Process Post: Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld

This was the last Kickstarter reward I had on my list: An Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld commission. I decided to go all in and add her pegasus/unicorn.

Like previous pieces, I started out digitally and did an extremely rough sketch. I wanted to give her a strong, confident pose, the kind of note she might have struck at the end of the original miniseries. I worked and which I tightened up.

I printed that out and did a final pass with pencil on a sheet of tracing paper. I'm still learning the Cintiq, and I haven't hit a comfort level where I can do things to the level I want. I hope to get there soon, and that's why I keep pushing.

I then scanned in the tight tracing paper art and printed it out as a blueline on a sheet of bristol which I inked with brush and a little bit of Micron in the detail. Then I scanned that in and colored it. I tried converting the ink lines to color, too, but not getting too carried away with it. I think it softened the image, but not too much.

Order a Love and Capes T-Shirt! LIMITED TIME ONLY!

You wanted a new Love and Capes t-shirt? You've got one!

For those of you who voted, this was option #2, far and away the winner. Thank you so much for your input! It'll be on a cardinal red 100% cotton Fruit of the Loom tagless shirt, with black and white printing on the front.

Here's the plan: This is going to be a Kickstarter type project. Shirts will be $10.00 + $5.00 shipping (there is an option to pick them up at a convention and save shipping costs, too). I need to sell 24 shirts to make this happen. At that number and price, that's what I need to cover the costs. If I don't make that quantity, I will refund everyone's money. I'm going to cap the orders at the end of the day, February 14th.

(Hey, that's Valentine's Day!)

My hope is that we exceed the 24 number and as the per unit wholesale price drops, I can get extra shirts made to have for sale at comic cons over the course of this year. The extra shirts will sell for $15.00 (plus shipping, if bought on the website).

What I'm also going to do is hand sign every preordered shirt with a permanent fabric marker.

So, spread the word! Order below!

Delivery Options

Pick Up at Con $10.00 USD Delivered $15.00 USD

Sizes

SM MD LG XL 2XL 3XL

What Con (if applicable)?

Love and Capes Boston Print Process

If you've been following me on Twitter or Facebook (and if you're not, you should be) you know that I've been trying to do three extra con prints for cities that I'm not really doing shows in to pad out my forthcoming con print postcard set that will debut at Emerald City Comic Con. I got the third done today, so now I have prints for Boston, Las Vegas and Cleveland should I ever do shows there and an even twenty postcards in each package to boot. So this is my Boston print. People have asked me to share more process stuff, so here's how these happen. Click on any thumbnail to see a bigger version.

First, I ask around to see what local landmark I should do. I stay away from things with logos or copyrighted images trying to keep with things that are in the public domain. Asking locals and travelers gives me a good idea for what they would like to see featured. So, I was worried about doing the Space Needle for the first Seattle print because everyone does the Space Needle. But, that's what they recommended. My very first one, Charlotte, was inspired by a friend telling me about the Queen Charlotte statue at the airport. And I wouldn't have known to do the Saturn V rocket (or that it was no longer exposed to the elements) without asking for local Houston advice.

Here, Lora Innes, historian and the talent behind The Dreamer , said "Do the Paul Revere Statue in front of the Old North Church." It seemed a better fit than the Zakim bridge or anything else. So I started Google searching for photos until I found enough reference to start.

Once I find one, I start doing the rough. I often do the tracing paper and pencil thing, but I want to learn how to use my Cintiq better, so I roughed it out on there. I wanted to ink it on the Cintiq too, but I wasn't happy with the results. So I kept with the pencils. I made them into a non-repoducing blue color, so that I could print them out on good board and ink them.

I took those bluelines and placed them in the Adobe Illustrator document that has the frame of the print. Then I inked the technical stuff in Illustrator. One of the conceits of the style of Love and Capes is that most things are inked with a French curve instead of a ruler, giving things an off-kilter cartoony look. Doing this part in Illustrator allows me to make exactly the large curves that would take a couple passes and some effort with the curve.

Super techie stuff now: I expand all the lines to become editable shapes, and I tweak the shapes with the direct selection tool. This lets me get a little more character into the mechanical ink lines and emulate a hand drawn look where I could change pressure on my pen and get some "pop" to it. This is also where I do a lot of lettering.

On this, I inked the statue base, but not the church itself. The church's lines were small enough that it would be easier to do those with the French curve.

I print this hybrid out onto a piece of Canson Smooth Bristol using my Brother 11x17 Multi Function Printer/Scanner . The statue base and the frame print in black. Everything else is in non-repro blue.

I ink most of the piece with a Raphael #2 brush . For this one in particular, I called up a lot of Bill Waterston's Calvin and Hobbes art to see the brilliant way he handled foresty background. I used him as a guide for inking the trees and leaves.

The church was inked with the aforementioned curve and a variety of Microns . I really like these pens. They have a hard felt tip, and I can vary my pressure and get an interesting line. They're also cheaper and travel much better than the rapidiographs that they replaced in my artbin. (Or, in my case, Superman lunch box.)

