Hands have become almost as important as faces for helping communicate both ideas and emotions in the book. I’ve become a fan of constructing hands in various positions. In fact, I like it to an almost perverse degree, some might think, especially given how little people might even look at them. But then again, I’m known for actually enjoying -even looking forward to- dentist visits, so maybe this was predictable.
Of course you knew that I had to do this… Let me explain, perhaps for your Sunday reading pleasure.
The prevailing culture is surprisingly and frustratingly simplistic when it comes to graphic books and comics. As late as 2017, we’re still at the stage that most people in the USA (and the UK), if asked, will associate the form with the superhero genre: people in capes and/or masks fighting crime and/or saving the world. The other association is with the Sunday funnies. This is unfortunate, and, in case you don’t know, far from the case in other places such as various European and Asian countries where the boundaries between written and visual literature are less rigid.
The confusion of form (visual narrative on the page) with genre (the subject of the narrative itself) drives me nuts, as it makes it very hard to get people to […] Click to continue reading this post
Loving this looser, pencil-finish style. My only wish is that I’d discovered it in August. But of course I know that I needed to do what I was doing in August in order to get to where I am now. So there it is. Personal evolution is a wonderful thing, isn’t it ? (Click for larger view. More about the book here.) 
Now here’s an interesting coincidence! I came on to write a post about something I did earlier today – signing a contract for publishing The Book, with an exciting new publisher(!) – and then I was reminded of a post I did here exactly two years ago: it was about signing a contract with the previous publisher (who I later parted ways with – see this post).
Anyway, I had a picture in that post (have a look) of me signing the actual paper contract (in triplicate) that had been sent over the ocean on nice paper by pony and so forth, and then I sent it back over the ocean by return pony, and then a countersigned copy was sent over again by yet another pony… Instead, all I have to show you (above) is a screen shot of the electronic signing process I did this morning. Minutes later the countersigned version came back and all was done.
Anyway, in brief, because I should be working on the book (trying to finish a remarkable four pages of art today in one long 15 hour session in the office…), the back story is as follows: […] Click to continue reading this post
I love a diagonal vanishing point.
Click for larger view. The weird rim light on my hand is because I enhanced the contrast on the page so you can see the lines, but roughly masked my hand to keep the exposure the same there.)
This is to illustrate a scientific […] Click to continue reading this post
Yes, I’m still here. I realise that I paused posting for a while longer than I have in a long time (possibly ever!), and I’m sorry about that. There were a lot of things, not just the obvious one(s). Anyway, I’m still here… still drawing and painting away on the book, and working on a bunch of other things that I ought to tell you about at some point (some of which I need to get clearance for…).
The other day I went comfortably old school, pencil […] Click to continue reading this post
Always a bit annoying when the rough sketch done on the subway looks way more vibrant a drawing than the finished one for the book. Sigh. Seriously thinking I ought to do one story entirely in rough drawings…
Anyway, this share is also to reassure you that […] Click to continue reading this post
All change! Last week another style change took place, in service of a new story/chapter for the book. I’ve transitioned to a looser style, with final line art done with a charcoal-like finish, and the colour done as watercolour. (Click for a slightly larger view.) It turned out that back in March when I went and hid for a week to work on the book, I thumbnailed and roughed a lot of pages (on two stories I think?) in a pretty tight manner, and so I’ve decided that I’m simply going to go in and sketch the final material all by hand, with no elaborate construction work for placing backgrounds (neither analogue nor digital), no measurements, no drawing of perspective grids, etc.
This turns out to mean that I can get the pre-colour work done pretty swiftly on some pages. Rather than take this as an opportunity to sprint ahead and make up some lost time, I decided to […] Click to continue reading this post
Well, since I just lost the last two and a half hours’ work to a mystery crash (and Illustrator CS6 has no autosave*), I figured I lose another 20 minutes and prep a panel from a page of the book I’ve been working on today to:
(1) Share something from the project after a while of not doing so, and
(2) Show what I’d much rather be doing right now. I’m annoyed but trying to imagine myself in the picture… breathe…
Ok. Back to it. Looks like another 3am bedtime coming up…
-cvj
*I know this, I just forgot to hit cmd-S for a bit. I’ve got very good at doing it regularly, but this time… Yeah I know…
Click to continue reading this post
Right now, I’m much rather be on the sofa reading a novel (or whatever it is she’s reading)….instead of drawing all those floorboards near her. (Going to add “rooms with lots of floorboards” to […] Click to continue reading this post
(Click for larger view.)
Apparently I was designing a kitchen recently. Yes, but not one I intend to build in the physical world. It’s the setting (in part) for a new story I’m working on for the book. The everyday household is a great place to have a science conversation, by the way, and this is what we will see in this story. It might be one of the most important conversations in the book in some sense.
This story is meant to be done in a looser, quicker style, and there I go again with the ridiculous level of detail… Just to get a sense of how ridiculous I’m being, note that this is not a page, but a small panel within a page of several.
The page establishes the overall setting, and hopefully roots you […] Click to continue reading this post
Well, that happened. I’ve not, at least as I recollect, written a breakup letter before…until now. It had the usual “It’s not you it’s me…”, “we’ve grown apart…” sorts of phrases. And they were all well meant. This was written to my publisher, I hasten to add! Over the last … Click to continue reading this post
This might be one of my favourite sequences from the book so far*. (Click for larger view.) It’s a significant part of a page so I’ve watermarked it heavily. Sorry about that: It’s days of work to make these things. It is based on a location scouting trip I did last year around this time at the LA County Fair. So consider this a public service announcement if you’ve not yet done a Summer visit this year to a county fair near you… Go! They’re an excellent old-school kind of fun.
There’s a whole sequence in the book that involves such a visit and I’ve just […] Click to continue reading this post
Sorry to have kept you waiting for this one. You’ve been dying to know how it turned out, right? Here’s the final* form of the panel. (See the other two posts for earlier stages here and here. ) It’s a silent one. A pause in […] Click to continue reading this post
Ok. A Little over an hour and 15… With a slight interruption. (See previous post.) But I did the shade work too. Working to two primary light sources was fun. (Two sides of the bus).
Now for colour…
-cvj
