shameless self-plug

THE NEW ISSUE #3 OF MY COMIC OMNIPATHY IS OUT NOW AND AVAILABLE FROM A NUMBER OF SOURCES.

YOU CAN READ ALL ABOU' IT ON THE OFFICIAL OMNIPATHY BLOG AND YOU CAN EVEN ORDER IT THERE TOO VIA PAYPAL. I WILL LITERALLY MAIL AN ISSUE TO YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS. ISNT THIS EXCITING?!??!!? OMGOMGOMG

#165

trying to loooooooooooooooosen up. last three omnipathy issues I didn't really care about character design that much (except for maybe the one with the aliens) so I actually want these guys to be good. main goal of issue #4 is to fucking RELAX though. everything i draw is laboured over and doctored and fiddled with (especially if I use a computer). secondary goal is just to use a computer as little as possible. I was at the Birmingham MCM expo this weekend and I saw a lot of awesome things people can do without being a wuss and burying themselves in photoshop.

DONT WORRY THOUGH the  covers will still be big pretty digital paintings paintings. people seem to like them and I do too.

#152

the discovery

#151

more aliens.

#150

designing some colourful aliens. katamari meets frank the cat meets pip and norton??

#138

more comic what-have-you

#137

some panels from that comic that is taking forever.

#134

Adding text to a comic is pretty uncomfortable for me. I don't like doing it by hand (tiring and hard to get the consistency I want, plus I edit a lot throughout) but I think typefaces look too mechanical. In addition to this picking a text/bubble colour is always hard, as I don't really like outlines. The white-on-grey thing here reminds me of the dialogue panels in FFIX.

#128

I can't really say I have a consistent method for making comics yet but here are some pages showing a sort of process. Right now I'm laying out text first (trying to do this as early as possible so it doesn't end up looking tacked-on), then I rough out all the art in B&W linework before blocking out colours and lastly adding details and adjustment layers.

In addition to this I did two drafts of the text in a word document beforehand, pretty much wrote it once and then rewrote it with quite a different story and tone. I've never done this before, but with the first story was floating around in my head for ages and it felt like it was trying to talk about too many unrelated things at once, so I wasn't really happy with it. When I wrote it down I still wasn't happy with it, but the process of writing it down (aided by a helpful lightbulb moment I had when I went out on an impromptu walk) sort of dislodged all the elements in my brain and I knew exactly what I wanted to change, so I just spent a few more days and rewrote it entirely. I have a hard time with character design so I end up spreading it uncomfortably across the whole thing (with OMNIPATHY #2 I finished designing the lead character as I was drawing it).

I think the process of colouring and detailing is laborious and a lot of my favourite artists favour something that looks more rough and ready, a bit more immediate. With OMNIPATHY #4 I'm gonna try something like that.

#125

unfinished page from OMNIPATHY #3, trying to pin down a look for the thing. this is unfinished (gonna add little details for the faces etc but other than that I'm happy with the way it looks.

#124

Continuing the themed wraparound covers for my omnipathy series of comics. quite pleased with this one, although I think the text looks  a bit overdesigned and I dont think I've described the perspective of the path he's standing on very well. Oh well!

As i'll eventually put into words on the omnipathy blog, I'm won't actually be hiring a table in the october MCM expo this year as the above issue isn't finished yet and won't be in time to get it printed. As a consolation, though, there'll probably be two whole stories in it, kicking the overall pagecount up to a possible 30! wow. I'll post here when it's available. anyway, fairly pleased with this one. feel like I achieved what I set out to do which is fucking rare.

#123

little dotted lines to show body outline shapes through things like hats and hair. i'm a stickler for that sort of shit.

#122

King Damavand XIV of Throl-nok-Tarad.

#117

doodling for my next biggish project. trying to draw girls not looking retarded, mostly succeeding. really need to get some good reference for suits of armour, though. quite happy with the colour comp panels.

#87

#77