Re: VanderHuge Studios

Photo taken yesterday, this page is almost finished being drawn. About Drawing Table Tuesday .

I've said more than once that I hate the computer side of this stuff, so as often as I can I try to get by with real life  world equivalents. So, this is what toning the book looks like. It's faster and less arduous laying flats like this than with a mouse or a tablet. This is one of those things that I do that doesn't resemble anything anyone else does- thinking about it briefly though, I'm okay with that. It seems it would make the process, and consequently the end result, unique. Here 's what a whole page looks like. That's also how I've been coloring things. At first I was worried that this would use too much tracing paper and, in the end, be too expensive. But nope. I've been using a cheap roll of it and I'm still on the same roll. And I've used a lot of the stuff. About  Drawing Table Tuesday .

It's almost embarrassing how long it took me to think of using transparency sheets to smudge proof pencil lines. I've never seen or heard of anyone using them for that, but I'm glad I thought of it because they're a heck of a lot easier to see through than tracing paper and they smudge pencil lines a lot less.

I'm getting pretty into this now. I mean, I've almost finished this as thumbnails, but it feels kind of abstract to a point. I'm way past page 100 in the thumbnails, but sometimes it feels like I haven't really done anything. It's encouraging to find that a lot of them I can print out and that I can almost trace them; most of the hard parts are already taken care of, and it's smooth sailing... for the most part. As the page count is getting closer to the 20's (pretty steadily, I might add), I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be printing a couple trashcan editions as I get to the appropriate page counts (because it was written simultaneously to be printed as 1 big volume or 6 issues). To hand out to friends and help keep a lookout for errors and stuff. Also, to a smaller degree, to feel like I'm actually doing something. Unrelated, I cleaned out a closet over x-mas break, and went through some old comics as I was moving boxes. I fou...

I took some pictures last night. I took them because when I went in to shut down for the night, my table looked staged. I started to use a drawing board a while ago, and yesterday, when Staci came home, I threw it on the table and left the room. I came back later to turn off the lights and computer, and saw everything all laid out, and it looked very fake. Like I intended for everything to be placed out like that. Toy.

I needed a reference for a crappy toy, so I made this. I needed a toy that looked like all those crappy toys from the 80's and 90's that all had the same body but just had a different paint job (Anybody remember those? They barely moved. Sometimes the legs, torso and head were all one solid piece.) I needed it because whenever I tried to draw an action figure, it kept coming out more like a small person than a malformed, disproportioned, stiff action figure. I tried to find one I already had, but apparently action figure technology has come along way since then, and I couldn't find one that was all one piece and they all had joints and moved and so forth-- they didn't look anything like what I needed. I got it in a two-pack for a dollar. I was hoping for a wrestler, but they only had ninjas. Also, I just finished thumbnailing a chapter and almost finished off the sketchbook. The front page is blank because it's a title page that I haven...

or, Killing Trees & Why I hate Flats I've been dreading the tones for this book. The tones are definitely my least favorite part   The flats are definitely my least favorite part.   Flats are hard to describe if you don't know what they are. Flats are a part of the process that aren't really talked about (they're that boring) . Here's a visual example with images stolen borrowed from Terry Dodson, one of the few people I've seen even mention that they have a flatter (-a person who does this) . The flatter pretty much traces the picture and fills in shapes with color (see 1), it doesn't even have to be close to the final colors, the shapes just have to be filled with something. The flatter's done. That's it. They send it back, so that the person can pick up from there and finish it (see 2). Now, I know that it seems like this wouldn't be hard or take long. But, the specific image above is a cover. Imagine that image sm...

I scanned this page today to preview it at print size. It's huge because I pay for Flickr, so by gum, I'm gonna use it. I noticed scanning errors. I've noticed them before though. Even went as far as comparing and documenting them for myself. On the big panel up at the top, you can see them on her collar and hand, and his hat and suspenders, but what caught my attention immediately was here. These are inarguably straight lines, but they looked crooked or cockeyed. The whole scanner isn't bad, just sections. I'm tempted to grid a piece of paper and scan it because I'm curious about the extent. I guess this has been in the back of my head for a while, I'm just acknowledging it now. I'll need to buy a new scanner before I start scanning finished pages. I'm lucky that I draw stacks of pages before I ink them. It gives me a little time to get one and I don't feel as rushed. I've had that old scanner about seven or ...

