PRISON PLANET GO BYE BYE

I have been waiting to blow up Prison Planet since page 1. So I was rather relieved when Page 30 of HUZZAH!! presented itself with the opportunity to do just that (even though technically its just the Prison Planet part and not Voldar itself that blows up).

THE SECRET OF VOLDAR

My latest HUZZAH!!'s are up. The idea for the look of the Voldarians came from talking to Rob Davis who'd mentioned a design he had in his sketchbook of an race of Hairy-angler faced fish aliens with old men's heads instead of lights. I figured that at this point the secret of Voldar had to really be a lot more than just the Uroborus child and figured on the planet of Voldar itself actually being the prisoner given the events of chapter 5. So now the concept of a prison planet isn't so much a planet full of convicts but a restraining device that coats and existing planet in an artificle surface. The silos you see from page 1 onward are essentially gigantic restraining bolts dotted all over the prison planet's surface.

DAVE GIBBONS USING MANGA STUDIO!!

Dave Gibbons with a demonstration of how he uses Manga Studio.
(cheers to Faz for the heads up)

WE INTERUPT THIS PROGRAMME TO BRING YOU --

I absolutely love this track and was delighted to hear it being used as the title track for Stewart Lee's new series "Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle". It was an international hit for Elias and his Zig Zag Jive Flutes back in 1958.

SPACE OPERATIC

New to STRANGE PLANET? Not aware of HUZZAH!!? Click the picture! NOW!!!

DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING ON THE TELEPHONE

A detail from my latest HUZZAH!! This latest page introduces a new character called Bohaan Vlax.

ICE COLD HUZZAH!!

Drawing a winter scene is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Anyway my latest HUZZAH!! is up, and here's a detail from it. Main idea behind this page was that after all the orange hues of the previous pages I wanted something cold, though, as you'll see by reading it here, things soon warm up again.

HUZZAH!! DISSECTED!!

Just finished my second full page HUZZAH!! contribution this week and I thought I'd take the time to make more of a record of the process, taking desktop snapshots as the thing took shape.

So... I had an idea. With the previous page I briefly mentioned Pample's past and his dealings with those monkey mobsters. With this page I wanted to pick up the thread from where Paul left off on panel 3 of page 15 and pick up my own thread from the previous page and use page 17 to explain how these characters came together, while also laying out what's potentially to come. I also wanted to use the talking stone device (an idea thrown into the ring by Rob Davis). This would be the first time I'd drawn my 'featuring' character Zhadira since page 1.

I decided to start with a script for a change, something I rarely do when working on HUZZAH!! unless I've got a lot a character needs to say and I need to say it in as few words as possible. It's sort of an oblique strategy of mine. If I'm having trouble writing something I often change how I write it just to get it written. Synopses for example - I always find those things devilishly hard to write in a word document. If however I'm writing an email to my friend and telling them about the story, suddenly I'm way more succinct and clearer about what I'm wanting to say (note: when you speak to a friend you're informal, the pressure's off) - so I shut down whatever word document I'm writing in and open up email and write the synopsis in that. Just a change of surroundings as it were unblocks me and away I go. Totally psychological I know, but it works for me. But hey, next time you're stuck trying to write something, consider dusting off the old typewriter in the attic, or writing what you want to say on post-it notes, or consider who you're addressing and email a friend. You might find that that unblocks the thought process for you.

So I knew what I wanted to say on this page, but my usual method of drawing thumbnails with little balloons sprouting off wasn't working. So I hit the keys. And here's the script for page 17. It's actually plotted out into three plate chunks. Even though I'm writing and drawing a full page, I try to break things down into three tier beats.

And from here we go to thumbnails. Sometimes I draw all over the script, in the case of working on Holmes I have a moleskine I draw in as followers of this blog will know, but in the case of Huzzah!! I opened up a page in Manga Studio and roughly worked out my layout for the story like so:

I took all the text I'd written in the script and made rough word balloons for them on one layer and then placed those balloons approximately where I intended them to be. And then I roughly sketched out the layout, very loosely. At this point really I'm considering composition and how to balance the pictures against the text. Once I'd got that all down I took a second pass at it on separate layer like so:

And what this second stage of roughs is is really just a chance to fill in any details I felt I hadn't figured out properly on the first stage. It's a hybrid stage layout and part pencils. Not really one nor the other. After this I would start inking so any information I didn't feel was enough to start inking with would be filled in to help me along my way. They're not 'full' pencils in any sense because I'm not conveying information for anybody but myself. If this were a pencil stage done for someone else there would be way more information, but as it's just for me...

