Betterrrrr...

Of course, I don't really plug the Internet directly into my brain... but I wish I could

Ahhh... Auntie Amazon delivered a nice new router this morning, and I've been swept up in an orgy of Googling ever since... plus being able to get Radio 4 over the net (for some reason the FM signal seems to be blocked here).

(Techno-babble warning: the following paragraph is best skipped if you're not into stuff computer-y.)
This is my new best friend; a Netgear DG834G wireless ADSL modem router (henceforth "Art Object #1"). It's a striking example of how network devices have moved from the realms of IT to become home appliances.
My old device (a D-Link DSL router bought in 2002) featured an impenetrable web-based interface and a minimal manual which assumed a detailed understanding of networking. In contrast, Art Object #1 includes a setup wizard in the web interface; it asked me if it should have a go at self-configuring, I clicked "yes" and aside from entering my username and password that was it. Connected in 30 seconds. And that's taking into account the fact that, as a Mac user, I couldn't use the Windows-only setup software provided on CD.
What's more, the layout of the interface includes an incredibly useful sidebar that contains explanations of the terms used in the interface, plus instructions on how to configure various options. I normally measure the success or otherwise of installations in terms of "swearing-time" - that is, the point where you end up fiddling with a device that should already be working, until some re-entering of data or re-insertion of a cable does the trick. I'd consider 35 swearing-minutes to be good going for configuring a router. Including unpacking the thing from the box, it took me all of five minutes get the broadband connection, and then maybe another 30 minutes to secure the network, but in fact that involved no swearing at all; most of the time was taken reading through the clear and detailed instructions, which I tended to do more carefully since they were presented right there in the interface. Brilliant. I not only love this device, I want to lick it all over.

Double Gaah!

Without going into gory detail, I got a broadband connection for half an hour this morning before my old router died on me! I can't win for losing!

Most of the morning was lost to this exercise in futility, so it's back to the grind; my hopes rest with the new router that Nice Auntie Amazon has promised to send me tomorrow...

Gaah!

This is the drawing I've been trying to upload for the past week. Grump.

Sorry I've been posting so irregularly - I'm in the middle of broadband installation hell - configuring my old D-Link wireless router to work with the new BT account for the flat. The annoying thing is, configuring it was pretty straightforward as per BT's instructions, and now it and the Macs tell me I'm connected to the Internet, but any attempt to actually collect mail or browse a web page just results in the activity timing out...

So, while I'm paying for a broadband account I can't use, I feel constrained to spend my time trying to wrangle the b*st*rd rather than paying to use the Internet café. This is made particularly annoying by the fact that we had to take out a year's contract despite being here for only four months, and waited two weeks for installation, so I'd be wasting eight-and-a-half months of the contract even if the thing worked first time (I know I could transfer the contract back home, but I'm happy with the cable supplier we already use there).
Anyway, as of 11.50am, during one of those "I just thought of one more thing" tries to get the damn thing working, I discovered the if the laptop is on the floor in the corner of the living room, I can ponce off a neighbour's unsecured wireless network. So that's why you're getting this now.

Grump.

And Again...

Asylum Books guy originally designed by Colin MacNeill

This time I got as far as copying the image from yesterday to a drive and then attaching the drive to the laptop, but then I still somehow managed to forget to copy the image to the laptop! So here's a copy of a website intro screen I did for Asylum Books and Games a while ago. Their version has whizzy animation on the laptop screen.

Ack!

One of the drawbacks of no Internet at home - I found a nice sketch to post today and then forgot to transfer it to the laptop I took to the Internet Cafe.

We're due for the Broadband installation on Monday, though I'm not looking forward to configuring my router for the new connection; I've been told that BT willsupply me with an installation disk, but whether that will contain configuration information in accessible form remains to be seen. Last time I got it by digging into an OS9 modem script. Matt's swearing forecast for Monday: moderate to heavy....

Adventures And Old Friends

Bit of an adventure today... went to my first Tai Chi class, something I'd wanted to try for years, but never managed to find back in Sheffield or Nottingham. Somewhat disgraced myself by going all faint as a result of the strenuous standing up we had to do before the exercises started... (I had originally typed "fainted like a big girl," before my belovèd, the factual Dr. F, pointed out that everyone else in the class except me actually was a big girl, and all of them breezed through the lesson without going all wibbly.)

