Sorry I had to postpone it! Meek update going up in an hour or two instead... didn't expect this page to take 20+ hours but here we are T__T
Anyhow, stream tomorrow instead, and as a placeholder here's a pic of my bf's OC walrus. It was his bday last week so I sketched his characters in photoshop and painted portraits of them in gouache... The photoshop ones look so much better lol, it's the thought that counts~
News:
What's this for? oh yeah the Networking Tutorial
https://www.patreon.com/posts/11836736
This one's a biggie... 17 pages :O
It's mostly huge cuz I made a bunch of exercise pages, but you do NOT have to do them all, just pick and choose the ones you feel most comfortable with tackling! I organized these by monetary and time cost, and I'd recc doing the easy mode ones (yellow) more frequently until you feel ok...
2017-06-26 23:40:36 +0000 UTC View Post
ICYMI: A giveaway contest for all $5+ Patrons (that's you) going on rn, just comment before the month is out to be entered :]
ICYMI2: Another giveaway!!! You can win a free signed soft or hardcover Meek V1 book, simply reblog to this post to enter~
Did you know (you probably do) that it takes a lot...
2017-06-20 01:05:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Two pages in various stages of completion~
The Mare page is half colored, so will probably have that page up tomorrow and a Meek post on Friday.
Now that I'm looking at it I hate some of these speech bubbles, think I need to redraw a bit, haha :o I am committed to the weird angular style but sometimes it works against me.
2017-06-15 05:50:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Look at this cutie... it's a limited edition pin from the Meek V1 Kickstarter~
This 1.5-inch Peaceful Mocheril can be yours via our normal contest route: any $5+ Patron can leave a comment on any post I make for the rest of June (including this one) to be automatically entered, and at least one winner will be chosen on the 1st of July :] These pins won't be for sale by themselves except at conventions, so this is a nice time to try and get one!
Additionally, my physical book store is fi...
2017-06-14 05:57:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Today's comparison- 2007 vs 2017~
I haven't been deviating too much from the 2007 version because I still agree with a lot of the choices I made at the time. But, I changed the architecture of the fortress a bit. One thing I see talked about in storyboarding tutorials a lot is being aware of spatial arrangements, which is what I also try to do in my comics... I ended up placing this scene in a darkish hallway instead of in an open room like before, just to make it feel a bit more den-ish? Thre...
2017-06-09 18:52:04 +0000 UTC View Post
LEVi... he sits on weapons because he doesn't care. He also probably doesn't mind being walked around as long as he gets to talk to someone.
We've made it back to the area that is shown on the chapter 4 cover page, which is full of active volcanics. Readers earlier had some questions about whether or not modern-day Mars has anything going on down there given the state of the core... basically, our core here on Earth is very similar to Mars in terms of composition (iron). It spins, and creates ...
2017-06-06 21:18:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Just wanted to say thank you all for being part of my Patreon! and that there will be a few (good!) changes coming up soon.
Hello~
You know, I always talk about going to cons, but never about what happened there? Some of you might be convention attendees, convention exhibitors or (like me for the last few years) just people who lurk on the internet trying to find out what goes on at conventions and what it's like. I thought it might be useful to do a breakdown of my con experience and financials since this is my first year of attempting to go to conventions seriously, and I stress about this stuff A LOT. Maybe you'...
2017-05-25 15:51:46 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm in freaking Canada
Anyways, I'm at VanCAF this whole weekend peddling some books and stuff along with a lot of other great comic creators. It's 100% free to attend, so if you wanted to check out a book and say hello without having to do it through the internet (or paying ridiculous Canada shipping), now is a great opportunity!
I also have very limited amounts of Patreon-only ...
2017-05-20 15:44:57 +0000 UTC View PostI have some stickers in very low supply! A new design, even, so you'll have a choice XD If you're at VanCAF, just come up and say the magic phrase Keep Mars Red to get your sticker and a sincere thank you from me in person~
Hope to see some of you there!
2017-05-20 15:43:22 +0000 UTC View Post
Rebekah ("Bex") Egunsola has always been a quiet but determined woman, slightly awkward but completely committed to her goals. Despite an outwardly friendly exterior, she privately grapples with feelings of selfishness and of being a failure, along with a very strong desire to be known for her good intentions.
Bex is the unplanned youngest child of two very successful parents, both politicians. Her mother died shortly after her birth, and her much older brothers and her father were most...
2017-05-18 07:32:11 +0000 UTC View Post
PDF is attached!
Took a while to get this up, sorry about that! Decided to reformat the style to incorporate a bunch of discrete exercises instead of the more open-ended questions I usually do, just cuz a lot of this stuff requires more small day-to-day practice.
Let me know if you have any questions about anything! I'll be removing the previous worksheet PDF by EOD today so if you haven't grabbed a copy of that yet, make sure you nab it :]
2017-05-16 16:30:53 +0000 UTC View Post
I like integrating imagery from poems into the comic... when I'm in an unhealthy mood I tend to fixate on things, and I like to memorize poetry as a way to make the fixation at least a little bit positive? I was going to say practical but I'm not sure how practical it is, haha, other than to have something to think about during commutes.
There are two poems that I used to illustrate Kalla and her home, the first from the Odyssey:
"No lonely seafarer
Holds clear of enterin...
