sketchbook

[egypturnash]

So yeah, I was doodling direct in AI and the first thing that came up was Alecto.



I know her chin and ears are wrong here but I can't remember what's right (oh, there it is, in the icon). Also note that judging from the silhouette of the Superdome, the story's explicitly set in New Orleans now rather than in a dreamy copy of it with the serial numbers filed off. I suspect I'll be processing some lingering stuff related to Katrina when I do get around to doing this story. Sure, add that in to the other old wounds I'll be obliquely licking, why not?

I wanted to pull something from either the Heaney translation of Beowulf or from Gardner's Grendel to put on this first doodle but I have neither book handy any more, and the Internet wouldn't serve up a pirate copy of either.



I'm kinda digging on this fake crosshatch look. I've faked it better in the past (art brush rather than pattern fills); I could probably experiment a while and make a nice library of ways to fake it. I'm not so much digging on this experimental rework of Clyve, though it sucks less than the overly-geometric dude I was originally drawing. That grate on the right comes from the outside of my father's recording studio on Rampart, by the way.



Also not totally happy with this fiddling with the queen of the Water Sidhe. (oh hey it would help if she had LONG POINTY EARS like an elf SHOULD, hmm, that's starting to go somewhere. Almost goaty for a bit, which would be interesting, but I decided to pull back from that.)



I am however happy with this drawing of the magic sword lying in the servitude, about to get rained on.

The "Midwinter 2011" date is not a promise of any kind. Although that'll be ten years since the central character walked into the back of my head and wrapped her cold, lonely self in a story I'd started to put together a few years before.

Comments

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Honestly, the only thing The City Dreams Of Tamino The Cat and The Drowning City have in common is the word "city" in their title and a lot of rain…

The original designs for Drowning City were very simple and geometric. Dimensional but simplified. There was an abstract quality I liked to them but they just don't feel particular enough for me now...

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

I find that preprod work is a good thing and yet, like any image, it's not until one starts actually doing the comic that things fit together or show where they need to be changed. I like the linework here not only for its own look but the fact that it's different than the approach for Absinthe. I love what you're doing now, but that you can do something else as well is very exciting.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Absinthe is just so fucking lush. I won't be doing another comic that looks like that for quite some time after I finish it.

Of course, I'm sure I'll find a way to make this rendering style turn unfeasibly complex in short order, too.