruler and a bunch of number 2 pencils. All the other board artists would bring in suitcases full of all the best stuff money could buy and set up a full studio. They would look at me like I was crazy.
For the most part, now days I just use copy paper to do all my art. There is a pretty nice one that's really smooth and easy to use on a light table but it's still just copy paper. I still just use #2 pencils and mechanical pencils with HB lead. It's all the most basic stuff that anyone can buy. No art stores needed. haha
I can't wait to see your GN.
jason–the prepress is tricky because its all dependent on the printer and their calibrations and so on. You have to adjust all the colors yourself unless you want to pay for very expensive pre-press color correction. You'll never get it perfect though. Just accept that. Part of the problem might be that you're looking at CMYK color on an RGB screen. Computer screens lie. You have to print it out and see. Of course Inkjet lies too. Laser printing is a cheaply accurate way to get a good feel for what you're getting…but that depends on the printer. its always tricky. A pretty standard recipe is 30%C 20%M 20%Y 100%K. It can be adjusted and everyone has their prefs. Too much yellow you have green black. Too much Magenta you get purple and so on. if its in photoshop you could always duplicate the line art layer and multiply it right?
Thats awesome about your storybording. Those other guys must spend all their paychecks on supplies for the next gig! Hopefully i'll have some pages done soon. I might send em your way for an exclusive first look! ha
Yeah I have duplicated the line art and multiplied it before and it works nicely. I did print all my pages out a few months ago on a nice laser printer and I was super happy with how it looked. In that case I probably shouldn't worry as much about the technical specs and just try to get the images to look as good as possible like your saying.
Now, with the storyboarding, I eventually graduated to tracing paper and Prismacolor pencils. Then that was all I carried. ha.
I'd love to see a first look at your pages. I'm excited to see what your doing especially coming from such a strong design sense.
Technical specs are important…i mean you want to get yourself set up in the best possible place as early as you can so you don't waste time on the back end trying to fix stuff. But it sounds like you might be able to tweak some of this stuff towards the end of the process. Its not like you're working in the wrong format or dimensions or something like that. BTW. i know youv'e gotten quotes from oversees…but i can put you in touch with the printer i used for my book. They're local in the LA area and specialized in smaller runs and have lots of art community clients. They're pretty helpful and open to communication…might be worth it to at least get a quote.
The process of creating a graphic novel is daunting. I might take a page from Mike Mignola and do at least one 4 page action short, before i dive into the main narrative. Could be a good primer for the character as well for my future audience. =) I'm gonna try and build upon my design strengths…..try to do something different. We'll see how it goes. I do appreciate your support and compliments. Means a lot coming from someone who's out there succeeding at it.
Right now i'm preoccupied with moving, so its all taking a back seat…BUT SOON! ha