Gurukitty Studios is currently working on our 3rd anthology,Gateways to Beyond, and we have launched a crowd funding campaign to help raise the funds needed to publish this book.
The campaign has many perks and donation levels where you can get digital and physical copies of our new and previous anthologies, including pre-orders ofGateways to Beyond. If you are unable to financially support the campaign, thats okay, helping us spread the word is extremely helpful, as well.
If you could spread the word on your social media sites such as twitter and facebook it will greatly increase our chances of successfully funding our campaign.
Gateways to Beyond will have 23 black and white sci-fi comics from artists all over the world.
The wrap around cover art was done by one of the contributors, Jason Hart.
Sample comic pages from the anthology will be posted periodically on tindiegogo campaign. We will also be posting concept work and sketches.
So November is NanoMango. Today was the first I heard of it too.
It's something someone started on livejournal (unfortunately) as a Comic artists alternative to NanoWriMo.
I've decided that while this is an extremely ambitious goal to have, I'm going to try to make the prequel to Conflagration, Embers, In this time frame. The goal is a page a day of pencilled comics, and with a full time job besides.. I don't know if I can do it, but I'm sure going to try. I'm working on scripting it out right now, and have layout complete before November 1 so that It's a more obtainable goal.
Embers should be at least another comic to have going to sell at conventions and to generate some interest in my biggest awesomest story I have going right now. Unfortunately because I've been working with these characters so long, everyone knows OF it but really nothing about it. So hopefully this will be an asset to my comic pile. I'm still planning on having Hello, Albertosaurus done by the summer of 2012, then a couple Mini Projects in there as well (2 of them I'm very keen on) then Full production on Conflagration. How cool!
Hello,
I have been doing a few black and white comics lately, and something I've come to value in this adventure is my Copic Multiliner SP's! Oh yes! The Multiliners are a godsend. I've sort of tallied up what it would have cost me to buy disposable pens VS Copic multiliner SP's (refillable) and I've saved over 100$ on these 2 wee comics alone!
Something else! I have a couple Copic Original in black that I got in my Comic Inking Pro set a while back, and recently I swapped out my Fine nib on it for the Super fine and it's AMAZING!
This is what it looks like:
"One Day to Live" Comic, in progress! Will be available at Vcon sept 30!
Isn't that a keen nib? I've been adding some line weight and stuff to my inked pages with it! It's awesome because it doesn't get fuzzy like the Fine nibs do, and it is regular copic marker ink. It's like one step up from the .07 size Multiliner which I often crave.
We are taking a big leap in our Comic Convention adventures. This time we're diving into Calgary Expo. We've heard great things from other people who've attended the Expo, and we're really excited to take our comics there! By the time the expo is here we should have ghost tales and maybe even Hello Albertosaurus at least available for Pre-order! Excite!
Now there is a small issue of funding. It costs a lot to travel these days. especially by plane and with lots of Luggage. To sell for 3 days, thats a Lot of merchandise. We need 2 plane tickets, hotels, and other costs. We live rather simple lives so we don't need much. Please take a look at our campaign below:
It would be really amazing if you could help us by donating some money, or even just promoting it for us! If you have Twitter, facebook, google+, Tumblr, blogs, or websites or anything (your dA journal for example)! if you could just promote our cause, and get the word out we'd be forever in your debt!
So, I've posted Page 8 today (which is technically Page 9 because I didn't post the illustration page online) you can check it out here if you like. I really enjoyed colouring this page, but it got me thinking about how potentially monotonous my comic could become. B.C. is pretty renowned for its gorgeous scenery of tree's and mountains, and when you're driving through the rockies you can't look away from all the amazing, but once it comes down to illustrating a drive through the rockies, there is a real danger of being boring. hopefully I've avoided this fate so far in my comic (I hope you're reading it).
Every Monday from now on I'm going to colour the latest comic page live before its posted. It takes me around 2-5 hours each page to colour it, but I've been told its interesting to watch so, maybe you'll tune it. I'll try to download them after and post a fast motion version on Youtube as well.
