Slipping Through: News

Slipping through now has it's own website:

Slipping Through

Lots of pages you haven't seen are posted up there! Any new pages will be posted THERE. I will NOT post any more pages here. Happy reading!

Now and Then

As I was working on Slipping Through I pulled up an old piece for color reference. Struck by the changes time and practice has wrought, I thought I'd post the pieces for comparison.
Here we have Benedict, a magician, drawn just around a year ago.

His hat is so . . . squashed? It is supposed to be a top hat, but it looks more like . . . nothing humankind has ever seen before. And his face is funky. All the proportions all wrong and a year ago I couldn't tell, no matter how much I studied it. Also, he was supposed to have curly hair, but it was beyond my skills. His body lacks any sort of definition, he's just a blocky suit. What is his hair even doing?

Here his is as of a few minutes ago, a work in progress,

I notice I'm less afraid of darker coloring. Also, he's not so stiff and awkward. Necks are something I've been trying to give all my characters nowadays. As well, I've got a bit better about hands, not so much hit and miss as it was.

And a glimpse of his redesigned cane.

A lot has changed in a year. I know, in my heart, that a year from now I will be making a similar post pointing out the weakness of the pieces I made today. For the moment, his original hat will haunt my dreams.

Slipping Through 3.0

The hardest part of learning is that when you start a project, two weeks later the work you've already done is nowhere near the quality of what you're doing presently. Twice I have started Slipping Through and now I'm going for three.

The summer I am dedicating my time to the epic tale of Slipping Through, the tale of a world quite like ours. Expect, here, magic is practiced openly and one might become a Magician the same way one might become a doctor, an attorney or insurance salesman.
The story takes place after a time when the world almost ended, but was repaired in time to save it, though not without cost. The world does not remember how the sky cracked open and other worlds began to slip through into theirs. They do not remember the brave Magicians who made terrible sacrifices to save everyone. It as if none of it ever happened.
The world, however, was imperfectly repaired and there are a few people who remember what happened. Maggie, our hero, remembers. She remembers the magicians who sacrificed themselves so completely that their very existences were destroyed, making so it is as if they were never even born.
Now Maggie's worse fears are being realized: the cracks are reopening and her warnings fall on deaf ears.
*
Maggie is not our only hero, there will be at least six different story lines that converge for the final quest to save the world from cracking apart once more.

This summer I will begin the final version of Slipping Through (No more restarts!) and you will meet everyone from Ting the shape-shifter to the Gray Prince, an exile from another world.

Some Changes

Since Barbara's Artistic Achievements is taking care of my traditional mediums, I'm removing all of those posts from this blog, leaving just my webcomics, Slipping Through and Pretzel and the Princess.

All the images of my acrylic, ceramic and other traditional work are all on Artistic Achievements. Link should be on the right-hand side, tell me if you can't find it.

It has been too long since I've posted

So here are a couple pictures of a character of mine. His name is Matthew and he's been floating around in my head for about six years. It's only within the last month that I've figured out exactly what he looks like and drawn a satisfactory picture of him.
Nice shades, yes?




This is what he looked like when I drew him two years ago.

Quite a change. The only constants seem to be his earrings and wings. His personality, cheerful and snarky, has never changed, though.

His origins are quite interesting: I dreamed of him one night. A winged man with dark red skin and bright red hair. He seemed interesting and I used him as a character in a story I was working on. The story no longer exists, but within it he lived in the mountains fighting monsters all day, being extremely cheerful. I changed his hair to black and gave him silver claws that froze whatever they slashed.
Nowadays he can't do that, his claws are black, and he can shift back and forth between his human and winged forms.

He probably owes his existence to the fact I adored the show Gargoyles as a child. But by the time I dreamed him up it had been five years since I had last seen the show and had pretty much forgotten it existed. In fact, Matthew eventually reminded me of the show and I ended up watching episodes of it on youtube and getting hooked on it again. Except for the third season. There was never a third season. Never, do you hear me? NEVER.

Ahem

For school I have started up a third blog. Aside from this one and The In Joke blog, I now have Barbara's Artistic Achievements which will showcase all of my work at school as well as anything I happen to paint or draw in my free time.

So, hear this! This blog will no longer have posts with any of my traditional mediums. All of that work will be going to the new blog. This one will focus on my two comics: Slipping Through and Pretzel and the Princess.

For your comic needs, come here.
If you need a dose of humor head over to The In Joke. http://theinjoke.blogspot.com/
Interested in my serious work? Go over to Artistic Achievements. http://artisticachievements.blogspot.com/

Slipping Through (new): Part 3

I have been told I draw quite the adorable penguin.

Hm. I drew these pages this summer and altered them quite a bit since then. And already my art has progressed to the point where I want to redraw all these pages from scratch. However, I would never get anything done that way since I would be starting over every month. So I'm finishing up three more pages I drew this summer before I start to bring in my more recent work.

In the next installment we shall go to Maggie's place of work and meet her fellow employees. Needless to say, they are an interesting bunch.

Slipping Through (new): Part 2

Woohoo! Part two! I think there is a definite improvement in the art. Learned a few new tricks in photoshop. Upcoming: penguins and quirky co-workers.

