now that  I'm well under way with the artwork for this project, I have time to reflect about the experiences of making my own comic. lets be honest it's about time too.
making a blog about it's creation has definately been the first challenge. now that I have a large chunk of concept art I can post a lot more images. I also have some images showing how I build up the pages for the comic.
this post is about working to self imposed deadlines.
writing the script for this was a genuinely quick process, if a scene didn't work/fit the story it was removed quickly. I concentrated on the main scenes that I already had mapped out in my head (I have been planning to do this for a while now) this was a great platform to build on and flesh out. getting people to proof read the script became invaluable, it was encouraging tol know that what I was making made sense and had a genuine storyline that is (hopefully) engaging.
I can generally turn out a page in an evening, from storyboarding the page to pencils to inking and then scanning the images into photoshop and cleaning the panels up. the effects of this gave me the chance to review some of the pages that I had already completed. I have started to redraw panels that I genuinely felt were rushed. I haven't started putting in speech bubbles yet but thats a story for a later post.
thanks for reading this and keep an eye out for some art coming soon
Ste.

 it's not all zombies. here are some sketches that I created for a friend who paints trainers. I think I was playing too much Megaman at the time.

Hope you enjoy, they don't appear in the comic but I thought it would be fun to put them up here.

here's a sletch of a friend of mine. this later became a t-shirt design for his birthday.

this sketch was of another friend, Mike. he has become part of the storyline.

 above is one of the supporting characters, the person this is based on has had many different hair cuts and I was looking to see which one looked best for this comic style. I'm pretty settled on the top image.

 here is  few sketch designs for one of the panels from the comic.

here is a couple of zombie sketches.

so I've not posted on here for a while, sorry about that. been really ill on top of work, home life n all the other shenanigans that go on.
gonna post up some concept drawings and character sketches this weekend to make up for my lack of posts.
see ya over this very busy weekend.

i promised some pics from the comic. hope you like them.

I've been busy lately, storyboarding this little monster up. as well as drawing and inking the art as I go. all the pages are drawn and inked at the size i want the image to be seen (so no shrinking down).
I scan the pages and clean up the images from there. If anyone has any tips (best dpi rates etc.) please contact me. I have been working at 600 dpi and the images haven't lost any quality.
I am going to finish drawing up chapter 1 before I look at lettering for the pages, the real question is what is the best software for doing this (my handwriting is terrible)?
pictures up soon as I have some nice scanned in.

I really wanted to give everyone a gist of how the idea to do a trilogy of graphic novels finally came about. My influences in this genre vary, I love DC and Marvel, their comics have been a staple diet for most of my life (thanks Dad). My all time favourite character is Nightwing (Marv Wolfman and George Perez' Teen Titans comics are part of my prized possessions).
One weekend in my teenage years I was introduced to Anime, AKIRA to be precise. that was amovie I have played over and over. this led me into reading Manga. My first Katsuhiro Otomo' Akira is still one of my favourite series, a close contender is the Dragonball series by Akira Toriyama. both of these comcs led me to thinking about my own ideas for stories. the general scope and epic quality of a lot of these graphic novels was something that always daunted me. until I read a Manga called FLCL by Yoji Enokido. A tale that had the same impact in the level of storytelling that DBZ and Akira both contained, but told with fewer pages.
I always wanted to attempt something at this level, but the right ideas never really came about. My introduction to autobiographical comics gave me an idea to play with the concept of taking myself and using the toon that came from this idea to be the protagonist of the story I wanted to tell.
Why Zombies? I have loved zombie movies for years, George Romero' Dawn of the Dead is still in my mind the greatest zombie movie EVER! I took this love/obsession and it naturally became the setting for the story I wanted to tell. (I've mentioned all this in minor details earlier in the blog, sorry if I've repeated myself)
thanks for taking the time reading my ramblings and showing an interest in my work, hope it lives up to  expectations and I will be posting some character design pics soon.
Ste.

I haven't posted any art for a while, So here goes. Here's one of the Zombies. Enjoy.

It has been a few days since the script for Toilets was 'complete'. I understand after reading the previous post that stating it as finished almost draws a line in the sand to any changes. I am glad to say that this is not so.
Where the plot is pretty much concrete, there is room for slight improvement to some areas of the dialogue (not much, but letting the dust settle around the completion of the script gave me the chance to re-read it and fix the problems). I do enjoy a challenge after all.
I've been working on the designs for some of the other characters in the first comic. The look of the main protagonist is done so I can work on sketching the others. Most of the characters in this ccomic are real people, so I am attempting to them some justice. These constraints are met by the joys of doodling up character designs for the 'fictional' toons.

Ok, so I have finished the script. I have been fixing some story elements and tidying up the dialogue. It is 90 pages long, which is 10 shorter than I wanted. But it was more important to tell the tale I wanted than hit my target via unneccesary filler material.
I can now begin story boarding and Drawing the actual comic pages.

I am about 75% done on the script. (77 pages at the moment). thishas been an enjoyable process, but I fear that part 2 and 3 may prove more difficult.
Fingers crossed I will have a script that is complete in the next few days.

Here is a frame from page 3.

When I was thinking of a setting for this comic, I naturally set my sights for a zombie comic and sketched up this drawing. the comic itself will be in black and white.

This was a sketch that i ended up playing around with. originally trying out a different style of drawing from my usual work, I ended up doing a self portrait. this character became the protagonist for this trilogy of books. I refer to this project as an 'Autobiographical account of things that never happened' and the idea took off from there.

I've set myself a target for the writing side of this comic. each part will be around 100 pages.
I know this is not a lot but the story was never conceived on an epic scale. to the point story telling.
the script for 'Toilets' (part1 of the trilogy) is 60% finished, already having a visual in my head of how the scenes are going to look I could focus on the pace of the comic.

So, I've been busy the last couple of nights re-writing the script for 'Toilets'. Part 1 of the 'Safest Place To Hide' trilogy.
my intentions are to create a story contained in a Zombie infested world.
I know that this subject has been played to death in an abundance of storytelling media. but I have always wanted the opportunity to inject some of my own ideas and pay homage to the stories and films that have influenced me over the years.
my influences include: Star wars, H.P. Lovecraft, Akira Toriyama, George Romero and a whole lot more to say the least.
I guess the more I dealve into the processes and problems I will inevitably come across during the course of this project, these influences will become more apparent.
Thanks,
Ste.

Hi everyone,
This is the ongoing blog of my progress into making a trilogy of independent comic books.
As I develop these comics I'm going to share the experiences with you all.
Cheers,
Ste.