Digital “pencils” printed onto 11″x17″ vellum bristol. Click on the image to enlarge.
I’ve been inking the cover to the next Long John book and I’ve been trying something brand new with this.
Normally, the creation of the covers has been informal at best and haphazard at worst. The first book’s cover was me taking a drawing I did for a bookmark design that featured half of Long John’s backside. I found the original art, made a copy of it onto printer paper and finished drawing the other half. Volume 2’s cover was a digital drawing of a quick sketch I had made in a sketchbook. Volume 3 was the only one I had actually drawn and inked on full size bristol board (standard comic book paper, in other words). There was some shenanigans, however. The drawing on the 11×17 bristol is just the daguerrotype of the three Johns, including Long John in his old clothes. Then on a separate piece of smaller bristol, I drew the tear with the angry Long John peeking through. I then mixed them together in Photoshop. Volume 4’s cover was just a practice drawing I did one day. Once I finished it I thought, “Heck, that would be a great cover.”
The four covers of Long John so far. Click to enlarge image.
Needless to say, while I tend to be a stickler for how the pages themselves get drawn, I’m much more liberal when it comes to creating the covers.
I’ve been working with the iPad Pro (and the drawing app, Procreate) for about a year, now, and I’m still trying to find the best way to insert it into my process. It has become my preferred method for thumbnailing pages, but it’s such a powerful tool that it seems like it could be much more useful for me.
I have been hearing for years of artists who “pencil” their pages digitally and the print them out in a light blue or red ink and ink over the printed lines. I always doubt the quality of my own equipment, so I figured that would be a good method for someone with really expensive…everything. However, I had been messing with cover ideas digitally, and even considered making the cover completely with digital means. As always, I got frustrated when trying to create a finished piece of art, but I had the worked-out sketch. So, I gave it a try.
I pencilled the cover digitally on the iPad Pro using Procreate. I was able to print them out on some unlined bristol (even if it is vellum bristol, ugh). The results were really impressive.
Inking the pencils. Click on image to enlarge.
I was most interested to see how well the printed lines would take ink (since it had already been printed on), but it hasn’t been an issue at all (aside from the basic issue of it being vellum bristol. Again, ugh)! Honestly, this experiment may have fully changed things for me in terms of process and am excited to do more practice and experimentation with this method. Let’s just hope it scans as well as the blue pencils I use to normally pencil.
Close up on some final inks. Click to enlarge.
As for Chapter 5, I’m deep in the flatting stage right now (as discussed last week) and am trying to get as much done before a lot of work comes in from my day job, work that will keep me occupied for the next few weeks straight. Wish me luck!
Long After Dark by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Image Source: Backstreet Records/MCA Records/Geffen Records
Long After Dark by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
In the summer of 2020, my great Queen listening journey came to a close. It was an invigorating task to listen through a band’s extensive discography on a monthly basis from start to finish. I honestly never thought I’d make it through the entirety of Queen’s catalogue, and when it ended my first thought was, “that was fun,” before thinking, “that was easy.” The last thought I had was “who’s next?”
My Queen journey started because I was challenged as a “real” fan of Queen. However, even by my own metric I wasn’t one; so, I figured I’d make myself one or not. Now that task had ended, I figured I’d reflect on any other musicians I claimed allegiance to but, when inspected closely, I didn’t actually have a strong grasp on. Though a few bands came to mind, I settled on the challenge that I figured would be the most fun: the discography of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (with the solo Tom Petty albums shuffled into the mix).
As of this writing, I am at the tail end of his sadly shortened (but very long) career with a mere two albums remaining: the Heartbreakers’ Mojo (2010) and Hypnotic Eye (2014). Overall, though, bouncing through his catalogue has been a more muted affair than it was with Queen. Queen relished in experimentation and musical diversity, mostly emboldened by the fact that it was a band comprised of four unique songwriters.
Image Source: Backstreet Records/MCA Records/Geffen Records
Tom Petty wrote every song in his catalogue (with only a few exceptions––a lot of co-writes and very few covers), so there isn’t a lot of surprise along the way. The worst comment I can make about an album is that it “sounds like a Tom Petty album.” Before I attract undue ire, Tom Petty’s worst is better than many bands’ best.
Even with the albums I haven’t cared for as much, they are still packed with jangly guitars and hummable melodies that dig into your brain, popping back out when you least expect them to. Bland or rocking, profound or superficial, Tom Petty never really wrote a bad song, and that is what comes through the most as I walk through his career. But there is a sameness which has colored some listening experiences, even though it has me tapping my foot with every song along the way.
As I near the end, the album I keep coming back to is 1982’s Long After Dark, his fifth album that capped the end of the hot opening stretch of his career (it slumps for a little bit before roaring back with Full Moon Fever, his first solo album). It’s not that it is especially better than other albums from this first run, but, to my ears, it’s the most solid front-to-back album experience with an incredible run of amazing songs in the middle of it. While other albums may have better songs (and more successful songs) and this album may have one major clunker (sorry, but “You Got Lucky” is not good), Long After Dark is the textbook definition of the opening era of the musical persona called “Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.”
