Mandatory Friday blog post

EDIT: Okay here's a thing. First page of my international exhibition submission. I finished the pencils yesterday morning and got started on the inks, but I ran into several problems.

1. Although I tried my best to not touch it, the denril seems to have been soiled in a few places. This of course means that ink won't stick to it. So I ordered some drafting powder on the interbutt. Also some thin cotton gloves so i don't have to tape paper to my hands.

2. My ink is garbage. I ordered some pelikan drawing ink on the interbutt.

3. Actually those are the only problems.

I expedited the packages so hopefully they'll get to me before tuesday...but probably not. So until them I'm just working on the pencils. I laid out and sketched a bit of the second page, but I'm getting antsy and bored now so I think I'll go for a run. I think it's good that I got these issues sorted out right now.

This is actually a mirrored image. And its blurry.

Also I loved the season premiere of Grey's.

Hey world. This is a stand in to say, hay, I have nothing to show right now and probably won't by noon tomorrow. I am going to the studio (i accidently typed stupid more than once there...hmm.) in the afternoon sometime probably after i have my gym time and breakfast and coffee and sort myself into a real person again. Augh I'm tired.

Inspiraitchun

So my fancy, aluminum, super-sleek keyboard for my new-ish imac lost its ability to properly express the "u". Hmmm yes. So I'm on my more-than-four-years old Macbook Pro, which is sans battery, has an itty-bitty screen, and is covered in stickers that thoroughly define my identity. I was full of woe until I was reminded of the desktop image I left it with months and months ago:

As you've already assumed, I am now delighted.

Sooo....inspira-tron. I guess, since I'm writing and illustrating a comic, I should start with some of those.

It is likely that Bone will always be on the top of my list as far as comics go. There is so much to love- The black and white, the mastery of line, the characters, the setting. It is exciting, suspenseful, funny, and...I guess I'll say it...heartwarming. It is not all I aspire to be, but it's a lot. I owned it for a long time before I cracked it open and spent one glorious weekend with it. It's one of those books I wish I hadn't read, so I could read it again.

Oh it's so obvious that I would pick Blankets, isn't it. But you know, I had avoided reading it for something like 6 years because its cover makes it look like namby-pamby-lovey indie garbage. But I was at the library the other week, and thought, oh well, it's not going to kill me. And then I loved it. Definitely not because of the story. I think that's for two reasons...one, I'm tired of the inevitable incident of molestation I will encounter in an autobiographical comic. Two, I've never suffered a crisis of faith. But the gestures are beautiful. Every page is perfect and inventive. I ate this one right up because of that, even though the story made me go "Ack."

Okay yeah I know I talked a ton about Asterios already. But seriously, look at this page. It is undeniably beautiful, inventive, and funny! This comic is so darn complete. The colors are all incredible, the character design is clean and specific, and, oh, they act like real people. Which is almost unheard of in comics. If. you. ask. me. The only thing it's lacking is real... entertainment value for us youngins. It's hard to get excited about a story involving an old asshole and his nigh-submissive ex-wife. But it's really beautifully told, all the same.

Next subject...the cinema! Mostly I want to talk about strong, interesting, realistic(which typically means completely unlikeable) characters, tension, and time travel!

Characters first. Here are my favorites, all of them taken from movies written by Charlie Kaufman...

Oh my God, I love Nicolas Cage. Please don't tell anyone. In Adaptation he plays Charlie Kaufman and Charlie Kaufman's fictional twin brother Donald. Obviously as far as character realism goes, Kaufman is cheating a little by basing him on a real...himself. But...he's still my favorite fictional person ever. He is fat and awful and just so totally wrapped up in his own integrity. I mean, he's indescribable. And I've never felt such a kinship with anyone, real or imagined...or both, in this case, I guess. I just want to write people like Kaufman can. Flawed and awkward and selfish...John Cusack in Being John Malkovich.

Oh just watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkNJU77eglo

Oh, and I've never found a more realistic depiction of a long term relationship than Joel and Clementine's in Eternal Sunshine. Just everything. They don't have clever, bouncy, funny dialogue. They interrupt each other, they say things they don't mean, they start fights with each other over the dumbest things. Clementine is just...so obnoxious, Joel blah blah blah you get my point, I'm tired. Moving on.

Tension. I dig it. I wish I could come up with a more clever example than The Prestige but I can't right now and don't especially feel like it.

Time Travel!! Here are my favorite time travel movies:

Oh My God this poster, what a mess. You can't read the text in the middle at all..and what is this movie about? You guessed it...whales. I'm not kidding.

Despite these two gems being my favorites, I wouldn't model my story after anything from either of them. Now, here is a movie that does time travel right:

Somehow it manages to be a completely realistic depiction of two friends that build time machines and then use them to win money during March Madness. I THINK. They don't exactly hand the plot right over to you. You have to watch this movie several times and then wikipedia it to figure out what really happened. But it's quiet and lovely and twisted. Made for $7k! So yeah, if there's anything that inspires the time-travel aspect of my story, it's this.

Well, that's all.

IP Blog post 2

Interesting title, I know. I don't have many images to put here this week, but let the record show I did write an outline and a little bit of dialogue. It's tougher than I thought it would be.

I also made the decision to go with pure black and white, inserting color strategically...

Anyway, here's some inks I did. Jane was with a #2 brush, Martina was in photoshop (yuck)

Mmmmmm deliciously low-res. Sorry people.

I have a huge urge to do a bunch of random drawings of these two, but at the same time I feel like my creativity needs to be concentrated on more important aspects...Maybe I'll get around to it anyway.

This week I'm working on more character designs, more dialogue, and improving the structure of the story. The story I'm not going to post here for the public to see, because I don't want to ruin it for anybody. I want this blog to be for the visuals of the story only.

First Post of the New Year

So how great was Temple Grandin, right? I wish my mom coulda come.

So I talked a bunch in class, as I like to do...about my project. And I have a bunch of character sketches already. There are 2 central characters, and when I started talking about the project, I randomly started calling them "Martina" and "Jane". The names really stuck, and now I'm keeping them.

I have been drawing Martina a lot, mostly just to see if I can get her look down with real consistency. I think I'm having a lot of luck doing so. She has a really plushy, round chin and messed up teeth and a sharply angled upper lip. I wanted her to look relatively attractive, but not perfect-comic book-female-attractive. I drew a million faces with all different mouths and noses and eyes and head shapes before I arrived at hers. Here's a few(I had to crop some out because my sketchbook is a little damaged from too much love)

So the one I picked is on the top right. I have been simplifying it since I drew this, to make my own life easier and for a more efficient comic output. Since Martina is obsessed with TV and movies, I gave her the Amelie haircut.. because, I mean, what girl doesn't want to be Amelie?

Living in a huge apartment in Monmarte with her waitressing money? Preposterous.

I have 10 minutes to finish this post, so I'm going to stop rambling. Here's Martina in a few random poses:

And here's Jane...she's a masculine dresser.
I am basing her on Charlotte Gainsbourg, who is the shit.

Seriously. Watch Antichrist.

I think for tuesday I'm gonna do some inked and colored character designs, and maybe some colored backgrounds. Yes?

Oh, and, last but not least, here's me and the love of my life: