Tuesday, February 9, 2010A Fifth of Four Click through to the first scene of Keeley: Comic Hero Extraordinaire #4!
 {POW!} Labels: Keeley link : 2:48 PM
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Thursday, August 6, 2009Voxy Lady I'm the cover story of this week's Vox Magazine. Wow! I don't even know what to say about that. Except, go over there and have a read!
Note: If I knew I was getting the cover I would've drawn a special something for them! :D link : 8:00 AM
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009 My brother got me a Wacom tablet as a gift a few years ago but after a few attempts at using it I put it aside. It didn't work well with my usual style which aims more towards precision which was hard to accomplish with the tablet. I decided to give it another shot, strangely because of the Facebook Graffiti app which has more of a painterly feel to it. I took the Wacom to the past Midmococo meeting for a public test run. After some exploratory doodles it suddenly clicked with me. I could at least make something that I am not ashamed of. I drew this:
 {My first presentable Wacom-drawn piece. Click to see the full image at DeviantART!} The drawing is kind of inspired by the brushwork art style of Street Fighter IV, which is a fantastic fighting game.  Also this is the first time I've used Pixelmator. I've heard good things about this graphics program but didn't want to spend money to buy it. It turns out I already bought it as part of a MacHeist bundle deal! It's a very good program, and the website is also very informative. I'm using the Wacom/Pixelmator combo again to work on a comic I wrote two years ago. It may show up in the upcoming Mid-Missouri Comics Anthology 2009! link : 1:59 PM
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Monday, November 10, 2008This My Virtual Refrigerator I spent way too much time drawing this Graffiti for Andrew on Facebook so I'm taking it on tour:
The Graffiti tools are quite primitive: no eraser or layers. Kind of like real painting now that I think about it. At least there are multiple undos. Anyway the coolest part is that you can click "Play" and see how I drew it! Good thing I didn't do anything vulgar before I did the real drawing... Labels: Keeley link : 10:51 PM
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Saturday, October 11, 2008Delivery! I got a package in the mail today:
  Ka-Blam.com did a great job printing issue 3. I'm going to have them print issues 1 and 2 and sell all of them via print-on-demand on their sister site Indyplanet.com. Labels: comics:webcomics, Keeley link : 7:43 PM
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Monday, September 1, 2008At Long Last Issue 3 is done! Now it's all the formatting wackiness to get it in a printable state, but it's here in it's color entirety on the web. Hop to it!
Labels: Keeley link : 8:16 PM
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Sunday, August 24, 2008Is it Too Soon for a Cover that Obscures the Title? Still missing a page. ETA: 1 week. Yay!
 Labels: Keeley link : 6:26 PM
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Friday, August 15, 2008Feeling Generous Page 19 is done. One more page! The bad news is that I haven't started it at all. ETA: still two weeks, lol. Here is a mini version of page 19. I'll put up the real deal when 20 is done.
 Labels: Keeley link : 4:23 PM
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Friday, August 8, 2008Splash Pages 17 and 18 are up. I'm particularly proud of 17. Only two pages to go, can you believe it!? ETA: two weeks.
 {Click to warp to actual page.} Labels: Keeley link : 6:51 PM
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Monday, July 14, 2008Miscellany It's hard to imagine that in less than twenty four hours I'll once again be jetting off to San Diego to visit the family. Here are updates on recent goings on before the San Diego/Comic-Con stuff fills the blog.
Labels: animals, anthropology, games, Keeley link : 6:11 PM
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Monday, June 2, 2008Come On, Come Out Just for you here are two, possibly three, new pages of Keeley: Comic Hero Extraordinaire! I had page 14 up a few months ago but didn't publicize it because it's only a one page transitory scene. The following two pages up the challenge to my drawing skills a bit with a busy outdoor scene and five new characters. You can conveniently start issue 3 from the top here.
 Enjoy! Labels: comics:webcomics, Keeley link : 4:02 PM
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Saturday, January 26, 2008 Pages 12 and 13 of Keeley:Comic Hero Extraordinaire #3 is up on the interwebs! The plot thickens, and Keeley follows up on something she heard many pages ago!
Labels: comics:webcomics, Keeley link : 4:38 PM
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Sunday, January 6, 2008This Year is Warmer Than the Last (A True C!G!A! Update) Today was unseasonably warm when I stepped outside to attend to the chickens. The cats all ran out and had a good time. I did not really partake in the outdoor activities though and went back to my basement den.
