It all started with Kris Straub posting his new Chainsawsuit comic and Scott Kurtz of PVP suggesting that someone re-draw it in an actual “comic book” style. I actually miss drawing in my more traditional style and so thought it would be fun to do a quick sketch. A couple of hours later I had a bit more than a sketch.

josh

I recently posted these on my twitter, but figured that it would be a good idea to repost them here.

For the unaware, my computer recently suffered a massive meltdown which forced me to ink and color the comic by hand for a couple weeks. My annoyance over the whole ordeal was quickly quieted by how much I actually enjoyed the new process.

I start out (like normal) by doing a quick pencil sketch on scrap paper. These are usually done very quickly, with virtually no erasing. At this point I’m just working out the positioning and layout, and stopping to erase actually breaks my flow. It doesn’t need to be perfect at this stage because  I’m just figuring out how things will look.

The next step is to lightbox the drawings onto a heavier paper stock to ink and color. This is the point where I decide which lines I want to keep.

All my old Rapidographs had dried out, so I inked this with Microns , and realized how much I loved those little pens. Most of the background detail was done in this step. This is not something that I would normally recommend, but after a while you get comfortably with inks and you know how much you can do in the actually inking stage. I wouldn’t do this with the foreground characters (usually), but I knew that I wanted a “loose” look for the background that I didn’t want to over think.

Finally I color with basic Windsor Newton watercolors, and some acrylics here and there. I made the mistake of not using watercolor paper with this (I simply wasn’t paying attention), and paid the price for it with some pretty bad warping. I hadn’t picked up an actual brush in years, and it was very refreshing to get back into it.

The whole process is actually pretty simple. Hopefully, I’ll do one of these for how I work in Photoshop.

josh

So yeah, I switched up the site a bit. Mostly just a new color pallet, but I dig it.

josh

So, in case you haven’t noticed, the strip has been a little…different lately. No, I haven’t dumped all the old characters and started the whole thing over. I am just trying out different things and going where ever the comic tells me. One secret (which I probably shouldn’t share,) is that I don’t ever plan any of the story lines out in advance. Each comic is simply wherever the next joke or funny thought is.

Part of the change in the look was necessitated by the fact that my computer decided to completely self destruct on me, and I was left Photoshop-less for the better part of a couple weeks. It’s funny, because we become so enamored with the wonders of technology, that we sometimes forget how life existed before and without it.

The hand inked and water colored comics were a simple result of continuing to produce the comic with whatever supplies I had lying around. But you know what? I really love doing them this way.

So will it stay this way permanently? I doubt it. But who knows?

josh

Recently, the webcomic Least I Could Do

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ran a stroyline revolving around a massive crossover of webcomics, and somehow my comic . Not really sure how that happened. It was a pretty tiny cameo, but it was a treat to be in the same space as so many other comics created by artists I respect and admire.

The creators of Least I could Do, Lar DeSouza and Ryan Sohmer also draw and write a second comic, Looking For Group . This is my take on one of the main characters, Cale’Anon.

josh