Textbook Short Comic 03
Posted on August 29, 2010
The third panel of this short comic I did for Pearson had to do with the Portuguese on board ship as they were fleeing to Brazil. Apparently, the Portuguese aristocracy got very much into both the Samba and Capoeira - two things I know next to nothing about. It was fun, however, looking up reference and then making it work with the sort of vintage clothing from the time period.
I believe this is the only piece that didn't end up needing to have a variety of changes made. I was, again, really pleased with how it turned out also - in particular, the water. I really felt that the water came out reading very good and the blue against the warm colors of the ship/figures really worked well. I was also pretty happy with how the figures turned out, especially the male figure doing Capoeria. You have no idea how hard it is to draw a figure in a pose that you have almost no reference for - and it's not like I can do a quick photo shoot to get reference. But, all in all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Final Pencils -
Final Colors -
I've got one more panel to show and then I'll be moving on to the Inuit comic I talked about.
Jer
Long time.
Posted on August 23, 2010
The last few months have flown by in a sort of whirlwind.
First and foremost, my daughter - Beatrice Pearl Mohler - was born on July 15th at 11:44am. She was 9lbs 1oz and 22in long.
Since, she's gained several inches, several pounds, and the complete infatuation of her mother and father. I cannot count the number of diapers we've changed or the number of hours she's kept us up at night. But, what amazes me the most is how quickly she has insinuated herself into our lives - to the point where I can hardly fathom life without her now. You hear people say stuff like that and it's easy to pass it off as complete silliness - at least until you are in a similar situation.
The new quarter at the Art Institutes International Kansas City started and I've been teaching two Fundamentals of Drawing classes. So far, it's been a great deal of fun and most of the students are genuinely interested in being there and working. Plus, it's been good for me as well - I've been out of school long enough now that it seems so much of the fundamental stuff that I learned in school has sort of faded and become more intuitive. So, I've had to go back and do a variety of research and really think about how to explain things. You might think that would be easy - it's not. I've had successful moments and, as my students can probably verify, some unsuccessful moments. Either way, I'll keep pushing it and trying to do my best.
Next quarter, it looks like I might also get a Storyboarding class. I can't wait.
Among all this, I've had a pretty involved project fall into my lap which I will be managing and contributing some artwork too. I am really optimistic about this and I'm really quite excited about it. It's a very cool project and I'm looking forward to getting to talk about it at length down the line a bit.
Emily and I are also working on a project of our own - it's something we created together, she's writing and I'm doing the layouts, color, and letters. We've contracted an artist to handle the pencils/inks and so far, it's looking quite good. I'm looking forward to showing it off and talking a little more about it soon.
Then there is always Baeg Tobar and Outland Entertainment. A lot is happening behind the scenes right now with both. I will be talking more about this in the next few months.
Ah yes - and Star Craft 2: Wings of Liberty came out.
So, everything is pretty busy at the moment. I'm going to be working on posting more regularly from here on out - I've still got a bundle of artwork to put up that I'd like to share, so expect some more artwork this week.
Jer
Textbook Short Comic 02
Posted on June 30, 2010
The next piece in this short comic was to basically show the Portuguese fleeing to Brazil aboard their ships. To the left is the basic thumbnail I got for the piece and had to work from. Again, this was a fun piece to do - I love sailing ships and it was a definite challenge to figure out how to break down all the detail required to illustrate one of these old ships, but leave enough to make it look mostly correct. I also had to consider that these pieces were going to be printed pretty small, so not a whole lot of detail would show up anyway. So, this was definitely a challenge.
Add to that the fact I looked up the wrong era of ships initially, and it complicates things greatly. I actually more or less finished this illustration and found out I had to redo it entirely. My mistake! I should have paid closer attention to what I was doing and I should have made more effort to make sure that I had the right material from the beginning.
First pencils -
And actually, I like the change (as is usually the case). I think the final pencils turned out much better, the composition ended up being better, and the piece over all benefited from doing it over. So, it was to the advantage that it had to be completely redone. Even if it did stink at the time...
