Procreate and Project Progress

I've made a lot of progress since my last post! At that time, I was about to draw pages 6-10 all digital. Not only did I do that, but I drew pages 11-25.Again, thanks to Monica who gave me the tone and pattern brushes she loves to use. They are really fun!

Basic color work for the upcoming project.

For this project, I think I have my drawing style "down" and working well in Procreate. So, I was happy to have (essentially) Act I drawn, so I ended up lettering it as well, so I could have the PDF as reference while I'm at Oxford next month.

But since I was still waiting for feedback on my thesis draft from my second and third readers, I cracked open Procreate again again and started practicing coloring. I flatted pages 1-25 while I determined my color style with the help of Monica and Christophe. Then I finished colors.

Though I received feedback from my second reader early, still waiting on the third reader. So I tackled the story's preface. I had written a 5-page story, and pencilled and inked 3 pages of it, back in 2011 for a publisher. But the project fell through before I finished it. With some minor edits, I decided it will work nicely as the preface to this new project. I colored said three pages, and drew and colored from scratch on Procreate the other two. 

Love the tone and pattern brushes.

So basically, I exceeded my pre-Oxford goals:

• Draft the OGN chapter breakdowns--DONE
• Write chapters one through three--DONE--PLUS four, five, and the preface
  
• Draw chapters one through three--DONE--PLUS four, five, and the preface

PLUS--colored preface, chapters one through five.

PLUS--lettered preface, chapters one through five.

Which sets me up nicely to meet my during-Oxford goals:

• Edit OGN chapter breakdowns
• Write short story version
• Edit chapters one through five of the comic if needed
• Write more comic chapters

But for now, this amazingly fun (for me) experiment will be shelved as I turn back to my thesis for the next month. Then it's off to Oxford.
 

Too much, too soon, too fast--playing with Procreate on iPad

Page one inks by hand

Converging threads here, bear with me!

For grad school, I am attending the Oxford Summer Program in creative writing. Excited! I am in two modules: scriptwriting, and YA writing. To prepare for both modules, I have been pulling together an idea bank and brainstorming.

For the YA module, I hope to develop a particular idea I've had (more on that later!). Though I'll likely work on it in prose form at Oxford, I'm more likely to continue the project as a comic. Hence, I've started writing out a simple comic script, for:

1. It's helpful to get my mind in the space of the project.
2. It's not likely to interfere with the Oxford version (ie I won't get too far along).
3. I have time to draw now.
4. I intend to use the project to convert to full digital (pencils, inks, colors).
5. I have time to learn something new (full digital), and should in advance of Oxford.
   

And here we are, the real point of the post! I am playing with Procreate on one of my neighbor's six iPad Pros with the goal to adapt to full digital. I am concurrently practicing sketching from scratch, and inking those sketches, but also inking pencils from paper.

For the project in question, I penciled the five pages of the first chapter, and took a pic of the blue line roughs. I've inked them both by hand, and in Procreate. This is both helping me get back in drawing shape, improve my inking faster in Procreate, and compare the two methods.

I was really frustrated at first:

1. 

   Page one digital inks
   

   It's a new project with new characters that I am not used to yet.
2. I decided to draw at a slightly smaller scale (9x12 Bristol rather than 11x17), which wasn't going well, oddly. I've drawn some really great dense pages on 9x12 Bristol, from Arche-Lady stories to "I Like Mozart" and ""On the Roman Road." But here, wasn't going so well!
3. Since I plan to post this as a web comic, getting my head around sizing of the font and how much room I should be leaving for balloons was throwing me off.
4. One of my goals is to produce pages faster. Fine, but that broke me. Pages were turning out badly, so I took my foot off the gas for this goal. I know the more I draw, the faster I get... so I decided this one will happen naturally, or, I can focus on it later, when I am used to the characters, and used to Procreate.
   

In some ways, I prefer paper. Likely, because it's what I am used to. However, there are elements of digital that are unbeatable, such as undo and no more smudges. There are some things that I think should be really, really simple that I haven't figured out how to do yet. Such as drawing a straight line, like with a ruler, and creating a panel border box. Should be a no brainer, right? I'll watch a youtube tutorial at some point, but I have enough to keep me busy for now.

Page one pencils, if you can see.

At some point, I'll tackle coloring. But to start, I'll be drawing the next chapter, pages 6-10 all digital. I'm excited!

Special thanks to Pier (who was generous enough to loan me his iPad and give me an intro tutorial), and Monica (who has endured my nagging questions about converting to full digital pros and cons). 

