Production blog 18

Hello and welcome to my last Hero Chick Production blog. As you've probably guessed, I've finished up issue #3 and it's off to the printers. I'm sorry it's been a while since I wrote one of these but I was in a mad dash to get the book done on time for it to be ready at the Long Beach Comic Expo on May 11.  Also the pages I was producing where full of spoilers and we wouldn't want to see those now would we. Maybe I'll make a process book and put it up on my deviantart after the book is out. 

But there's one more thing to talk about when it comes to a comic and that's the cover. So for this final Production blog we're gonna talk about designing the cover....

Production blog 17

Hey Everybody. Well good news I'm almost done with the pages for issue 3. Every page of the book is now started, I only have to finish four pages, do some touch ups and re draw a panel where I made Drew walk in a physically impossible way. Then the cover and then print. Unless I screw up royally I'll have issue #3 at the Long beach Comic Expo May 11. Now I recently finished a part of the book that I can't show you. But I'm now doing a part that comes earlier, which has one of my long time nemeses
Crowd Scenes...

Production Blog 16.

Hey everybody...

Well I've been keeping busy. Just more of the same. This book should be finishing up soon. Not much really to talk about, so I'll just get to the pictures.

Actually I'll use this time to let you know about my convention schedule. So far I have confirmed the Long Beach Comic Expo on May 11 2013. And the Long Beach Comic Con on November 23-24. And I hope to get a table at the Comikaze expo.  

Also I'm getting to the ending of this story, so I'll have to not post one of these for a little while, don't want to spoil it.

Production blog 15

Hello Everybody. Well I'm still trucking along on the third issue of "The Super Cliche Hero Chick" And Finally there is an end in sight. I'm now drawing the finale of the fight, I do however have one more major scene to finish after that. There really is nothing much to say at this point except, I'm still drawing and I will get it out on time for the Long Beach One Day Comic Expo.

So I decided to talk about the end of project malaise. One thing no one tells you when you get a how to draw comics book is just how much work one of these thing is. And more so how repetitive it is. You really do end up drawing the same thing over and over again. At recent count I've drawn my character Alice 72 times (on panel I'm not counting the sketches or separating pencils and inks). Luckily I have the disposition for it. I really don't mind doing this sort of repetitive work. Some of my artist friends however have said that it would drive them mad.

That said, usually around the end of a project (though sometimes in the middle) I start to get a real boredom with the work and the work slows. Of course taking a break is not really an option, these things need to get done. And while I'm not putting out a monthly I like to have something new for each portion of the convention year. So this is where making comics really becomes work. I as an artist have to keep myself from getting bored, and more important keep that ever necessary sense of momentum.

How I tend to do this is by succumbing to my shortened attention span constructively. I do this by working out of sequence. As you know I've been doing this book scene by scene out of sequence. But when I'm working on a page and get bored I'll start another, then when I'm bored with that go back to the previous, or start yet another page (though I do cap it at three pages at a time). This keeps the process fun for me and it also keeps the pen moving. When I'm not feeling it There's always lettering to be done. When I'm tired of coming up with pencils, I often start to ink. Even when a page isn't finished, some part of it is.

This is how I keep my Momentum and over come the end of project malaise. 

And now the pretty pictures.....

Production Blog 14

Hello all.

I've been working pretty full tilt on the book since we last talked. And haven't really been able to keep up to date with this blog.

I've been plowing my way through the fight scene, keeping with the two to three pages at a time work schedule.

There really aren't any neat stories to tell  about any of this except I recently finished the last two panels of an earlier page that I put off  because they had part of the fight scene in them. So it was kind of nice seeing where I was then as opposed to now. Well. now on to the purdy pictures.

As always from this point on....

SPOILER WARNING. 

production blog 13

Sorry I've been away so long, went off to visit my friend Dr Jigga Who and I learned that when he tells you to not press the red button on the quasi quantum time dilation generator.... don't. but anywhoo I'm back and I'm hitting the pages so much so I'm having a hard time remembering to take pictures and post them.

