Author: Byrd

Concerning Thumbnails

Posted on January 29, 2023 by Byrd

I like doing thumbnails first. Small scribbles that provide a blueprint for the bigger sketch.

But I always talk myself out of doing them because I want my sketch to be the blueprint. I want as few steps as possible. Ideally, it would be (script already written):

  • Sketch
  • Ink
  • Inkwash
  • Digital formatting

Like, these 4 steps I can get done in five 2 hour desk sessions (10 hours total). Which is the time I alot for each weekly page/post.

But I find that after I’ve finished posting, I’m often daunted by the big white page of the next part. If there’s thumbnail, it’s less daunting. But a thumbnail is just another stage to this work. But it’s a stage that gives me the confidence on what the sketch process needs. A script alone is not sufficient to start the sketch stage.

So I think I’ll start thumbnailing from now on. Scheduling wise, I find if the sketch is done before the weekend, so I start Monday with a full sketch, that the ink/inkwash/formatting stages can get done by the Wednesday posting deadline.

And thumbnails are stuff I can bust out in the cart or watching tv or before bed. It’s not something I need to be at my desk for. I’m always trying to identify parts of my process that can be done away from my desk to speed things along.

Concerning the Black Mold Boy

Posted on January 17, 2023 by Byrd

On my Tapas Comic page, I have the following listed under my profile:

“Toot toot! If you’re reading this comic, all aboard the Attention Deficit Train…”

Because I can’t focus on anything. Just doing weekly pages in a single installment of the Imbibe Universe is painful. So here’s some character design for the Black Mold Boy, a character in the series “This Bitter Earth”, which is scheduled to be illustrated 5-8 series down the line.

Concerning the Googling of Oneself

Posted on January 9, 2023 by Byrd

I’ve been on the hunt for jobs for longer than I care to admit. The modern job hunt includes more than just submitting your resume. Ensuring that an online presence is positive (at the least, not offensive) is important. So googling myself is not a frequent activity, but it’s not uncommon. On my last googling, I noticed the book cover for Tapas (a webcomic site) was not great.

So I created this new book cover for the Imbibe Universe. I mocked it up first on my phone, and then finished it on my desktop. I might use that method in the future.

Concerning Goals and Mantras

Posted on January 3, 2023 by Byrd

It’s goal setting season and I love it. New Year’s Eve and Day are arguably my favorite holidays for that purpose. It’s a time to reflect on what you’ve done and look forward to what you plan to do. I’ve been setting yearly goals since 2013. Every year’s goals get written on a small scrap of paper that I keep in my wallet.

Instead of just a list of goals, I’ve started to organize them into a mantra that I can repeat to myself. Below each section of the mantra are bullet points with the general list. So last years was “Read, Write, Draw, Work, Self, Live”, with things like comic projects listed under “Draw” or “Write”.

This year things are divided up into “Be Social, Be Grateful, Be Vulnerable, Be Productive”, with the last being reserved for comic projects. I should be able to finish “Enter Cedar” this year, which means I’m looking forward to a new project.

Chronologically, the next project is “Where the Highway Meets the Corridor”, which is “A documentary about a small Washington county bootlegging operation turns into a state wide chase to return a young alien to it’s family.” Are you noticing a theme? This particular alien is supposed to be Gray’s older sibling, the one that was driving the flying saucer that Gray was hiding out in.

Concept Art – WHMC

But we’ll see. I might change things up. Setting goals helps with the attention issues, but sometimes you have to listen to where the attention leads you.

Concerning Exploration of Analogue Color

Posted on December 27, 2022 by Byrd

Spending more time exploring analogue color. Here is a scene from a future series called “A Gaze”.

And some experimentation with eye shapes that are just straight shapes.

I think I’ll reserve these weekly blog posts for “future development” talk. There’s not too much to talk about when it comes to things in “current development”, unless I’m not posting that work weekly.

Concerning the Gods

Posted on December 7, 2022 by Byrd

Dammit. The Cacophony of Frog would have been a good name for the frog god. Right now, their name is Choir of Frog. For reasons, I kept the grouping name of gods in the letter C. Mostly because we have the Raven Council, and then that became the Salmon Collective, and then it became Commune of Bear. Choir, Council, Collective, Commune.

But Cacophony of Frog would have been good too. These “gods” are not singular entities, but groupings of like minded human sentiments and emotions. They don’t get a name, they get a title, representing their collective consciousness.

Except for Morah, who has been removed and/or removed herself. Can you really say “I removed myself from the collective” when “you” had that thought when “you” were still the collective?

Concerning the Tracking of Labor Stats

Posted on November 23, 2022 by Byrd

I’ve finished rewriting the last 3 episodes of Enter Cedar.

And I feel pretty confident I know how to break scripts into illustrated pages now.

Roughly, it’s 28 more illustrated pages. Rounded up, that’s 30 more pages to go.

30 pages at 4 pages a week will take 7.5 months to complete.

Which will put my book at 92 pages. I’ll probably add another 12 with illustrated chapter covers.

So 104 for my first illustrated by hand graphic novel. Ain’t too shabby.

And that’s 75 pages? At the end of Deep Circuitry, that was 83 script pages for…400 pages? Jesus. But, that density of those pages was a less. And I drew it as a vertical tapestry (for Tapas), not pages.

Tracking stuff like this is weird but important. For labor stats…

Concerning Small Consistent Efforts

Posted on November 16, 2022 by Byrd

My first page of this comic series was posted on February 14th 2020. It was Bucky on the website Tapas. It’s a vertical platform, and while it was novel enough to get me started on this process, I ultimately decided I didn’t like the vertical format.

Which is why I decided to opt for a WordPress. It took a lot of figuring, but I think it’s working now. Transferring everything I had produced for Tapas to WordPress took a little bit of formatting, and when I was done, I discovered that in the last 2 years I had drawn over 500 pages.

To date, it’s been 1006 days since February 14th and 518 pages of the Imbibe Universe have been illustrated. In the midst of this current rewrite (slowing down always leads to a little depression) those factoids are encouraging.

We started on the planet Earth, and then we ended up on Eruen, and then we went all the way to Gliti’ics, and now we’re back on Earth. We’re going to learn more about how a creature very similar looking to Rachell is on Earth, and we’re going to learn about what Morah and the gods are, and we’re going to learn who Titus is (the mustached man with round glasses). Eventually we’ll loop in another planet called Trea. We’re going to have talking raccoons at some point and colossal floating cuttlefish and sentient mold. I’ve got a lot planned (and it might take a long, long time to produce) but it’s very fulfilling.