Der-shing Helmer

Mare Internum Kickstarter now live!

 ITS ALIVE

Enjoy! And even if you don't enjoy, please at least watch the video, I am terrible at videos (but worked very hard on this one)

Since we're all here, I'll give a little preview of some of the secret artists I've got lined up as unlockable goals... our first artist<...

Patreon LE Kallakore pin giveaway~

Hewwo

I'm running a contest from now until April 17, when the Kickstarter ends!

• The prize: One of three available Limited Edition 2.25x2.25in hard enamel stamped and numbered Kallakore pins with backing card; pin designed by the illustrious Monarobot. These were part of the 2018-03-15 05:49:38 +0000 UTC View Post

Mare Kickstarter tommorow!

Hi guys~

It's been very quiet from me lately because I've been 1) sick 2) away at a convention 3) dying from work, but now I can finally show off some of it... my second book Kickstarter is launching tomorrow at 10am PST for normals, and 930am PST for Cool Guys like yourselves. I'll be making a post here with the actual live link for you at 930am :]

ADDITIONALLY, I am holding a contest to celebrate the KS and...

MI514-518 pencils vs inks (and gutters)

It's going to be daily updates for a while, starting soon. Batch art is probably the fastest way to do pages, but I don't really like doing it unless I have to (right now, I do). Anyways, here's some comparisons between the pencils (top row) and the inks/ main figure flats (middle).

The last row illustrates a point I've made several times before in tutorials: don't let your borders run across pages. The green lines show the flow of the borders, and as you can see none of them touch. The closes...

MI Stuff- Thumbnail previews 514-518

Just a little progress update~ I love these pages even though they look like chickenscratch here XD

Nobody wants to hear about how busy the people they're supporting are, so I'll avoid that~ BUT I've been finishing up some comics for ECCC and will be post the PDFs of those up here for you soon... also been working on some simple animations for my MI Kickstarter video which I will be very happy to share soon as well :]

Thanks for sticking around during this very crazy first quart...

Post-convention writeup: Library Cons

Hi guys,

Thought I'd just do a post-convention write-up of my experiences so far at library conventions. This info is most vital for small press comic artists. 

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Last year I did my very first library convention in Idaho at the Boise Library Comicon (BLCC), and yesterday my second one at our first local alternative-press library con, Peninsula Library Comic Arts Fest (PLCAF). 

What is a library con?

Library conventions are conventions hosted...

MI Stuff and Penninsula Library Comic Art Fest

There's one moment in every page, where you look at what you've done and have an overwhelming feeling of "this will never in a million years look the way I want it, I should just quit comics now." I am laughing at how pathetic this page makes me feel right now, but everything should be cool in a few hours. 

Small news: I'll be representing my hometown library system tomorrow at the San Mateo Main Library from 12-4pm! Come stop by if you're a local, or check out some of the guests scattere...

MI Stuff- Net builders

Net builders: All these guys do all day is build and reinforce nets right below the ceiling to keep loose rocks from falling. That's it. It's a boring life. 

---

I hadn't really thought about what this thing would look like until I had to do the page, then I was like fuck, gotta design a creature. But to be honest I'm kind of happy with the end result. I love the arrow/forked design element in animals in general (for example hammerhead sharks, or snake tongues, which are also shaped...

Anthology editing- dashboard

Right now, a lot of my time per week is devoted to editing the Alloy Anthology, a comic anthology project I've been dreaming of creating for several years, and which I'm finally able to make a reality. I said I'd give you all a peek into the process of what creating and editing anthology looks like, so here's the first post... the master spreadsheet of the live project.

Managing 26 artists and staying o...

MI Stuff- Sifter

A generally gentle animal that exists only to mine for various substances, which it carries in a flexible stomach. A central beak and a spade-like claw breaks through softer rock or hardened clays, and sensitive tentacles sort through the rubble. 

Normally not great at fighting due to their stubby and not-terribly-well-developed back legs and complete lack of eyesight, but sometimes duty calls!

MI Stuff- MI509-513 thumbs

I've got a bad migraine sort of thing going on right now which is throwing me off my game/ making it hard to stare at my screen as much as I need, so my apologies for update hiccup :[ 509 is nearly done but the last phase requires the most contrast on my monitor, and it's a bit too much for me tonight I think. Will get up early and attempt again in the morning

MI Stuff- from Thumbs to Dones

Here's that strip of boring scribbles I posted last week next to the inks and finals for last week's pages! Pretty neat huh?

For the anthology I'm working on right now, we're transitioning our artists from their final scripts to the thumbnailing phase. I have a thumbnailing tutorial up here, as well as some other notes on thumbs in the Patreon archive, but I think the takeaway I try to impart on anyone in the thumbin...

MI Stuff/ general stuff - working ass off

Hi guys,

Well, I did it, I finished writing MI this weekend. Many tears were shed awkwardly by myself to myself, several pages of various notebooks scribbled all over and re-written and re-scribbled and re-re-written. My closet, once covered in post-it notes, is swept clean. Now that I finally have a solid pagecount down and can set all my pages up ahead of time (next weeks' above), I am certain I can finish everything by my goal date of March/ April. The end of the book will coincide with the...

Going Indie Tutorial

Whew

Okay, this tutorial is about knowing when you're ready to go indie- in the context of this tutorial, that means not working a stable, full-time job, but making a living from your art in another way. How you want to go indie (freelance/ contracting? self-publishing? etc) is left open because... everyone is different! What I did specifically probably wouldn't work for another person because of my personal resources and weaknesses. I don't have kids, I live in a really expensive area, I draw...

