Weekly 2018-12-24: Holidays and ep28 is in 'alpha' version

Hi Patrons!

My new method for episode 28 (for reminder: a single long vertical Krita document to ease re-reading the episode while I draw it) was really a good experience. I'll keep it! I took the last weeks working a lot daily to complete all the pages to the "alpha" version; a version I can share with the contributor who help me at proofreading.  

If you are not afraid of spoilers, you can read it here. 

I'm still targeting a textured and painterly rendering with this method, so right now all artworks are still in the step of the left:

( on left: the sketch with blury color to prototype the artwork, on right: the paint-over to add contrast, stroke of painting, contrast, etc...)

Here is the three steps I do to get this result on a sample of three panels of episode 28:

The first pass is quick "eyeballing pass", I'm using h)charcoal_small_block from my recent mini brushkit. 5px large with a bright silver grey. 

The second pass is not really an 'inking' (because not definitive: a lot of things will be corrected with paint over). So I feel less pressure, I just draw something a bit more clean on the top of my sketch. I use here a large line on purpose. a 16px  large d)Ink-5-Pen-Irregular (from my mini brushkit duo) I paint it with a dark red on a 60% opacity layer (in multiply blending mode). This make the line half transparent. Thick line force me to "keep the design simple" and this simplicity will give me room at paint-over to re-introduce details, volumes and not paint stroke to just cleanup things.

The third step is a pass with only airbrushes. I constrain myself to not create any hard-edge on purpose. It is just like a 'wet juice' to feed the canvas. Something I used when I painted with oil. I focus on the general palette and the light. I try to setup three point light per objects: the classic key/fill/rim. So this step is not really about coloring object, but more about sketching light and setup the ambiance of the panel.

That's where I am now; all eight pages of episode 28 (it's a long episode) are at this step. I could split my long vertical document into pages, enter the text with Inkscape as SVGs and share it. The English of the speechbubble already had a big review ( the discussion and changes are also on the Framagit page). Soon, the episode will enter in beta "string-freeze" for the English speechbubble so the other translators will be able to start working on a translation while I will detail and paint-over the episode.

I estimate at around 70h minimum of paint-over necessary for this episode. Maybe more. So, the release is planed for January.

I wish you a great holiday season!