Just an animation of this page as it was completed~
The most important phase of the process is probably the very last step, where you add stupid little hilights and adjust the darkness or lightness of the edges of panels and add some color variation that can't really be noticed during a casual read... I know of a few comics that color in a similar way to me, with much cleaner results, but the lack of variation gives it a sterility I don't really enjoy. I'd rather have a messier page that remin...
2017-05-07 19:33:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Another big boy~
This is a meta tutorial, not really about any of the subjects the tutorial covers (perspective, color, objects of people), but more about how to think about those subjects in order to teach yourself about them. I mention here and there that I'm self-taught, but I think that's a weird term for it... everyone who learns anything is pretty much self-taught. In that nobody else can do the work or grow from it except for you, which is why some people get A's in their classes and so...
2017-05-03 17:57:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi guys!!
I like making monthly news updates at arbitrary times of the month. 21st? yeah sure why not. Anyways, onto some news:
Please come by booth EEH53 and say howdy! I won't have any new Patron stickers for this convention, but I do have that secret Kalla sticker with me and I'd love to give you one and be able to thank you for your kind support in person~ Since I don't have any new stickers I'll also toss in a free signed Legschilla comic while supplies last.
~~~WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE~~~
2017-04-21 17:12:51 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm sorry about the lack of swift updates recently, it's been a little rough being a one-person customer service rep, warehouse manager, post office employee, comic artist, freelancer, biz developer, secretary... etc... I'll be uploading the pencils to the upcoming MI page when I'm done with like 12 other things but FIRST, a 8-pg comic to apologize for the update sporadicity of this month, and for making up the word "sporadicity."
This comic was a rejected submission for an anthology from 2009...
2017-04-21 16:53:23 +0000 UTC View Post
Thrip asks so many questions!!! it's a plot point, but I mostly made it because I like writing annoying characters :D
I'm going to hijack my own post a bit and whisper at you that, if you're supporting my Patreon, you're now supporting yet another comic. I get these awesome ideas for comics now and then, and usually I don't do anything with the idea until some critical point where I think "oh, hm, yeah I guess I've got enough [info/ skill] to start on this now." I thought I'd never reach that ...
2017-04-13 17:08:24 +0000 UTC View Post
A tiny Legschilla mini to kick off the week! The minis are very small, the size of 1/8th of a sheet of paper, and chronicle the awkward life of our favorite half-man half-chinchilla. Check out the Legschilla tag below for the other 4 comics, if you haven't seen them yet~
My aim is to make a new mini for every convention I go to, so there should be a new one up later this month :]
The small princess~
Hyla is a good girl, but sort of under the radar for the adults who have other things to worry about at the moment. She likes animals and secretly would like to be an animal doctor when she grows up (her mother advised against telling this to daddy). Her favorite classes are penmanship and diction, and her favorite color is green. Her favorite food is fruit preserves. Her least favorite thing is being ignored.
Even though her brother and sister are much older, s...
2017-04-09 01:35:04 +0000 UTC View Post
I lowered the opacity of the bg artificially in the lineart up there to pop out the new guys
Someone asked how I do character designs... mostly I just have a bunch of random thematic designs squirreled away, most of which are trash, but when I like one I might pull it and try and mess with it. I decided on a sketch that looked like the first sketch shown up there and refined it at ECCC (I lost that sketch, bla), but not being sure yet about what my needs for the character were, decided to mod ...
2017-04-06 05:32:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Happy Monday!
I have our winners for the March contest :] I was originally gonna choose 5 but I've randomly picked 7 winners from the pool of eligible commenters from last month. The winners are:
You guys will each receive 2 Meek stickers and a Kalla sticker, a set of the new MI bookmarks, and a si...
2017-04-03 16:16:05 +0000 UTC View Post
This is still my favorite drawing of him so I'ma use it
[keeping the following spoiler-free for the plot, but does contain some bg info that may or may not be in the main comic]
This is the Emperor's best friend, sadly. I say sadly because they're not very good friends at all, from Ulyer's perspective. They have known each other for a while, as they were trained and shipped to the front lines together. They dug latrines together. They got shot at together. They also didn't get along very...
2017-04-01 03:47:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Haha, so, this is extremely cringey stuff, but it's also my first serious drafting attempt. I guess this could be seen as a gestural sketch in that focuses on emotional impact and direction over draftsmanship or accuracy. Also: it's fucking horrible.
Some editing notes:
I'm just gonna throw this up now since I doubt I'll be finished tonight. Check those amazing background placeholders *shift* *drag* Normally I draw in the background before flatting but I've been taking my productivity where it comes lately.
Sorry for the lag in comics, I've been crazy depressed this entire week, last week; no reason I can figure out, but trying to draw a comic with humor elements when you're not feeling it is like playing blindfold pin the tail on the donkey. A few people hav...
2017-04-01 03:22:58 +0000 UTC View PostWhat it sounds like~ I've got some great topic suggestions from Tym, Heidi, Arianna and Sue included here! There's also two other options from me, one of which is an updated version of a classic tutorials for 2017 ( http://shingworks.deviantart.com/gallery/53430455/Random-from-Tutorials ). This won't be just a reskin; it'll include new info of stuff I've learned in the past decade, and...
2017-03-30 17:57:40 +0000 UTC View Post
April Fools, it's still March! I'm so good at this
Anyways, just a general news post for you guys, since it's been a while...