WATCHING:
Image Source: Netflix
The Harder They Fall on Netflix
I certainly don’t include myself in the mix at all, but after a long dormancy, it seems––in small, quiet steps––westerns seem to be edging back into the public sphere. With the triple threat of HBO’s Deadwood, Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption, and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained straddling the opening decade of the new millennium, all three presented unique, different, and distinctly modern approaches to a genre that many considered tired and dried out. The best part about all of those examples is that while they feel modern and new, there was no denying their classic western influences which they all wore on their sleeves (especially the latter two).
Since then we’ve seen entries like Netflix’s Godless (which was only okay), Rockstar’s triumphant return with the sublime Red Dead Redemption 2, and the Coen Brothers’ outstanding adaptation of True Grit (not to mention their bizarre but fun Netflix anthology film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), all of which speak to a healthy heartbeat for the genre.
Netflix continued the lifeline with their recent release of The Harder They Fall, directed by British musician and filmmaker, Jeymes Samuel, and starring a bevy of amazing talent: Idris Elba, Jonathan Majors, Regina King, Delroy Lindo, and Zazie Beetz, to name a few. Together, they created an incredibly stylish, stylized, and modern take on the Spaghetti Western. Of course, all the previously mentioned titles (with the possible exception of Deadwood) all scoop from the Spaghetti Western pot, but The Harder They Fall really feels how the genre would be if it originated today. The colors are bright and coordinated. The gun fights are romanticized, stylish, and over the top. The characters are arch and easily readable. This film is pulp fiction in its truest sense. It’s an earnest and powerful entry into a genre made by people not normally associated with it, elevating it in the process, which is the heart of what Spaghetti Westerns did in the ’60s.
Image source: Netflix
What makes it stand out is that the majority of the characters in the film are all based around real people: Bass Reeves (probably the most well-known of the bunch), Nat Love, Rufus Buck, Bill Pickett, Stagecoach Mary, and a bunch more. However––and it can’t be impressed enough––this is not a historical story by any means. But it doesn’t matter. True or not, it’s bringing attention to legitimate badasses of the wild west, elevating their names to a higher platform in pop culture that they surely deserve (seriously, look up any of those names and just read at how unequivocally badass all of them are) but have been denied such attention due to being black at a time when the exploits––both as heroes, anti-heroes, and outlaws––were not recorded nor capitalized upon like their more famous white colleagues.
What The Harder They Fall does, though, is focus on being the most awesome and fun and action-packed western they could possibly make, and they did so with aplomb. Historical or fictional, traditional or progressive, this movie was so much fun from start to finish.
CHAPTER 5 UPDATE
A look at what a script for Long John looks like.
As of this writing, all of the lettering is done for Chapter 5. That means the script is locked down and all the dialogue and captions have been digitally added to the art. This also means that most of the dialogue also has word balloons behind them, save the few where I want to see how the coloring of that panel turns out first.
What comes next is the two-phase process of coloring.
Phase 1 is called “flatting” which means going through the pages and dropping flat colors in each panel––the most basic coloring. What this does is separate the elements of each panel from each other––characters, foregrounds, backgrounds, props/items––by giving them distinct or different colors which will make the next phase easier.
Phase 2 is shading and highlighting. With the flatting done, I then go back through the pages and start “rendering” the images: adding shadows and highlights on the figures and backgrounds and anything else that makes them look like the comic exists in a bit more of a believable and fully realized world.
A look at the process after drawing. Top Left: scanned lines. Top Right: flat colors, Bottom Left: shadows & highlights, Bottom Right: dialogue added. (from Chapter 4: “Words Apart”) Click on the image for a larger version.
Flatting is the part I look forward to the least; it’s tedious work, but it’s necessary work. It’s best to do all the flatting first and then go through and do the shading because otherwise every page would take forever and I want to feel, at least, like I’m continuously making forward progress.
There are some art corrections I want to make and even some other things I want to/need to draw to really flesh out the book. So, there is still quite a road to drive down, but the hardest work is over. Now the boring drive straight down the long, empty highway begins. At least the destination will be nice.
It has been literal months since my last focused update. Part of it was that since I finished drawing the book, I’ve been spending what free time there is to do things like lettering and coloring, etc., because I want to get the book done as soon as possible. Second, as I wrapped up drawing the book, work for my day job spun up and, for some reason, it has felt much more busy than normal. Another part of it is that I wanted to make another video update, but finding time to sit down, record, and edit a video is just losing to the other work I have to do.
That being said, I’m making good progress on the book, though the last few weeks have been dedicated to nothing but teaching and grading, as sometimes happens during the semester. While I would like to do a video update soon, I figured I would share the entertainment that has been keeping my spirits light as everything got incredibly busy.
PLAYING:
Image Source: Nintendo
Metroid Dread for the Nintendo Switch
When I think back on the drawing of Volume 5 of Long John, I will undoubtedly also think of the Metroid series. Metroid is a series of games that have always intrigued me and inspired me. I loved the hollow, empty, lonely threat that permeates the first three games, at least.
