Ligan Square

Above is from the latest page of Border Crossings, which, if you follow the webcomic at all, you will get to see come Friday, when it's updated. It depicts our first view of The Last Island, where all the land-dwelling races have converged upon (either by choice or by force) as the landmasses have sunk below the ocean. If you notice, the Rhizome is sporting a funky pattern on its camo-sheath, something that was spur of the moment and that I really enjoyed compared to my previous solution for depicting the swirling, psychedelic colors of the sheath.

I wanted to talk about this panel for two reasons. One, because I'm actually quite happy with it as a separate little piece of work, and two, the inking on this is FAR different than what I've done since my process post about inking a few weeks back.

Ever since I did page 9, I've grown unhappy with using rapidographs as my inking solution. I never felt totally happy with it, and often I noticed I moved veeeeerrrryyy slowly when inking. So, since then I started an experiment of inking digitally. Remember the Frog Grazer illustration a few posts back? The reason for that piece existing is because I was testing out a new brush that was to become my standard inking tool for BC. I figured if it was a bust, no one would be the wiser, and if it worked out, hey hey, I have a new thing to practice.

I've noticed lately that I've been inking faster now, mostly because of a boost of confidence (probably because I always know that that ink I'm throwing down isn't permanent.) At some point in the future I'd like to switch over to traditional brush, but while I continue to practice with a real brush, scrawling mishapen characters with the permanence of Higgins Ink, I'll keep going along with this digital solution.

Not Dead Yet...

...Life's just been busy! I've been gearing up for a move out of the current apartment that's taking place in about a week, so between that, keeping stuff going for Border Crossings, searching for more freelance stuff to take on to earn a little more income, and some personal projects, I've been quite neglectful of all my haunts on the internet. In the meantime though, I thought I'd throw out two things for everyone to see, one as a preview and one as an in-progress shot.
This first one is a color rough done awhile back for an illustration piece I've yet to have time to tackle. As with all things I've been doing lately, it's an exercise in learning new things, and I'm actually quite tempted to do this up completely traditionally. I actually really like the composition and colors for this, and think when it's completed it'll look pretty good as an illo.


Remember this? With whatever free time I've had as of late, I've been working on this bit by bit. I had started to record the process, but quickly after finishing the grayscale stage it seemed to go by the wayside (mostly because running the software AND painter was making everything slow.) In anycase, I'm at a crossroads with this piece -- while I like the idea of it, I'm not sure if the composition (and, by extension, the POV choice) is as savvy as it can be. I think this little bit has been nipping at me the whole time through the piece, since I've restarted it from scratch a few times now, this being the fourth iteration. So I ask the folk of the internet of their opinion, whether it be a suggestion to improve it, a Yea or Nay to trash it and start anew, or otherwise.

Keep tight folks, I'll see if I can squeeze another post in before the move.