100 Days of Making Comics - Coming Soon!

Hello again!

It's been around abouts 6 months since my last post, a lots happened in those months and a lots coming in the months ahead.
This summer was a horrible, nuff said. I won't be going into the details of it, this is a creative blog and during those months nothing creative happened.

But! Over the past month I have been getting back into the swing of things, getting back into the comic making game and working on the JAR comic book series again, and have gotten started on the pencils for issue one! (Screenshot below)

My own personal comic book/graphic novel series was also put on hold during this time, but I'm going to get back onto the writing of that soon, there's a new year coming and it will be one of strategic planning an execution. I need to balance several things a time,

1.creative content for JAR which includes design work of characters, environments etc, pencils inks and colours on the first issue, and storyboarding the future issues,
2. creative content on my own comic series, all the above things that I'm doing for JAR, plus plotting and script writing.
3. Planning another, yet to be disclosed, non comic book related project.

So how to do this? Well I have over the past few years watched many other artists complete (or in some cases start and not complete) a 100 days of making comics challenge!
This is a challenge that people undertake that either struggle to find the time to create comics due to day jobs or motivation, or even just do because its a fun way to organise their work flow.
The challenge is simple, find at least 30 minutes in every day to work on your comic project, for 100 days. And at the end of it you will have progressed further than you may have if you were struggling to find time and had been slacking a bit.
Some people make blogs of their progress, some videos that they post on YouTube, some may post on social media like Facebook or Twitter etc.
I'm not sure at this time which medium I will go for, videos would be the ideal way in my mind but the time needed to edit each one is adding to what will already be a busy schedule.
I will definitely be adding a daily update here on the blog, and if I can maybe a weekly update video on YouTube with the past 7 days worth of progress detailed.
Either way progress will be made!
The 100 days of making comics challenge will begin on January 1st, I will of course in the meantime be working on JAR, and my other projects, but as I can't guarantee that over the Christmas period I will be able to work on comics every single day I thought it best to hold off until afterwards.
There's no point in starting a daily challenge with a large obstacle in the way, even if it is a fun, relaxing obstacle filled with food, drink and loved ones!

Anyhow, for now here's a shot of my progress on JAR, this is a page I'm working on currently with a large fisheye view of a room filled with objects, really fun to draw but slightly time consuming, as this project isn't solely mine I'll not be explaining what anything is in too much detail, you'll just have to wait and see!

It's now 6.30am, I've relaxed for an hour since getting up, time to do an a bit of work before i have to go to...work... until next time, stay creative!

  

June Update

Hello All!

I just thought I'd post a quick update explaining the lack of activity on the blog.

I had an amazing holiday in sunny Mexico at the the end of May, which was really pretty much like being on another planet, living another life.

Since getting back works been very tiring, as it always is at this time of year, so getting any motivation at the end of the day to produce anything like a piece of interesting finished art is pretty much a no go.

I have been working on both the Jar and Void comic book series', Jar less so over the past month as it's a collaboration with the person writing it, but we have got back on the go with it and have been discussing some plot changes and how they will effect the story as a whole.
I've made some progress on The Void, the beginning of one characters plot was holding me back a little (I know the middle and end of their story, just wasn't sure how they actually began on their path) so that's really helped.

And I have been really diving into studying human anatomy, although both of the comic series' will be far from photorealistic renderings I felt they both deserve to be the best they can so before getting to any serious drawing thought I'd jam my brain with some knowledge to give them a bit of a better look, and reduce the need for any reference material during the making of them.

Anyhow, that's the update for now, I will post again soon, much like the YouTube channel I think there will be a bit of a reduced flow of content being uploaded, at least until my day job calms down a little, but it's all in a good cause and i will be back with a more regular schedule of artwok and videos soon.

Until then, keep creative people!

Laying Out a Universe

Hi!

I actually drew this out a couple of weeks ago but didn't post it here so I thought I would now, along with an explanation as to why i chose to following this workflow.

I've been working on my own graphic novel series which I hope to oneday actually get to the drawing stage on, but of course first comes the writing, and before that even comes the world building (or in this case, multiple universe building).

Above is a layout of several universes that inhabit my story (click on the image for a larger version), the names of the characters and places/events are mostly the ones I'll use, apart from a couple, one of which is on this layout - Rose is now Rhoda, the other names to be changed are characters not on this image.
Of course this doesn't make much sense to anyone but me at the moment as only I know who these people and places are, but as i build onto the world so will I build this map of it all too.

But here goes for a all be it very brief explanation....

