Hello, Albertosaurus - Production Diary

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

Anyway, back to work!

Opus Christmas card contest

At my work, Opus, Every year they give us this really tiny deadline to get in a Christmas card contest entry. I know I wont win because it's not christmassy enough. At the same time they preach being neutral because of our heavily mixed culture, but I know they want christmassy. I'm going to Cross post this to my marker blog, sorry for those who watch both, you'll get it twice
Anyway, this is my little frog entry:

It's frogs. Yup.Even though frogs wouldn't be out in winter.
I was kinda making a jab at the mild winters here. 
Okay the rules state Opus logo must be present in the card so I hope mine's not too hidden. 
The frogs ate glow bugs in the opus logo colours, and they're tummies are glowing and the Opus logo is the coloured reflections in the water.
I think it looks cute so even if I don't win I think the logo isn't SO obvious it can't stand on it's own as an illustration.
I may fiddle with the text and placement a little but meh, I kinda like it.

Gurney Journey: Panel Roo

This is a pretty awesome little tool for some artists who have trouble storing or transporting their panels! click on the link to see the original blog post.

Gurney Journey: Panel Roo: "Jason Daniel Jackson has come up with a simple and lightweight way to store wet oil panels, two at a time. It's called 'PanelRoo,' and it's..."

Hello, Albertosaurus Colour

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.

Hello, Albertosaurus

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.