Inktober 2015

This year to make a change from the mad dash of doing 24HCD I thought I might try to join in #Inktober.
31 inked drawings in 31 days.

Inktober was instigated by Jake Parker in 2009  as a challenge to improve his already very refined inking skills.

The rules as with 24HCD are simple:

1. Draw something and ink it up.

2. Post it online. (I'll be posting here and on twitter)

3. Apply the hashtag  #inktober

4. Do this everyday throughout October.

I also have a vague notion that I might try and develop a story with the pictures... the joy of doing Inktober as against 24HCD is I can plan a story beforehand without breaking the rules.
This is a good thing, as the stories in my previous 24HCD efforts have been a little flimsy at times...

#24HCD 2012 hour 9 flagging

Looks like I wrote too much story, and I'm having to trim back. Which I guess is a good thing, I can add the extra back in if there's time later. I'm still really in the preamble even though I'm up to page 10.

#24HCD 2012 first post planning

Ok so 9.30 start rather than 9am... And I'm over to my allotment shed for some fresh air, and coffee to plot the story arc. I've decided to do a story about the wychwolf.com characters as I know how they look and behave. I think I'm going for an interlude type story set between wychwolf1 and wychwolf2. I'm also thinking it may be linked to the BrightAngel origins.
So open Byword, and start making the clackety noise.
More later

#24HCD 2012 Countdown to 24 Hour Comics Day - 2 days to go

In the past I've mentioned the "stuff" I use for drawing, but wasn't sure whether it's of interest to anyone, then I stumbled on a whole podcast about pens - 70 Decibels network "the pen addict" ... so I figure it's probably ok.
For years I used a trusty set of Rotring Isograph pens, for pretty much everything, but I used to have trouble when I had tight timelines on illustration jobs, as unless you let the ink dry really well it'll bleed when colouring.
So I switched to using Staedtler pigment liners, which are really stable, don't bleed, and are reasonably quick. The downside is I go through them at a fair rate, and there is a long period when there's too much life in them to throw them out, but not enough to do the job properly.

For this years 24HCD I'm going to try some pens I've been after for a fair while - COPIC liners, and Micron pigment liners.
They both produce good stable lines, and don't bleed.
I have a pack of Staedtler pigment liners as a back up in case I can't get on with them, but first impressions are very favourable.
I'm not sure whether I should fill blacks with DELETER ink and brush, COPIC markers, or in Photoshop.
Likewise with lettering, I'm happy to hand letter, but it may be faster to pick that up in Photoshop.
Decisions, decisions.

Countdown to 24 Hour Comics day

24 Hour Comics day starts for me at around 9am on Saturday the 20th October
Last year I succeeded in the challenge to write, draw and publish a 24 page comic in 24 Hours.

24-Hour Comics Day is now in its 22nd year? originally a challenge from Scott McCloud to Steve Bissett, it's now an international event, with comic shops, libraries and schools opening up to support challengers.  It sounds easy, 24 hours to draw a comic, but that 24 hours includes everything, creating the story, pencilling, inking, lettering, colouring layout and printing (or posting to the web), everything.

The 24 hours are continuous, you can rest but the clock doesn't stop.

 The first year I tried I failed dismally and stopped (the "Gaimen variation"), but last year was far better,  I bought in paper, biscuits, coffee, and pens, and cracked on.

This year I'm hoping to do a story related to the Wychwolf webcomic I draw. 

Obviously it isn't in the spirit of the challenge to do any planning before the event, except for the logistics of getting a wad of paper and pens together... Paper is ready, hoping to pick up some pens on a London trip on Wednesday.

Wish me luck!

Back to my mac

I've had a useful, if not entirely entertaining back and forth with the version of 24HCD A-Z (the thing I did for last year's 24 Hr comic day) in the iTunes iBook store.
Chiefly the issues concern the layout of iBooks, which change radically from Landscape to Portrait mode... niot much of a problem in a regular book, but very significant for a picture book. The solution is to lock the book in Landscape mode, with a setting in iBooks Author Inspector, but for some reason the setting wasn't sticking:

In some ways it's good to have had these issues with the free book, with it's simple layout rather than running into issues when I eventually get round to publishing Ninja Dinaosaurs vs Pirate Robots.
The feedback from the iTunes Connect service has been helpful, and suggests fixes,  and then dug deep into the problem when the suggested fixes didn't work.
This stands in contrast somewhat from the stories from app developers, but I appreciate the testing processes are going to be different, and there are more unknowns....

Anyway, the iBooks version of 24 HCD is back in the iTunes store:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/24hcd/id496960784?mt=11 

When I get a little time I'll write a post on the submission process.