tonycliff

Chapter Four Pencils, Stephen Fry's Greek Myths

This week, in order to learn how to put a saddle and a bridle on a horse — and knowing I have a lot of horse drawing in my future — I subscribed to a bunch of Horse Lifestyle YouTube channels. And you know what? I was expecting my Recommended Videos to get weird. They didn't and I'm disappointed.

[ As always, spoilers in the images! ]

I just really like this panel (below).

2023-10-13 19:30:55 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter Four Pencilling: The Mirror Trick

[ As always, don't flip through the image carousel if you don't want spoilers. ]

That main image up there is my little mirror trick for checking my drawings.

For artists working digitally, an easy way to "check" your work is to flip it horizontally. Left becomes right and right becomes left. Your character faces the opposite direction. This can reveal a whole host of issues that you might not have seen while you were actually drawing the image.

Sometimes I'll be drawing some...

Chapter Four Pencils, Anatomy Books, and Cats

Since last week's post, I've managed to pencil thirteen pages! That's good. Now, is some of that because I sent out last week's post early? Shh shh shh, look what I have over here.

While looking through my pencils I found myself thinking "nahh, that panel's much too spoilery," or "ohh, I don't want to show that scene yet." Which is weird, because I'm not a "spoiler" type of person. It probably just means there's a lot of stuff coming to a head, a lot of conflicts boiling over, and I lik...

More Chapter Four Pencilling!

Happy International Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day, everyone! The nice lady who runs the preschool gave me a funny look when I made my goodbyes by saying, "aye, and may a fair wind ever blow for thee!"

The entirety of Chapter Three is now free online! Though… I am getting the strong impression that most people would rather wait for it to be a book. I don't track or monitor w...

Chapter Four Pencils, Hello Bluesky, and Procreate's "Dreams" App.

[ Images contain possible spoilers! Just FYI. ]

The exciting thing I have to tell you this week is that drawing is still very hard, but is also — occasionally — very rewarding. I love how that yelly face turned out. And I'm so excited to share pirates with you all, but simultaneously I do not want to spoil them?

Two pieces of drawing wisdom that I ignored this week:

Subtle poses are sometimes the most difficult, especially if you have to...

The Path Through The Woods (Thoughts on the appeal of rough drawings)

Pencilling continues apace! Good news: I figured out how to make the pencils sort-of show up in photographs (long time readers will know this is a problem which has, somehow, managed to elude me).

As is the nature of work-in-progress, there are spoilers in the images above and below.

Have I talked about the great tragedy of rough drawings here? The artist...

Chapter Four Pencilling

Quick update this week because I don't have a lot of time and I think we would all rather I get back to drawing. I am elbow-deep in pencilling and so far my predominant thought is: why is Alexandra's dad so hard to draw?

I do not know. He is the one I have the hardest time getting right.

I look at my reference sheets and think, "that shouldn't be so hard to repeat," but dear reader: he is...

Chapter Four! Let's Go!

Grant applications are ready-ish. My side project is simmering. I've started reaching out to Canadian book printers for quotes, in case I decide to crowdfund an edition of PDAP. Chapter Three is all done and is going online for civilians. And Chapter Four thumbnails are DONE!

IT'S TIME TO DRAW THE THING!

[ Images in the carousel above are repeated below. ]

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At the same time I thumbed out Chapter Three, I thumbed out Chapter Four. I thought, if I do th...

How To Get There

Ssshh, don't tell anyone, but here are a few "test images" I've been preparing for a kids-book project. It's about a very, very small dad (Flanagan Spruce) taking his even smaller little child (Selby) on an overnight journey… down the length of a beach.

I've been wanting to draw little civilizations and characters on top of small-scale photography for a long time. Like, years. The photograph for that seagull image was taken in 2017. But I am also a very project-oriented perso...

I Mist, You Mist, We All Mist for Skull Mist

Friends, have I got some terrifying glowing mist-skulls for you.

It's the second of the two cover designs you voted on! Back in… let me check…

hmmm. January. January? Yes, it was January. :\ (I really thought it was more recent than that.)

I think it turned out well; certainly to specification. I like that the skull works: it's not too obvious but it's not impossible to see, either. I...

We grow, we bloom

It's the Chapter Three Patron Acknowledgement pages! To tie in with Alexandra's mom's garden scene, I chose a rustic potting shed sort of motif.