SO I've got 3 more commissions to work on, and then if I have time before the staff meeting I'm going to sketch the next page, or work on some more character design tweaks for Conflagration. But first... a shower!!! :p
So I tried to get on livestream yesterday but my internet has been so screwy it really hasn't allowed much of anything lately. So instead I've been snapping little photos with my overhead camera as I've been working on my illustration.
starts at the top and scrolls down. The very last picture is the current state that it's in (as of typing) so as you can see, its a long process, lol. the first 5 are working on the wall, then the Tudor style horn cup, and skin, then Vic's hair.
Its Copics on Xpress it blending card.
This is by far my favourite paper to work with!
I thought it important that if I have 12 days off I should get something completed in that time, illustration wise. something more epic than the usual little portraits I've been doing. Also since I wont get much time for these sorts of work once I go full tilt on Hello, Albertosaurus.
Some of the inside pages of Hello, Albertosaurus are chapter dividers, and I've tried to do something kinda of cute with them so far. My dinosaur style is... a little odd... LOL!
So here is a sneek peek and the chapter 1 Chapter page:
So, Chapter 1 is going to be posted online for all to read, while the rest of the comic is going to be print only.
you will be able to buy it online in our shop or at our conventions.
I'm excited! The Comic is available now, the page 1 is up, it will update on Mondays!
I'm also working on getting a gallery of my own art up on Gurukitty.com so I'm not always hosting on places like deviantART but I want to find something with a commenting system. One of the things thats actually enjoyable about dA is the interaction (though it's few and far between, the hope is there). I might have to use tumblr or blogger for a gallery... hmm.. Any thoughts on that?
Studio news:
Kitty and I are working on getting a pretty fancy pigment printer for our studio so we're not ordering online for prints. The benefit of Pigment VS the standard dye based printer is the archival quality. Pigment is archival and has better ink stability. So we can be more assured that the prints I sell will be worth the price no matter where the purchaser puts that print. I also have access to lower cost ink refills for the printer I have in mind through my work so it makes it a rather cost effective adventure for us.
We can then print on special papers that will best reflect the medium they're create in (and will also serve to further protect the art work being printed). Canson has created a gorgeous line of artists print papers that I've now used quite extensively and they're phenomenal. When you can and print a watercolour painting onto their arches paper, it's incredibly hard to find any difference from the original painting! On top of that, the paper (being watercolour paper and other types of artists papers) will actually allow you to continue to paint on the print itself! This is a good way for us to create a unique product to sell.
This all came about with a few print service frustrations lately.
Over at deviantART I found that half of the prints I wanted to order hadn't gone through the approval Queue, so in order to purchase the bulk quantity I needed, with a shopping cart of mixed approved and some not approved, I'd have to go through the cart twice and place 2 separate orders with 2 separate shipping charges! I angrily submitted to this and went to purchase them to find that when I went to put through my order of the un-approved batch that they had cleared from my cart. So the orders were quite big and that was a lot of wasted time. besides that, the quality control of dA prints is very low now. They used to be good, but now I get prints that have bad trim on them and on top of that there is no artists identification on the prints at all.
Other print places online have a great reputation or wonderful services but have limited payment options, or don't ship to Canada.
So our solution will have a big start up cost (at least $1000) but in the end we'll have amazing print quality, the ability to print mini posters, cards, ACEO prints, and an infinite number of other things. The quality of our notebooks/ sketchbooks (convention only product) will go up as well as our bookmarks, and comic covers (mini comics).
This change will hopefully be happening in the Summer sometime (July/ August) so watch our for Print sales, and if you want to order prints from deviantART before they're gone forever, you better get on it, because once we have our own printer it will be prints through our shop only.
So there's the news! Back I go to work on more comic Pages!
So I've spent a great deal of today working on Hello, Albertosaurus. It's been fun. I've got a full page coloured and I'll finish the second page here in no time. Once I've got a few pages done I'm going to start posting them online to view. The first chapter will be viewable online while the rest will be available to purchase either through our shop or at Conventions. Hopefully by the end of this week I'll have some pages started to go up :)
Here are some little teaser pictures:
So I took the opportunity I created by being organized in the morning to Live stream another couple quick marker drawings.