Happy New Year~

Another year done, another full circle completed. 

The cover of the final chapter of Mare Internum will be live on the site at midnight PST, but since it's midnight EST I thought I'd upload the high-res chapter image here for you guys now~

The new tutorial will be up asap, it is about knowing when to make the jump from hobbyist to full-time indie artist, been working on it a long time so I will be glad to get that up. 

Anyway, here's to a wonderful 2018, it's going to be ...

MI Stuff- off to see the wizard

you've got some nerve, kid

TM Stuff- sketches

Been trying to find my vibe while solidifying this next Meek chapter... The dastardly duo

General news and what's to come~

Hi guys!

First, a little preview of Chapter 6 of The Meek. Outstanding will begin next year, after the conclusion of Mare Internum in Q1 of 2018.

Next, you might have heard about the update to Patreon's fee structure. I strongly disagree with this plan. If it was an option, I would absorb any increased costs on my end to avoid doing damage to any of you. Maybe I'm being too optimist...

It's a coupon~

Hello hello,

Thank you very much for keeping me alive this year! Since it's black cyber small business whatever weekend, here's a little coupon of thanks: 20% off any non-commission items in my Gumroad store. This is also the absolute lowest price to nab the Meek V1 book... hardcover sets and other limite...

MI445 WIP

In other news, I've been desperately ______ for the past few days and my productivity has suffered a bit, but am crawling back up the waterfall, as one does. 

I'm nearly done with colors but here's a preview of the lineart and text of tomorrow's page. 

For $10 patrons waiting on the recent tutorial's worksheet: it is on the way! thank you for your patience~

Shoptalk- flexible styles

Have you ever needed money? to, for example, prolong and sustain your life? yeah me too. Above is a page from a project management book I worked on in 2014 and the first 6 months of 2015, while juggling the return of The Meek and launching Mare, which was a lot of fun (no). In an interesting twist of fate this book was poorly project-managed and I had to stop working on it because my body was falling apart, ha ha (also, no).

In 2014 while this project was getting of the ground I realized that ...

Sketchpost- anteater

Been feeling a little blah about my work lately, like I'm just going through the motions, so thought I'd take a step back and do some "fun" art to reset. 

The top sketch is what I started out with, which is SO boring and I hated myself for drawing it, haha. No life, just like, random side view, it made me mad. A lot of the life of a drawing is in the volume so I tried to force myself to draw a different angle, with a focus on shapes I liked (the swoopy back and tail mostly). The final is ...

TM Stuff- can I get an Amen

I remember the last day I drew this guy, because it was the last page of Chapter 3 about 6 years ago, lol. I also have a hell of a time keeping his face consistent in general so I thought I'd make an updated ref sheet for myself.

His design is based on a bunch of "white" features that I tend to caricaturize a certain way. That maybe sounds racially something or other, but when I taught myself to draw initially, it was all based on cartoons and anime. When I tried to un-anime my style, I used m...

Webcomics 101 Tutorial

Alright, here we go~

Some basic info for people looking to start a webcomic from the very ground floor. This is more of a practical tutorial vs a creative one, and is for people who have never done comics before. The supplement sheet will be out soon and covers more specific considerations about how to figure out what kind of host is right for you, why you would or would not certain layout designs for different types of comics, and more about update strategies. I'll let you guys know when that...

MI Stuff- Skeletons (cw: death)

Spelling is in English for the sake of clarity, but you get the point... there's a bunch of skeletons on the doorstep of the Processor because at some point you have nothing but time and the urge to make your presence known. 

Why does the processor leave them there instead of cleaning it up? Out of amusement or pity or respect? hard to say~

MI443 preview~

My site is undergoing maintenance so I can't upload at a stupid hour, so a small preview :] This is pre-correction so the colors aren't quite 100% yet, but the bones are there... HAHA... ha...

TM Stuff- Smokin a sigare

MEEK STUFF! yeah, I've already started prelim work on revising Ch 6 ahead of its official start in a few months. Until then, will just be revisiting some older art and some bg stuff. I think this is still one of my fav Soli pieces so I just wanted to repost it here :] (it looks fuzzy cuz I was experimenting with one-brush pictures at the time, and painted this entirely with the fuzzy airbrush)

So, a fun-fact about Soli: after many years of being illiterate, she is teaching herself to read. Not...

MI Stuff- symbols

Just some simple stuff. As a reminder, Wollarians have two female sexes, with the larger type like Kalla having a large forked crest, and the smaller type having a smaller ridge-like crest. From the circle you can kinda infer which gender is seen as being intellectually dominant of the three... I suppose these would be sort of like the symbols you see on bathroom doors or somesuch.

The three colorful l...

MI Stuff- AR Headsets/ visors

These have shown up on a few pages, idk if I've ever said what they were, but they are AR visors that are worn commonly on Earth around this time, especially in more developed countries. The fancier kinds require the subcutaneous insertion of a metal circle in the temple for the arm of the visor to affix to/ propagate sound throug...

MI Stuff- Gulper

Here's a thing I came up with that was originally going to be somewhere in this scene, but I wrote it out a few weeks ago (even though I still like it as both a dumb animal and a story device). Was inspired by a bucket device that was being touted last year, it floats around and gulps in water and collects trash; this animal serves a similar function, just floats around with its mouth gaping open on the surface of th...