I'm at the fight scene now and am working on two to three pages at a time. I've found that in the action bits it keeps my energy up. It also keeps continuity easier.

Another problem has arisen while writing these Production blogs. I'm now getting into spoilerey territory. For a while I was redacting the parts of the image that would spoil things but that was driving me insane. so I decided instead to place all the spoilery stuff after the jump. Don't worry I'm still withholding really important pages. But you just got yourselves a SPOILER WARNING.

SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP.

Production Blog 12

Well I hope you enjoyed your holiday gift, and now it's back to my normal blog.

I've really gotten myself back into the swing of things. The exposition pages are now all done so now it's on to the big actions scenes. Sadly this also means we're getting into spoilery territory so I will probably be a bit less forward with the pics I post and there will be mosaics and blurs from now on.

Production Blog 11 Holiday Edition

Hello Again. Well it's looking like these things are coming out on Mondays instead of the intended Fridays. But here we go. Well I've continued working on the pages that I wrote about last week and I've finished a couple but this week I wanna talk about the Christmas card.

Ever since 2004 I've made a "Christmas card" for my comic as a little something for the people kind enough to read it. And this year was my first card to feature the characters from my new comic The Super Cliche Hero Chick. 

More after the Jump...

Production Blog 10

The Marker Experiment

Sorry I missed last week between Thanksgiving and an involuntary trip to the Negative Zone. I've been AFK for a bit. But I'm back so here I am. Well during the last two weeks I've really gotten back to work, starting on Four pages a drawing and my Christmas card. Due to Hand pain from caulking and painting my dad's storage shed I mostly worked in pencil only recently have I started inking. I'm working all Four pages at once so none are complete yet but they will all be done soon.

As for the Drawing I've begun a working with grey markers. Thank you Copic promo at LBCC. And I've been Experimenting with Photoshop colour "washes" over them the results look promising. "why are you wasting your time with this" I hear you ask. Well my straw friend I'm hoping this will become a new way that I can do my cover Illustrations.

Production blog 9

Hello. Not much to say this week so I'll keep it short. This page which has occupied me for this week and much of last is a interpolated scene, which plays a pivotal point in the narrative that is why I've redacted the <redacted> and the <redacted> that it produces. but if you really wanna know what <redacted> does. I probably have posted an image where I didn't redact <redacted> or what it produces.

Well enough of that silliness. I will be moving on to the bigger scenes of the book now including the action. So things should be speeding up soon.

This page also marks the first in book appearance of Dr Mishlov the self proclaimed nemesis of Hero Chick. She has already appeared however in the first set of Interwebz Adventures of Hero Chick 

instead of giving you my normal pretty pictures. I've decided to give you the progress of a single panel after the jump.   

production blog 8

We do it with SCIENCE!

Hello sorry I didn't post last week I was real busy and I had F'all to post.

Well I've gotten started on a one page scene, and I've taken my time with it (aka been faffing about) but I got some good looking stuff on it. I won't get to much this weekend as I'll be at the Long Beach Comic and Horror Con.

I also have been designing a new character for the upcoming fourth issue of The Super Cliche Hero Chick. I'll go more in depth on that after She's introduced.
well that's all for now so here's some Purdy Pictures.

Production blog 7.

Not much to say this week except I finally, finally got past the first scene. Between work and other BS I could never seem to get any sort of flow with this scene. Well here's to hoping that I can get into a groove on the next group of pages.

In other news. I've gotten some notes on the next stories from Ruben, and we're steadily progressing into the writing of the future issues.

So not much this week so here's some pretty pictures.

Production Blog 6

Well Sadly Not much to post this week between other obligations and a crippling malaise, I haven't been able to get much done on the book. Not that I haven't been working, it's just I haven't been working enough. I'm still on the same pages as last week. And I'm hoping to get them finished this weekend. Not much more to tell so enjoy these pretty pictures.