With everything now black and white, I scan it back into the computer. The non-repro blue lines don't scan, and I adjust the grays and blacks until I get a clean black and white image.

I don't use a flatter or do the traditional system of coloring the background first. A lot of Love and Capes is from a preexisting pallett of colors. The red and gold in Mark's uniform is always the same color, same for Abby's hair and skin and so on. I use an insane number of layers until I get the piece mostly where I want it. I'll adjust hue and saturation to test some colors, like with the sky or Abby's outfit, until I find what makes the image pop.

From there, I create a shadow layer set to multiply and use a transparent deep brown to create the darker tones. And then I create what I call a "patch" layer on top of all the colors (but below the inks) and I zoom into to "actual pixels" and then I sample the colors and patch any places where I've gone too far outside the lines.

I select the black lines and make them a rich black, and with those selected I start coloring some of those black lines for added depth. So, Mark and Abby and the statue are the rich black, the trees and backgrounds are a deep brown, and the church is purple to really throw it back.

The last thing is, before I go to print, I'll add a copyright notice with my website. I save a flat version so it's smaller and easier to send. And done!

Simple, right?

New Emerald City Comic Con Print

Emerald City Comic Con is coming up, and I promised a second con print for the show. The first one almost sold out, so doing a second was a no-brainer. Being the first time I've done a second, I went away from the art deco, white border print that has defined the con print series. I don't know that this black-bordered print will start a new series, though. We'll have to see how this one does. I am toying with the idea of adding a quote about coffee to this. We'll see how that goes.

As usual, click and embiggen!

Also, there's an interview with me up at the Talking Comics podcast site. I discuss Love and Capes, My Little Pony and more. Check it out!

Postcards from the Edge

For the last year and a half, I've been doing these local con prints with my Love and Capes characters in the city hosting the show I'm at. Each is limited to only 25 pieces, signed and numbered, and they've been pretty popular. For those of you who wonder such things, the best sellers among the sixteen existing ones have been the Columbus and Seattle ones. Seattle was, in fact, so popular that I'll be doing a new print for them this year. I'll also be adding Denver for my appearance at the Denver Comic Con this June.

This year, I'll be introducing a set of postcards that include each of these prints. I haven't come up with a price yet, but when I do, I'll let you know. But seventeen seems like such an odd number. (Well, it is… and prime to boot.) Eighteen would be a little better. Maybe I'll do a chase card only available in the set.

Any suggestions for where?

Abby's Bookstore [minor spoilers for #6]

I don't know why it took so long, but I've created coffee mugs for Abby's bookstore that are now available through CafePress.

You can get a mug with the original bookstore logo.

Or, if you're current with the book, you know the store changes it's name. Unfortunately, I couldn't work this logo into the text of the comic, but it's the logo for the store post-What to Expect.

My 1st My Little Pony Commission

Next month, my issue of the My Little Pony micro series makes it's debut. I've written and drawn the inaugural story featuring Twilight Sparkle. I think it's a good one, and I hope you do, too.

This means, of course, that I'm officially a Pony artist and I've started taking Pony commissions. Here's the first one that I did featuring Nightmare Moon.

I'll also be offering the original art from my issue, as well as the cover, for sale at conventions and online.

Love and Capes: What to Expect #6 ANSWERS/SPOILERS

Love and Capes: What to Expect #6 will probably inspire some questions. Four of them, in fact. I mentioned on Twitter and Facebook that I would answer them today. They're spoileriffic, no ifs ands or buts. So, to make sure no one who's waiting for it gets spoiled prematurely, I've posted the answers at this link, so you can see this in your RSS reader without committing to revealing the ending.

Love and Capes: What to Expect #6 in stores TODAY!

It's in stores today! The big finalé of Love and Capes: What to Expect, featuring a cover by me and the estimable Rich Faber.

And when you read it, you will have questions. Or at least you should. One in particular.

To try to preserve spoilers and such, I'm going to keep quiet about anything for now, but on Monday I'll put up a post that should address the most obvious questions.

I'm pretty pleased with how this wraps up. I can't deny that even I misted up a bit as I was writing the ending.

The Sky's the Limit

As part of my New Year's Resolution to blog more, here's a little more behind the scenes stuff on Love and Capes. I was working on the cover of the fourth collection and needed a sky. I'd thoughtabout sunset, but given the impending birth, I wanted something more of the sunrise variety. But how to capture it. I'd browsed through Google Image Search for some inspiration.

But one morning I got up early to go to Panera before starting to work and I saw this, which I captured with my iPhone's camera. Yeah, you might not think the sprawling vista of a strip mall is the most exciting thing, but that sky was exactly what I was looking for, and the inspiration for the sky on the cover.

By the way, if you haven't already ordered it from your local comic shop, the fourth trade is available from Amazon.