Thursday, April 4, 2013

script + thumbnails

i don't do a lot of process posts mostly because i think my process is fairly straightforward and unremarkable, plus i'm lazy, but here we go!

i tried to find some Wet Moon 7 snippets that weren't super spoilery and i think these work okay, but if you're spoilerphobic then turn back now! this is a process from script to thumbnail. here's an excerpt of 7 pages.

some notes: i've been doing a thing where i color code scenes in my scripts to denote which characters each scene focuses on (Mara = red, Cleo = blue, Martin = mustardy color, etc.) so i can better pace things out and i can tell generally how much pagetime a given character has just by scrolling through the text document really fast, but i didn't include that here.. the parts where it says [CHARACTER] OUTFIT both tally up how many outfits each character has in the book so i know how many i have to lay out, and they also will refer to specific outfits once i gather those up and make easy-access collages of them for when i start drawing pages. the "artpage" header is how many pages i actually have to draw, minus the chapter dividers or black "pause" pages and stuff like that, i like to know how many pages i'm going to be drawing, or at least a general idea since sometimes i add or delete pages along the way. then the first page number is what the actual page number will be in the final book.


i wanted to do a thing where the script is alongside the thumbnails so you can follow along easily but it was too difficult and time-consuming, although it probably would have taken less time then jockeying with Blogger's annoying formatting.

anyway, here we go after the jump!

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Nora & Nissa sketches

i did some sketches of Nora and Nissa, trying to figure out how they move and how they do different things. i might do some more, any suggestions for poses/activities that would be a challenge?

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Wet Moon 7 script!

anybody still reading this??

can't believe it's been over a month since i finished Glory. still feels like yesterday. i've been slow to get back to work, which is usually what happens after a big project, but i've managed to finish the Wet Moon 7 script! i'm about to start thumbnailing in the next couple days, i'm excited even though thumbnailing is the most boring stage in my process. it really helps, though, it's totally worth doing it.

Wet Moon 7 is going to be a long book, my scripts are fluid and usually change as i thumbnail so sometimes i'll cut or add pages on a whim depending on how i feel or what ideas i get or change my mind on, but right now it's 260 pages! that includes chapter breaks, though, and it's about 211 pages i actually have to draw, and then there about 25 flashback pages which are going to be drawn by another artist. i won't announce her yet, i don't want her to feel pressured until we really get things rolling. ;) that's a first for Wet Moon, though, a guest artist. gonna be awesome.

i wish i had the speed of my 25-26-year-old self, back when i could do 2-3 pages a day. i was a speed demon. how did i get so slow? did i lose the fire of youth? i want to double my efforts to get back to 2 pages a day, i hope i can do it. and i mean the drawing part, not counting thumbnails or greytones/lettering, just the linework which is the hard part. everything else goes fast. if i could somehow draw at least 2 pages a day, every day or at least most days, i could finish drawing 211 pages in less than 4 months. is it possible???

i'm pretty sure Glen and/or Martin are going to get the cover this time, and i'm thinking of "Winter Sets In" as the subtitle. i wanted to drop the subtitles with volume 6 but my publisher pushed for having one because it makes it easier to identify the book in the Library of Congress or something like that? rather than having the incomplete-looking "Wet Moon 6" on the list or something, so i bent on the subtitle for WM6 and figured i'd keep them going. originally the subtitles started out as kind of meaning something, but then by volume 3 i had sort of turned them into a joke and was trying to make up the most florid, inappropriately-epic-sounding subtitles i could just for fun. so with volume 6 i decided they should mean something again or have some relation to the book.

i wish i could talk more about WM7 but i don't want to totally spoil everything! i might post a couple portions of my script, would anybody be interested in that? probably not too interesting, my scripts are really basic and not detailed since most of it's in my head, but some people like to see process stuff.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Glory: DONE!

i finished Glory last night (my series at Image, written by Joe Keatinge, for anyone not familiar!), it feels strange. i got the Glory job 2 years ago and was juggling the first year of it with Wet Moon 6, and then 2012 was all Glory, so it's been a constant presence. even though i'm done, the final issue doesn't come out until March, but it's basically over for me and i can't believe it. i feel pretty burned out but it's been a great ride, a real challenge. thanks to any of you who have been reading it!!

thank you to everyone who made 2012 such a great year for me, both regarding Glory and Wet Moon!!!

now that it's over, it's time to make up for all that "lost" time and get Wet Moon 7 together. i have a lot written already in outline form that i've been chipping away at in my free time (or procrastination time, heh), and i'm liking what i have so far. i already knew the basics of what volume 7 was going to be but i had a bunch of new ideas while writing, but i can't reveal anything!!! >:D

in its current state it feels like Mara is the main character this time, but of course it's also a lot about Trilby and the fallout from what happened to her. it also has a lot of Martin and Glen which i'm excited about, and Nora and Nissa, Natalie's sisters, have major roles. after the really long Wet Moon volume 3 in 2007 i swore i'd never do a volume that long again, but i'm considering attempting it again for volume 7, or at least making it 200 pages.

i'm also considering having another artist draw a big flashback sequence but that's up in the air at the moment. it might be weird having another artist in a Wet Moon book, but i think it could be cool and interesting. and for the cover i'm thinking Glen and/or Martin, what do you guys think? either him or Nora and Nissa, they would be pretty striking, but it's probably time to get a guy on the cover.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Wet Moon 6 FINAL PREVIEW PAGE!



i did so much research on the hospital equipment, including talking to professionals and relating to them Trilby's condition and what equipment would be used, and one nurse even snuck into unoccupied ICU rooms at her place of work to take secret photos for me! :O she risked her job for Wet Moon!

the boy here is Trilby's brother Mat, who hasn't been introduced but i wanted another one of Trilby's several siblings to be there, since it was mentioned in a previous book that she has a large family. i figure the other siblings are older and off at other colleges or living in other cities. the others, including the already-introduced Minnie (also seen here), are Tila, Truman, and Wily; i'm not sure yet if they will be eventually introduced in the comic or not. i have lot of background material that never or barely gets used.

ANYWAY, this is the final preview page! thank you everyone who's been reading along and especially thank you to everyone who has commented, it's been very much appreciated. thank you to everyone who has bought the book or is planning to, too. i really hope the preview and my commentary were worthwhile, and for those of you who had been waiting since volume 5, i hope Wet Moon 6 is worth the wait.

thank you as always for all the support! it's super amazing and flattering and a total honor for me that anyone reads my stuff and even gives a tiny shit about it. you guys make this all possible, so thank you for this amazing cartooning career i've been able to pull off for the last 9, almost 10 years (i think?). i've been so lucky and i'm so grateful.

THANK YOU!!!! <3 <3 <3

so now that the mushy stuff is out of the way, even though the WM6 preview is over, i want to keep posting here with exclusive Wet Moon stuff. i've been thinking about posting other people's fanart, character profiles/bios (what their favorite books/movies/etc. are, stuff like that), and maybe a behind-the-scenes/making-of for Wet Moon 7, but i'm not sure if that would be too spoilery. what do you guys think? any other ideas or anything you're particularly interested to see?





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