Original concept drawing of Rex, leader of the pack from XTNCT - I never drew his feet so well again...

Work-wise, I dug out my original character sketches for XTNCT, to go in the back of the new collection... funny to see how much the characters changed in the year between the first sketches and drawing the last episode.

Aviatrix was the character who changed most - I'd hoped to get away with giving her membranous Pterodactyl-type wings, but Alan Barnes and Paul Cornell insisted on feathers...

It goes underwater and resists nuclear attack, but the insurance is prohibitive and it takes up two parking spaces at Sainsbury's...

First Results

Test panel from Stickleback episode one
(due to appear in Prog 2007, on sale December 2006)

Did a trial page for Stickleback over the weekend - I'm using a new (for me) technique, inspired by the collage work of Argentinian comic artist Alberto Breccia (specifically, his work on Perramus in the 1980's).
It's always a bit nerve-wracking trying a change of direction - new techniques that seem great in trial runs can prove unwieldy when faced with the day-to-day grind of comics production, but the trial page went well. It does you good to shake things up every so often... the slight uncertainty of not completely knowing what I'm doing adds a definite frisson to the working day. I find I'm much keener to get down to work than I have been for months.

Getting Started

First pages of Stickleback laid out today - the first episode is ten pages long, which I'd usually break into chunks of three and four pages, but since I'm trying out a new technique I'm finishing pages one at a time until I'm sure the new look works; that way, if it's an absolute disaster, I can back out with a minimum number of finished pages to re-do.

So far it's just a few scribbles in my page layout book - there may well be stuff to show off by Monday, though.

Have a good weekend.

XTNCT Cover

Finally got somewhere with the cover for the XTNCT collection that I was moaning about the other day; here are the roughs.
Now I can finally get down to Stickleback...

Learned Debate

All well and good, but where's Wally?

Paul Cornell put me on to a debate on Chris Roberson's Blog, trying to identify the different aliens in this double page spread from The Great Game #3 - though be warned, if you do take a look, the comments contain spoilers.

Faffing

I'm still without even dial-up so I have to nip round the corner to an Internet café to collect my mail - and much to my relief, the first script for Stickleback has arrived at last! Back to the grind once again!
This morning I ar bin mostly occupying myself with the cover for the collection of XTNCT, which is driving me nuts; I'm not a natural cover artist, and coming up with a strong, well composed image that sums up a whole story is always a trial. I must have faffed away about five hours on the bloody thing, and the only thing I have to show for it is a sketchbook full of scribbles coupled with increasing anxiety and self-doubt (hence no images with this post).

I need to go and buy some reference for Stickleback, so my current plan is go do that and let myself cool down, then come home and dash off the first thing that comes to mind, which usually gives much better results than thinking too much.

Fingers crossed.

Arrival

The Angel Of The North, glimpsed in passing outside Newcastle.

Yesterday was moving day.

My belovèd, the peripatetic Dr.F, has research leave from her university job, so we've headed up to Edinburgh for a few months while she (hopefully) gets the bones of a book written.
We spent Dr F's last leave in Vienna, which involved carting three suitcases and a couple of rucksacks halfway across Europe on a sleeper train; this time, the ever-wonderful Jim (the same Jim who fixed my Wacom Tablet) agreed to ferry a load of our stuff up to Scotland on his trailer.

He had no idea what he was letting himself in for.

We'd thought using the trailer would allow us to shift the regulation three suitcases "plus some other stuff" - but "other stuff" growed like topsy until it we'd packed so much stuff that the sides of the trailer were bowing out and rubbing against the tyres, threatening to cause a blowout; some nifty temporary repair work by Jim sorted that out, but the load had to be re-roped twice on the way up, nonetheless.

Our worldly goods languish in the non-too-secure entrance hall; terrifyingly, by this point we'd already shifted nearly half of them.

