It’s way too much for me to be doing, but it was good to let loose and make sketches in a non-committal way. Check out those non-committal shoes. They are so non-committal.

Anyway, that’s Max. I made this as a twin piece for that Denica sketch. I feel like I’ve got more of a hang on what I want Max to look like now. Specifically, he should exude the air of someone who parts his hair with a ruler. He doesn’t really have a sense of humour. I’m massively looking forward to working with him.

(…one day.)

Hello! I am in need of colouring assistance for my self-published comic, Fish & Chocolate. Please read the all of the following carefully, and then give me an email if you are interested. I look forward to hearing from you!

You will be required to lay down flat colours under pencil linework using Photoshop. I do recommend that you know Photoshop fairly well, so that the process can go as quickly & smoothly as possible. If you are unfamiliar with the kinds of work I’ve produced before (so you can look at the kind of stuff you’d be helping me out with), please check out my portfolio website at http://danse-macabre.nu .

Things of note:

>>> You will need to be speedy & neat. I will provide a fully-coloured sample page for you to see how the process of flatting integrates with the final product.

>>> Most likely to be using FTP to transfer files. Please ensure you have unlimited internet access, as uploading files can take some time and suck your speeds, etc. Flatted pages will vary around the 220mb mark. Please also ensure you have sufficient space on your computer to store the files temporarily until the project is complete.

>>> Colour swatches will be provided for major elements, such as characters. I will also provide unflattened character sheets for your reference.

>>> Pages will take approximately 30-40 mins to flat. Some will vary, depending on contents. Unless the page is excessively complex, they should not take longer than this, for your sanity & my need to get the book done in reasonable time.

>>> I really need for you to be over 18. This book contains adult material, including frequent all-stuff-bared nudity and various liquids from various orifices. Amongst other things. I do recommend you think carefully if you happen to be squeamish! (Seriously!)

>>> As a last note, it is vital that you are good/speedy with communication, just so that we can make it easier for both of us. It is likely that most communication will take place via email.

Payments & Schedule:

>>> Deadline: this is a self-published work, though I am going to need it completed by the end of the year. Please ensure you are able to commit to this from the time you are enlisted to help out until the end of 2010, or until the book is complete (whichever comes first!) I will be working out a contract for you, for clarity and safety for both of us.

>>> We can work out a schedule together which suits us both, though ideally I would like to have things done at a speed of approx. 4-5 flats a week. If you want to do them all in a lump, be my guest!

>>> You will be flatting approximately 115 comic pages (I have coloured some pages up for samples already; the book itself is 128 comic pages). I will pay you £7 per page (or the equivalent in your currency), you will need to invoice me following sucessful upload of the work. We can work out how frequently you submit invoices and your preferred payment method. I’m happy to pay either in one lump at the end, or to break it up into say, every 20 pages or so.

>>> You will be credited in this and any further editions of the completed book, & receive one copy of the book’s first edition. I cannot offer royalties at this or any other time, since this is all technically coming out of my own pocket. You will also get my undying gratitude, for all that it’s worth… ^^;

How to go from here:

>>> Give me an email, and I will send you a link to download a folder containing a fully-coloured unflattened sample page, relevant unflattened character sheets and a separate trial page for you to flat and return to me. It will be a page I have already flatted and coloured up, so I will be comparing your flats with mine to see how well they match.

>>> If you have any questions, please email me, rather than commenting on this entry.

My email is: extra.minty(at)gmail(dot)com

Many thanks!

It’s drawing things like this that makes me realise how much one needs to know about the human figure in order to parody it effectively. (In my case, I don’t know it well enough X’DD)

Made for the CPCBF! I had a lot of fun at the Festival last year. I’m unable to get to it this year, though I’m so pleased it’s going ahead, and I hope it becomes a regular annual event! (Especially since both last year and this year I was able to draw some really fun monsters! :D)

If you’re able to get along, you should check it out! ^_^/

I’m catching up on Ulysses 31 after not having seen it since I was, like, three years old. It’s actually really good. Seriously awesome stuff happens in it. Like, Ulysses has a fucking laser-gun-sword. I mean. That’s awesome. It’s nicely structured and only occasionally borders on silly. It’s pretty sophisticated. It’s got actual long-shots, and lingering shots on characters’ faces to show emotion. I may sound like I’m being sarcastic, but you don’t get that stuff in cartoons these days.

I don’t think it’s as good as Mysterious Cities of Gold; it doesn’t have the charm, and the characters aren’t anywhere near as strongly realised. But, it is more focussed than Mysterious Cities, and suits the episodic format a little better. (But MGoG will always rule my heart…)

I’m one of those people who bang on about how shite cartoons are these days. But I don’t think kids can HANDLE THE AWESOME of stuff we had back when I was growing up. Also parents/the government would go batshit over something as cool as a laser-gun-sword. (You know it).