Final pencils -
Now, I did end up pretty happy with the final colors on this piece, especially the water. I felt that the water turned out looking quite good, especially when the whole image was shrunk down. The little bit of texture laid over the whole image also helped give the piece a bit of dimension as well. One of the things I learned from doing all the Inuit based material I've done lately was how to handle water without having to actually draw in a bunch of waves/water. Water is hard as hell to illustrate - at least from what I've found. But, I think I've found a solution that works for me. The next piece is actually one of my favorite water pieces...
Final colors -
Jer
SIKU – Inuit Comic Character Concepts
Posted on June 25, 2010
Sometime in early 2008 I was doing a ton of work for Inhabit Media illustrating a variety of Inuit based folklore. I had already done a ton of story illustration and creature concepts when I was approached to color an actual Inuit comic for a gentleman who worked with Inhabit Media on occasion. I agreed, but the project never fully manifested and I continued to do some work for Inhabit Media.
Due to some unforeseen circumstances, the original illustrator for the comic eventually decided to leave the project and I was offered the full gig. I agreed with some trepidation.
You see, I love comics. I've tried unsuccessfully a number of times to do comics. What I have found is that I am just too damn slow to maintain any kind of regular pace doing the pencils/inks for a comic. It just doesn't work - I start out strong and as I progress, find myself more and more distracted and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work involved in actually illustrating a comic. I've found I enjoy doing illustration work much more.
But, considering I was so familiar with the material and that there wasn't an overwhelming amount of characters that I would be expected to deal with, I thought I could could probably handle the project. So, I took it on. And to date, it's the biggest comic project I've ever penciled in full - I think we ended up with around 22 pages when all was said and done. And while there are some pages/panels I'd totally do differently now, I'm still pretty proud of the project as a whole.
I was also supposed to color the project, but the deadline snuck up on me and I was forced to find a bit of help from a friend of mine, Chris Summers. Chris was a huge help and I did end up tweaking all the pages a bit, adding some textures and overlays to the pages, but Chris did the majority of it.
This project was also where I cut my teeth on lettering. I ended up lettering the project in both Inuit and English and to date, the English version has never been released, which I'll most likely post here for everybody to see since the book itself has been published.
Anyway, I'll start with the character concepts and then we'll move on to the pages. I started these concepts while I was staying down in Austin with my good friend Kennon James. The characters are Idlout (the main character), his wife, the goddess Sedna, and the creature Qallupiluk. Hope you dig it!
Jer
Textbook Short Comic 01
Posted on June 23, 2010
Sometime in mid 2009, after I had completed the Alexander material (previously posted), I was hired again by Pearson Educational Group to do a short, four panel comic. The comic was to illustrate, very quickly, how the Portuguese government fled from Portugal when Napoleon invaded in 1807 and went to Brazil by ship.
This ended up being a pretty tough assignment (which I'll explain), but overall I was really quite pleased with how it all turned out. I think having just come off the Alexander project I was on top of my game drawing wise and I just really love how the colors all turned out. I miss those days! It's been a little while since I really drew anything - at least a month or two. I've been focused on coloring, working on layouts for an upcoming project, and doing odds-and-ends to be ready for my daughter to arrive next month.
Where does the time go?
First, it was a fun exercise because I really didn't have to come up with the layout - these were given to me by the client. So I was free to just dive right into the artwork itself - which is something I don't normally have the pleasure of doing. So that was a fun change of pace for me. To the left is the thumbnail for the first panel.
That being said, when I began the project I didn't have a very clear idea in my head of what kind of ships would most likely be used and I had to do a bit of research. I love ocean going ships - I think it is absolutely amazing that people sailed the oceans before present day technology. But for some reason I got stuck on a Portuguese ship from an earlier period than what we needed. I actually went through all the art, got basic approvals, and nearly completed all the drawing when I found out I had to go back and change the ship entirely.
That was not a happy day!
Below was my first run at pencils -
And here are my final pencils with the edited ships -
But, I got it worked out and I still am quite proud of how these images turned out. Below you can see how the final colors turned out!
Hope you dig it!
Jer
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