I coloured 2 images. They were sketches I drew at Vancouver Comicon in January, and I kinda liked how they turned out, so here they are. As usual I love the rough sketches more than the completed images but I like how Stacy turned out especially. I used a very limited palette with her and I think it turned out well.
Sketched on really smooth Claire Fontaine paper with my Drafting Pencil.
Stacy is the pouty one, and Pehny has the braid.
Now here is the video of the colouring proccess. it's about 50 mins long.
My Copic Class starts tomorrow! There is still time to register! I'm a little nervous, but then again... I'm not. I've had such a good response to my blog, and my many tutorials out there I'm sure I can make it worthwhile for the students.
I am also teaching a second class through my work. I'm going to be teaching Acrylic Gel transfers In North Vancouver. If you're a card maker this is a really neat and unique way to add some dimension and texture to a card! Check out the information on the class here.
After these classes are all done, I'm going to try to get my natural life rhythm back! If my work schedule can be more consistent that would be much easier but I wont hold my breath on that one, or I'll turn blue and die.
I'm going to go back to working on my Comics consistently, and occasionally throwing out a free bee to you guys, though they won't be with the regularity they were in the past.
So I've been sketching here and there:
Here's a page of hand sketches I did in my new sketchbook.
Rough hand sketches. Blue ColourEno pencil.
Also, and Kitty might kill me for sharing this image before her, but I coloured it so... whatever :p
Kitty drew this sketch and I was itching to play with my markers so I did some skin colour testing on it for her. Here is what we came up with.
Well, I'm moving slowly, Juggling projects and life, but I'm getting stuff done!
I've done the pencils for several pages from Day one(my chapters go by days of the trip) and so today I started inking some of the pages that were fully pencilled.
page 4 being inked on my Light Tracer 2
The Light box is a great one, but being that I'm working in a smaller format than Jeri does on Daqueran, the big light box can be cumbersome for me, especially since I like to work on my desk.
I'm excited that soon I'll be getting the 9x12 light pad from artograph. My store where I work is going to be getting them in soon (they already have the 6x9). its got a glass top so the surface will stay flat, and it's narrower so it will not sit so high on my desk. Also since it's 9x12 it won't take up so much room on my wee desk.The day 1 chapter will be readable on line once I get some pages set up and I decide where about I'm going to be posting it on line. Probably just on the website.
been working on Hello, Albertosaurus today. I was going to wait until after my Memoir course at Emily Carr, but I already know how to make comics, I took a course on it on 2004 as well, so why wait? I'm really only looking at the course to give some specific insight into making it a memoir more than the comic making part.
Anyway, I started working away on the page planning aspect of it. and I had an unopened sketchbook that turned out to be perfect. I have everything set up here, my post it notes, Triangle (improperly labelled as a t square, lol.) travel journal, and post it notes.
I am finally making use of all that table space I cleared out so I could have an art desk. When I'm home alone I often find it awkward to draw on the couch because I prefer to listen to music than watch movies while arting, but Kitty likes the movies. On my desk I'm right next to my music, and google, for referencing.
So I wanted to plan it out pretty well before tackling the full pages. I'm going to be colouring the whole thing in copic markers which as many of you know, can be a rather time consuming operation with all the layering and blending, so I want to make sure I have as few redo's once I get to the colouring stages, as possible.
Since my comic is going to be in a square format, Post it notes were a beautiful way to plan out my pages. I've taken 2 post it notes per page in my sketchbook, and each post it represents a page in the future comic. Then I have room to dabble little notes through out the margins. If I need to change a page, or add a page, I just un-stick the post its to re arrange. I've also left the back sides of the pages blank, in case something needs adding in etc. See my photo for a close up of a page layout page.
I'm so happy to finally have a Full Spectrum lamp at my desk. It's true what they say about reducing eye strain, and the colour matching! my Copics never looked so good! when i look up from the desk, my whole apartment looks like I'm looking at it through a glass of apple juice. The world is just yellow! LOL
Here are some cute coloured model sheets for the 3 players in Hello, Albertosaurus, as well as a little scenery drawing of Dinosaur national park! A little idea of how the comics are going to look!