The bubbles labelled Our Universe, The Void Member user Content Submission point, Patreon Sponsor Access point and The Void Story Files are all pages on a Website I plan to build, the one named Our Universe being the Home page much like you first arrive at when visiting any website online, and the others are sub pages from that page.
The other universe bubbles are both pages on the website, and sections of the story itself, so basically there will be pages on the website for each of the main characters, and further sub pages relating to their story.
As for the other bubbles such as the First Chimerical Universe, Harrigan's Breach, Inception of The Antius, Median and The Desinence... you'll just have to wait and see!

Laying out the different parts of the story, and website this way is a good method of keeping something this complex in easy to read and therefor easy to remember little boxes, each of these bubbles in the layout has in turn have their own layout sheet, with story elements, web pages etc laid out in the same fashion.
Attached to each character is a bio sheet also, with a ton of information on the character, their physical appearance, history, likes and dislikes, location within the story and more.
There are also these types of sheets for events and locations, along with diagrams and sketches.
the idea is once the story is underway, the website will become an interactive portal to the worlds and universes, with special sections for Patreon supporters where all of this making of material can be viewed.

So that's it for this post, I will be continuing with this in my spare time, work is about to pick up again at the day job but hopefully I'll still be able to keep it moving along at the same time.

Until next time, stay creative!

My Patreon Page!

Hi fellow browsers of the interweb...


Fed up with the lack of time I have to be creative, including the drawing of the comic book series Jar I'm working on, and my own graphic novel series The Void, I have taken to Patreon!

For those who don't know what Patreon is it's an excellent crowd funding website in the same vein as Kickstarter and GoFundMe but aimed strictly at creative people who are looking for help to get their projects underway, or wanting aid in the task of getting away from the day job they may be stuck in, and free up some time to be able to pursue their dreams of being creative full time, basically to try to avoid that age old stereotype of the struggling artist from coming true.
People become sponsors and donate amounts of money to the creators in return for one of several reward tiers, therefor helping said person get a little closer to their goals.
These reward tiers include various goodies you can receive such as having your name in an issue of a comic on the contributors thank you page, having pictures drawn for you of your favorite characters from film, tv or comics etc, or getting copies of the books for free once they reach print, and at the highest reward tier even helping to create a character within the story itself!

The main aim of my page is to try to get my Science Fiction/Fantasy graphic novel series underway and eventually completed, if  I can achieve that before I die I'll have reached my creative lifetime goal and will die a happy man!
I'm wanting to undertake a writing course to make sure the writing is as good as i can get it, possibly some life drawing courses to fine tune my anatomy skills. The long term aim will be to rent a studio to work in and get the funding to get the book written, drawn and published!

Please feel free to check out my page here - https://www.patreon.com/GJJaryas

It's been a while since I've had any reasonable amount of time to get any YouTube videos made, but hopefully there'll be one up soonish, I have been being creative as much as i can but it's mostly working on Jar getting the design of it all done, and lots of writing for The Void, which is shaping up into an excellent story, if I do say so myself! lol

Anyway, hope you all have a great week, here's to being even more creative in the future!

Catch you all soon!

Jar - Character Design Sketching - Bill

Hi, long time no post!

Well, you say you're going to start doing two YouTube videos a week... and then you do none for a month.
I hadn't planned on my day job work being quite as tiring as it was over the past few weeks, many days of full on hard labour with minimal time to recover, the kind of days you get home at 6 or 7pm and don't even  have the energy to half concentrate on a mindless TV program!

I have managed to get some writing done on my own graphic novel series and am very happy with the progress of that, but it's not at a stage to share so that will have to remain where it is for the moment.
And we're completed the layouts for the first issue of jar and are underway on the second issue, so progress is being made in multiple ways really!

But anyhow, I got through it all and am now in a slightly less physically demanding schedule so am making the most of it and getting some work done on the Jar comic book project when i have the time to.

Today I worked on one of the character designs, below is the final rough sketch which both myself and the writer of the series are quite happy with, so now it's onward to the next character, whilst I still have the time and energy to do so!

Take it easy people, if you can....

JAR - Vehicles, and Distractions from Drawing...

Hiya!

So no YouTube video this week, there was a huge distraction from drawing for the majority of the spare time I had, and it's name is The Division!
I've been waiting for it to come out for quite some time, and am very much enjoying it, so I'm not going to apologise... Haha!

But I did manage to drag myself away from the controller long enough to do this drawing, which is of a 1940's Ford which features in the first story arc of the JAR comic book series.
There's a really cool scene it's in nearer the end of the arc and I'm really looking forward to getting onto that part of the drawing!

*Update*

So no drawing done this week at all, there's been some seriously hard work going on at the day job and I've been too tired to focus on anything once I get back home in the evenings.
I'm going to try and get something done over the weekend but I've got a new PC coming on Saturday so what with setting that up, transferring files and getting it all updated I probably won't get a whole lot done art wise until the end of next week.
I'll try to get a little something done on Sunday, but Friday next week is looking most likely for some drawing to go down!