... I started inking:

There were several layers of inks at work here. The suns were all put on a separate layer because I knew they'd be a colored line - in fact any lines that are colored lines are inked on separate layers just to make like easier when it comes to coloring. So the suns and the orb the Baron is holding are inked on separate layers. There's no order to how I drew this page. I started with panel 6, then five then 2, then 4 then 3 and so on. Going for whatever felt easiest, till in the end the job was done.

Next we have shadows.

We have three lights sources on this page. The seven suns (which combine as one light source as they set), the glow from the orb and the inside of Durante's vac suit. The shadow layer was split into two. There's a darker shadow layer for metal edges, like the side of The Baron's helmet and the side of Durante's vac suit just to give it added definition and then there's the main shadow layer which picks up the highlights on the faces and clothes. I used this layer to really accentuate the lines in the Baron's face - details like that.

Finally, with my inks done, my shadow layers done etc... lettering.

The tails were drawn on a separate layer - Manga Studio does have a feature that adds tails to word balloons, as it does for making the balloons in the first place but I chose here to draw my own tails. I started out with this lightining zig-zags for the Baron's speech balloons and the rest sort of followed suit along that same line of thinking. Also, the balloons I used I made myself - the only preset was the Eldar speech balloon which is a modified version of a balloon called 'insecure' which comes with Manga Studio. Manga studio rather niftly allows you to create your own which atomatically scale to whatever text is contained within.

So we're done with this stage, goodnight Manga studio. Next, color.

Here's a version of the finished page without the panel grid and lettering. Because of the shadow layer in Manga studio, most of the work is done here. I shifted the oppacity on the shadow layer to around 43% and then got to work on flat color fills underneath. I took my palette cues from earlier contributions, like the light inside Durante's vac suit being pink etc. And really the rest was all mix and match until something didn't make my eyes bleed. Job done.

For the finished thing, click here.

NEW HUZZAH!!

Just finished my latest HUZZAH!! contribution. Click on the image to jump to light speed...

4 FEET FROM A RAT

Friday the 13th. Unlucky for some. But for me it was a day of fun stuff arriving in the post. Not only did I get my comps copies of Dark Horse Presents Vol. 2, but I also got my comps copy of 4 Feet from a Rat from Mam Tor (which was a Time Out comic supplement), for whom I drew a three page story called 'Life on the Road' back in November.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES IS DONE!

Finished The Hound of the Baskervilles today. Finally done. The panel is apt because of what Sherlock is saying (you'll have to read the book to find out). The book's out in May - you can pre-order it in the sidebar on your left. Tomorrow I start work on 'A Study in Scarlet', the first four pages of which will be appearing in the back of Baskervilles, and I'll keep updating this blog with glimpses from that.

(The Hound of the Baskervilles © 2009 SelfMadeHero)

THE CONVICT PART 2

(The Hound of the Baskervilles © 2009 SelfMadeHero)

Very very busy. Baskervilles is almost finished. 'A Study in Scarlet' starts this weekend with four pages and then I have a week off. Lots of research ahead of me for The Country of the Saints. Really am looking forward to that. Should be fun. That's the nice thing about this job - in all its various stages there's always something for me to look forward to.

You can see the thumbnail for this panel here.

No small amount of thanks goes to my dear friend Colin Fawcett, without whom this last week would have been a real struggle. He helped me enormously with my 'flats' and also guided me to this rather superb photoshop plug in which is a real time saver. Follow the link for more of an explanation as to what 'flats' or 'flatting' is.

Thank you also to Brian Sibley for awarding this blog an Premio Dardos Award. Enormously appreciated!

DARK HORSE PRESENTS VOL. 2

Dark Horse Presents Vol. 2 is out! It features a story I did with Ian Edginton (Edginton on words, me on pictures) last year called Retro Rockets Go! So if you want it in print form so you can read it in the bath, you can buy a copy here.

HOLMES STRETCH

(The Hound of the Baskervilles © 2009 SelfMadeHero)

Cock the hammer, it's time for action!

YOU WILL NEVER BREAK ME, CAPTAIN BAMULA

I should have blogged this days ago, but this week has probably been the most hectic on Holmes. HUZZAH!! keeps on rolling and at a fair old pace. It's not even February and already we're on Page 9. Exciting times. Go check it out! Rob Davis has just started a new chapter - 'The Claws of Xog', which introduces the wonderful Baron Kazam!

