Category Archives: work

Another Signing!

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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 →

Temporary…

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The connector between the blog and Facebook and twitter has been broken and I’ve not been able to make the time to fix it. It looks like I might have to install a whole new system and I’ve not found one that works as well as the old (now unsupported) one, so that’s (partly) why I’ve not posted any updates on anything much. Also, I’ve been very focussed on trying to do more on the book with even less time than I’d planned for the final months on it. (The reasons for the less are actually positive, but […] Click to continue reading this post →

On Arrival…

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Arrived at your (Thanksgiving) destination yet? I hope all went well. Now, here’s some exciting news… This year’s Thanksgiving episode of Screen Junkies is another Movie Science special! This means, as usual, that I sat down with presenter Hal Rudnick to talk about some science ideas and portrayal of scientists in the movies.
movie_science_screen_junkiesThis time, the film is Arrival. We actually had a great in-depth conversation, and a lot (not all) of it made it to the episode, so have a look. (Most of the episode assumes that you have seen the film since there are a lot of serious spoilers that will take away from the movies intended unfolding as you view… There are mild spoilers in the form of general discussion about the film to start, and then Hal stops and warns you that we’re going deeper into the details.)

The embed is below, and then after that I say a few spoiler-y things to end this post:

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Still…

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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…).

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The other day I went comfortably old school, pencil […] Click to continue reading this post →

(Dry) Watercolour

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watercolour_share_26_oct_2016All 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 →

Relaxin’…

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relaxin_panel_share

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…
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Kitchen Design…

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(Click for larger view.)
sample_panel_dialogues_19_09_2016Apparently 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 →

Find Your Fair…

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county_fair_panels_shareThis 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 →