Production Blog 5

Well not much to say this week. I'm started on the next scene. Which is oddly enough the first scene of the book. It also marks the first time in the series that all three of the main characters have been on panel together with the first real appearance of Erin (she featured as the Innocent bysatander in issue one's back page funnies.)

Unfortunatley I'm suffering from Comic Page ADD. Akin to writers block, Comic page ADD is my term for when I can't keep focused on a single page for a length of time. it usually stems from boredom, fear of a panel or background, or too much caffene. My cure for Comic Page ADD? I work on more than  one page at once. And when I  get a bit of a block on pencilling I letter or ink what has been done. Because when your working on a Comic or a picture book. The most important thing is to keep the pen moving. If you're not working on that book everyday you're hosed.

Well that's this week and I have some pretty pictures for you. Thanks.

Erin Makes her appearance

Production Blog 4

Gus

Well the hangover from Comikaze lasted a bit longer than I'd like. and I started no new pages this week. However I did finish all of the pages I had in progress. So the first full scene (though it will be 'intercut' with the big fight scene) of the book has been finished. As well as that I did a lot of design work on the characters that hadn't been fleshed out the Monster and the two blokes. 

Production Blog 3

 Hello Again. Last weekend I didn't work on Issue three. Because I was at Stan Lee's Comickaze! The con was a lot of fun and I sold pretty well for me, better yet everyone who bought seemed to really like the book's idea. But it was the biggest con that I've ever done, so I was in survival mode for about half of Sunday. I literally can't remember much of what happened after 1:00 PM.

Anywhoo...

Production blog 2

 Here we go week two. I got three pages started and one finished. It's not unusual for me to work up multiple pages at once, keeps things fresh and the continuity good. All in all it was going good until I spilt coffee on one of the pages.

And the page was going so well too. So yesterday instead of Finishing a second page I was light boxing the good bits onto a new board and starting over. the good news, the lettering looks better. Well, that's all for me this week! see ya next Friday.

Production Blog 1

click to embiggen

Welcome to my first production blog for "The Super Cliche Hero Chick #3". This week I began work on my first page of the story. However it is not the first page of the book. That's right I'm doing the book out of sequence. The reason I'm doing it this way is so that I can get a better consistency with each setting and group of characters. For instance scenes set in the lab will all be drawn together, thus the lab will look the same in all of them because I'll be drawing it all at the same time. It's kind of like how a movie will film all of it's scenes on one set then move on to the next. I've done it before back on Neuropsychosis, but stopped when it became a twice a week web comic. I'm glad to be doing things this way again. of course the key to doing things this way is to have a tight script and thumbnail sketches. For info on that see the prologue.

The Hero Chick Production Blog: Prologue

I find that when I'm working on my comics I neglect my blog. I know all three of you are saddened beyond belief. Silliness aside I really do try to keep writing something on this thing just to keep up my writing skills at the very least.  So what I've decided to do, is make a production blog following the creation of "The Super Cliche Hero Chick #3". That way I'll be motivated to keep moving on the project and keep the Wonderblog active. I plan to update every Friday night, but may post on Saturday if schedule doesn't permit. Next week due to my appearance at the Comickaze Expo (Sept.15-16 at the LA convention center), I'll be posting on Thursday (Sept. 13). However since I decided to do this only when I'm starting on the artwork. I noticed it would skip an important part of the process, the writing. That's the purpose of this prologue.

I decided to do something new that I have never done before with Hero Chick #3. Write a good comic! Actually, it was taking on a co writer, my cousin Ruben. I wanted from the beginning to be open to collaboration on this project,  and when I was showing Ruben my stuff while drawing the first issue I noticed he had ideas for the book and not just ideas of the "hey I got an idea" variety that every writer hates to hear, but good ideas that gave me ideas. So at our niece's birthday I asked Ruben if He'd like to be a part of Team Hero Chick*