What hadn't occurred to us was, it's one thing getting three-quarters of a tonne of worldly goods from Nottingham to Edinburgh, it's yet another getting them from the trailer to a third-floor flat when the building has no lifts and the only recourse is The Stairs of Doom - a narrow, stone-built spiral staircase of the kind I usually associate with castles, so tightly wound that I can only fit my toes on the inner part of each step, and calculated to set off my terror of falling down stairs. Normally I get over this my firmly gripping the stair-rail and also the centre column as I go up, but many of the loads were so heavy and bulky they required both hands; the only thing for it was to take a deep breath and charge up the stairs on tiptoe, all the while feeling as if I was about to pitch over backwards to my doom. Luckily it only took fifteen or so trips for my adrenaline to run out.

Still, everything's in place now, the flat's gorgeous (small, well-appointed and slap-bang in the city centre) and the sun is shining. There's still a fair amount of sorting to do, but my working set-up has been reassembled, so I can finally get back to doing some drawing. After the prolonged heavy labour of packing and moving, actual work will feel like a holiday...

Heads Up - Great Game #3

Back and front cover to Scarlet Traces: The Great Game #3. The back cover includes the figure illustration I posted a couple of months ago.

It's that time of the month again; Ian tells me he already has his proof copy, though once again I don't have mine. This time, it's deliberate; as I'm moving to Edinburgh today, I asked Dark Horse to hold all mail to me until I was safely at the new address.

One drawback of the move will be that we have to wait two weeks to get the phone line reconnected and broadband installed in the new flat. Being without even dial-up may well affect my ability to post, though I understand the flat is within easy reach of an Internet café, so with luck I won't be as badly affected as I might be.

Step-By-Step

Since I've had such good feedback from previous step-by-step demos, I thought I'd try doing a detailed one for the "DIY" cartoon from Saturday's post. It's a simple image, so it's easy to keep track of all the steps, but it does involve a bit of special FX - importing a texture.

Stage One - Drawing in Adobe Illustrator First rough sketch in Illustrator, using Brush tool and Wacom tablet.

More refined "pencils" in blue, using a finer Illustrator brush tip.

(For complicated subjects I'd do another "pencil" stage in mid-grey, but I was happy enough with this drawing to go straight to "inks."

"Inks" done in black with a yet finer Brush tip - the Brush tool gives a flexible line that responds to pressure from the stylus tip, like using a traditional dip-pen or brush. If there were big areas of black, I'd fill them using the Pencil tool and a black fill, but in this case, I just used a heavier Brush tip to add small spots of black.

I then used File: Export to export the finished drawing as a 400dpi RGB Photoshop document with layers (no anti-aliasing)


Stage Two - Preparation in Photoshop

Because I'd exported from Illustrator in Photoshop format, the drawing was floating on its own transparent layer. This allowed me to add colour and texture on layers beneath the drawing without obscuring the line-work.
I added a light brown background to serve as "underpainting" for the eventual colouring. I usually work from a coloured background rather than white.

Using the Magic Wand and the Fill command, I made a white mask on a new layer just below the inks (that's to say, a floating sheet of white with a "hole' cut in it corresponding to the drawing.) This means I can colour on layers below the mask, without having to worry about keeping inside the lines.

Now to add the texture.

I wanted the figure to be covered in spattered grime and blood (nice me). Photoshop and Painter aren't terribly good at generating big, coarse textures like that, so the easiest thing to do is to use a captured texture.
In this case, I used a digital photograph of the foam from a cappucino (top). I increased the contrast (below) to make the image more graphic, matching the style of the drawing. I hid the line-work layer and pasted the texture into the drawing, under the white mask. The texture was black on an opaque white layer, and I wanted it to be in colour on a transparent layer, so I turned this image into a mask by going to the Channels palette and duplicating one of the channels (since the information is black & white, any of the three channels will do.)

The mask can then be loaded using Select: Load Selection... and filled with colour using Edit: Fill


Stage Three: Colouring in Painter

Opening the file in Painter, I locked transparency on the layer containing the texture and painted into it with browns and greens, so that it looks like mud is mixing in on the legs and feet. Locking transparency (in Photoshop and Painter) means you can only paint or fill on parts of the layer that already contain pixels; or more simply, it stops you "colouring outside the lines")

Next, I painted on the background using Painter's Sargent Brush (acts like smeary oil paint). Although I hid the texture layer here to show the painting, I painted with the texture in place, so I wouldn't waste time colouring areas that were obscured by texture (note particularly the legs and feet).
The same image with the texture in place. We're nearly there.

