Giant Killer Robots

Dom has been doing some drawing, and Nagging Adam to write some story, this devolved into the usual arguments about ... well almost anything.

Adam seems to have spent a little time writing a bit of the story involving evil nazi scientists, and Mad Jack Fuller's tomb in Brightlingsea...

I myself have forgotten all about story, and have been drawing giant killer robots.

Different strokes from incontinent pens

I've been playing with a variety of inks and pens.

My old trusty Rotring isograph 0.5mm gives good service, though like a small child it needs it's bottom wiped a fair bit, and causes a huge amount of mess in the process... I also have to cheat to get a variety of line weight when using it.

The same is true of the pigment fibre tips pens.. I have tried to get Pigma pens in the UK but no luck, the best I've found are PILOTs, the Edding ones are nice but run out too quickly ... they are also both complete buggers if I try to put a wash over the top, as they bleed.

My mixture of Manga inks seem to provide a solution, but are a bit gluey to put in the Rotring so I have to use a dip pen... The pic here is done with a DELTER SAJi nib, which doesn't quite give enough flex...and unfortunately seems to have a leaky bladder, causing ink blobs... sigh.

My old set of Waverley nibs (some inherited from the Victorian era and really quite ancient), give a good flex, but are hard to wield round the page.

So the experimentation continues, I've done 10 pages of the comic for the UK webcomix thing, and they'll all get tweaked through photoshop or mango studio...

part two

Muddy, muddy, muddy

The Joy of Comicpress

Squarespace looks lovely, like a thing knitted by Steve Jobs when whilst recovering from being poorly. It has lots of little widgetty things that slip and slide with attractive animation, and is as easy as pie to make look gorgeous, like a plate of polished rubies.... BUT, I can't get it to do what ComicPress does.

Comic Press is a theme for Wordpress, and makes managing a webcomic even easier than pie... but sadly it is as tricky as an oiled fox to get it to look right.

This is because of CSS, which snuck into the world while I wasn't looking years ago, and which I have obviously failed to grasp.

(except in a cheaty copying other peoples sorta way).

However because of the management stuff Comicpress will be the CMS for Strange Biros comic, and from the reviews I've seen, Laughing Squid will be the Host.

So sometime soon I'll stump up for the hosting.. I was going to run all the old 1991 Strange Biros comics on the site as a run up to the web comix thing, but looking at them now, I'm not sure the writing holds up... still better to have something than nothing.

Hosting hoo haa

At the minute strangebiros.co.uk is routed to the blog, which is fine, but once I have enough content stacked up for the story we are preparing for the Uk WebComix Thing 2010 then I'll switch the blog back to a blogger link, and the URL to the comic.

But where should i host it? I've experimented with wordpress on a uk host, using the comic press theme, but I'm not convinced. I like the look of the slick smooth and funky square space, which seems to be plugged like crazy at the minute.

Perhaps I'll run a trial squarespace site to test out their templates.

Anyroad, the

Spend spend spend

Strangely in a time when the good ole postie isn't delivering letters to General public, my recent impulse purchases all turned up at once, making Alison suspicious at my spending...

Manga Studio, and set of inks from Dinkybox... oh and when I was up in London the other day judging an art competition CASS art was having a half price sale, so I bought a bag full of paper, and pigment pens.

Using Manga studio is like learning to drive a special japanese clown car, everything goes great and then suddenly you accidentally step on the brake, and gravy squirts you in the eye.

I have no idea where half the things I need are cunningly hidden, like the capacity to crop an image... I guess I'm dealing with pages rather than images. On the positive side it has some lovely pen nibs that squish and flex and make swooping curves.

I have continued my strict discipline of trying to draw some girls every day, and whilst a lot look like hogarthian gin fiends, with wonky eyes, I feel I am getting there slowly, and gradually gaining confidence, that I can bloomin' well draw anything I choose too. Todays effort done in manga studio is based on the devilishly masterful works of Mr Allison of the Scary go round, and lately the Bad machinery..http://www.scarygoround.com/ he is without peer in the sphere of drawing girls with slinky hip jeans and tattoos. (top pic photoshop, bottom pic mango sususudio)

New fangled technology

I spend my work day looking deep deep into the vile heaving black heart of technology, teasing it, twisting it to my pedagogic whim.

So when it comes to doing a drawing, it's all to obvious and easy to harness the same familiars, and invoke the adobe demons.

But, I'm not sure that I actually like drawing on the dinky little wacom, maybe I thought.. maybe I should buy a bigger one, or a cintiq... maybe I should buy a copy of Mango studio, maybe I should upgrade photofop... maybe I should just pour all my cash straight down the paypal tube.

Instead I've bought a new nib pen, and a selection of "Deleter" Manga inks.

I'm going all traditional. We'll see how long it lasts.