A friend asked me, "does it feel like everyone's just ready for summer to be over?" To which my reply was, "no. No it does not. NOT FOR THIS GUY."
I do not know where the last two months have gone. And it's not like I'm wondering about this from a place of idleness or vacationly indulgence: we went away for four days total. That's it. And I came home exhausted. 2025-08-26 22:15:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Happy August, everybody! I recently had reason to revisit Delilah Dirk's flying sailboat. There's a cheeky crop above, the top half of the image I've been working on. That's as good as the boat's ever looked, I think.
I've missed this flying boat — the Lilaea, as it's called in Pillars of Hercules. I wonder if other people have. Back when I was posting The Turkish Lieute...
2025-08-09 00:19:58 +0000 UTC View Post
Here we are, at the end of Chapter Five!
Alexandra's father is incapacitated by the side of a stream. She's taken his valuable historical artifact into her care and, presumably, promised to keep it safe, riding for Barathron and the aid sure to be offered by the people there.
In Archipoli, the Provveditore has swayed the officers of the Cordelia to his side. They've bundled up Sophia, Nikos, and Katerina, escorting them outside the safety of Vignelli's walls, feeding them into the...
2025-07-26 20:08:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Last time, Alexandra's Father revealed his secret obligation, the reason that the "Red Dirk of Meles" is so important to him… and to England. He also had a personal moment with a god that, until that point, Alexandra did not know played any sort of role in his life. He asked Alexandra to inherit his mission. She refused, but his uncharacteristic appeal to a higher authority softened her anger. But how can she be expected to ferry the dirk to England, she wonders? As she says, she's...
2025-07-17 22:55:17 +0000 UTC View Post
The "tiny sword" that Alexandra's father was carrying turns out to be more significant than Alexandra could have suspected. The glittering red gems embedded in the scabbard are supposedly the magically-transformed eggs of a majestic swan! Alexandra's father entrusts it to her care, but what does he want her to do with it? Well, let's find out…
- - - - -
NOTES
These are the pages I was thinking of when I was remembering how difficult it was to make ...
2025-07-10 19:07:53 +0000 UTC View Post
With his knee crushed, completely incapacitated, Alexandra's father has asked Alexandra to get back on Ataraxes alone, and continue the ride he meant for them to do together. Will she go? I suspect you know already, but wait… there's something he hasn't told her…
- - - - -
NOTES
Reading it again, Dad's story sequence could use some polish on the writing (e.g., too many "buts" in close succession.
I was surprised to find that one of...
2025-07-03 17:52:23 +0000 UTC View Post
Last week, Vignelli received a pummelling… not that it accomplished anything, as everyone was startled to see shells raining from the sky, each carried by a crow, each containing a small message. You might assume the messages were from the pirates, about the declining health of the bald flagbearer / first mate. You might recall the pirate captain's threat that if his first mate dies, he will crush the town. With that reminder, we continue this week, Vignelli slapping those little messages o...
2025-06-27 18:27:42 +0000 UTC View Post
In last week's post, Vignelli was trying to convince the elderly townsfolk of Archipoli that Uncle Nikos and his sister had conspired with the British Navy to bring doom to their town. When the townsfolk seem disinclined to believe the worst of Nikos, though, Vignelli calls for anyone to bolster his claim. He has also just poured wine for the British naval officers who came to the ball, but that's probably not important…
Some notes for this installment:
Wine glasses are ...
2025-06-20 18:07:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Last week, things were not looking good for Alexandra, her father, and their ride for Barathron. But we will have to come back to them, because over in Archipoli, Alexandra's mother and uncle have problems, too. They need a safe place for the villagers to hunker down. Vignelli's manor is a natural solution — there is probably still food left from the ball. It's a smart idea that no caring person could possibly oppose…
- - - - -
NOTES.
First, I remember e...
2025-06-13 19:14:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Last week, Alexandra was ruminating on the horrible sounds that owls make, shortly before hearing a similar horrible sound from her father. He had simply been watering their horse upstream. What could have happened? That's what we find out this week.