Finally, I added a few highlights to add that bit of extra "pop."

The final step was to go back to Photoshop, adjust the colour a little using Hue/Saturation, and then resize to 800 x 532 pixels @ 72dpi using Image: Image Size and then Save For Web... as an optimized JPEG.

Thought For The Day...

Today I ar bin mostly drilling holes in things

A Bit Behind The Times, But...

half ox times
Originally uploaded by GirlyComic.

Just spotted this on the CAPTION group on Flickr... I sent them an A2 print of the cover of Kingdom Of The Wicked, as I'd not had the time to do a colour original for the auction... guess it really does pay to advertise.

Thanks to GirlyComic for posting this.

Proof

DSC01520.jpg
Originally uploaded by blankcorp.

Just to prove I was there, here's a photo from the same evening, taken in one of the rare moments when I was shovelling food into my gob rather than raising a camera to my eye. From the angle, I'm guessing this was taken by Mark Buckingham.

Whatever Happened To Mike Dringenberg?

In the Great Game-Stickleback interregnum, I'm catching up with sorting my photos - there are a load from the wedding-rich month of August; aside from Dave Moyes' do in Scotland, we also went to Spain for Mark Buckingham’s wedding. These are from a night out with Mark, his fiancee Irma, Duncan & Diana Fegredo, and Neil Gaiman.

Duncan Fegredo tells it how it is to Neil Gaiman.

It was a bit of a reunion, as Mark, Neil and I all used to be on the committee of the Society for Strip Illustration (the SSI, now called the CCG) back in the late 80's and early 90's*. I'd not seen Neil for about 15 years, but he was still the same as ever, affable, good-hearted and a fund of amusing anecdotes. I'd wondered if I’d find him intimidating, given his string of best-selling novels and movie deals, but on reflection, Neil always did seem like the sort of bloke who should have a string of of best-selling novels and movie deals; the world finally caught up with him, that's all.
I thanked him for the ongoing blessing of my Sandman royalties; even today, I still make a couple of hundred dollars a quarter. He smiled and then looked serious.
"I sorta feel bad," he said, "for not getting you on a better book."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
Well..." he replied, "Mike Dringenberg, he pretty much retired on his royalties from Preludes and Nocturnes. Even today, he must make at least $8000 a quarter."
Ah, well. Owt's better than nowt, as we say in Sheffield.

*Though to put this in context, Neil and Mark were successive SSI Chairmen, whereas I edited the newsletter and then got fired for messing up the accounts :-)

Mark Buckingham chivalrously protects Diana Fegredo
from a scalding meat fondue.

Irma Page (now Irma, Lady Buckingham) with Neil Gaiman.

Now, you may well be wondering how it is, given all my bitching about tight deadlines last month, that I found a week to go to Spain. Well, last Autumn, Mark and Irma had invited me to be a witness at their wedding, and at the time, The Great Game was due for completion at the end of July 2006. By the time we actually got to August 2006, I was running a month late, but I didn't want to miss my old mate's wedding, it would have made life difficult for them having to change witnesses, and we had flights and a hotel room booked. I decided to go and try and work while I was in Spain, which worked out okay in the end.
Secondly, given that I’ve had fun posting all these sneaky candids of my (possibly now former) friends in less than flattering poses, I thought it only fair to conclude with a photo of myself from earlier in the same day:

Rex Harrison lied to us; the rain in Spain doesn't stay mainly in the plain.
(Picture by my belovèd, the achromatic Dr. F)

The Shape Of Things To Come...

Tharg The Mighty is © 2006 Rebellion Developments. Representation of Tharg is purely symbolic; actual Tharg-in-residence Matt Smith is larger than this, and flesh-coloured.

