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Episode 4 Commentary – On the Road

The really hard part about making something that needs to be written, drawn, colored and scripted every week is that I don’t get much time off.  Even when I travel, I need to keep working on Petra’s Call.

my desk

I’ve got a pretty solid routine and a great set-up at home. I sit down every morning at 5AM (yes, you heard correctly) in front of my Cintiq and I work for 2 hours and then pick up additional work sometimes in the evenings.  With the Cintiq I get to draw right on the screen – it’s great, I love it to bits.

But when I hit the road, I have to leave the Cintiq at home and swap out to a Wacom Intuos.  The tablets are about the same size as my 15″ Macbook Pro, so it all packs up quite nicely.   Working with the Intuos on the road was proving to be a bit slower than my Cintiq, which was frustrating.

I eventually figured out that it wasn’t the tablet that was slowing me down but it was the hot keys, always reaching up to my laptop keyboard took me out of the zone. Now my tiny little bluetooth Apple keyboard hits the road with me. It might seem like overkill, but Photoshop hotkeys are my best friend.
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Top 5 purchases from Comic-Con 09

For Comic-Con 2009 I made myself a promise: if i can purchase a book/DVD/toy/t-shirt at a local store, I will not buy that item at Comic-Con, regardless of how good the deal is.

My goal was to get things I can only get at Comic-Con. It’s all too easy to get sucked in the 50% off graphic novel bins and waste what is the world’s best opportunity to discover new creators and their work.

This meant that a LOT of my comic-con time was spent with exploring Artist’s Alley and the small/indy press areas and picking up things I wouldn’t get any where else.

My luggage was full on the return trip (so full, I had to give some stuff to a friend to fly back for me), so it wasn’t easy picking a top 5, but here they are:

Pancratia

#5 Pancratia by Ryan Benjamin

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EP 3 Commentary – Drawing Dinosaurs is Hard

Drawing Dinosaurs is Hard

In art school, you do a lot of figure drawing. A LOT of figure drawing. You start to figure out the human body, how feet work, how legs bend, the rough shape of a head. You figure it out because you do it all the time.

15 years after finishing art school, and not drawing a heck of a lot during those 15 years, I was rusty, but the days upon days of figure drawing are still in my system.

The thing we didn’t do a lot of in art school was dinosaur drawing. There was a dino-skeleton in the Biology building and one day we all went to the atrium to draw from reference. All of the nerds immediately sized up the big old skeleton. After 5 minutes of drawing dino bones, most people gave up and moved onto drawing a plant or turtle… I pushed through and tried to draw the damned thing, ribs and teeth and all.

The drawing was horrible.

After my miserable failure, I returned to the Biology building a few times to draw from that monster, but it always sucked.

At the time I was drawing every day – and mostly people. I would draw people waiting for the bus, on the bus, in class, in the lounge, in restaurants, everywhere. I was pretty happy drawing people.

Then the t-rex stepped in. And damn it all, I never could get that skeleton to look remotely good.

Now, for better or worse, I’m climbing back on that horse.

There are going to be a lot of dinosaurs in Petra’s Call. One is even going to be an important character. It’s not going to be easy, and at times, it won’t be pretty, but I’m taking this one on.

Chasing down your demons, even from 15 years ago, is hard, but what really scares me is when I have to draw robots, and then have the robot fight dinosaurs… While it’ll be super awesome and fun when it’s done, sitting down to actually draw it scares the crap out of me.

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Back from San Diego – Top 5 Things to Remember at Comic-Con

Ah, San Diego Comic-Con.

Inspiring and tiring. I met so many new friends, bought a TON of art books and t-shirts (more Top 5 posts from Comic-Con will be coming through the week) and I actually managed to get some work done on Petra’s Call during the trip, including some drawing on the plane (turbulence + Wacom tablet = [sad face])

    Top 5 Things to Remember at Comic-Con:

– Buy water and food at a grocery store, not on the floor (it’s expensive and sucks)

– Line-ups and crowds are a fact of life at Comic-Con. Going to comic-con and complaining about line-ups is like going on a cruise and complaining about water.

– The iPhone Comic-Con app is the best thing EVAR. Even if you aren’t there, it’ll help you search for twitters so you can vicariously be at Comic-Con.

– 99% of pros at Comic-Con are normal people – don’t be afraid to say hi (the remaining 1% are total nutters though – be afraid, very afraid.)

– Don’t be distracted by 50% discount bins – Did you spend over $2000 on flights, hotels and food to save a few hundred dollars on graphic novels?