If all goes well, here's what will happen pre-Oxford:

• Draft the OGN chapter breakdowns--DONE
• Write chapters one through three--(ch. one is done)
  
• Draw chapters one through three--(ch. one is one)

 During-Oxford:

• Edit OGN chapter breakdowns
• Write short story version
• Edit chapters one through three of the comic if needed
• Write more comic chapters

After the summer program, fingers crossed, I'll continue drawing and start posting. I'm excited to convert to digital, excited to work on this series, and excited to workshop it at Oxford. Making it better is maybe 95% of my goal, and saying "this was workshopped at Oxford" is admittedly 5%. OK that I admit that?

 

 

Research + Personal Experience + Creative

Excerpt from "A Bad Start" with inks by Monica Gallagher and colors by Matt Beaugrand

 

In my class "Diasporas and Migrations" I was struck at two mentions of Saint Louis in Jacob Lawrence's series of paintings about the Great Migration. I'd known about the Great Migration, but has primarily associated it with New York and Chicago. I've been something of a history buff and I've lived in Saint Louis in the early 90s and again in the early 00s. My memory is hardly perfect, but still I was surprised that I had no serious connection with the migration and the Lou.

This pointed me to craft my term paper,  "Saint Louis and the Great Migration" which tracked migration, and the reaction of white people to it. Coupled with post-war anxiety, fear, and optimism, reaction on reaction on reaction created the climate of the city today, and the city as I first moved to it. In my preamble, I stated:

In the three months after finishing my undergraduate degree, I worked at a sandwich shop in downtown Saint Louis. Aside from the manager, who was often at the other locations of the small chain, I was the only white person on the team...

This was, of course, a huge driver of my motivation. As I researched the paper, I found so many simple oddities and complex problems built on the reaction on reaction on reaction, rooted in the Great Migration (and racism itself, of course).

After the course ended, I decided to write a series of vignettes in comic form, as an attempt to engage people who didn't want to talk about racism in the topic of racism. I discussed the project and my drafts with a classmate, who agreed to be my sensitivity reader. Especially important, because the stories aren't really about me per se. The me character plays a supporting role, as I tried to keep the story about the climate and the underpinnings and not about my personal journey.

For the first vignette, I was fortunate to also enlist the help of Monica Gallagher as inker, and Matt Beaugrand as colorist, both of whom supported what I was trying to do. The first vignette was published by the peer-review journal Clamantis and I have submitted the second vignette, just approved for the next upcoming issue. I've drafted a third vignette as well.

This is working as I'd hoped. Idea, research, personal perspective, creative narrative. It's the model I hope future projects can follow!    

Same story, different medium

 

Page 3 from "The Unexpected, Uninvited, Unwanted Guest" with inks from Monica Gallagher

At least one term of "independent study" is required as part of my Master's program. You must arrange a faculty advisor, propose a syllabus and action plan. Many people use this as an opportunity to research or prepare for their thesis project. I deliberately did the opposite.

 

Looking to get the most out of my experience (learn more, do more), I created a course "Same story, different medium" which focused on--in simplest terms--adaptations. But not adaptations in the sense of "here's a movie, and here it is adapted into a comic book." But here's a story, and here's how it's told as a movie, and here's how it's told as a comic book. It's an important nuance. 

 

The idea came to me during my playwriting class reading Susan Glaspell's one act play Trifles. After the success of the play, she rewrote it as a short story "A Jury of Her Peers." While reading the play, I recognized it as an episode from Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It was really interesting to me how each version took advantage of its medium, and away we went.

 

In addition to reading and watching many stories written in different mediums, I worked on a creative project in three forms: a comic short, a teleplay, and a short story. In each case, I tried my best to work from my root planning documents rather the completed versions (not always easy!). I wrote the comic short first (so I could draw it), then wrote the teleplay, then the short story. The first two were solid, the last the weakest... not only is it my weakest story-telling muscle, but I simply ran out of time. Ultimately, it was helpful to retell the story in different medium. I found the creative process confusing at times (to keep each version clear) but my ideas started feeding and growing faster. In hindsight, I think I'd have scaled back on the reading and watching and preserved more time for the creative... if I had to stick to the length of the term. Or, I'd have get the syllabus intact and lengthened the term!

 

Once again, I got to develop an idea that had been stuck in my head for years, never the opportunity to work on it until now. "The Unexpected, Uninvited, Unwelcome Guest" is about an alien who crashes a dinner party. It's a story about the inevitability of change and how we deal with it (or not). The story also has racial undertones... tolerance, acceptance, and struggles to do both.