As I have been saying since I started this campaign back in 2021, thank you to everyone who has supported this project. I will continue to say this as long as it takes! 

How long will it take? I imagine you are all wondering this, all of the time, but I am perhaps an anxious person. By the end of t...

"They Were Here" (DD4, Chapter Three, Pages 39-42)

Last week, while Alexandra was arguing with the miserable Vignelli, a strange green mist drifted into the harbour. The men of The Cordelia watched as it swept over their decks and through their hatches. Then, grappling hooks dug their claws into the railings.

(Reminder: all the posts with actual finished pages are sorted under the "DD4" tag.)

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And so concludes Chapte...

The Bottomless Pit (DD4, Chapter Three, Pages 35-38)

Last week, Alexandra noticed that the lights from Vignelli's ball were shining out to sea (against his own explicit rules demanding darkness after sundown). When confronted, however, Vignelli didn't seem concerned. So Alexandra imagined that perhaps the whole pirate threat was an elaborate fabrication on Vignelli's part, and that there was indeed no reason for the town to worry. It's the only way she could explain why he would let the lights shine. Except there is another, truer expl...

Pii Pii's Pirate Bones (DD4, Chapter Three, Pages 30-34)

Last week, Alexandra was disgusted to find that against the town's best interest — and against the rules; no lights after dark! — Vignelli had been letting the glow of his big ol' party shine out over the water, practically a beacon for unwanted visitors.

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A lot of white space this week, which felt right for the scene. Obviously, Vignelli's "ah, yuh," will sound anachronistic and that's the way I like it.

I imagine a copy editor would challenge...

Chinless Creeps (DD4, Chapter Three, Pages 26a-29)

Last week, Alexandra hoped to reconnect and reconcile with her mother after dinner, but she couldn't find her. And then the midshipman had the gall to ask Katerina to dance. Who even invited that kid?

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Notes on these pages…

• Alexandra tells Vignelli, "you should go in." I will probably re-write this, because A) it repeats Vignelli's "should" from two balloons ago, and B) "should" is one of those anachronistic terms - IIRC we only began to use "should" in this...
  2023-07-06 17:33:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Let's Celebrate! (DD4 Chapter Three, Pages 23-26)

Last week, it turned out that getting "revenge" on her mother did not bring Alexandra the ecstasy she had anticipated. Meanwhile, at the ball, her mother is overwhelmed by the Provveditore's lavish surroundings and confronts her brother, Nikos — the local "Mayor" — about the contrast in lifestyles between the Venetians and the locals. But at least Nikos had managed to keep his good wine a secret from the Provveditore, one last private luxury.

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Thank you for the feedba...

Extravagant Beyond Comprehension (DD4, Chapter Three, Pages 18-22)

Last week, Alexandra dropped the axe on her mother (figuratively speaking), only to discover that the wound it left was real and deep. Now she gets to sit with that feeling as she, her parents, and her uncle attend Vignelli's party. Katerina joins them, a reluctant part-participant in this whole awkward situation.

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The last two pages here are the pages I thumbnailed in this video! Now they're a...

Triumph! (DD4, Chapter Three, Pages 13-17)

(There are no pages 11 and 12, if you're keeping count of that sort of thing. The numbers I use here are the numbers on my files, FWIW. Makes it easier.)

Last week, Katerina was struggling to teach Alexandra to dance in time for the ball; everything is in place except for our heroine's complete inability to dance. Back home, Alexandra's mother was feeling the sadness of her estrangement from her daughter.

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I have no fun details for these pages except that

1) I...

Good at the Dance (DD4, Chapter Three, Pages 6-10)

Last week, Katerina was questioning Alexandra's noble motivations. This week, dance lessons continue, though Katerina might be in over her head.

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Fun fact! That whole business with the French minuet was, in fact, a real practice. It sounds awful — having to dance to put on a show — but I guess everyone just learned how to do it and got on with their lives?

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Spoilery deep-dive inside-baseball details: Kate...

A hero, really. (DD4, Chapter Three, Pages 1-5)

It's CHAPTER THREE time!

There is a non-trivial number of readers who support this Patreon campaign who are waiting until the end to read it. To you, I say, first of all, "good gracious, thank you." And: I am not sure how to "protect" you from these updates, considering that I must also send them out to people who are (presumably?) reading along as we go. I'm not sure what the solution is, and so I'll leave it there, as an admission: I don't know how to solve that problem! The only<...