...and a blast from the past at the same time. I originally drew this for an interview on 2000AD review.co.uk, but, ever the Yorkshireman, I thought it would recycle nicely on the banner of this blog, given that I'm back working for 2000AD from this month. Given the way that my deadlines are already grinding against my house-move, I fear this really will be my life for the next couple of months or so; still, I'd be bitching even more if I was out of work.

Bunking Off

Tony Dalton (left) with Ray Harryhausen

Sorry for the lack of postings the past couple of days, we'd bunked off to go see Ray Harryhausen at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford. A good evening, though a tad disappointing as we had to slip out, just as the questions were starting, to catch the lamentably early last train. The event, in the form of an interview on stage by Tony Dalton (co-writer of the two recent books on Harryhausen) was very much focussed on matters technical, and we'd hoped to ask some questions on narrative. Still, it was wonderful to spend a couple of hours as a fanboy, breathing the same air as a childhood hero. Harryhausen was in good form, still exuding enthusiasm for his unique brand of film-making, and dryly sending up the whole process of plugging his new book.

One recommendation ; if you go to the NMPFT, there's a fantastic curry-house just behind the museum, Omar Khan's. One of the staff at the museum recommended it to us as "not the cheapest, but very good," though in fact the prices seemed pretty reasonable (presumably one can get very cheap curry in Bradford).

On the way back I spent a day catching up with my dear, neglected old mum (and also found I'd left my laptop's modem cord at home, hence the lack of posts), then to Nottingham for a summit meeting with Ian, who'd come over. We spent the day in earnest discussion, planning the new series for 2000AD, Stickleback.*

It'll soon be back on the treadmill again... though in the meantime, there's a lot to be done. My belovèd, the peripatetic Dr.F, has research leave this semester, so in a week's time, we're off to Edinburgh. Not only do we have to pack, but worse, we have to shovel the vast amounts of crap filling every room into the loft, so the guy who's renting from us will have somewhere to put all his stuff. Fun fun fun.

*For "we spent the day in earnest discussion, planning the new series for 2000AD, Stickleback," read "we spent the day wandering round the shops, buying cool stuff."

Thought For The Day...

Another karaoke pic - I'm not usually very good at catching expressions but I was quite pleased with this one. Again, inspired by the cartoons of Steve Whitaker.

Busy Doing Nothing...

Marcus Tullius Cicero: "I suppose you're wondering why I gathered you here today... it's to point the finger at the fiend who stole my arms."

Still in a state of fall-out from The Great Game this week; been sleeping a lot, catching up with my reading, and seeing old mates. I've also started looking at odd things I'd promised to do for people when I wasn't "too busy" - and much as I'd like to spend the whole of the lull between The Great Game and Stickleback sleeping, I'd thought I'd better honour at least some of my promises.

One such was an illustration for an article by my belovèd, the erudite Dr. F., on the parallels between the defence speeches of Marcus Tullius Cicero and modern detective fiction for the schools classics magazine Omnibus - hence the combination of the "classic" Cicero bust with the iconic Holmes deerstalker and pipe. It's all come out a bit A-level art project, I fear, but jobs like this are a good chance to play around in a way I feel reluctant to with commercial work. It also taught me a few things I'm filing for future reference, technique-wise.

I also took a day off to go visit my old friend and former colouring mentor Steve Whitaker (probably still best known for his work on V for Vendetta). Steve has my old computer, so every so often I pay him a visit to catch up and also do a bit of tech support. We had lunch in a restaurant with a stained-glass ceiling, which produced lovely reflections in the cutlery. Very appropriate for a meeting of colourists.

Steve's one of the few old-school colourists left with whom I can play the "Coding Game" - this is where we name the colours of things according to the old comics colourists' coding system, which fell into abeyance sometime in the mid-late nineties. So for example, when Steve asked me how much milk I like in my coffee the reply would be "make it Y6 R4 B3," that being the colour I'd like it to go. It sounds complicated, but once you've done enough coding (and Steve did loads more than I) it's pretty easy to approximate. I've seen designers do it with Pantone swatches.

The colour Y6 R4 B3 (AKA 30% Cyan, 40% Magenta, 60% Yellow),
just in case you ever have to make me a cup of coffee.