Mad Rupert

Sakana cast page 2023 portraits (colored)

And here they all are! Looking very spiffy! Like I said in the last post, it's been literal years since I've drawn some of these characters, and I remembered some a little better than others! I'm working myself back into that Smooth Sakana Spirit, but there will still be a few bumps in the road as I spin this project back into gear! 

Hope you're excited to see them all again! :) 

Sakana cast page overhaul 2023 (pencils)

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING. Maybe like 8-10 years?? Since I've update the Sakana website cast page. BUT THE WAIT WILL SOON BE OVER because here we are, nearly every single named character that I could remember. Do you remember them all? I don't blame you if you don't it's been years since I've drawn some of them lol. 

The characters in the last image are probably the most obscure, so, to refresh, we've got the Thugs In Love: Endo (big) and Billy (small), twins Kento (two...

RR Chapter 2: pages 1-8 FINAL!

Heyyyy, you're probably sick of seeing these 8 pages at this point, but GOOD NEWS: they're totally finished and I can move on now! I just wanted to collect them again in a new post for easy viewing, including pages 1-3 which were finished this week. 

These 8 pages are basically the intro for chapter 2 so it's all story and SMUT from here on out, hooray! 

The first 3 pages didn't change much between the rough-out and ink stages, so in lieu of pencils, I'll post them witho...

RR Chapter 2: page 4-5 FINISHED

Oh my god, this file almost destroyed my 5+ year old laptop. 500 dpi, textured tones, probably way too many layers...it took 3 minutes to save sometimes. This might be the only two-page spread in the comic (and certainly the most background heavy) so I'm hoping the rest of the pages will be a little less stressful for the old comp. 

I'm not super happy with the title font here, but I'm going for FINISHED not PERFECT right now, so I'll probably wait until I've got a bigger page buff...

RR Chapter 2: pgs 6-8 FINISHED

Hey everybody! In case you didn't see on Twitter, my partner just got laid off out of nowhere! So we've both been busting ass to get new work done this past week, and for me that means nailing down the final style for RR Chapter 2 and starting to finish pages! 

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm working on pages 6-8 first because they have the most characters rather than complicated intro backgrounds. Now that I have the right brushes and an easy grayscalling process, I'll move ba...

RR Chapter 2 -- page 7 rendering test

Hey everybody! 

Since RR Chapter 2 is going to be grayscale rather than color, I wanted to find a way to push my b&w work a little further to make up for it. I've always been a little allergic to photoshop brushes, but I finally sat myself down and figured some stuff out! 

It may seem weird to start on page 7 instead of 1, but pages 1-5 are basically an intro with lots of complicated environments that don't show up in the story again, so I decided to pick a page with...

SAKANA 606

Is Yuudai in a terrible mood or a great mood? Who can tell! 

I think at this point I've well and truly gotten back into the swing of things, so hopefully the pacing will feel a little more natural from here on out! We gotta know what happened on that Tachibana family dinner date!! 

It's a new month, and I'll be switching back to RR for a little bit to start finishing up those 8 pages I roughed out. Hoping to have 3 done in the next week or so before I pop back to Sakana ...

SAKANA 604, 605

HE'S BACK. Forgive me if this first chapter seems a little minute by minute in the pacing, I'm really just trying to get back into the groove! I've been trying to include detailed backgrounds in these first few pages as a way to remember and practice what the stall/market looks like.  

Poor Jiro will never get the respect he deserves u_u 

Thanks to all my new Patrons excited to see more Sakana! I'm hoping to have page 606 finished early next week. 

RR Chapter 2: ROUGH pages 4-8

There he is! The little man! Andy isn't used to being around so many small aliens that he is NOT actively trying to intimidate. But his face just looks like that, he can't help it u_u. 

Story elements always take on a life of their own on the page, despite how much planning I do ahead of time. So at this point it seems like BUG GARDEN is some kind of bug-themed restaurant with a bug mascot staffed entirely by sexy little alien people with horns and tails lol. 

The hostes...

