April 22nd, 2011

Cherry On Top

Well, this is the debut of the new look I'm going for with the comic and Jodi in particular. It still needs some work; it's a little rough around the edges, but I really think it's a much better style than what I had been doing previously.

For those interested in the process of going from design to final comic, I'm including this image from the above comic:



In the above image, you can see the original sketch at the left transitioning into the final comic strip image. The original sketch is pretty rough but it is pretty close to final. I don't do a considerable amount of tweaking to the image once I have it in a digital format.

Here's a step-by-step of what's done:

• when I'm beginning a new comic, I sketch out the comic on a pad of paper. (Occasionally, I will draw the image completely on a graphic tablet, but that can be time consuming; I'm not the best at tablet drawing yet.)
• After sketching out the drawing, I'll scan it into my computer
• I clean it up a little, removing eraser marks, smudges, etc.
• I colorize the image, converting it to a blueline image
• then I import it into the program inkscape, where I digitally ink it with my tablet. (This can be a lengthy process since I am picky about the lines and often tweak then after I have inked them to get them to look as close to the original line drawing as possible.)
• After the inking process, I import the file into the gimp where I do the coloring.

Chris

Additionally, I actually went outside today and did some yard work. It took awhile for us New Yorkers but it looks like Winter has finally ended and Spring is finally here. So I am officially retiring Jodi's bunny hat.