When Life Gives You Lessons... Issue #24 General Updates Two weeks, we’ve got to stop meeting so suddenly like this. I’m never ready for it anymore. Another blink and you missed it two weeks have flown by, and once again I find myself a little disappointed at my progress with The Chosen One’s Mentor. But, two weeks from now my time will have freed up a lot so I’m hoping for a final sprint at the end of the month to hit that deadline of a January 1st release date for chapter one. Granted, the...
15 days ago • 7 min read
Slow but Steady Issue #23 A Change of Pace Once again, two weeks have flown by. Unfortunately, this time it’s not because I’ve been working on the comic with laser focus. No. I started my regular job. And, as I feared, a regular job sure does sap one’s energy to work on anything after getting home from a long day…. That’s not to say I’ve done nothing. But I’ve certainly accomplished far less than I’d hoped. The need to work a regular job again has definitely thrown a wrench in my estimated...
29 days ago • 4 min read
The Fruits of My Labor Issue #22 What I’ve Been Up To Wow, two weeks go fast when you’re working hard. And what a two weeks of work it’s been. I’ve been plugging away at the comic day in and day out (when I wasn’t knocked out from a recent flu shot) and, as of the time of writing this, I can say that 1/5th of the comic pages are now completely finished. 1/5th may not sound like much, especially with the New Year deadline looming, but the reality is I’ve been taking my time to make sure this...
about 1 month ago • 9 min read
What 20 Weeks of Studying Has Done For Me Issue #21 A Brief Look Back This is issue #21 of my newsletter. That means, at the rate of a newsletter a week, I’ve been writing into the void for nearly five months now. It feels like forever ago since I was in the daily grind of making chapters of The Chosen One’s Mentor to post every seven to twelve days, and yet it also feels like I’ve blinked and five months have flown by. In that time, I’ve dove headfirst into studying comics from researching...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
Refining My Water Style Issue #20 Reviewing My Notes You know, an interesting thing happens when you bother to study with any amount of regularity. Learning gets easier. And faster. This week, I only did a small handful of water drawings, but, before I was done with them, I already felt semi-comfortable about the direction I was headed. Sure, my skills could definitely still use some refinement, but the principles for drawing water in a stylized way were locked into my head by now, and that...
2 months ago • 7 min read
Going With the Flow Issue #19 Style Over Substance Water is the topic of these next two newsletters. How do you draw it? Or, more specifically, how do I want to draw it? Because as I’ve been progressing through these elemental topics, it’s been occurring to me that figuring out how to draw an accurate flame or rocky outcrop is less important to me than figuring out how I want these things to look in my comic. So I’m setting out on this journey to learn how to draw water in my style above all...
2 months ago • 8 min read
This Changed the Way I Write (For Comics) Issue #18 A Change in Priorities Okay, I was going to do a newsletter on drawing water to fit with the earth and fire newsletters I’ve already done–and I will–but first, I had to get this out of me. I mentioned previously that I’m reducing the length and workload associated with my newsletters so that I can have more time to work on the remake of my comic The Chosen One’s Mentor. For the last few months, I’ve felt like the only way I’ve been able to...
3 months ago • 12 min read
Flame On Issue #17 I Cast Fireball My quest to learn how to draw fire so far has seen me learning the basic principles of fire. From how color dictates temperature and fuel burning efficiency to how a standing flame tends to form a teardrop or triangular shape. But, at the end of my first round of studying, I was left feeling like I had yet to make anything that would be usable in my comic. In my story, flames are often present as a result of magic, not candles and fireplaces. Conjured flames...
3 months ago • 8 min read
Making Fire...In Drawings Issue #16 A Matter of Style Fire. We know it. We use it. It pops up as something you might have to draw sometimes. When you’re making a comic that features magic as a main element of the story, drawing fire becomes an eventuality. So how did I handle fire in my previous comics? Oh. Ugh... Okay, I can’t take any credit for these ones. I’d found a paintbrush that did them for me at this point. Which brings me to a point of contention in the art world: when do you do...
3 months ago • 11 min read