THE CONVICT

SHERLOCK THUMBS THE HEMINGWAY AND GRACE UNDER PRESSURE

(Thumbnail roughs for pages 40-47 by me
The Hound of the Baskervilles © 2009 SelfMadeHero)

When I started 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' I rushed out and bought a Moleskine (mol-a-skeen'-a) notebook. I've always wanted a Moleskine notebook but never been brave enough to draw in one. I usually work on loose sheets of office paper. As I've scribbled furiously over the past few months I've come to suspect that the reason I draw in blue pencil and the reason I wouldn't normally dare draw in Moleskine notebooks is because I have commitment issues when it comes to drawing. I can screw up a sheet of office paper, I don't have to scar a sketchbook by tearing out a page. And drawing with blue pencil, well, there's always been something less permanent about blue pencil over regular HB graphite. If you rub out blue pencil you still see the trace of your mistakes, but its not the horrible gray mess that graphite leaves behind (no matter how good your rubber is). And besides, its blue, and as all sensible boys know, blue's the best color there is. So that's the theory.

'Hound' from about forty pages onward has been scribbled in my blessed Moleskine notebook. As Holmes would correctly deduce, it took me till page forty to brave it. I didn't throw off all my clothes and rush head long into the roaring surf. I daintily dipped my toe. But hey, no turning back now.

I draw a cross in the center of the page and then allocate a page to each quarter giving me an eight page overview across two notebook pages (as above). I then scan these pages in their respective segments and import them into Manga Studio. I then roughly layout the lettering and work my pencil up accordingly - I figure out all my composition at this stage. After I have rough pencils I finish off the lettering with speech balloons and then return to ink the page.

I divide up my concentration throughout the art process. I don't work everything out at the pencil stage. I work briskly at this stage because I keep to mind that all I need is a roughly plotted course. So onward I go. I don't hang about because I know that I can come back to it at the inking stage and everything wrong will be right again. It's something to look forward to.

Inking can sometimes be equal parts tedium and joy. Tedium when you've plotted that course all too well in the pencil stage and the imagination at this point is sitting there in the back of my skull like some over-excited dog wondering why we've suddenly stopped playing. And joy when I find those parts of the drawing where I couldn't be bothered to figure them out at the time. Which is why, when I'm working to a tight deadline, inking is never tedious.

It's a golden rule. If I get stuck I don't stop. This is where the eight page overview comes into play. I know what's happening over the next eight pages. It's not un-navigated ocean. I know where be monsters. So if ever over those eight pages I get stuck I move on to the next panel. A panel I can draw. The complicated drawing gets thrown to the over-excited dog at the back of my skull like scraps from the kitchen table, and by the time I've finished drawing the easy panel, the panel I can draw, the problem returns to me magically resolved and I return to the panel I couldn't draw earlier and the sated over-excited dog takes a quiet nap.

It's then a quick export into Photoshop where I color the page up, re-apply the lettering with live type and that's that. Job done. Off it goes to my dear old chums in London town, to SelfMadeHero, where the book is laid out and proofed before it undergoes any revisions and finally goes off to the printers and hits the shelves in May!*

*The latter part of this process I greatly underestimate because by this point I'll be rushing headlong into the roaring surf and scribbling frantic thumbnails in my Moleskine for the next Sherlock Holmes adaptation Edginton and I are undertaking - A Study in Scarlet (due out in October this year).

THE GHOST OF A ROSE

My latest contributions to HUZZAH!! are on the HUZZAH!! blog, so go check them out.

AN EVENING IN

(The Hound of the Baskervilles © 2009 SelfMadeHero)

THE SIX-FINGERED MAN

It's been a hectic week so I've not been able to post. I had a solid week slated for coloring which meant blocking out the light to my room and working through night and through day. I do not exaggerate when I say my eyes now look like red onions. Alright, I am exaggerating and they don't look like red onions, but a day or two ago they did look like Christopher Lee's eyes in Dracula. Is one eye being more bloodshot than the other a fair indicator of which eye works harder than the other? I have my suspicions. Thankfully that boat load of work is done and a good solid chunk of Baskervilles is in the bag.

Onward.

Yesterday, whilst drawing Baskervilles, I drew the six-fingered man. A deliberate mistake, an Easter egg for my father-in-law to find. After he read The Picture of Dorian Gray I received a full report including notes. Bless! (he thought he'd found an anachronism but fortunately was mistaken). So I thought it only fair to now include 'the six-fingered man' in every book I do.

The six-fingered man originally appeared in a "Hornby Dublo" catalogue (1957) which he (the father-in-law), owns. It's a great picture of a father pointing at a railway set (I think the father's even smoking a pipe - that memory might be distorted - he's a very Church of the Sub Genius sort of father), only the artist has over compensated on the digits and the father has an extra finger. He (the father-in-law), loves this picture because its wrong. And so there you have it, the origins of the six-fingered man.

Right then. I've got pages to draw. I better be off.

(The Hound of the Baskervilles © 2009 SelfMadeHero)