This instalment is a weird one, sorry about that. It was hard to know where to break it — it was either this or I include too much of the next sequence, which would eat into the buffer I've built up. As I might have mentioned, the current...
2025-06-09 03:14:37 +0000 UTC View Post
"Hey TC, how's the comic book going?"
Well, all week I thought I'd already posted an update here, but it turns out that was actually last week. That's the state of my mind and the way time has been passing for me recently.
Anyway, last time, as they galloped from Archipoli to Barathron, Alexandra and her father were forced to stop at a countryside farm on account of their exhausted horse. They met a patient local who revealed that if our heroes wanted to...
2025-05-31 04:00:31 +0000 UTC View Post
Last week, Alexandra and her father were rushing towards Barathron on the back of a horse that was clearly becoming exhausted under the effort, especially with two riders. Alexandra's father was unwilling to turn around to water the horse, but fortunately a potential oasis has appeared on the horizon…
This week! A new uncle drops as we meet one of my favourite characters in the book. This is one of the sequences I've most been looking forward to (just like all the others). Six pages i...
2025-05-20 22:56:15 +0000 UTC View Post
This week: is it an omen?
This is the second instalment of Chapter Five! I put up the first last week, and you should be able to browse the updates easily using this Patreon Collection.
I can only make a short update today because I thought today was a work day but it's actually a look-after-kiddo today. He is circling me right now pretending to print out letters and put them in the ma...
2025-05-12 18:25:38 +0000 UTC View Post
Welcome to the start of Chapter Five of PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY!
When last we saw Alexandra and her father, they had just leapt on the back of the fine stallion Ataraxes and hurried out of and away from Archipoli. The town had become overrun by pirates who obscured themselves in a terrifying green mist. Alexandra's father told her that "running away" was the best way to help the town, by hurrying to get help from Barathron, the only other town ...
2025-05-05 23:31:24 +0000 UTC View PostFlatting is all done for Chapter Five of PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY, and I've spent the last week preparing its colour keys. You know what that means… it's almost time for finished pages! Those begin in the next post, probably in a week and a half.
Right now, though: some tips on how to render nighttime scenes without compromising readability, and a little ASSASSIN'S CREED ramble!
Flatting continues! Chapter Five should be ready to colour by the end of this week. There still isn’t much to look at (such is the nature of the flatting step), but I had a strange encounter with an image in the wild this week, and I did want to share that.
In the last post, there was some chatter about image composition. The next day, I was in our local cafe with our preschooler. He was slur...
2025-04-08 19:42:57 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been flatting, flatting, flatting, and it's all going at a respectable pace, but whoof whose idea was it to draw trees in outline again?
Last week I went to do a talk with the Illustration students at our local Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Someone asked about my animation training and whether or how it's influenced my illustration. At first I thought it was obvious, that...
2025-03-25 19:08:08 +0000 UTC View Post
All sixty-two pages of Chapter Five are now lettered and ready for flatting! Hooray! All the panel borders are in, too, and it's done the trick that you think I'd be used to by now: it looks like a real comic.
Here are some things I've been thinking about while I've been turning drawings into a real comic.
WHO NEEDS INSPIRATION?
Here's your friendly reminder that inspiration might be real, but if you wait to feel it before you do something, you're f...
2025-03-08 01:01:25 +0000 UTC View Post
I managed to sneak in my scanning chores, so all the pages for Chapter Five have been turned into little computer blips and blops thanks to the ancient but reliable large-format flatbed scanner at Emily Carr University. I've been using this same scanner since The King's Shilling (DD2) back in 2015, a decade ago! I'd love to have one of my own but they're comically expensive, I don't know where I'd store it, and I like not having to worry about what to do if it needs repairs.
... 2025-02-19 18:44:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter Five of PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY is now all inked up, from beginning to end. If you want to take a look at the inked pages, they're displayed in full in the carousel above. (Is the Patreon image carousel any good for looking at this stuff?) Obviously, lots of "spoilers," so do as you will. More about the pages below, sandwiched between two quick tangents.
[ All those pages from ...