In said hideaway I've been getting more things done. I've been coloring the next few pages of Keeley's comic. The settings are far less complex so it shouldn't take me a month like the 9th street adventure I just posted. The pages I'm working on now set up the second half of the issue, which is another exploration of Keeley's social life. Sometimes I emerge to the surface world, where my Wii is. I bought Super Mario Galaxy for myself for Christmas. I've heard good things about it, but I really did not like Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Sunshine. I was very pleasantly surprised by Galaxy. The levels are all very creative and it really pulls me into the world(s). Playing Mario on an upside down world or running along the surface of a sphere was a lot easier than I had imagined though sometimes I take a long jump out of sight and into a black hole. This time I am not doing any more work that what is required of me at the step I'm on. I was bitten last project when I went ahead of myself and did a big chunk of research before the concept was accepted. The step I'm on is just a mini-proposal, around 2 to three pages. It's the hardest 2 to 3 pages I've ever written, but dammit, when I'm done it will be the best 2 to 3 page essay ever. Distressingly enough I was alerted by Kristin to the fact that yesterday was already Saturday. For some reason I had lived my life yesterday thinking it was Thursday. I did find it weird that some websites I visited mysteriously had their weekly posts done, but I did not think much of it. Losing two days in my mind means I've made less progress than I had thought. On the bright side, since the weekend snuck up on me, I can take a break. link : 10:28 AM
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Wednesday, December 26, 2007Some Progress in My Big Project Not that one, silly, I mean Keeley: Comic Hero Extraordinaire issue 3! The next four pages, 8-11, have been posted. Two more to follow shortly. Thanks for all of the feedback and encouragement I've been getting. Enjoy!
 Labels: comics:webcomics, Keeley link : 7:52 PM
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Sunday, September 30, 2007 DC comics is having a comics contest through their new Zuda Comics label: the prizes are various amounts of cash. Sign me up!
There are rules to follow: the comic for the contest is to be 8 pages of 800x600 pixels. The comic can't be shown anyplace other than their site during the contest. Beyond that, anything goes. I thought a bit about what story to tell with what characters. I decided that making something totally new would lower my chances of making a good comic: good stories take lots of time to work out the details. I settled on my favorite character at the moment: Keeley Walker and her superheroic storyline. The setting is a few issues beyond where I'm at right now. It's kind of like fast forwarding the action a little to get to some cooler stuff I've had in mind. I had to think a lot about what specifically will occur in the comic. 8 pages isn't a lot for introducing the character, having something interesting happen, and providing some type of closure. I wrote out the first draft of the script, and now it's time to work on that some more and sketch out the thumbnails. Progress updates later, I hope. Wish me luck! link : 7:47 PM
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Thursday, May 24, 2007We Have a Winner! Fellow cartoonist Winter told me about Inkscape, an open source vector program. It does everything I use in Illustrator, but for free! I whipped up a traced image with a speech balloon in around ten minutes using it for the first time. I am definitely impressed.
 {I traced an old scan I had on my drive and added a speech balloon in Inkscape. OMG!} Labels: comics, Keeley, tech:computers link : 8:20 PM
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Sunday, May 20, 2007Trying New Things My exploration into cheaper programs for comic making has been mostly fruitful. Running GIMP via X11 works very well. It's way faster than Photoshop CS2, and I'd say favorably comparable to the CS3 beta I had been using. Rapidweaver turned out to be a lot more like iWeb than Dreamweaver. I didn't learn how to code XHTML for nothing so I kept looking for a more hands-on web design program. Pagespinner was the best solution I found. It has a coding window and a preview window that runs off of Safari. It's fast. It doesn't have some of the conveniences of Dreamweaver, like GUI editing, so my first foray into coding a table took a while. It also lacks a strong FTP function where it synchronizes only altered files, and other features. Another program, Cyberduck, fills that void very well.