Until next time, hope you all have a great weekend!

Drawing Siblings

Hi Guys and Gals!

Continuing from the last posts character designing, I'm getting some practice in drawing siblings, there will be more than two of theses Sisters so expect another update with more added at some point!
Its a lot of fun trying to get the similarities in there whilst also keeping them looking like individuals.
There'll also be a time-lapse of the second Sister uploaded on the YouTube channel at some point, with narration on how I approached the task at hand.

Catch ya later!

JAR - Comic Book Project Character Designing Session

Yo!

Hope everyone's having a good weekend, just a brief update, been doing a character design for the ongoing JAR comic book project.
She is one of the antagonists of the series, not one of the main ones but all the characters play their parts.

Also, the YouTube videos will now have narration, starting from the most recently uploaded one which is a brief introduction to the channel, and can be found here -

Link to - Introduction to the Channel Video

Hopefully I'll get use to talking away to nobody but a mic whilst drawing, it is a little weird but surprisingly not that bad, and I plan to spend a little more time on the editing of the videos too, so they won't be just time-lapses' or real-time, but a combination of both with some narration and maybe a little music here and there.

Catch you all later!

JAR - Comic book project sketching session

Hi!

Just a quick update, been doing a concept piece for the comic book project, this is the Jar from which the comic gets its name.
Not fully taken with the shading, but as its just a concept image I won't worry too much at this point!
Below are the final image and the original line art, if anyone feels like using it to colour please feel free, just post a comment with a link to what you've done so I can see, and give me a mention wherever you post it!

Three part time lapse can be found on the YouTube channel via the link below.

The Jar - Concept Sketching

Comic Book Project - Character Designing

Hiya!

Another update on the comic book project, today I did a character design for one of the secondary characters in the series, he's in issue two only briefly (although his presence and the actions surrounding his scene are important to the plot and do reveal important information, so not just a background character) but it should be fine to show here.
He may well end up changing by the time his pages come around to be drawn, and the comic is actually in black and white, but here's one version of him anyhow.

Time-lapse making of video can be found on the YouTube channel link below -

Jar - Secondary Character Design Video

Catch you all later!

Comic Book Project - Update

Good afternoon!

Just a quick update, this weeks been all about the day job, and a bit of PS4 when I've had time, but today I've been mainly concentrating on a character concept for the comic book project I'm working on with the talented writer Mr James Fletcher.
Unfortunately this particular character is a main one so I can't share the actual image, but I'll be working on some of the secondary and background characters over the weekend and will be sure to share some of the sketches.
My morning figure sketching has been on hold this week, just been too tired to get up early enough to do much before leaving for work, and the same goes for video's and time-lapses for the YouTube channel, but there should be one uploaded next week, hopefully on Monday.

Until then, have a great day/days!

6am Sketch and Airbrush Doodle

Salutations!

Not had much time this week but managed to sneak in a quick doodle and bit o airbrush practice this morning in the wee hours.

It got a little more Cartoony than I would have liked, which tends to happen when I'm rushing and limited on time.

I also did a time-lapse of it to which can be found here -

6am Sketch and Airbrush Doodle Video

Hope you enjoy, have a good Friday night people!

Controlled Doodling is on YouTube!

Good day to you!

Controlled Doodling in now on YouTube (if you didn't guess that from the post title)

I've done a four part video of this mornings sketch, as a tester to see how long the videos will be when sped up, and to kind of get used to drawing whilst recording. It's weird, it shouldn't really make a difference but knowing it's all getting captured makes it a little less relaxed, and from that I'm making more mistakes, I'm sure I'll get used to it and soon enough will learn to forget that it's for video and not just for fun.
Below are links to each part and the final image is at the bottom of the page.

Part One is the rough pencils/working out what I wanted to do, and it can be found either here -

Test Doodle - Rough Pencils Video

Part Two is the tighter pencils and adding additional detailing, and it can be found here -

Test Doodle - Tight Pencils and Detailing Video

Part Three is the Flat Colours and Shadows, and can be found here -

Test Doodle - Flat Colours and Shadows Video

Part Four is the Secondary Colours and Final Touches, and it can be found here -

Test Doodle - Secondary Paintover and Final Touches Video

Or they can be found by clicking the link "Controlled Doodling on YouTube" under the title image of the blog.

Anyhow, hope you enjoy the videos, I'm moving onto the next sketch!


Catch you later!

Sketching Time-Lapse Test!

Hi All!