Daddys nasty yellow nicorette gum, HAHA!
The layers of colour in the hoodoo's was one of my favourite things.
Buttons on hat vary from picture to picture HAHA!
Not happy with how over-saturated this one turned out. Bad editing. its quite earthy in real life.
I've finally settled on "Hello, Albertosaurus" as the title of my memoir comic. The poll didn't help me choose, it helped me decide what I hated.
The cheezy filler titles I threw in there just because they were dino words got the most votes but I'd never fathom calling a serious comic those. It was pretty clear people didn't have any idea of the story while voting.
Anyway, having said that, here is a quicky little modelsheet for the 3 main characters of the comic.
Little Jepi: standard pose, Talk to the hand pose, Starch worship, jumprope
Little Daddy: standard pose, wont climb hoodoo pose, nicorette bubble pose
Little Guru: standard pose, eating poutine pose, punting pachyderm pose, 2 run poses.
as time goes on and I solidify more I'll show more of them. I have many animals, characters and settings to design to match the sand-bag design of these little guys here.
Just as a side note the final product is going to be a perfect bound comic/ graphic novel. I will not be publishing it online except extra material like this, and promotional things.
Going back to my roots as a comic artist! I'm doing a comic series, sort of like a memoir of our trip with dad into the world of dinosaurs! It's going to be pretty cutesy, but also have some of my normal colourful language in it ;)
I've decided it's going to be either 8x8 or 6x6 square perfect bound book. and only one book, not multiple issues or anything. After this I'm going to do something about my mum too, but not sure what. we've never taken a long trip really. maybe when we moved to terrace.... That was an adventure!
The nice thing about my trip with Daddy is, it was well documented. Thousands of photos, a daily blog, and a trip map. All these will make it into my comic.
I think Each chapter will have a "day" Represented, so it will be either 7 or 8 chapters. You can read about my trip on my other blog
Kitty is going to be making my template for me to make my pages for Ka-blam printing for when I scan each page, and I am debating posting it online or not. Technically my whole story is on-line already with the blog, and I'd hate to lose sales to the print world because people aren't very supportive of comic artists.
I know with Daqueran, many people don't buy it because it's online.
Well, anyway, this will be added on Gurukitty once I hammer out some of the logistics, and make a promotional image for it! I also need a title!
Any suggestions?
Well, here is the logo for what I will be doing in my spare time. Daqueran mini comics aka: Daquerminis. I'll do one per issue from now on and these will show up exclusively in the Daqueran print version only. This is one of the incentives to buy the print version instead of mooching free awesome comic from the online version only. Support your comic artists :)
---------------- Now playing on Winamp: Tracy Chapman - Cold Feet via FoxyTunes WOO! so there was an Encaustics demo at Opus today, and I was so happy to be able to see it all! It was definitely inspiring and totally awesome! I'm going to be experimenting with this technique as soon as possible! For those that don't know, Encaustics is painting with pigmented wax! it has an awesome depth and texture to it!
I've also found that I have developed a considerable bank of knowledge in regards to traditional art supplies in my head. As a result I've now started a separate blog for the purpose of sharing that information. its called Experimental Guru! I'd love if you followed it. I'll not only be adding all my product knowledge in the form of reviews, but also tutorials, general technical information, studio safety information, and other tidbits of information. I'll also be making sure to properly tag and organize the blogs so that you can easily browse and search.
If you have tutorials please leave a comment linking to them over on that blog so I can properly promote your tutorials and information as well! lots of stuff from the United states (and around the world for that matter) I dont know about or have access to, so if you have related information on specifics, I can add that to my list :D
I'm pretty excited!
My new oil painting is still too wet to apply my tape layer. I think I have at least another week to wait! HA! I should have done the base layer in acrylics so it would dry fast, but - live and learn. My Hummingbird painting is finally dry enough to work on the next layer so I will be doing that this weekend I hope as well. I've got 2 TruFax comics in the works right now, that I should be posting one of this weekend as well.