This is a poster I made. It's a fictional character to the character. This was harder than I give it credit for. One thing I hadn't thought until I pretty much sat down to draw it, was that I couldn't draw a cartoon in the comic the same way I drew the "real" characters. I wanted bigger, (even more) clumsier lines. I drew this and inked it the same way I do everything else. Then I took a brush and tracing paper and made a worse drawing of it. It's still a little more realistic than I'd draw if I drew it again, but I think it'll work.  This poster's going to be on the wall a lot, so I'm just going to print it on the page, then just trace it when I ink the page. It's pretty common for people that have to draw a 2d drawing in 3d space to just leave the space blank and warp the image there later with photoshop. I think it's just an eye sore on the page, so I'm tracing it on all the pages. Also, hopefully, that will ma...

I drew the original of this a long time ago. Probably 7 or 8 months ago? The other day I was shuffling through things when I found the original pencil drawing. When I drew it, I printed the pencils and inked those, so what I found was just the drawing. When I found it, I noticed it was very off model. So, I redrew it and finished it again. It's not perfect, but it's way more on model this time. I've got one more official pre-production drawing to do before I really start on this. It's not even really pre-production, it's going to be directly used in the comic. I'll use it on maybe 10 to 20 pages. But, after that, I really start on this for real. I've got half or more than half of the pages laid out, so, I think I'll intermittently switch between thumbnailing and drawing pages. I might update more often now, but still, probably not very regularly. We'll see.

 Pre-thumbnail doodles to sort it out. Pre-thumbnail thumbnail. Since the thumbnails are pretty tight, sometimes I have to layout them out before I start. I should be able to post the actual thumbnail from this in a day or two, depending on how fast I get there. The further along I get with this, the surer  more confident I am that this is going to go pretty quickly when I actually start drawing. I've got a lot of doodling to do though. About Drawing Table Tuesday .

Q: How do you turn the beginning of a 4 into a 3? A: Not very well. About Drawing Table Tuesday .

Easiest, fastest thumbnail yet, lol. I'm not big on talking heads, but every now and then, it'll do. Plus, the background's well defined in the previous pages, but more importantly, the facing page. About Drawing Table Tuesday .

There are figures in that third panel, but to keep it clean they're drawn on tracing paper and rubber cemented onto the page at the top. I really like how the figure on the right here turned out. It's going to be a really good base to draw from when I really draw the page. Also, if you look at the pencil line thickness, you'll get a good idea of how small these are. The really thin lines are from a very sharpened pencil. About Drawing Table Tuesday .

I couldn't really remember what I intended this ambiguous gray glob to be. So I had to make something else up. It doesn't really matter, this part's all dialogue anyway. Any difficult drawing in this part is just so it won't be floating heads for ten pages.

I've been drawing the thumbnails pretty tight so far. The above nonsense/gibberish is a few different tries for two different pages. These aren't thumbnails, they're just to get the gist before I draw the thumbnail. I'm trying to kick it into high gear so I can really start this thing sometime next month. The tight thumbnails should really help in the long run. I'm willing to put a little extra time in now, do them right, and save myself a lot of work and time later. If I get to it, I'll post a real thumbnail of one of those pages in the next few days. About Drawing Table Tuesday .

I'm taking extra time designing a room with a bunch of science equipment. I always liked when people took a  little extra time and made equipment look like it would actually work. Unfortunately, it's becoming more and more evident as I thumbnail these pages, that not as much of this room will be shown as this much designing would suggest. I'm thinking about thinning some of the talking over two more additional pages so I can show more of the room. They  were  a little dialogue heavy anyway. About Drawing Table Tuesday

I noticed that I almost never take a picture of a finished thumbnail because after I finish I immediately turn the page and start the next one. About Drawing Table Tuesday .

The whole page from yesterday. Way more notes than usual on this page. Mainly because I already see toning this is going to make my head hurt. About Drawing Table Tuesday .

Whenever I take a picture it's always with Staci's camera, because it takes close up pictures with incredible detail. I don't remember why I took this, but I took it with my crappy camera. And I can't believe how badly it takes close ups. I've been spoiled.