The only games in the series I spent extended time with was Super Metroid for the Super Nintendo, though I think it was just a few rentals. The only game I owned and played through was a Metroid Fusion for the Game Boy Advance and really enjoyed it. So, even if I wasn’t an avid player over the years, I have some striking memories from my youth about the series that always kept my attention. The strongest one is seeing an ad––it may have even been a poster––for Metroid II: Return of Samus for the GameBoy in an issue of Nintendo Power and being so inspired by the design of the main character, Samus Aran. The exaggerated shoulder pads, the pointed knee pads, the desert landscape––all had a severe impact on my aesthetic preferences for years (most notably similar to the armor design in John Boorman’s Excalibur).
For some reason, last summer I got it in my head to fill in the major Metroid gap in my experience. It’s a game so influential it spawned an entire genre of video game of which I consider myself a fan––the Metroidvania (created in combination with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night). I had played through all the NES and Super NES Castlevania games recently (and was left a bit underwhelmed), so I figured it was finally time to tackle the other namesake of the genre.
The Nintendo Power poster that I found so inspiring (for a game I’ve never played).
With luck, the original Metroid, the SNES’s Super Metroid, and the Game Boy Advance’s Metroid Fusion (referred to as Metroid 1, Metroid 3, and Metroid 4, respectively) were available for individual purchase on the Nintendo Wii U game system. Also available was the Game Boy Advance remake of Metroid called Metroid: Zero Mission, which I picked up as well as it is infinitely more enjoyable and playable than the original game is at this point. The original Metroid II: Return of Samus was not available and a recent remake for the Nintendo 3DS was not available on any other platform, and I don’t have a 3DS, but that’s beside the point.
I devoured these games this summer. In small doses between drawing pages or in the evenings, throughout the summer I played through all three games a minimum of two times each, with third playthroughs started on all of them.
And then, in a dose of serendipity, it was announced in June that Metroid Dread (also called Metroid 5) was going to be released for the Nintendo Switch, the company’s current gaming system hardware. It was going to be a Metroid game in the classic sense––a 2D, side-scrolling, exploration adventure. Needless to say, I was excited.
It released on October 8 and, at night after stretches of grading or teaching, I sit down and pick up this brand new Metroid. Though I haven’t finished it––because I’m taking my time––I’m so impressed that, in the nineteen years since Metroid Fusion (again, Metroid 4), they were able to still make a Metroid game that is undeniably a Metroid game. It’s absolutely wonderful. And terrifying. And lonely. And threatening. It brings with it not only all the memories and gameplay of those previous games, but all the inspiration as well.
Star Trek: The Next Generation (watching on Netflix)
I don’t have a dog in the great “Star” debate––choosing between the “War” or the “Trek.” I have enjoyed both equally over the years. Of the two, however, I think I hold a fond place in my memory of Star Trek: The Next Generation because it was kind of always on in the evenings. Part of that was due to the fact that it was made for syndication (instead of being dedicated to any specific network), but it was also one of those shows––for me––that if I came across it, even if I wasn’t looking for it, I would most often stop and watch the rest of the episode.
My wife has the same nostalgic memory for the show, and for years we had threatened ourselves to sit down and watch it. It must admit that it was me who kept us from pulling the trigger, because I had heard that seasons 1 & 2 are bad television and aren’t worth the effort. This was credible intel as it came from the Star Trek fans in my life.
But Nicole and I decided to finally pull the trigger; we’ll just have to laugh or groan our way through these first two seasons so we can get to the good stuff.
As of this writing, we are about to wrap season 1––and it has been awesome.
There are, of course, setbacks that are clear because it’s a first season of a reboot featuring an unproven cast of characters, so the budget shows at points and some story choices have been questionable––others have been very questionable. But the show has been a delight on the whole. It has proven to be a thoughtful show about an interesting cast of characters in wonderfully self-contained episodes. Admittedly, a show with an episodic format is something Nicole and I were looking for, so TNG fit that bill exactly.
Was season 1 judged too harshly, especially by those who love the franchise? I think so, but I may be able to tolerate a larger amount of narrative and design missteps than other people (I am, after all, a fan of ’80s Doctor Who). All I know is that this is one of the most solid first seasons I’ve seen of a show in years and we can’t wait to walk our way through the remaining six.
DRAWING:
I haven’t done much doodling because, when I can sit down to draw, I tend to work on Volume 5. That being said, I have taken up the tablet while watching tv occasionally and while tabling at some recent shows. One of the drawings below is actually a thumbnail from a science fiction short story I’ve been working on––more details about that once it comes together more. Now, I’ve got to see about planning some time to record a “Volume 5 Update” video.
Sketches drawn of characters from the Australian crime drama, The Gloaming.
Drawn while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, obviously. Specifically, drawn during the episode titled “Arsenal of Freedom.”
Some figure drawing practice with the digital equivalent of charcoal done one night before going to bed.
A thumbnailed page from a sci-fi short I’m working on with another artist.