SAKANA site revamp ideas

I put together a mockup of what I'd like to shoot for with the SAKANA site revamp! My main goal was to add more COLOR to the page, which, I know, sounds a little counterintuitive for a black and white comic, but that was one of my challenges. I picked a generally warm tan-orange-red theme to lay against the normal blue, which I'm hoping will compliment the colorless comic page rather than compete with it. 

Here's the current site to compare against: 

2023-04-13 15:06:32 +0000 UTC View Post

April sticker

March was such a whirlwind of a month that I didn't have any time to make a new sticker! I've done new wizards and fish recently, so I decided to take another crack at those little veggie babies I drew a while ago. Here's an onion! Or I guess an Allium, since it has the flower. I think I got better at rendering since completing the first set! 

I had an idea for a Garlic guy too but...I need a little more time to figure that one out lol. 

2023-04-12 00:05:14 +0000 UTC View Post

RR Chapter 2: ROUGH pages 1-3

Here's pages 1-3 (3 with text now!) in their rough stage. The captions are more or less a recap of the Chapter 1 intro with some new information added! 

Once again this is going to be a background heavy comic, even though it's supposed to be about sexy alien antics, I JUST CAN'T HELP MYSELF. The good news is that I'm much more comfortable working in b&w and grayscale, so there's less potential for me to get sidetracked and delayed by trying to figure out how to COLOR all those ...

RR 2: page 3 roughs

Oh hey! Character development??

I'm switching gears to RR pages now, and because they take longer to make than Sakana pages, I'll be posting rough versions of each page and then final versions later.

Unlike Sakana, which has a fairly simple traditional thumbnail --> pencil --> ink process, RR is digital has an additional step that I call the "rough" stage. It's more detailed than thumbnails, but usually still needs some extra cleanup in the pencil phase before I move on to i...

SAKANA 603 (+ new inking tools review)

Sorry I forgot to scan the pencils for this one!

I only had 3 thumbnails to start with, but honestly I'm just relieved that I was able to pick a scene to start chapter 25 and jump back in. It feels like tearing off a very old bandaid!

You may or may not be able to tell, but I switched out my longtime inking tools on this page! The pens I was using before were nice, but NOT WATERPROOF. Which means, when I put my hand down on any lines (fresh or not!), it would transfer to my skin a...

SAKANA 601, 602

Well...I really had it in my head that, as the years wore on without new Sakana pages, it would get harder and harder to ever go back. But lo and behold THE BODY REMEMBERS. I guess, EVEN ALMOST 4 YEARS LATER, it's harder than I thought to forget something you've already done 600 times lol. 

What really helped me get ready to jump back in was rereading the 3 books, and, maybe even more so, rereading all the comments on the website updates. I've been so blessed this past decade+ with...

ROB/ROB IS BACK (hopefully, in June 2023)

More good news: Robber/Robert Chapter 2 is also underway! The thumbnails are basically unreadable at this point, so I won't subject you to them, but here's proof that they're happening: 

Andy reminisces about life in the mines:

Rob and Andy are going out on their VERY FIRST DATE t...

SAK IS BACK (hopefully, in July 2023)

Hello, my patient, patient friends. It's finally time.

Though my feelings towards the comic have naturally changed over time (I started it when I was 20 and I'm turning 34 this year lol) and I took a huge break from it (the second one, I might add! I took 2 years off in the mid 2010s to make a billion Regular Show pages) Sakana was never done, or cancelled, or abandoned! I needed to find the right time to start it up again, and NOW'S THAT TIME.

If you follow me on Twitter, you'll ...

Bunt! cover process

Aside from the stress-planning, the OTHER reason I'm able to get back to RR and Sakana this year is because THE GRAPHIC NOVEL I MADE WITH NGOZI IS BASICALLY DONE. 🎉🎉🎉

It's called BUNT!, and it already has it's own listing on a few different bookselling sites! (even though I'm credited as *debut (???) artist Madeline Rupert*...I guess technically this is my first ogn with a publisher. Let's forget the webcomics and those 500ish pages of Regular Show and Adventure Time c...

2023: Return of the King(s)

HEY EVERYBODY. Thanks for your patience this month while I was bodied over and over again by conventions, craft fairs, trips to my parents' house, and FINALLY bad news from Gannon's job that's thrown the rest of the year into question! Nothing has happened yet but boy are we both suffering with anxiety in the meantime!

