AlwaysRats

Tistow - 60 - revisal

I hope you'll find this interesting!

I mentioned before we were gonna pass the text for page 60 before releasing it, but both agreed we didn't like the flow. It didn't carry Jack's anger over to the next two pages. The scene is still the same as planned, but we've revised it a little. And I hope it'll flow better now.

Mr. Denholm & Ahku

Jack's grandparents meeting for the first time.

The idea for this bit of story was that they'd meet during the construction of the Canal that sits between Tael and Fjoldi. Stephen Denholm travels from Tistow to Kirkald as labour for the project.

Ahku opposes the works because they're destroying so much of the nature around the area. She shows up at night with her beastly friends to damage the scaffolding and cause as much disruption as possible. Stephen intercepts and tries to rea...

Young Ahku - concept

And her partners in crime.

Sotka's Lights - 06

I -was- gonna make this a silent page but. Since it's school, why not a history lesson?

If you're not familiar with the Tistow-verse map, you can find it here:
https://www.tistow.uk/comic/page0

Jáhko's Tistow grandpa was one of the men who worked on the canal. He left Tistow specifically for the job and met Jáhko's grandmother during the building. This is another story I'd like to draw at some point, be...

Sotka's Lights - 05

Gotta fix the text a little still, it's tad misaligned in places. I might still work on the shadows as well, the characters feel like they're floating on the ground in two of the panels.. :'D

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I want to desperately get over this confidence issue where my production starts to dwindle as soon as I get stuck or feel like something isn't good enough and the crippling sensation creeps in. I want to enjoy my work and feel good doing it.

I realised Jack's got me all my bigger fr...

Sotka's Lights - 06 - lineart

Lineart for page six! This is a dialogue-less page. I've got to add some kids to the very top panel, but I want to sort out the colours first.

Sotka's Lights - 05 - lineart

Included the placeholder text. ♥

Sotka's Lights - 04

I'm so chuffed I've managed to finally finish this scene.

I'd love to hear your opinions on how things look so far with this style. Especially if it's clear enough to read as is.

Sotka's Lights - 03

Say hi to happy little Jáhko. ♥ For a moment.

I've shared some concept art of this before, in the Tistow-verse Fjoldi magic is called 'colouring'. It's typically mixed with other instruments like drums, flute and even rocks and sticks in Jáhko's case. The songs are intended to boost morale, protect and heal.

It's hard to get a sound across in comics, especially since these guys use no words. But if I had to describe it, it's inspired by Nordic folk and Sami joik. I can't and w...

Sotka's Lights - 02

Colours and text. ♥ 

SNOW. I've felt like complete garbage today, which has made working really difficult. But I'm glad I had a chance to work on this for a moment.

Sotka's Lights - 03-04

Hup!

I've wanted to draw this scene for a long bloody time.

On a more miserable note this is the sort of abuse I was subject to as a kid as soon as I learned to read. I just wish I had someone who would've brushed it all away at the time.

Sotka's Lights - 01

I made some revisions to the script and realised I could combine the 12 pages I've got of Sotka here on Patreon into this story. They bind together well.

This is, lineart and colour wise more or less what I'd like to do with the rest of the pages though.

I'm using a much softer brush which doesn't allow me to work on detail too much but in turn makes sketching a lot quicker. Colouring is similar to what I do with Tistow but I'm trying to go for a bit more simplistic style.

T...

Snow

Had a go at colouring some of the panels.

It's weird to think when we started doing ST I wasn't terribly confident at colouring in general. I still feel like I'm bumbling in the dark half of the time but I want to continue experimenting, for fun.

Sotka's Lights - 01-02

Hup! Both this time!

Since that word is so hard to translate.. But it stands for that hard heavy snow on trees.

This is a short story for Small Trolls I wanted to draw ages ago. And I don't know yet if I'll have a chance to finish more of it, but I've got another 3 pages for you at least.

I wanted to test the water with a much softer sketchier brush. It's a hell of a lot sketchier than the inking I normally do but much, much quicker too. Nowhere near as detailer either thoug...

