Update - 29 Dec 2010

Verric is busy drawing (see this post here to see the progress) and Evi is busy writing! No rest for the wicked!

Inspirations

Verric speaking here!


I got my copy today from Borders and I was struck with a mixture of "OMG, I'm published!" and "OMG, I let them publish this?"

Nonetheless, being in Kiseki with all those inspirational, hardworking writers, artists and illustrators is insane - in a good way. There's a lot of pressure to be as good as they are. It got me thinking... what else have inspired me over time?

The first anime I fell in love with is Zoids. Even now for me, nothing can top Zoids: Chaotic Century and Guardian Force. I think all the love is from nostalgia though, I wouldnt recomend watching it, it's too old for a modern audience. I also fell in love with Saiyuki, and I'm still a big fan of Kazuya Minekura's works. It's beautiful. However, my faveourite series might have to be Cafe Kichijouji, drawn by Kyoko Negishi! It's 3 volumes about these 5 random guys who work in a cafe and they get up to crazy crazy things. Chapters are self-contained stories and pretty much garuanteed to be hilarious :D I think it's based on a radio play, which was just as random.

Recently, I've been inspired by Japanese Gothic and Lolita fashion, which I found by the way of Mitsukaza Mihara's artwork. I really wish I could draw as detailed as she does! And even more recently, I've been delving into the world of American comics... wish me luck!

The making of the Chapter 1 double spread

Verric speaking here!

I had to make a double page spread in colour few months ago for tMoTW Chapter One. Evi made many good suggestions but I was simply not capable of drawing her ideas. I made a boring one instead , and Jono ended up requesting a more dynamic one. With his suggestions in mind, I made the final image:


Click to enlarge in a new window


Let's talk about the background, which took a pretty long time.

I probably spent a week, on and off, drawing it in pencil. I had never tried warped perspective on that kind of scale before and I was very happy when I finished inking it. (However, looking at it now means that I see lots of mistakes.) The Copic colour version was much too bright and cheerful (limited palette) and the shadows weren't striking enough, which is why I made a seperate shadow/grey image. For some reason, trying to align 3 images was a big pain! Once I managed this, I toned down the colours in photoshop and did some other hocus pocus.

Because of the complexity of the background, the figures and the background were drawn seperately. Once they were also scanned and altered, they were whacked in front of the background - there, finished!

Do you see what I see?

Kiseki releases page

Deleted Scene

Verric speaking here!

A deleted panel that I quickly snapped a picture of before I had to rub it out:



That's pretty much what the manga looks like when I start drawing it!

Since we're on the topic of very very sketchy drawing, here's the page from my journal where I sketched this years holiday picture.

Nature of criticism

A small comic about how badly Verric takes criticism. Or maybe it's mostly about the nature of criticism Verric tends to get....

This is a true story.




Drawn by:

Building Sketch

Verric speaking here!

Evi and I are working hard! Architecture is one of my biggest weaknesses. So it is very important for me to work from references and to use proper perspective to help my buildings and settings look real. Here is an example from an upcoming chapter.

First, I drew it from the reference picture Evi found in a great architecture book. We did a few changes to make the building fit the aesthetic that we wanted, as well as extrapolate parts which we couldn't see.




And now I've started to pencil it into the panel. The perspective point vertically is off the top of the page, so I taped a piece of scrap paper to the drawing board above this sheet to sketch the perspective lines.




I'm happy with it so far, but there's still a lot of work to go!

December release!

As can be seen here on the kiseki deviantart journal, The Misadventures of Tripp Weston is having a December release! Hurray!

Process of making "That's him!"

Verric speaking here!

Here are the steps in making my picture "That's him!", which I will be releasing on my dA shortly.


Click to enlarge


I'm sure I have an unecessarily convoluted process, but here we go!

1. Draw and 2. Ink it. For this picture, it took longer than normal because originally I wanted to set it in a train station.

3. Scan it. Alter lineart as needed- e.g. cleaning stray lines. I have to smooth them out too, but that's to discuss another day. I make a colour copy of this lineart, and print it out.

4. Colour it in! As you can see, I have a very limited colour palette. For this picture, I used 15 different markers (Copics and Trias). The colours can often scan up differently, but I'm not too fussed, as I use this as a base for altering digitally. I also wanted tis picture to be a little textured so I used some colour pencils for detailing and shading. With white ink I put in highlights on the chair and the policemen's helmets. In this stage, because the lineart is so pale, the characters tend to look like they have eyes that stare into your soul. I coloured his eyes in just to prevent myself being scared ;)

5. I scanned the colours in and lined both of them up, with the lineart on top on multiply. It must be lined up perfectly. Thats why the lineart of the colour is printed pale, in case I get it wrong. (Also, it prevents it being too noticable if the copic makes the printer ink bleed - which it shouldn't do. However, I've been using very cheap printer inks lately and there's slight bleeding.)

6. Digital hocus pocus time! I put some stone texture for the background, which made it a bit grittier. I put some leather for the seat, which I'm not very happy with. Darker shadows and highlights are brushed in. As you can see, the colours have changed a bit, as I had trouble deciding how saturated I wanted it. Lastly, I slap on the logo and slip in the text at the bottom.

So that is how I make a colour picture. Sometimes backgrounds and different figures are drawn seperately, depending on what is needed. A background is drawn seperately if it has lots of colours, detail or very likely to bleed.

Thanks for reading!