Sketches

In my experience, you don’t really appreciate how good someone is until you try to do something similar yourself.

Take this comic for instance. I did the actual sketch on paper weeks ago, with the style of Kazu Kibuishi’s, Copper floating around in my head. How hard can it be, right? Coloring everything in on the computer, however, ended up taking a ridiculously long time. I’m not exactly sure why it took so long, but it wasn’t till the end that I began to get any kind of rhythm going. (I totally need a Wacom Tablet!) I’m not even sure I like the final product that much. It was, however, a fun experiment, and a great excuse to draw a cityscape!

Hot tip: Click on the comic to get a larger view that is easier to read.

I can explain. It all started with a swirly texture that I sketched out a few days ago. I had no choice but to scan it in and start playing with it in PhotoShop. Once I came up with a few interesting variations, I thought, “That would make one sweet background for a comic!” Of course I couldn’t stop there, having come so far, so I worked up this scene of Zeke exploring something. How it turned into a book cover is anybody’s guess.

Will there be an actual Detours book rolling off the presses?
I’m not currently at liberty to say… Although I can say this much; it definitely isn’t going to be printed before I actually draw the comic. Pretty sure on that part.

All I’ve got for you so far, are the fragments of my experimental comic.

The problem with Detours is I want to know what happens next. But the only way to find out is to write and draw it myself.

Not gonna do it. Nope. No way. If I keep commenting on the delay between posting new pages this is going to become the official blog of excuses. Of course, it would be nice to have such an archive on hand in case I suddenly need to recycle one…

I felt like drawing a landscape, so here is some gratuitous scenery.

The style shifted slightly on this one. I think I overworked it, and all those lines got kind of busy. Oh well, what do you expect? This is an experimental comic.

Just to keep things rolling…

I’m still toying with contrast. I like some of my earlier pages that used more black. I’ll have to experiment with that some more.

Okay! Okay! I admit my rigorous schedule of posting “whenever I get around to it” has achieved a new level of vague neglect. But it is a new year, and new leaf turned, and a fresh 2.7 WordPress upgrade. (nice refinements to the admin interface) Surely there is no stopping me now! …or something like that. Anyway, here is a long awaited addition to Detours:

Don’t worry, I kind of needed a reminder what was going on too.

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