There is no replacement for Illustrator though. It's line smoothing feature is unique as far as I can tell. Using all of these tools, the next segment of issue 3 is done! It covers pages 5, 6 an 7. I'm off to Peru in a week and a bit so the next part won't be on the web for a while. I'm going to take some reference photos before I go though so downtown Columbia and the Cosmo Skate Park don't look suspiciously like Lima.  {Pagespinner at work. In the background, some Warcrafty action.} Labels: Keeley, tech:computers link : 7:45 PM
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Thursday, May 17, 2007Bring Out the GIMP! Adobe released their new Creative Suite, including programs that they ate when they bought out Macromedia. I was hoping that their price structure would make things a little cheaper. I guess I should read a basic economics book because if a company controls a certain niche, they can apparently charge whatever they want. Goodbye $100 Dreamweaver. It's now $194. Educational versions cannot be upgraded and the price to buy them new is the same as a normal upgrade. Uh, thanks?
I'm not just here to complain though. The good news is that there are always cheap, even free, alternatives. Enter the replacement players! I've had GIMP on my computer out of curiosity but now I'm learning how to use it in earnest. A program called Rapidweaver claims to be a Dreamweaver replacement. I still need something to replace Illustrator. OmniGraffle is close, but not quite the same niche. Maybe there's something else out there...  {I'm using GIMP to add shading to page 6, coming out soon!} Labels: comics, Keeley, tech:computers link : 12:57 PM
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Wednesday, April 4, 2007More Issues! The Good Kind! The first "scene" of Keeley: Comic Hero Extraordinaire #3 is up. Two scenes, really, as the first scene is one page. It's neatoriffic: go check it out!
 link : 9:27 PM
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Monday, February 26, 2007Whatever Happened to Issue 3? Believe it or not, issue 3 has been snowed out until now. The opening of issue 3 takes place at the Columbia Public Library. I wanted to get some good photo references but it's been snowing and cloudy for most of the past two months. Today it was finally sunny and snow-free so I went out with my camera. I snapped a few pictures of the front and was walking up the front stairs when I got hassled by The Man. Apparently I can't take pictures of the inside of the library.
There are several ways to handle the situation. Kristin, who I related this problem to already, would've snapped pictures of the interior anyway. I listen to The Man more and I put the camera away. Instead I got some blank paper and a library pencil and sketched what I wanted. Mission accomplished! Next comes the actual drawing from the photos/sketches and all that. Since I couldn't do the library stuff I've skipped ahead and worked on pages 4 and 5. The first five pages should all be posted together when it's all done with. link : 8:47 PM
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006ComicSpace is Awesome Since I have two complete issues of Keeley: CHE done I have been spending a lot of time working on publicity so people will actually read the darn thing. Recently, a cool site called ComicSpace popped up which is kind of a Myspace for people who read or make comics. The person who made the site also made OnlineComics.net, which I've found to be where most of my readers came from so I signed up for ComicSpace almost as soon as it opened. It's become popular, with over 8,000 people signed up. The atmosphere is very friendly and it has put me in touch with a lot of interesting people, from other comic creators in Columbia to makers of comics I like a lot, such as 12 Reasons Why I Love Her by Jamie S. Rich and X-Men: First Class by Jeff Parker.
ComicSpace uses the ad service Project Wonderful. Advertisers bid for blocks of ad space located on various websites. If their bid is the highest, their ad gets shown in the block and the advertiser if charged. If the bid is losing, no money is exchanged. I stuck my own ad for this site up on some ad blocks at ComicSpace. According to Google Analytics, that accounts for around 10% of my visitors. Not too shabby for a few dollars a day when my ad is running. The coolest thing that has happened is that I got fan mail from someone who saw my site via my Project Wonderful ad. And this time it's not from my mom: it's Dean Trippe, a cartoonist with his own webcomic, and a blog. His comic, Butterfly, is about a sidekick that works for a Robin-esque character who of course is himself a sidekick to a Batman-ish character. It's very funny and the art style is very retro and simple, like Darwyn Cookes'. He thought my comic was so cool that he mentioned it on his blog! My pageviews shot up that week up to 900 one day. That's crazy! My advertising efforts are dying down as I prepare for Issue 3. The first fourteen pages are absolutely set and I like it a lot. The last six pages are still in flux, but I think I at least nailed down the general plot and what happens each page. Maybe the alternate versions of the script will turn up on DeviantART. When the comic starts I think I'll still go page-by-page, but I'll skip all of the rough stuff and post full color pages. Readers seem to like that the best for some odd reason.... Labels: blogging, comics:webcomics, Keeley link : 1:11 AM
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