tonycliff

"El Camino," Chapter Four

[ This is Chapter Four in an ongoing, improvised prose story about three adventurers trying to find their way after the head of their party has died, as well as trying to get paid from a town full of miserable racists. Chapter One; Chapter Two; Chapter Three. ...

This Week's Inks, and a Publishing Story

In the images above: many arguing heads, some scenery, and some pencil-inked inked pages. I started using a Winsor & Newton Series 7 sable brush (with Dr Martins ink). It's been sitting in my toolkit for years, and I was too scared to break it out because A) it's expensive and B) what if I really liked it? Then I would be tied to the messy work of getting ink out maintaining expensive brushes and cleaning them etc etc. The bad news is I DO really like it, oh no. I see why people ...

DD4 Inking, Book Recommendations, and a Character Generation Trick

[ There are captions along with the images if you click through. ]

I'm happy with how those big, detailed wallpaper pages turned out. Thanks to a recent reminder from Chris Schweizer, I was careful not to put the outline on the line, but outside the line, since it's all surrounded by black.

I was watching the AppleTV+ series Dickinson the other day and noticed that they also have a shot of Emily Dickinson yelling at her mother through balusters—creating a sort of "I'm b...

"El Camino," Chapter Three

[This is Chapter Three in an ongoing, improvised prose story. Chapter One; Chapter Two. ]

[ 100% of voters decided that the party would go to the unwelcoming town of Cherry Springs, instead of turning aside, keeping The Traveller safe, and abandoning both their savings and the money owed to them for a job completed. ]

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Inking! Woodworking!

Above: it's tea time once more, and it's time to reminisce about England.

Below: since I haven't had to draw a sailing ship in a while, I figured it was time to add back something equally infuriating to draw, so now there's a horse. Horses live at an inconvenient intersection between being familiar enough that it's easy to see when they look wrong, but not so commonplace that I get much practice drawing them.

2022-01-26 20:26:25 +0000 UTC View Post

Coloured Line Art and "Transparency Lock."

A reader (hello Jason!) was asking in the comments about the inking and how it gets coloured. I'm going to describe it in detail, because not only is this technique useful for specifically this application, transparency lock can be a hugely versatile tool in your belt. It's what makes "flatting" work. I keep the feature set to a hotkey, so I can turn it on and off as I paint.

Above, you can see a panel where I've applied colour to a significant portion of the linework. That's the origin...

Down The Rust Shelf Road (El Camino, Chapter Two)

~ The continuing, improvised story of three adventurers and their beloved car, under the working title (and Patreon tag) "El Camino." ~

( Chapter One > )

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CHAPTER TWO.

Eyman wanted to demonstrate that he was fit to hold The Traveller’s keys. If he hesitated any longer in choosing which of his brothers would join him in the front o...

Chapter Two Inks Fully Underway

Above, three images: the first, a challenging page, but that bridge and those fortress-style walls will be important later.

Then, two of my new favourite pages, for reasons I cannot perfectly articulate. So I will not try. It is nighttime. DD and Katerina (who we will meet in the first few pages of the chapter) are looking at the stars, which have never been so easy to see, because the town is under light discipline (because of the threat of pirates). While they chat, a small tension be...

A Friend is Buried

This is the very first post of a new venture—an improvised, interactive story that I'll be writing with input from you, Dear Readers. I'm not entirely sure where it will go, because I'll have only half a grip on the wheel. It is exciting.

The story starts below. There will be two options at the end. Readers at the BENEVOLENT SPONSOR tier and above will be able to vote on how we proceed. When the voting has settled, I'll write the next segment, heading in the direction you chose.

New Year, New Experiences

Inking begins!

Happy New Year, all! Greetings to the new readers who have signed up over the past few months—thank you for your support of what I now consider the world's most slowly-updated, most tightly-focused Little Free Library (in that it is a place where anyone might read a book, so long as it is one specific book, and they don't mind waiting for it to be drawn). And a hearty "welcome back" to readers who have been with this project for a while, some as long as...

End-of-Year Housekeeping

Literally: housekeeping. I need to clean up this mess.

Highlights (to me):

• Kevin Dart "Space Shuttle" prints, hanging up to uncurl. There are three of them there. I saw them down at SDCC years and years ago and have regretted not buying them ever since. Fortunately, Dart did a reprint, so I jumped on it immediately (oh hey, they're still available).
• Brand new super bright bulbs in ...
  2021-12-23 21:57:19 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter Two Pencilling is DONE.

HUZZAH!

Above: Page 6, the last pencilled page.

Below: The Stack.

Look at those good good green lines, that's what I like to see.

EDIT: Whoops, the lines weren't going to 100%. What can I say; I can draw a handsome chimney, but spreadsheet excellence evades me.

...

Off-Day

Today: talk about drawing hands; highlights from recent pencilled pages; George Saunders makes me feel like a million bucks; a happy progress update; and, though I am not inclined to believe in things like "off-days," sometimes you gotta call a spade a spade.

On Tuesday, I Twittered, "Just re-drew the same hand SO MANY TIMES that when I finally got it, and it was too big, I enlarged the rest of the character."

Below, the offending hand.

2021-12-16 19:33:57 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter Two Pencils Galore, Saunders Again, and More!

This week: I still have George Saunders on the brain, revisiting the Scene-Sequel approach, a TV recommendation, and it turns out I was right??? about how basic it is to light a character in a scene???

But first! FIRST! Some drawings in progress.

As always, absolutely spoilers galore here, just spoilers splattered all across your screen. Drenched in spoilers. (NOTE: for the most part, personally? Me? I do not believe in spoilers the way the word gets thrown around these days�...