What I Did Today

Check out my weekly comic Billy Badass on tumblr!

Got up this morning fairly easily. Sketched a few key poses in Harmony but spent most of the day shading two pages. I’ve been getting frustrated with how the shading looks. I like the soft edged brush when I’m rendering it with the color layer hidden. Then I turn the color on and it looks like sprayed dirt. Lowering the opacity loses a lot of the detail. Then there’s the issue of streaks versus things looking muddy if I blend too much. I may end up using a hard edge and then blurring it on another layer. I should probably experiment with color some more, too. But that’s the fun of trying to push myself and change the style of this project up from previous ones I’ve worked on.

Check out my weekly comic Billy Badass on tumblr!

Last night I finished the shading on next week’s comic before bed. Tonight I finished the next week’s. I used to have trouble working in the evenings. I think it was a result of trying to keep studio hours and free time separate. I’m starting to relax on evening work in the studio as I put on some music and ease into it. It also helps when I get a lot of the planning and decision-making out of the way so I’m working on things that require a more instinctive reaction. “No, that’s too dark,” or, “No, this color doesn’t look right next to this one.” People tend to carry a lot of stuff with them that you have to unpack before you can do the thing you’re trying to do. Ever have the family member try to tell you about something and they eat up time explaining superfluous stuff? Who the people are, how they’re related, what they brought to the potluck three years ago… When decisions are made ahead of time you can focus on the task at hand.

Check out my weekly webcomic Billy Badass on tumblr!

Today my sinuses have been acting up and I slacked off more than I’d like. The problem with not getting anything done early is it becomes a motivation killer as you look at the uphill climb. The first half of the day I’d been debating going back to bed with my stomach and head bothering me. I napped a little this evening and I want to get some work done before I turn in.

It’s been rainy here lately. Muggy when the sun’s up, cool but damp otherwise. I usually prefer to work early in the daylight hours but tonight I’ll be burning some midnight oil. Considering I spent most of my weekend working on podcast stuff I don’t feel too bad about a slack day. Time to relax and recharge is good provided more time is spent being productive later. Tomorrow I’ll sleep in a bit, see if a later wakeup keeps me from getting a headache.

Check out Billy Badass on tumblr.

Got up early this morning and added some backgrounds/props to an animation in Harmony. I added some 3D wall panels and tightened up some of the stuff that was there. It’s an into/outro segment and so far I’ve been focusing on the intro part. Next time I’ll probably do some work on the outro and then start animating the intro.

I cleaned up the shading on the first page of my new webcomic and decided to launch it today. I keep going back to Frenden’s Photoshop Round Wet and Round Steeper Pressure Curve for Manga Studio. The wet has just the right amount of smear while the steeper is good for blasting white back into an over-done gradient. I’m really looking forward to this comic. I’m releasing it weekly for now while I try and build up a buffer.

I got up at 5 this morning planning to work half the day in Harmony and half in Manga Studio.

I say “planning” because as I was finishing breakfast I got a sinus headache which got worse even after taking something for it. I couldn’t concentrate with the ache and the nausea got to the point where I gave up and went back to bed. I’m guessing I’ve got some sort of infection so I’ve been taking what I can to fight it.

This evening I finished a pass at shading for two pages. Some of the panels look good but I’m going to keep working some of them. Then I’ll fiddle with the blending and color so each page works as a whole. I think it’s important in my process right now to not sign off on something just because I finished it that day. If something looks bland the next day when I come back to it, imagine how it’ll look in the archives.

I really want to get back into Harmony, see what’s new in 12.1, and get back into the habit of working with it regularly. I think splitting my work time between comics and animation will help keep me from feeling too burnt out.

Slept in today to rest up and get over whatever happened yesterday. Took it pretty easy during the day and spent the evening rendering. I’m not 100% on the technique I’m using but I seem to be correcting and moving it towards what I want it to look like. I’m doing the shading with the color layer off so I just focus on the values. Then I might move on to playing with the color in each panel to make it work better over all.

Tonight I’m going to bed early to try and get my mornings back. Wish me luck, folks.

Spent the morning fussing with shading. Tried a sharp edge and added some effects to a page. Decided to try another with a different brush and a different approach. Played around with the color of the shade as well as the layer opacity. Fiddled with the opacity of the flats layer, too, which helped things pop a little more. I can see myself tweaking this for awhile until it’s where I want it. I’m probably going to be spending more time than I’d like rendering each page but hopefully the results will be worth it. Still haven’t ruled out coloring line art or painting it out completely, though that flies in the face of trying to get ahead on updates. Of course, if getting updates out as quickly as possible was the top priority I’d be doing straight black and white. Heck, it’d just be strips instead of full pages. There has to be some accounting for quality.

Hope everybody had/is having a great summer vacation. Today was my first day back in the studio after two weeks in San Diego with my mom. Returned to the comics I’d flat-filled hoping to start posting some. Still trying to decide how I want to handle the shading. Didn’t get much time to experiment with it before leaving. The last two days before the trip were kind of a blur of packing and making sure everything was sorted out.

I’m at the point stylistically where I’m trying to decide what works best for the comic. I could leave things flat but I’d like to carve out the forms a little bit. Plus I’m not 100% sure I like the colors I’ve used yet. I can fiddle with their saturation and some correcting layers or even rework them if I feel they need it. Drawing shadows on a multiply layer is kind of bothering me. I need to get better at picking my shade colors or else it just looks like the figure has dirt smeared everywhere. I could use a sharp brush, a soft brush, or something with some texture in it. Or I could forgo a brush entirely and work with gradients or halftones. Some people like to mix different techniques but I like to stay consistent across a piece to hold it together. I also have a habit of running into the issue of mid-tones muddying everything up, washing out the light shades and pushing the darks too far. Then there’s the issue of making the shadows work in black and white but dropping them on color ruins it.

Basically I need to experiment but not make something so elaborate it eats time away from later updates. Usually the best solution comes after spending time trying another approach and realizing the simplicity of doing it another way.

Today was a busy day. I spent the morning in the studio penciling a page and working on the lettering. After lunch Ian and I recorded a podcast before summer break. I started laundry and other things to take care of this weekend. It’s gonna be a busy vacation.