THE SIMPSONS

My first week back on layout was a bit rocky.  It took me a while to get used to doing it again.  By Friday I was really grooving though. I was going through scenes at the speed I’m meant to go.  I’ve been able to continue holding up that pace so far.  I glad.

ART

I’ve been showing off a bit of my extra curricular Simpsons work for the last couple of weeks.  This will be the last of it for now.

This is some work I did for a Lisa Simpson Book.  Similar to the Krusty one I wrote about last week.  One of the running gags of the book was a Lisa comic done in the style of the Rex Morgan M.D. comic strip. It featured Lisa and Milhouse all grown up solving medical problems.  It was fun to do because it was so melodramatic.  I had worked on the show “Lisa’s Wedding” which takes place in the future and Lisa is grown up through most of the show.  I remembered what Lisa looked like in that show and I drew her in the same way, with slightly stylized wavy hair:

It’s funny to note, now that I see all strips together, that almost all the strips end with a close up of a character or a dramatic up shot. Sometimes, even the exact SAME dramatic upshot as a different strip. 

You will also note that, in the roughs I posted, I didn’t really put in any perspective grids like I usually do. Looking through the roughs I DIDN’T post, I see that they are missing in those as well. I “eye balled” the perspective on all of these strips. Granted, I didn’t really put in all that many backgrounds either. These strips allowed me to experiment with doing “short hand” backgrounds.

Above is a rough that I didn’t post the clean up for…for some reason.

Above here’s the rough of the strip below.

It was fun to have Milhouse totally start crying just for the melodrama of it all. I don’t think that was in the script.

Above is the rough of the strip below.  The note from the art director was not to have Milhouse come in running on panel 3.

I didn’t post all the strips. Just a few.

Yet again, I didn’t receive a copy of this book so I don’t know what the final version of these strips look like.  I’ll need to track this books down so I can check it out:

What do you think?

MY WEEK

I turned 35 last Saturday. The kids, Alesha took me out to eat sushi. Something I really enjoy doing. We then went back home and my parents came over to visit later in the evening.  The best part of the day, (besides spending time with my family) was getting time to work on my comic.

Sunday we were invited to my in-law’s house.  My mother in law  made enchiladas for lunch.  It was yummy.  Later we drove to my parent’s house were my mother there was a steak dinner waiting for me along with my brother, Deborah his wife, my cousin and her family.  We got there late, which was embarrassing since they were there for me.  Still, it I had a good time.

It’s odd, even on my birthday, if I’m not playing a board game, I still feel awkward about being around a lot of people. I think it’s gotten worse since I started working my projects.

MY WEB COMIC

Speaking of projects…I’m very close to finishing the inking process of my web comic.  I’m very surprised at how much fun I’m having working on this thing.   It also has me very frustrated.  Mostly because I’m not as happy about the way it’s turning out as I’d like to be.  The reason for this, is my fault.  I wanted to draw the comic without making it to be too much work.  Usually, as you’ve seen from my comic book making process post, I draw one page three times before it’s finalized.  If I was to ink the page, it would be four times.  Well, in order to speed things up, I decided that I was only going to draw each page twice. I was going to draw the final penciled page and then ink it.  No rough plot, no tighter rough, no clean up page. I was going straight to a tight rough and then to ink.  This has actually caused a lot of problems because my abilities are NOT such that I can just get everything right the first time.  I really needed to take one more step before I got to the inking.  Still, I’m learning, so I’ll know what I’ll do different next time.

I’ve also rediscovered that I have lousy lettering, so  I’m going to have digital lettering through out the comic and I think even the sound effects I’ve put into the pages will need to be reworked digitally.  It’s okay though, practice makes perfect.  The comic is still perfectly readable and I’m still planning on finishing it.  It’s going to be in color and since I’ve never colored a comic before, I don’t know how long that’s going to take me.  Hopefully, not very much time.

And while I’m on the subject of projects…

GHETTOMATION

I’m slowly making headway into the writing and creating of my next Pulp serial ghettomated project.  I think I’ve finally nailed down what it’s all going to be about, who the main characters are and what their motivation is. Now, I just have to come up with a quick story to put them in so I can really begin.  That, and the fact that I have to work out the look and style of the cartoon.

I’ll write about the process when it really starts getting into gear.

VIDEO

And now some Axe Cop ghettomation:

BLOG

This is fantastic blog if you’re into drawing at all:

The Art Center Blog

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