Finished the pages for The Piper Man, the first story in Fish & Chocolate (though it was the second story I drew)…

Meh. I had a hard time with this one. Had one of those “yeah that’ll look awesome!”-times in drafting it, and then getting round to actually drawing some of those “awesome!” things was… like, not so awesome. More like headache-inducing. I test-coloured a couple of pages at the beginning, though I’m not really sure if I like how they came out. They’ll prbably look a bit better with text on. I’m really not sure I like that first page much at all, anyway. Oh jeezuz, here I go with the happy XD

A little bit about The Piper Man! So, I think this is technically the newest story to add to the bunch. It’s about 3 years old now? It’s been through a few drafts. Not too many. I had one of those “complete visions” of the idea for it one night, and had to write the whole thing down in case I forgot. At one point it was going to go in an anthology, although that fell through. Kinda good in a way, as I get to mash it together with the other two F&C stories, and it sits quite nicely alongside them.

I’m going to be interested to see what other people think about it. I have a firm idea of what it’s about, although when I showed the draft to Paul, he found rather different things to say about it. I think that’s cool. I will be fascinated to see if people see it from his point of view, or my point of view, or a totally different thing.

Anyway! Currently, I’m about 10 pages into doing roughs for Matryoshka. So, 30-odd pages to go, then I’m done with the pencils! Woo!

Uhhh, no attention paid to light direction ^^; Probably shouldn’t fart things out without some forethought. And I shouldn’t really be doing stuff that’s not comics right now ;3;

We raffled off a large print of one of the original DFC covers of The Spider Moon, and also of course we had the auction… I was VERY happy with the result! We raised a lot of cash for Mind and also, in a rather cool twist, the winning bidders turned out to be the lovely folk at The Story Museum, which is about 10mins walk from our flat! If you live nearby you should keep an eye on this place. It certainly looks awesome. Oh, I love Oxford so much :D

Lots of my most favourite people were able to come along, so it was just such a cheery event! In a total surprise, some friends from Devon drove all the way up for the evening. It was super-awesome as I’ve not seen those guys for such a long time. My editor for The Spider Moon (a.k.a. Lovely Ben) was able to come as well, which was super-awesome too!

Here’s some pics that Paul took:

Setting up! I love how Blackwell framed the images. The Bekka-sitting-on-the-moon cover was the raffled image. It went to a lovely family home :D

Books!

All the DFC Library books together! It was great seeing them like this. Please do look out for Vern & Lettuce by Sarah, Mo-Bot High by Neill, and Monkey Nuts by Bob & Lorenzo out later this year! They’ll make great Christmas presents, won’t they? Eh? Eh? *nudge*

Crowd! (Including Philip Pullman! He’s just this guy, you know? somebody I admire a huge amount, so I was totally overwhelmed to meet him. We spoke about a few things, including my boots. I hope that I did not make a fool of myself.)

We had sketchbooks and drawing materials out on the tables! They were well-used! (Would like to point out here that David Fickling was making bowties cool long before Doctor Who ;p)

Paul is probably making a masterpiece! ;D Or could he be drawing a certain shining knight…? ;D

Also! Please do check out my friend Lisa’s collection of photographs from the event. She’s very talented! :D

The rest of the weekend was spent with friends playing video games and MtG and watching silly things on YouTube and eating nice things and talking about comics and books and films and basically everything we all love. Couldn’t be better! :D

Here’s the pieces we’ll be auctioning off at the (very, very late…) launch party for The Spider Moon:

I felt like making a new outfit for Kal (but doesn’t it make him look older! O_O;) Actually, that particular illustration is an adapted version of the third cover I was hoping to do for The DFC, for when Part Three of TSM started its run. All in all I’m glad I finally got to do that picture one way or another, as I was kinda fond of it.

They’ll go as a pair: linework on A4 Bristol board and a coloured print of each, starting at £5. So the winning bidder will get 4 items total. The proceeds will go to Mind, which is a charity I support anyway, but I want to give it an extra boost. That is… if anyone wants the pieces ;3; Of course I’m terrified that nobody will bid and we’ll all just stand there and then go home…

…someone will buy these for £5, won’t they? Right? (Right…?)

Private commission for a client ^_^ This was really fun to do, though rather challenging, as the client requested a scene from a dream that she had had the night before, and we both tried hard to re-capture it on paper :D Everything in the image was as carefully represented as possible. She was happy, so, I’m happy! I really missed doing illustration. It always shocks me how different it is to comics (in my opinion).

In other news, The Spider Moon has been nominated for The Northern Graphic Novel Award 2010 *^_^* I am totally shocked and thrilled *^^* Though I can’t find anything about the award yet online, the results will be given at Thought Bubble this October. Typically, I can’t make it to TB this year ;3; I don’t know who else has been nominated, either O_O; IT IS A MYSTERY!

EDIT: The other nominated titles are: MeZolith, The Wizard of Oz, Sliverfin, Good Dog Bad Dog and Beasts of Burden. I heard my hopes fizzle away down the drain when I learned of the other nominees XD Congratulations to these people! :D

I made a sketch to put up and make this place look a bit more full! This is Uncle Valmaksias:

I wasn’t being very patient trying to draw that hairstyle and a ruff together in the same space XD Ah well. There be much wrong with the sketches XD Anyway! I’m so pleased to have a blog back. I missed it a lot ;3; It also makes me want to sketch more! Though I’ve had so much on recently I’ve not had much time for sketching. What I *really* need to do is something useful like go out and draw cars and stuff. (I can’t draw cars). Nrrrff!