Hello, Sunshine.

Good evening loyal fans,

So, after a very hectic week before and during CECAF, this past week seemed to be one long week of not achieving much. I mean, it happens.. But it still sucks. Spending long hours at a desk and nothing to show for it makes for a tiring and frustrating week, especially as we actually have some sunny weather that I can’t sit out in. BUT, I can finally reveal some hints from one of my top secret projects I’ve been working on…

I still can’t reveal a lot of the details, but I can tell you all that I’ve been working on a short story for something very exciting. I’ve been working on this for a good few weeks now, in both writing a short story and developing the visuals for it too, using the knowledge I’ve gained from the past year. ‘Ooo err’, I hear you all harmoniously chant from afar. Fortunately for you all, although I can’t give any more details for the foreseeable future, I will be able to give sneaky peeks of my ongoing development. Which also means that you all get to live through the caffeinated, frustrating, rewarding process of creating something (hopefully) quite special. Although I’ll try to keep the most caffeinated and frustrated moments to myself, as no one wants to see me banging my head against my desk in an alert fashion. Well, I hope none of you want to see that, anyway. So, yes, prepare to see some ongoing developments for this new bundle of joy that is being carefully crafted by my noggin and two hands. Here’s some snippets of my sketchbook developments so far…

On a less mysterious and happy note, today is World Sea Turtle Day! The WWF had a wonderful Twitter campaign going on today, and I decided to join in the fun with this drawing below. Although I would toast to sea turtles with some sea water and algae, my taste palate is more suited towards spaghetti bolognese followed by biscuits. However I am supporting sea turtles both in spirit and with a small donation, today. The WWF are helping sea turtles with some fabulous tracking accessories, helping us legged and armed folk to understand how the climate change is affecting the shelled and flippered folk, amongst many other fuzzy/legged/shelled/slithering folk. And if that isn’t enough to convince you of their greatness, they even have their own travelling cleaning station. N’aww.

 

Finally, in a wonderful turn of events I managed to acquire a PROPER desk chair from my parents (which is far better for my back than it’s predecessor). My back is now in a permanent state of comfort whilst working away, so thank you to my wonderful parents for letting me steal a chair from them. On that note, I shall leave you all with thoughts of comfortable backs, sea turtles and mysterious future comics. Until next week!

 

x

Lost and Found

Well, what a week it’s been. About a month ago, when I was looking at the schedule of events at the Comics Art Festival in Kendal later this year, I discovered they were running a competition alongside Titan Comics for a 4-6 page comic with the theme of Lost in Space. Now, the deadline was yesterday and 4-weeks-ago-me thought the challenge to write the script and draw, colour and letter the comic in a month would be a marvellous idea! And, well, I finished it on time so clearly 4-weeks-ago-me had faith in current-me, though it was definitely a challenge and a half.
This is the first time I’ve properly written a script for a comic and I felt immensly out of my comfort zone. I made a story for a children’s picture book at University last year, but I didn’t really need to think about the scripting as much as it was a simple story for a very young audience. In terms of writing, we all know I like the go on, and on, and on in my blog, so what’s the difference? I tell you what, I have a new found respect for those who write and draw their own work successfully. Personally, as someone who likes pretty pictures, it was tricky to have to concentrate on words as well as images. But, it’s what I eventually want to do, so all the practise I can get will be beneficial in the future. My difficulty initially was that 6 pages is such a small amount. My section in HOAX: Psychosis Blues was 6 pages, and it took me 6 months, and I didn’t even have to write anything! For a a visual narrative of this length, I knew that unless I drew everything at a tiny size my comic wasn’t going to tell much of a story. With this in mind, and after much confusion, I researched previous short stories in graphic-form and found that more often than not they were a snippet from a story; A brief look into someone elses life, no backstory, no explanations. The story had to be PG-rated, so I decided to utilise this to make a comic that hopefully both kids and adults could enjoy, and after much deliberation I came up with the mutant platybunny idea and started sketching away. The days when I love my chosen path are the days I get to look at cute bunnies on the internet and draw them. Best. Job. Ever. Without any more delay, I present.. Lost and Found! Below is a couple of the pages, and the link to the PDF:

 

Page 1
Page 1

 

Page 4
Page 4

Link to the PDF comic, woo! Read it all here!

I’m not entirely sure if I’m content with the outcome. In the end I had to rush, but that was always going to be the case unfortunately as I came across the competition so late. Anywho, it’s complete and submitted, I doubt it’s a winning entry but it was a pretty good challenge! Plus, now I know how to work for the next competition to make sure I utilise my time in the best possible way. I mainly just want to make people smile with this one, and I hope I’ve been successful. For now that’s all folks! I have the next project to look forward to, and I’ll be back with another update next week. Over and out! x