Must be the season of the witch

I whipped this story fragment out after looking at a binder-paper comic page a student drew (Thanks SG). Blue crayola pencila and an ink-filled Pentel AquaBrush, colors in PS.

Jungle Red Line

Sometimes the hardest thing is just to overcome an artistic block or to tackle a project out of the gnawing unease that it won’t turn out as planned. I wanted to draw a sequential page (or more) but the stories that I had in my mental queue weren’t inspiring me to act. I needed something to get the artistic ball rolling so I decided to take a more free-form tack. I drew the first thing that came to mind ( a tropical river ravine ) and asked myself “What next?”. It turns out there’s  a guy in there ready to run and cannonball into the river below. Where did he come from? Why is he there? What happens next? These are all questions to explore. Instant story starter!

Green Ghost Classic

Looking through old sketchbooks I ran across several 1-page Green Ghost stories I drew 4 or 5 years ago. I wrote out the script and then did some thumbnails before doing the full-sized pages. All the inking was done with sharpie markers. Not archival I know. I was going for clear storytelling and speed rather than perfection of line. Usually it’s the idea of a story that is most appealing and too much artistic pressure can kill some of the joy of drawing.

It was a good decision. I was able to crank the pages fairly quickly for a self-imposed deadline. There are a few things that I notice construction-wise that are a little nutty, some odd tangents, but the gags are pretty straightforward (except for the last one, the punchline of which is mysteriously absent—where’s the ON button?).

Which one do you like best (or hate the least)?

The Premiere

I have a lot of stories bouncing around in my head. I usually try to jot them down immediately in a nearby sketchbook for later development. Sometimes they become a poem, a song, a short story, an illustration, or comic. In this case, I created a storyboard for a short film (could live action, could be animated). I had alot of fun working on this idea. It has a wide range of emotions and some nice acting moments. It works great in pantomime. It’s also the first time I’ve used a female protagonist. Enjoy.

Green Ghost in the Shell

I was doodling around and thought it would be funny to see Green Ghost in Iron-manish armor.

Storyboard Roughs

I’ve been working on storyboarding a well-known folktale. Here are a few of the board roughs in pencil. I’m thinking of reworking them in Photoshop. I would really covet some constructive feedback from those of you in the know.

Runaway Sequentials . . .

I started some quick, vertical-panel roughs. It’s interesting constraining narrative panels this way as opposed to landscape rectangles. Since the action takes place in an alley, the narrow panels add to the tension and claustrophobia. When I get the chance I’ll try some digital inking in Illustrator.

New Labsquad Page

I sketched this page out pretty quickly yesterday, did a quick ink job with my ink-filled Niji and slapped on some color in Photoshop. Writing out the scene definitely gave me focus, although the real test will come on the next pages since they will have more varied content from panel to panel.

Inked Labsquad page

I inked the Labsquad page with new ink-filled, Niji waterbrush pen. I hope it lasts a long time. The time I save not filling up the brush is worth the 7 bucks I paid at Ye Large Arte Store Chain. That pesky last panel (where did I put that thing …)

Mystery Sequential

This is a sequential I painted a few years ago. I like the story idea and the fact that the characters were geometric shapes. 5 Labsquad points to whoever can guess what the story is.