2025-02-11 20:39:14 +0000 UTC View Post
I've reached the last page of Chapter Five! Old hands will know, however, that this does not mean the chapter is done yet — now it's time to loop around and finish the first ten-or-so pages. A closer look at inks in a second.
First, a casual salute to anyone who was laughing at me for even pretending to have a vague sense of the French Revolution and offering opinions on it without having got even half way through...
2025-01-31 20:09:41 +0000 UTC View Post
I feel like I'm finally getting up to speed with my inking! The downside to (long-running theme here) jumping in and out of disciplines as I have been doing (pencilling, then inking, then colouring, and so on, as opposed to inking the whole book at once) is that I get out of shape with my craft. But I like the marks on these pages. Also, at some point I realized my brush had worn out. Starting a new one helped more than I would have guessed.
There's an absolute cartload of inked...
2025-01-20 15:44:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Happy New Year! Yes, we're already half way through January, but I haven't wished you a Happy New Year yet, so I'm within my rights. I maintain that if I don't see or talk to you until December 31st, I'm still allowed to wish you an — admittedly belated — Happy New Year.
To my friends in LA and/or with family in LA, dealing with the fires: I barely know what to say, and I certainly don't know what to do. You are in my thoughts, and I desperately hope ...
2025-01-13 18:33:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Secret Readers, I set myself a goal of finishing this difficult sequence (in the images attached) before the holidays and wouldn't you know it, I've only gone and done it. This is important because now I will be free to focus on other important projects, like swimming my way to the bottom of the jug of homemade egg nog I'm hoping my friend Michael will be making for us. He usually does. It would be a crime if he stopped now.
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS...
2024-12-21 06:55:38 +0000 UTC View Post
A quick update this week! I was legitimately bewildered today when went to snap pics for this post and discovered I had inked… three? Pages? Since last week's post? I rifled through my finished pages and double-checked last week's post to make sure I wasn't mistaken, but no, that's the case. How did that happen?
The answer is a whole bunch of things including household work schedules and holiday-related activities, I guess. Still, a bit of an unpleasant surprise for me.
- - - - ...
2024-12-13 06:30:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Happy December, everyone! Inking continues! You’re welcome to browse the image carousel if you’d like to see what I’ve been drawing. I am protective about this sequence, though, so I am going to — uncharacteristically! — keep commentary below to a minimum. I’d like to save most of it for when the text is in place.
I'm also going to follow up — uncharacteristically! — at length on the question of "why is the book so long?" But fir...
2024-12-05 23:15:43 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter Five inks are here! As usual, they're spoilery. If you wish to avoid that sort of thing, stay out of the image carousel above. Below, some chatter about a surprising movie pairing, how I changed my mind on wanting a large-format DD book, and then some close-ups from the pages above. The close-ups are still spoilery but less spoilery than the big pics, maybe, somehow.
MOVIE CHAT: IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE and HELLO DOLLY
The other day I 2024-11-29 06:00:23 +0000 UTC View Post
It’s inking time again! I’m back to working on Chapter Five while, elsewhere in the comics greenhouse, the I’ve potted up the tender thumbnails for Chapter Six and set them in a sunny spot, and I’ve put a warming mat beneath the seeds for Chapters Seven through Ten.
I don’t have many inked pages to show yet, so I’ll save those for next week. This week, a quick Patrick O’Brian up...
2024-11-21 21:53:25 +0000 UTC View PostHello all! Just a quick public update to say that, in the spirit of wanting to offer something nice to the world at large, I've made the last two regular Patreon updates free for anyone who wants to read them.
Last week, I posted a basket full of flower photographs, because flowers are nice, I like looking at them,...
2024-11-15 18:48:26 +0000 UTC View PostThis week, I accidentally found myself doing a diligent job of something I thought I was bad at.
[ Above: more of my usual nonsense, a partial view. ]
I spent most of the weekend working on PDAP, with a few small breaks to, you know, be part of my family and have a life.
Tangentially, it's Tuesday morning as I write this, the day after a long wee...
2024-11-14 17:22:01 +0000 UTC View Post