Page 9 & 10 inks

Page 9 & 10 Inks

Well it's Friday. Wow time has been going by pretty quickly. This weekend will be awesome though, gonna go spend time with my family for HALLOWEEN. Should be great!

Page 9: I didn't put the flames behind Grim on the 2nd to last panel yet because I don't want them outlined in black. I think if they are, then they would take away from the panel. I'm really happy with the over all flow of the page.

Page 10: I really love the way this page came out. If you look closely you can see little details, like spider webs. The light source for most of this page will be coming from the candelabra in the background. Again I'm hoping to establish a fun but spooky mood, that will help establish the overall mood of the NPW universe. Hopefully I'll pull it off.

Check out the finished pages on the NIGHTMARE PRO WRESTLING web comic on Monday.

Hope you have a spooktacular HALLOWEEN!!!

BWAAAAHAAAAAAAA.....

Later.

NPW Web comic Page 9 & 10 Pencils

Well it's almost Halloween. I'm really looking forward to this weekend. Halloween has always been a big thing in my family, so my wife and I are driving down for the weekend to spend Halloween with my family. I'm excited!

So these are the Page 9 & 10 Pencils.

Page 9: The last panel on this page was orignally going to show Grim punching Grave through a wall but the image didn't look too exciting. So I went with Grim's fist punching through the panel. I really want to put a lot of detail on the fist when I start to paint it, just to add a creepiness to it, as well as focus. I had drawn this page out a while ago but when I looked at it again, things didn't look right. So I redrew some the key panels and just touched up the others. Nothing much more to really say about this page.

Page 10: I'm really excited to be working on page 10. I'm hoping to establish the mood of this universe even further with the page. I plan on adding more detail to the suits of armor, and maybe change them a bit. Looking at them now the small suits look a little too much like Alfonse from Full Metal Alchemist. I do plan on adding a few other things like spider webs and more detailed stone walls in the background.

Alright, thats enough for today.

Later.

Pages 7 and 8 Inks

Here are the inks for pages 7 & 8.

Page 7: Putting together the arena in google sketchup was a pain to do, even if it was just basic elements. I just put together a basic Pro wrestling arena and just drew in the details.

Page 8: This page changed a bit since the pencils. I didn't really like the way the page was flowing so I decided to get rid of a panel and rearrange the rest a bit. I wanted the ring in the training room to look different than the ring in the actual arena. So I didn't add a lot of blacks and changed some shapes. The colors will also be different. I wanted the dumbbell that Grim is using, to be massive. I also wanted it to look a lot more realistic and match the background elements.

I really like the way panel 1 turned out. I wanted to put all this detail in there, along with a few monsters working out. I had wanted to show more of the training room but it would have taken away the focus of the panel. The whole point of that panel is to show you where Grave, Lobo, & Grim are. This will make things easier for the reader and the actions on the page will flow a whole lot better.

Alrighty, well back to work. Check the Nightmare Pro Wrestling web comic on MONDAY for the final pages.

Cheers!

NPW Webcomic Page 7 and 8 Pencils

Blah! I stayed up late watching the Office then got up early as usual but I was too tired to workout. Still feeling a little rundown. No more sleeping late for me.

Here are the pencils for pages 7 and 8.

Page 7: I'm finding that drawing all the key images first, scanning them, creating the page, then quickly sketching out the other elements in Photoshop, is really working for me. It allows me to see how the page will look put together. It also lets me do quick adjustments to the page with little trouble. Panel 4 is my favorite panel of the page. I'm really happy with the way the deranged look on Lobo came out.

Page 8: The panel layout was a little more complicated on this page, so I just quickly did it in squares and lowered the opacity. Again I drew out all the key images in my sketch book, scanned them in to my computer, and quickly sketched out the other elements in Photoshop. My favorite panel of the comic so far is on this page and it also happens to be panel 4. I'm really happy with the body language that came across in this panel. I feel I got Grave's energy and enthusiasm down, as well as Lobo's frightened hesitation.

All right thats enough for now. Come back during the week for more warm up sketches and INKS of these two pages on FRIDAY.

Later.

Fiend's Backbone Finshing Move -- Warm Up Sketch

So, I had a great surprise this morning. I downloaded the podcasts I listen to every Tuesday and started my warm up sketch. As I'm listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Art & Story Alive, host Jerzy Drozd brings up the question I had sent as a discussion topic. Not only that, he also mentioned my web comic :D

That was pretty awesome.

My question to them was about lettering speech patterns & accents and whether it's better for the artist to do it or to let the readers create them in their heads as they read.

Jerzy, Co-host Krishna Sadasivam, Ryan Dow, and Javier Hernandez, had a really great discussion and brought up some very interesting opinions and advice. I really appreciate it, thanks guys. You should check out their stuff -- it's really great ( you can just click on their names)

Art & Story Alive is one of the podcasts that has helped me keep my mind creative while I was working a non-creative job. They helped me with artistic inspiration and motivation, when I was considering throwing in the towel.