Musings

Just this moment I was going through my "Slipping Through" sketchbook and I realized how jumbled and out of order the pages are. I suppose this is because I tend to sketch things out as I think of them, regardless of when they take place in the story.

For example, when I rebooted this comic I started off with Maggie standing in a nightclub looking deeply annoyed. How did she get there? I wondered, Why is her hair a mess? And why is she wearing a cape? Then I realized she must have just come off work, that is, she had just had a throw down with some villain. So then I had to go and draw that bit and change that to the beginning.
Later on, in stuff you haven't seen yet, I got frustrated drawing Maggie's apartment so I skipped to drawing stuff with her at work. Now I've had to go back and fill in the gaps.

It just struck me because I've started coloring some pages that are next chronologically, but I drew them months ago. It's getting quite confusing. Especially since in some of the older pages I went back and reworked some of the panels. So in some pages there are bits that I know are ages old, but there's some stuff which I only thought of recently so it's got to be new.

Well, back to work.

Slipping Through: News

Just an update on my newest comic, "Slipping Through". After some consideration I have decided to redo a great deal of what I have so far. I fussed over a page in photo shop, trying to get it to look decent, until I realized the page could not be salvaged. Looking at what I've posted so far I see a lot of things I want to correct.

I regret none of my work up until this point! It has been quite educational. Now I will be redoing most of the early pages. I've decided to stick to a standard layout arrangement of three horizontal panels per page rather than my previous, unstructured approach.

And I'm off!

New Project: Slipping Through

This is my new project, a comic called "Slipping Through". The main characters are Maggie the Magician and Ting the shape-shifter. Together they fight crime! Uh, Monsters. They fight monsters. They come from broken homes, too. Keep checking for updates!

Pretzel and the Princess: Part 2

The Princess has rescued Pretzel, but what's going on at the castle?

And There Was Much Rejoicing

What once was lost is now found!
My laptop has returned unto me! It returned to me this afternoon and now sits on the kitchen table, eager for its hard drive to be reinstalled so it can once again join me in my varied and amusing Internet adventures.
*
In other news, I return to school on Sunday. I'm ready to head back and see my friends, plan a meal for everyone, and threaten them with knives. I'll pop in the fireplace DVD and we'll all gather around the flickering digital flames and discuss what has come to pass since we last gathered.
*
What's with the picture accompanying this post, you ask? Not sure. I'm feeling cheerful and that picture just made me feel satisfied, contented and all warm and fuzzy inside. Looking at it, I realize that I now need to mark any new pictures as copyrighted in 2010, rather than 2009, as I have been doing. Now, to the bat cave! I must prepare for my next glorious, action-packed adventure!

Meet My Friends

The imaginary ones, anyway. I've been doing some drawings of characters from the stories I write, and I thought they're turning out rather well. Keep in mind, these are all works in progress and not yet completed.

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First off, this is Vanessa Lynn.

She's friendly, I swear! Sixteen years old and a powerful sorceress, she is a supporting character in one of my stories. The story is going through a big overhaul right now, so it doesn't have a title at this time. Obviously a fantasy, hopefully an original one.

*

This guy is called Matthew from the story, "Overdue". Which, by the way, exists in the same world as Vanessa's story.

Man, he doesn't look very friendly either. He's usually much more cheerful and snarky, and lots of fun to be around. He lives in the mountains and has a fascinating back story which I won't tell you about because it would give away all the twists.

*

Now, for someone who actually looks cheerful, Andrew Furlen.

He's a wizard in my story, "Silent Stone". He has a rather deadpan sense of humor and usually pretends to be vague and unfocused so people won't bother him.

*

Meet Gray, The Gatekeeper,

Also from "Silent Stone", he is a personification of the magical protection of the palace. He was created centuries ago and then someone lost the user manual, apparently, so not much is know about him or how he works. He is programed to intervene if the royal family or the other palace inhabitants are in immediate danger, but not until then.

*

He's not Asian, by the way, I'm just trying out a kimono sort of outfit, trying to get a balance between them and the usual wizard's robes. And maybe give him a hat.

***

So, how am I doing?

Something Different

It has been some time since I posted anything to do with my digital coloring and I might as well, since I have improved significantly in the intervening time.
First off, here is a picture I use as my ID online. Ignore the text, it isn't important and needs to be updated.

It's supposed to be a skin-like mask that makes the face look somewhat blank, but still have hints of the features underneath. It's rather fun to color. Here's another example of the same character:

I really liked how this one turned out (above), I think the face looks good and the hands aren't too bad either. I used to avoid drawing hands, so I always feel satisfied when my character has both hands showing and in fairly believable poses.

Now, for a bit of a dynamic piece:

These are all my original character, Currer Bell. He's not meant to be an author avatar of any sort, he's just fun to draw. At the moment most of my completed pictures are of Currer Bell, or of my sister's original character, Jay:

Or sometimes both of them together:

*

These pictures are drawn by hand, scanned into the computer, then colored in photoshop. I've been doing this for about six months and having much fun.

