I just wrote letters and packed up the books I am sending to various friends and family. I also threw in more of the postcards. I have no idea how much postage is going to be…
Monthly Archives: August 2021
Useful books and Other Resources
Various writing, story design, comics, art, and animation books. The beginnings of a list…
The Understanding Comics series by Scott McCloud:
Understanding Comics
Making Comics
Reinventing Comics
A pioneering exploration of what makes comics tick.
Drawing People by Joumana Medlej
A book remarkable for its examination of different skin colours and body forms of people from around the world. Look in Joumana’s shop for the ebook.
Digital Prepress for Comic Books by Kevin Tinsley.
Goes into the details of preparing comics for print.
When Can I Use Real Names and Products?
In the Devilbunnies universe, writers used the names of existing concepts, characters, products and companies. Some of them were associated with the Bunnies or their enemies:
For the Bunnies
- Frith, Inlé, the Black Rabbit (rabbit mythology from Watership Down);
- Snapple (a “cute” drink),
- Sailor Moon, Project A-ko (anime);
For the Bunnies’ Opponents
- Elmer Fudd (from Warner Brothers; lent his name to the anti-Bunny forces);
- Moxie, Irn Bru, D&B (“uncute” drinks);
- Vanilla extract (the Bunnies were actually supposed to be allergic or even burned by it);
In some cases the group authors took the name and ran with it.
Continue readingAuthor Copies!
And here they are! Twenty-five copies of Nineteen Tales, picked up from Jackie in Bowmanville today. We had a great meeting with all kinds of ideas and I have a lot to think about.
How I Colour a Comic in Photoshop
This is how I build a colour comic in Photoshop.
Scan the original drawing.
I start by scanning a black-and-white drawing.
The drawing should be drawn with colouring in mind. Large dark areas are generally added during the colouring, so they should not be done as part of the black-and-white drawing.
The colouring style I describe here relies on using the ‘bucket’ tool to fill large areas; they can also be filled using brushes.
Continue readingDrawing Test
This is a test of a slightly-different drawing technique.
Usually, I sketch in pencil, draw over it in black marker or ink, then scan that and clean it up in Photoshop. Afterwards, I add colour in Photoshop. This is how I did the rabbit background picture, and the four-page intro to Scaffoldworld.
It’s also a good way to make even quite a rough sketch presentable (this Toasterman sketch, for example).
However, for Little Lost Part, I want to do something different.
Continue readingAmazon Ads and Alien Appliances: the Source of a Story Idea
Have you ever looked at the picture in an advertisement and had utterly no idea what it was?
This has happened a couple of times lately to me.
Amazon has been presenting ads in my Facebook feed. Mostly these are comprehensible, if uninteresting. However, lately there have been a few that are just… I don’t know what.
Continue readingA Birthday Card with… a Kitchen Appliance.
My sister and brother-in-law sent me the following birthday card:
Thanks, Anne and Herb!
Tea Lake Bridge
In the old Devilbunny story segments, I reference Tea Lake campground and bridge in Algonquin Park. My sister introduced me to camping there, in the form of car camping at the Tea Lake campground. I found a picture with the bridge in the background. This picture is taken at the little beach by the campground. This would have been in the late eighties.
A Timeline for “Red Rabbit! Red Rabbit!”
The story is a prequel to The Rabbit Hole. As such, it has to end with Dimples working in the troll farm under the supervision of the rabbits.
It starts out with the events in several story segments that I wrote ages ago, which I posted to Usenet.
Continue reading