I've mentioned these podcasts before, but if you haven't checked 'em out yet, here are the links: Art & Story, ChrisOatley.com, Big Illustration Party Time. Check them out, I promise you will be happy you did.

Today's warm up sketch is of Grim doing his finishing move the "FIEND'S BACKBONE"

which was originally called the Devil's Backbone.

Why change the word Devil to Fiend? Well, I didn't want to freak out kids and parents. Well more so not to freak out the parents. The reason I chose the word "Fiend" is pretty simple. The Japanese card game/anime Yugioh changed the names of their demon cards into fiend cards, here in the U.S. to be more kid friendly. That's the first thing that popped into my head when I was thinking of changing the name. It works : )

I was also asked recently by a friend of mine why all the characters finishing moves were real moves and not crazy Anime moves? Good question.

Well first of all, I didn't want to be compared to the Anime Kinnikuman (or Ultimate Muscle, here in the U.S.) I really like that anime but that's not the direction I wanted to go. All of my monsters do have superhuman strength but I wanted to focus on just how brutal and awesome real wrestling moves would be with that kind of strength.

Second....hmmm, I guess there is no second. The main point is that I just wanted to do something different. There will be crazier moves that we will see in the comic but I have a STRONG rule of not doing any crazy Kinnikuman/DBZ moves. That and changing moves that involve a crotch in the face -- awkward to draw, awkward to read.

Later!

AAAARRRGH!!!

So I've decided to just post up the warm up sketches on days that I don't post up Comic pages. It'll save me some time.

I really want to see Where the Wild Things Are and hope it lives up to my expectations. I think the creatures or "Wild Things" look so cool, especially when I see them running in the trailer. That is totally what a chubby creature would look like if it took off running, LOL. I read they were created with practical meshed with digital effects, which I think is the best way to go in any movie. I really hope I'm not disappointed.

Any who, lets talk warm up sketch. I asked my wonderful wife this morning for an idea for a warm up sketch, she said that Dark Beard the undead pirate is one of her favorite characters in the comic.

This image quickly pop into my head as soon as she suggested the character.

Enjoy,

Later!

Pencils Time!

It's Wednesday, time for the pencils of the next two pages of the comic.

Lets start off with Page 5. As usual, after thumb nailing the page I drew each of the characters separately and scanned them in. I created the panels I needed and quickly sketched out ideas for the backgrounds that I had in mind. I added two additional figures during this process, the Lunch Hag, seen on the last panel, and the janitor in panel 2. I ended up drawing them in my sketch book along with weird foods to put in the buffet in the last panel.

Remember nothing is set in stone. If you feel like your image needs something more just throw it in there. Also remember, keep things simple but interesting. It's easier to add something than it is to take it away. I definitely have learned that the hard way and it can be a pain.

I searched the internet for similar reference images I could use for the backgrounds I sketched out. Lately I've been looking for reference images that I can just collage together to get a better visual of what I want. I just touch it up the way I want it and make my own adjustments in Photoshop until I get what I'm looking for.

Page 6: I know the backgrounds look more finished than the rest of the page. That's because I forgot to save the sketch work and only realized this while I was doing panel 3. Oopsy.

The background lines are a collage of my own pencils and modified photo images I put together. I then put them through the cutout and poster edge filter in Photoshop. This has been saving me a lot of time with doing the backgrounds. It also gives me the look and feel I want.

Alright, til next time,

Cheers.

Bouncy bouncy, having such a good time!

I've been testing out the finishing move designs during my warm up sketch time. Here's Devastator Dragon doing his Devastator Stomp. I'm still not sure about it. I want to see what a double foot stomp would look like, think I will do a few sketches of it that way, just to see how it looks. Either way it'll be fun to draw, picking great and different shots of this finisher and other moves is something I'm really looking forward to drawing.

Thinking about how to draw in-the-action wrestling moves is actually something I've been paying attention to while watching WWE wrestling. I was talking to Nicole about how I've been noticing how they frame shots and how certain shots would be more interesting drawn as a comic.

One of the cool thing about comics is there's no limit to camera angles.

Cheers!

Mr. Hyde Loves Candy, Not Babies -- Morning Sketch

One of my favorite things about doing morning sketches is getting a chance to get a feel for how I want to draw each of the characters. I've done character sheets for everyone but it's different drawing a character in a static pose than doing a dynamic sketch.

Today I did this quick sketch of Mr. Hyde. He has what me and Nicole have dubbed "bad guy nipples" which I've drawn on all the mean/bully characters in the comic mostly because I think they look funny and I think they somehow add an element of ugly meanness.

You won't meet Mr. Hyde until the 2nd issue of the Nightmare Pro Wrestling webcomic but you can read a little more about him (and see a picture of him in color) on his NPW Roster page.

Later,

JoN