In a panic, I went comics goblin mode and planned out a production and release schedule for both Robber/Robert Chapter 2 and Sakana Volume 4. In true Sakana form, it only...

Mid-March check in!

Hey everybody! I just wanted to do a little check in and let you know that more updates are on the way in the second half of March! I was at ECCC in the beginning of the month and then had to travel to my parents' house for a few days to pick up little Gizmo (my dog, in case you're new here!) which also ate up another week. Now I'm BACK at my desk and BACK to work. 

IN COOL NEWS: I'm finalizing the pitch for Robber/Robert Chapter 2 this week and, barring any feedback, will hopefull...

Wizard Barn Party: pgs 22-24 (END!)

AND THAT'S IT. Just a silly little comic I wanted to make after finishing some big, long-term projects! I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I'd love to launch into some new short comics asap. I've always been a big-scope writer (for better or OFTEN for worse lol) so having so many ideas for little snips and stories has felt really freeing. I made all 24 pages...you mean it's done? I don't have to keep going? It's just done forever?? WOW. INCREDIBLE. 

Sorry for the delayed upload, btw! ...

Wizard Barn Party: pgs 20-21

I'm leaving for Emerald City Comic Con early tomorrow morning, so I thought I'd post these pages a day early to close out the month of February! 

And the pencils: 

And the thumbnails: 

February sticker: FINAL

SURPRISE! He's orange now! I thought the original greeny-blue was a little too close to the coelacanth sticker, so I took a hard left turn and wound up with this! 

I won't have him in time for ECCC (which is in like...three days aaaa) but I'm hoping to send it off to the printer soon after. 

Thanks for all your feedback with the poll and the alternate colors! :) 

Wizard Barn Party: pgs 17-19

Nothing can stop this barn party!

Really the goal of this comic has been to put all my favorite things to draw in one short story. And that includes TREES. LOTS OF TREES. 

And the pencils!

And the thumbnails! You can see I was going to draw a modest splash page but then I thought NO I ...

February sticker progress 2

This one is turning out to be a little more challenging than I though, but I think I'm finally making some headway! I wanted to bring the coloring more in line with the coelacanth and sunfish stickers I've already made, which meant bringing in hard black shadows. Like this: 

Still chipping away at...

RR Rob outfit sketches

Just doodling some cute looks! I think I should probably do another round that are more cheesecake-y sci-fi 👽💦

Also! Hello to all my new Patrons! You can expect some more x - rated content in my next post 😇👍

February sticker progress

Unfortunately, it's become pretty obvious to me that I won't be able to get the Wizard Barn Party comic toned and printed in time for ECCC, so I took a little break today to work on February's winning sticker design: the Bobtail Squid! This little round baby won the poll by a landslide lol. 

If you look at pictures of real bobtail squids, you might notice they're *extremely* colorful (bioluminescent, in fact!), so I'm trying to figure out how I want to tackle that. These fish stick...

Wizard Barn Party: pgs 15-16

Oh, he wasn't kidding! :V

Also, finally making headway on rendering for these pages! Maybe someday I'd like to (possibly hire someone to) fully color this comic, but for now I think I'm getting good returns on grayscale! Here's page 15!

I'll be making a few big posts (depending on the image limit per post which I've never actually tested!) when all the pages are toned, so you can see them...

Wizard Barn Party: pgs 13-14

Oh no! Conflict! OWL CONFLICT! 

In case you need a refresher, Owl Wizard was the one who set up the date in the first place! 

And here are the pencils: 

And the thumbnails: 

Robber/Robert Sketch Zine cover and pdf download!

Ok so I was ONE DAY off when I'd hoped to have this done by Tuesday, BUT, it's done now and off to the printer! I also decided to make a sticker of them on the rocket because I have /a sticker problem/. I've also included some in-progress cover shots for your consideration. 

FURTHERMORE, I've attached a free download of the zine pdf for all of you, my alien-tier backers <3. Please let me know if you have any trouble downloading it!

Like I mentioned, this is a collection of...