for today’s panel breakdown, here are 3 pics showing the steps I took. most notable is how in my blue roughs, I realized the hand was not centered on the panel, especially with the caption making all the “action” happening in the top half of the panel. basically bad composition. hey, I’m still learning!
for my next top 10, let’s do tv shows!
1. Game of Thrones – action, awesome characters, fantasy creatures, and Tyrion Lannester!
2. SGU Stargate Universe – a bit of a BSG knockoff, but hey, still great!
3. Young Justice – about time DC animation came back with a regular toon
4. How I Met Your Mother – love Barney
5. Whitney – love the focus on relationship issues and the boyfriend is hilarious
6. Community – Donald Glover, a writer, stand up comic, actor and rapper!
7. Modern Family – great writing every episode
8. Dexter – finally getting into the show. it didn’t hurt Adama was the villain!
9. Walking Dead – zombies!
10. Warehouse 13 – quirky and fun, plus you get some history
and for honorable mention, the new marvel anime shows – Iron Man, X-Men, and Wolverine. just couldn’t quite get into them. but, def looking forward to next year’s return of Games Of Thrones and maybe, just maybe a premiere of a new sci-fi show!
more and more, I’m learning background details is where it’s at. i’m slowly overcoming my prejudice that the background is so boring to draw, when in fact, it can be the most challenging and rewarding part of the process. below is an upcoming strip for Finn. sometime I debate in my mind that for a more cartoon like strip like Finn, a more detailed background would cruelly detract from a comic strip. but here, I feel like it adds correctly to the strip. by the way, guess how long it took me to draw this? 
i love pet names! although i may not use them very often, i love hearing what people call their significant others and i usually get a good kick out of it. one of the best i’ve heard recently (which used above actually) is Fancy Face, which Ryan Gosling’s character uses in the movie Crazy Stupid Love. so, why do i enjoy pet names so much? i think it’s because when two people share such an intimate connection, the use of our formal names are just too, well, formal. and it’s the pet names that really becomes our real name, at least to each other.
this week there are 10 faces of Finn, each one i try to stretch myself and just have fun with Finn’s facial expressions. although i’m not too happy with the outcome, it was quite a stretch to just draw those. i think i’m being held back by 3 years of drawing Finn and anything too radical just looks weird. well, time to shake loose the old shackles and experiment! more to come!
i like year end recaps of the best and worst. sometimes i agree, sometimes i whole heartedly disagree. well, here’s my top movies of the year.
and while i’m at it, here’s my 5 worst of the year, that i actually watched.
ps. number 11 would’ve been Drive, making that the third Gosling movie.
agree? disagree? give me your comments or your top 10 movies of the year!
I start each of panel these days using a 0.5 blue pencil lead. I used to use reg pencil lead but found during my scans, it would show up sometimes. (blue doesn’t scan in under b&w settings). I try to rough out the shape and make sure they make sense proportionally. more often than not, I have to do multiple erases before I settle in on what I think looks accurate. next, still using blue pencils, I flush out the details. and it’s great to know I still have inking to do because if I get something wrong here, I don’t redraw it and instead leave it to the inking step to correct. and finally, using a Pentel brush comes the inking. I pay special attention to the amount of pressure I apply, to try and give the picture more personality with line variations.
so, it’s a pretty quick process and I correct as I go with each step. I’d like to think with a more serious piece there would be more steps and I’d work a bit more on getting each step right before moving on. and of course, there’d be more background details.
flashback to middle school! back then, my art teacher introduced us to something called pointillism, which is basically using a bunch of dots to convey shading, with the spacing of the dots giving that illusion. now, this panel is prob not big enough to exercise this technique or perhaps I need to use a fiber tip pen.
some sketches I did last week, practicing some female faces from the great Frank Cho. these are taken from Shanna She-Devil, which is actually a really fun comic read!
as some of you may know, i recently got married to an absolutely amazing woman. although i was never asked, “how do you know when you’re ready,” the thought simply crossed my mind. and when i tried to answer that, well, there were just too many reasons why. there was just an overwhelming reason why TO do it! so, in today’s strip, i offer only one of infinite reasons why. and although it’s a phrase we’ve all probably heard before, it’s a phrase that really sunk in with me once i truly felt it. sorta like the phrase, ‘welcome to the x-men, hope you survive the experience!’
artwork wise, i’m really happy the overhead shot worked out good. since the topic is kinda deep, i wanted the audience to feel like they were IN on the discussion. i didn’t realize the amount of measurements i would have to make when drawing this, especially the floor tiles and the spacing of foosball men. but as i’m learning, the background details is sometimes what makes the characters pop out the most.
I don’t know why, but it’s so hard to push my art’s boundary. I start off thinking, “ok, get ready for some really crazy, totally different from my normal artwork!”. and then when I’m done, I see it’s not all that different from my normal stuff. I think a major reason is because I want it to look good! so, from now on in Finn, you might want to prepare yourself if things don’t look so pretty! in order to get better, maybe things need to get ugly for awhile.
which brings me to the art tonight, facial expressions.
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