DMV Blues

Second time's the charm. At least it is as far as my drive test goes. The second time I've taken it and the first time I've passed. Huzzah. The first time I took the test I was woefully lacking in practice and very uncomfortable operating a vehicle. I focused so much on not bumping the car as I exited the parking lot that I did not spot the pedestrian on the sidewalk and . . . so much blood . . .

*

That is, I gave the pedestrian a scare, but came nowhere near actually hitting them. Of course, I mentioned this to my mom when we discussed why I had bombed the test. In her repetition of the story she exaggerated the details until she was saying that I had barely missed running down a little old lady with a walker. My vague memories of that tragic drive test seem to tell me that the person was young, upright, and probably Hispanic. Possibly female.

*

Right now I have my temporary license and my nice shiny one is coming in the mail. But I have no car. Or anywhere to go. Which isn't much fun. I want to drive somewhere all by my lonesome at least once before I head back to college and carelessness. My dad might let me have the car Friday, when he isn't working. My mom won't let me anywhere near the driver's seat of her van. In fact, she wouldn't get in the car if I were driving. We seem to have some trust issues.

*

I suppose while I'm here I might as well talk about my roommate issues. Actually, I just lost the will to type, so I'm going to go color on photoshop. Ah, but first I must add another picture to this post. I already put it up on DeviantART, but I forgot I don't have it up here. Meet Trevor.

This is the beginning of the story of Trevor, the needy robot. I didn't put too much effort into the art this time, but look for improvement as time goes on.

*

This was inspired by a true story, told to me by my brother. Somewhere scientists created an actual hugging robot. A lone female scientist was working late one night and when she tried to leave, the robot stood in front of the door and every time she got near it, it would hug her.

*

So, trapped inside the lab, the scientist had to call one of her co-workers to come and turn the robot off. The switch was on its back, out of her reach. The robot had never done this to anyone else, just her.

*

She doesn't work in the lab alone anymore.

On and on

Still working in photo shop. I'm trying to improve my coloring and shading, focusing on that and leaving fancy backgrounds aside for the moment. The coloring on this one shows marked improvement, I think, but not a lot of varied texture. I'll post a picture again when I can jazz up the textures a bit more. Maybe make the hair look different from the coat, you know?

*

Right now I have two thick volumes of comics, Fantastic Four and The Green Lantern. They're older and these volumes were printed in black and white. However, they were originally in color. Black and white suits my purposes, though, as I'm copying poses from them for practice. Jay's pose here is thanks to Mr. Fantastic hanging onto a building for dear life. Mind you, I don't trace, I copy freehand. Also, I have to completely change the faces, outfits, and hair. Also, in this case, gender.

*

Jay's design has been tweaked a little bit. There's a belt added, for more color, and the boots are higher, also for more color. Her imagine was getting a bit boring to color with only that orange triangle to contrast the blue. Have yet to get my sister's input on the changes. Hopefully she approve of what I've done with her character.

*

Suppose I should mention, but Jay is falling not flying. Jay is impervious to most damage, strong, able to jump extraordinarily high, but she cannot fly. My sister and I have made a sort of rule about arbitrarily giving our heroes the gift of flight. Nearly every superhero out there has the ability to fly, one way or another and it gets a bit boring and whenever a character doesn't fly you feel as if they are at a huge disadvantage. So Jay doesn't get to fly.

Beware

Non-stop fun here, playing in Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 point 0. Coloring in a ton of sketches, and even drawing a few new ones. I'm playing with backgrounds and after I put the brick pattern in this picture I just had to add the graffiti. Now it sort of looks as if Jay and Currer are painted on there as well.

*

I really need to work on my texture, though. Anyone know of any good tutorials for that sort of thing? Really, everything is beginning to look a bit alike, the clothes having the same smoothness as the skin.

Introducing . . .

Toothpick Man! A character belonging to my good friend Anna. Being such a good friend she has allowed me to do some sketches of him. This possibly isn't the finalized version of him, seeing as Anna requested he have "more toothpicks sticking out of non-painful places". Well, I added some, but she may want more. All I can think is that he must snag his cape a lot. I ripped off Superman and Captain America for costume ideas. Do you think it shows?

I have been having an absolute blast on Adobe Photoshop Elements. This might be my best shading job yet. I keep finding new ways to use the tools more effectively and hopefully my work is improving.

I must say, that cape rocks.

Now in Color!

Once again, I bring you the original characters of Jay and Currer . . . now in Color!

My mom kindly purchased a photoshop program for me when I got home this summer. It was only yesterday afternoon that I finally installed the program. Suddenly, yearning for color, I took a scan of one of my sketches and opened it in Photoshop. Some time later, this picture was the result.

My first ever use of the photoshop coloring. I may be addicted. I've used photoshop programs before, but only on actual photographs, for a class. Never have I done coloring or shading on it before. Now I'm wondering why I didn't install the thing sooner.

It turned out pretty good. My sister says I got the coloring wrong on Jay's jacket (she would know, seeing as Jay is her character) and that is "makes her question her faith". Really? Again?

A side-effect of my sudden and inexplicable photoshop addiction will be more colored pictures popping up on my blog. I may even start coloring the In Joke comic strips. Maybe good coloring will make up for poor line art and cryptic humor.