Nothing special art-wise today, but I'm just posting a quick test time-lapse video of a random doodle I did earlier (I did the doodle just to test the screen recording).
Hope you enjoy the video, if all goes to plan I'll be making many of these in the future, but they'll be much better planned, and hopefully better finished pieces too.
If I do make more I'll try to create a title screen, have a thumbnail of the finished sketch shown at the beginning, that kind of thing. And then maybe host it on YouTube and just have a link to it here, not really planned this out yet!

*Update*

Video doesn't seem to be showing up in Chrome, Explorer is displaying it, not sure about Firefox and Safari.
Will go the embedding route through YouTube for sure next time!

Have a great weekend people!

Morning Figure Sketch 2016 - 05

What Up Webbers!?

I wanted to do a fan art/figure sketch this morning so todays subject is Jason from Friday the Thirteenth!
I've got a ton of day job work to get on with so probably not another update for a little while (but you never know) so until next time I bid you all a good day!

T-Shirt Designs

Hi All!

Just a quick update on the post earlier, I'm trying out some T-shirt designing, the first and second series' of three called "Word Balloon" and "Kitty Galore" are out now on Teesprings.com, you can find them by clicking one of the line ups below!

Word Bubble Series

Kitty Galore Series

These models come in a variety of styles, Mens and Womens T-Shirts, Premium T-shirts, Hoodies and there's even Tote bags available!
Multiple colours and sizes available.

Check 'em out!

Morning Figure Sketching 2016 - 04

Hiya Interwebz,

Didn't get to do finish my morning figure sketch yesterday, so this one will have to suffice as a 2 day one. There's no rules so no worries really!
At least it's a bit of a different one, stretching to the max!

Catch you all later!

Digital Painting Practice

Second post of the day!

Decided to do some digital painting practice on a sketch I did a while back.
I wasn't at all sure what the end result would be but as I got the flats down (base colours) I decided that maybe less was more with the goal, so I concentrated more on getting some smooth gradients for the skin with the Airbrush and nice bold colours for the secondary elements of the hair and headphones.

Enjoy your evening!

Morning Figure Sketching 2016 - 03

Good Afternoon Webheads,

I'm a little late (again) with todays sketch, been a busy day!

Plus I noodled around with it for a while playing with backgrounds until I decided just to post the original sketch with a rectangular backer.

Hopefully I'll get this digital painting I've just started finished by the end of the day.


Catch you later (hopefully)!

Morning Figure Sketch 2016 - 02

Good Afternoon Webheads!

Bit of a late one today, but I did the actual sketch this morning, promise!

After finishing the sketch I came up with the idea to have him flying past the Moon (or at least a Moon shape), and that in turn led to the idea, and execution of me painting over all the shadows I'd just hatched with all reflected Moon light, but I like how it turned out!

Right, I'm off for more artistic adventures,

I bid a good day t'all!

Morning Figure Sketching 2016 - 01

Good Morning Interwebbers!

I'm going to make more of an effort this year to improve on figure drawing, so will be posting various sketches as and when they are done. the aim is to do one every morning before work, when possible.
These sketches will be loose, with the focus not on a finished image with great rendering, but on improving at drawing proportions, lighting and silhouettes, and gaining speed through practice.
If I can do an hours drawing from reference, an hour from imagination, and an hour on the comic book project a day I'll be happy!
Within the figure drawing I want to cover - stationary poses that don't look static or wooden, dynamic poses, foreshortening, cloth and clothing and generally head and body anatomy at different angles.

Below is this mornings sketch!

Airbrush Practice

Hi Peeps and Peepettes!

So I've been testing out the new Huion monitor in pretty much all of my spare time, and it's great!
Today's post is a practice session work in progress, learning to use Sketchbook Pro and more specifically the airbrush tool within the program, just getting a feel for drawing and painting on a screen and generally having fun with it all!

Happy Sunday all!

*Updated*

Final Version, original is below.

Click image for original size.

New Year, New Equipment!

Happy New Year! (Bit late, but still...)

I haven't posted for so long!

I've had a break from art in general for quite some time, but that's not always a bad thing. It can give you time to catch up on other things, art can take up a lot of time and it's very easy to become a hermit with a bad back if you don't step away once in a while a do something different.
Anyhow, I've just purchased, after years of wanting one, a tablet monitor for art, and am at this time just trying it out for the first time!
As with many others I couldn't afford, or justify the expense that is a Wacom Cintiq (for those who don't know, its the top of the range, industry standard brand) but instead after much research decide on the Huion GT-220. From what I've read once you get it up and running it's a very good machine for the price. I will give some thoughts on the monitor itself once I've spent more time using it, for now its a very nicely built screen, with a few design flaws but nothing that's a deal breaker (I knew about the flaws before buying).
Expect many posts in the forthcoming weeks, as I'm loving it so far!
I will update when possible, the pen is currently charging... wish me luck....

Happy Monday!