 

I like the teleplay of it best. But you can read the comic short, which was published in the peer-review journal Clamantis.

Zeke

I found myself on a plane again, shortly after the trip to France with Monica. This time, to Austin, Texas, where I stayed with... Monica.

Sort of!

I was traveling for my day job, and Monica needed a cat sitter. So the first few days I was there, I was with Zeke. And then Monica arrived.

I do like cats, the eyeing the sofa, torn to shreds and held together my duct tape, reminded me what a wild card they can be.

Zeke also seemed miffed I arrived and that I wasn't his person.He made a real mess of his kitty litter for sport or spite.

He finally warmed up to me, as I provided the armpit he needed.

Overall, my first cat-sitting went fairly well. And it was nice to see Monica again so soon.
 

Voici Angouleme

 

After many attempts, we finally persuaded Monica to go to Angouleme! Jeff hadn't been in some time, and it was a fun trip overall. A mix of retreading familiar grounds, but with a fresh and wide-eyed perspective. 

For the first time, we stayed Sunday night. On Monday, the village was a charming ghost town. That afternoon, Marie Claude brought us to her hometown for a walkabout. That evening, Monica and I were planted at the CDG Ibis for early flights the next morning.

Harrogate

This was a fun jaunt!

Greg and I had finished Liebestrasse some time back, and comiXology Originals chose Thought Bubble to release the book. 

They lined up several interviews for us, and a panel. 

Sadly, the panel was poorly advertised... "What's new from comiXology" rather than what the book is about.I think we agreed it would have been better that way. 

I love Leeds, so it was a little sad that the show moved to Harrogate (no offense, Harrogate). But it was nice that Dom trekked over to the show, as did Christophe.

I also had a great chat with a comics pal, Sean, an English guy I met at Angouleme in 2010. In the back pages of one of his books, he mentioned drawing comics in his 50s. As I was about to turn 50, I asked him further about his experiences and feelings. That was great, because it's certainly had been a challenging experience for me, to re-enter the world of exhibiting at shows into my late 40s.

Q-Force

 

My introduction to anime was in the late '70s, when Gatchaman was imported and repackaged as Battle of the Planets, to capitalize on the sci-fi craze reignited by Star Wars.

While Greg, Monica, and I were having a mini comics retreat early in 2019, somehow the idea resurfaced of "us" as members of G-Force (who, in the anime wore bird-themed uniforms: eagle, condor, owl, falcon, swan).

Here we are, Monica the cockatoo, Tim the toucan, and Greg the parrot.

Dublin revisited

 I hadn't been to Dublin in a few years, so it was fun to revisit!

After Thought Bubble, Monica, Greg, and I chose Dublin for our comics retreat. We started having a swell time, camped out in the neighborhood of Stoneybatter, talking about future projects, and drinking. But during the trip the election occurred. 

It was suddenly very awkward to be an American... at pubs we talked very quietly if at all, to avoid conversations about the election. 

Our last full day of the trip, a coworker of mine arrived for her Irish holiday, and Kayla's presence added a light-hearted dimension for a final night of frivolity.

Stucky

I can't recall exactly--perhaps Monica drew a Stucky (Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes homoerotic coupling) commission. But it was clear she likes Stucky art! So I drew one for her at the New York Comic Con when were tabled side by side. Then, just a few weeks later, we were at Thought Bubble in Leeds. So a second Stucky drawing appeared. It's become something of a tradition.

    

Testing one, two

 Ahoy! I've not been here for a while, and for lots of reasons, many of which I will be sharing with you over the next weeks. Let's start with the first reason: Instagram.

Just prior to stepping away from this blog, I started posting to Instagram, which is fun and quick. But lacks the commentary I always added here at Blogger (or is it Blogspot?). 

This blue line pencil version of this sketch, based on Monica Gallagher's comic series Lipstick and Malice, was posted to Insta. But after, I inked it. So here you go! Blogger exclusive!

Over the years, I keep sneaking sketches in featuring the assassin-model star of the series. I came up with the tagline "She's hot... you're DEAD!" which has become a running joke with us.

I'll be back tomorrow with the second reason. 

A Decade of TCAF

TCAF started in 2003, with its second year being 2005, which was my first, along with Monica! Happy decade-iversary! This time featuring one of the weirdest experiences I've ever shared in bed with two women (Monica and Danielle).