jklind

"Just Five More Minutes" page 8

SPOILERS, Mary!

"Just Five More Minutes" page 7 wip

The way I hear the characters in my head, is Lily has song-bird like inflection to her voice, like Disney's Snow White, or the good witch from The Wizard of Oz. She's chipper nearly all the time. Mercy, on the other hand, sounds much more like Maleficent. Her words just ooze bitterness and spite. But on this page? Mercy's doing a spot-on impression of her sister.

Back to work?

A few days of Python coding (and re-coding) might've been just what I needed!  Or at least, hitting a wall on that front is enough to make me want to take a break from it and get back to work on the comic pages.

Last week, I'd started making a ton of additions to the my Python class that generates Maya controls. I wanted it to be versatile, and it certainly is that...  But then I realized I have another type of control planned, that won't need all the bells and whistles of thi...

Retooling

Today I'm taking a much-needed break from the comic, to work on my Maya rigging tools for at least the rest of the week. Exciting, I know.

Most of the tools I'd already written, probably haven't been updated in over two years, and they're starting to show their age. In that time I'd started to manually add new features and explore new ideas, and at the very least would like to add these into the scripts so I'll no longer need to do them by hand.

A larger goal for my tools, is to w...

A bit of art block, a bit of progress

My mental-fog cleared enough earlier to let me draw some of the next page!  Stepping outside to draw helped.  For the past few days, I've been looking for a good drawing spot away from my house. One candidate is about a half-mile away, between the road and a nearby creek. Another spot is much closer, a clearing near the riverbank where people launch their kayaks...  but it's otherwise a fairly wooded area, and we have bobcats. And gators.

Next Halloween?

I'm having a bit of trouble focusing on drawing, this week. Part of it could be that I won't have enough time for wolf-Mary or corgi-Daisy this year. At least, not in comic form.

A few months back, I had the idea for the first page of this comic. If it had stayed a single page - and if I'd made more progress on the Sleepy Daisy comic - getting it done in time for Halloween would have been a possibility.

Last week, I tried to make the idea shorter, but instead made it LONGER. Frees...

Page prep

My goal this week is to get the next two pages drawn, and for some panels that meant dusting off my diner & Rose models.  And quickly applying a new rig to Rose, which also served as a reminded that my rigging tools need to be updated and give a UI to make them easier to use...

Inking & coloring these two pages may not leave much time for anything Halloween-related.  That sucks, because I have some good ideas, the best being a 3 or 4 page comic. Technically there's not...

"Just Five More Minutes" page 6

There will be no escape from mom's hugs!

"Just Five More Minutes" page 5

Finally finished with this one!

The last few weeks have been something - the Frankenmuth Auto Fest, a week unexpectedly helping my brother move, a week & a half camping trip (during which I inked & colored this page in my tent when I could), scrambling today to get ready for the drive back to Florida...

My back & legs feel like they're officially past their warranty. But at least in a few days, my time will finally be my own again.

"Just Five More Minutes" page 6 sketches

Page 5 may be ready to be assembled, but I took another look at my original plan for the next two pages, and realized they could be combined into one. 

9/8 update - I'm in a bit of a rush, at the moment. Two panels left to draw, but I'm also scrambling to scan a big pile of photos to hand off to my nieces, before I head down to the Frankenmuth Auto Fest tomorrow. Next week I'd like to get these two comic pages inked & colored, because after the 19th I'll be on ...

"Just Five More Minutes" page 5 sketches

Finally assembled!

Update - INKED!! I'm currently in the middle of a two-week road trip, but I brought my gear along so that I could continue working on these pages, when I'm not worn out from hiking.

Back at it

My contract is finally done (again), and it looks like the next one may not start for at least a couple of months. Time to play catch up!

First up, I plan on drawing the next section of the sleepy Daisy comic. After that - or in between - I'd also like to mess around with Blender's sculpting tools. There are also various technical things I could work on, once I've made progress on the comic - Daisy's rig needs some fine-tuning, and there are a number of script ideas that I haven't had t...

Identifying problems the best way

Not having much desire to draw, lately, a few days ago I applied another pose to Daisy's model. It didn't take long for me to spot problems, or to come up with crazy-ass ways to fix them...

That will all have to wait, as I'm officially out of things to rig for work, and now I'm back on animation duty. The animations on my task list don't sound overly complicated, but remembering who they're for is enough to wipe out any enthusiasm I might've had. With any luck, this job will be done fin...

Dusting things off

Trying to wake my brain up, to thumbnail poses for later on in the current comic. This wasn't one of them, but I felt like posing it in 3D, since I don't do enough perspective shots of Daisy.

Upcoming pages

Daisy IS going to wake up!  The second & third pages above took me a while to plan out, and now my contract from the past year+ is back on for the next month & a half.  I'd rather not wait that long to knock out the next page, but I will have to be careful about how I budget my time.

The fourth page is a gag I came up with last night, a bonus page that could take place before Daisy wakes up, or it could be its own thing. For now I want to focus on the main story, but a...

"Just Five More Minutes" page 4

And with this, it's time for me to take a mid-chapter break so I can plot out & start drawing the next half!

"Just Five More Minutes" page 3

One day, Mercy is going to put Rose through a wall...

"Just Five More Minutes" page 3 wip

I've got one more panel to draw, and my brain's not cooperating... seeing how the third panel might be cropped should help, though.

Small update - the page is ready for ink & color!  Tomorrow night I'll be driving up to Michigan, so travel anxiety has been slowing me down for the past few days.

"Just Five More Minutes" page 2

Daisy's not waking up any time soon, if she can sleep through this.

"Just Five More Minutes" page 1

Have I ever drawn Daisy more relatable? No I have not!

Comics - speed vs quality

One of the next things on my to-do list, is to finish the 'Sleepy Daisy' comic, and then start planning the next chapter to work on.  Where I may only have 2-3 weeks to get it done, I'm wondering what's more important - doing the comic in full color, or leaving it rough so I can get the entire chapter out faster.  Or perhaps something in between?  What do you think?

Mimi character sheet

Making some progress!

Teasing a Teaser

I've had this idea for a teaser animation for some time now, and lately I've been thinking it's time I made it happen.  Daisy's rig might not be finished, but it's close enough that I can use it, and look for things to fix or improve.  If nothing else, it'll be good to finally get this idea out of my system.

April source files

April 300 dpi images

April 150 dpi images

Here are the higher resolution versions of this month's pinups.  I may update this post in the coming weeks, as I work my way down the list

A New Challenger

Since one can apparently never have too many shorties, I've finally started working on one that's been requested for a while.  For now, I call her chibi-Hitomi!

Working on this girl's design a bit more could be today's morning project, before I dive back into an animation thing I've been working on.  Or she could be a warm-up for whatever else is needed for Mimi's character sheet.

Handstand

I forgot to include this one in the poll, but figured I'd move ahead with it anyway

One Down!

The recent poll was close, with this Daisy pinup running neck & neck with a character sheet for Mimi, but Daisy won out!  Which really just buys me a bit more time to work on Mimi's sheet...

A Room With A View

This idea has been in the back of my mind, pretty much since I started modeling her room.