59-60 Amended panels - colours

Bit different one this time! I thought I'd keep the old one on Patreon so you can compare if you fancy.

I ended up flipping a few panels because they felt  a tad.. Off. It did mean redoing the BG on one entire panel. I lost a lot of lineart but considering how the text is gonna sit, but that's alright.

59-60 - colours

Not completely finished but almost there. Still got few little bits and pieces to fix.

My margins are massive. There's a bunch of stuff in the smaller panels I know will end up getting hidden in the spine or cut out, so I didn't end up drawing the bigger boats in the market for example. :< Trying to make my wok a bit easier for myself under the bubbles too. I still don't want to -not- draw behind them but little bit of copy-pasting helps.

59-60 - Inks

Whei~ new round number. We're finally at 60! That's actual pages without any dividers. I've not been doing cover art for the chapters since that messes up the numbers and breaks my code. Not sure if I should look at doing that in the future though.

59-60 - Thumbs/Pencils

Slightly cleaner version. This is meant to be the same market spot where Jack stopped for a gawk in chapter 1.

57-58 - colours

Eeey done! Text left to do. I might release these on Thursday and Friday if Mark has a chance to fix them. ♥

57-58 - inks

More progress! This is mostly coloured now actually but we're not quite finished. I can't wait to share these once the text is done!

57-58 - thumbs/inks

Partially inked pages of the next spread!  ♥

55-56

Yaay we've got 2 new ones! I've been struggling to find the time but here we are. ♥ I'm still terribly busy with work but I'm trying to force myself away from client stuff in the evenings. I'm likely going to upload both of these at once, just because I'm happy they're done. ♥ Text versions are under revision still!

Sotka's Lights

This is pretty big. It's only slightly smaller than the original, for anyone who fancies squinting at the detail! Same goes for the progress piece below.

I had a blast doing this. I'm feeling super fatigued but I'm trying to dedicate my evenings for stuff that I find fun and relaxing to do. Which this definitely was.

Unfortunately OBS didn't record the progress of this at all because it was being streamed at the same time, so the only place to watch the clips for now are on Twitch...

Sketch to Finished - Gallops

Yaay, there's music, some transitions as well as captions inbetween. I'm still very new to DaVinci Resolve but it's such an easy program to use.

Here's a clip of the progress. I noticed a few parts of the colouring progress didn't get recorded, but everything else is there thankfully.

Snow

We've drawn the boys a lot as deer (..and sheep) but here's another shapeshift! 

I've been a bit indecisive with Jack's equine form but I'm quite fond of this. It's a form you'll get to see in Tistow eventually. So he'll likely stay as a fjord-ish type. Veeti's a cob, bit more slender built than his pal.

I've been getting better at remembering to record the entire drawing process of my illustrations in the last month! I just have to find the time to edit this one before I can...

In the System

I wanted to briefly talk about this as it's been such a huge thing in my life in the past couple of years and affected my mood massively, but if you don't want to read about something a whole lot more personal and nothing really to do with art, feel free to pass on this post. ♥ It's a heavy subject.

My partner and I have been together for eight years and for long we've wanted to start a famil...

Pon

Didn't have a chance to post this before, something leftover from December!

I got a permission from the brilliant Rober Russell to use his music in my clips, so I'll be doing a bit more editing in the future when I have an opportunity to.

You can find his YouTube channel here, go give it a peek!

We're finally back home from our Finland trip. I had a chance to drive up an...

Filly - Progress

Happy holidays everyone!

Yuletide - Progress

Progress video of this sketch. ♥ Unfortunately I didn't seem to capture the very first sketching version, but most of its there. I had to hide the layers because this file was attached to something spoilery. :'D

Happy Yuletide

Back from Sweden! 

I had an incredible time. I met so many cool people, got to see so many amazing things and talk all day about characters, world building and concept stuff in general. I couldn't be happier right now. It's been a really busy and often disheartening year up until now, so it's nice to finally be at a point where things have started slotting together.

I'm really looking forward to sharing more in the future. ♥