Blue Moon Blog

We recently completed our twentieth comic for Tzivos Hashem’s Kid’s Zone, a magazine for Jewish kids, so we can finally show off the previous one since it’s now seen print. Aquatic Adventures starts off with a SPLASH! as Joey and his pals are pulled into the river while fishing off a dock…

…where they come face-to-face with a huge talking fish! It was fun to have room to blow out this panel to a sizable semi-splash at the bottom of the first page. Now underwater, little bubbles/circles begin to appear, which I used throughout the three pages as a design element, in the panels and gutters, leading the reader’s eye. We carried this through to the word balloons of the fish, which we also gave a different font, more open and round than the comics font we usually use (one based on my own hand-lettering). Mary approached coloring the fish differently than I probably would’ve, weaving warm and cool colors together, and shading various blues and greens. A nice touch, adding depth and color to the fish, helping to pop the Big Guy from the watery backgrounds.

On page one (below, left), I established the scene, the boys fishing off the dock on the river, the city in the distance. We used cool and warm colors to distinguish one panel from another, and to break things up. I prepared a diagram (below, right)  to show shapes and flow of the page. The orange line shows a couple main shapes. The blue line tracks the flow of the text/word balloons and sound effects. The red line shows further the composition of the page, how I used the fishing poles and line to direct the reader’s eye so the action flows naturally from panel to panel.

I wish I had even more room one page 2 to show the magical underwater world in which the crew finds themselves, but somehow was able to pack a lot of stuff into this panel (shown larger here than in the printed comic). For all the underwater scenes we considered and could have cast everything in darker hues, but decided to bring it to life, keeping things colorful and magical.

Pages 2 & 3 (below) appear in the mag side-by-side, bleeding together a bit. The red line I drew for page 2 shows the general flow for the page and panels. We kept the background for the masthead white to pop the title, utilizing the bubbles as I mentioned earlier. On panel 2 I used a series of arcs (as suggested by the sunken ship), carrying them through the whole panel and to direct the eye to the proper following panel. I bled out all the background for page 3 to establish an underwater backdrop for the talking fish and Joey, using panel borders for cutaway shots and an inset. Because this page is therefore more free-flowing and open, I overlapped word balloons over panels to make sure the reader followed along in the right order.

Here’s a close-up which shows how we bounce and balanced warm against cool colors. Notice again the difference between the fish font and boy’s speech.

I’ve written and posted more about how we’ve created this comics series, which we’ve now been doing for five years. Read all the comics at Google+, Facebook or in our Prime Projects section of this site. It’s already been a good run…with more to come!

Character names for the adorable snowboy revealed!

Méto is the adorable snowboy, but he’s a bit out of sorts here…

Every one needs to let off a little steam every so often, hey? I’m gonna be using a weird, bright-but-sometimes-subtle color palette for this comic. Lots of color knock-outs, colors to fit the mood of any given scene or panel.

Here, our li’l Nepali kid, Jyoti is feeling the fear -

Just for grins, here’s the line art of that Méto shot. No pencils, just straight with the pen tool in Manga Studio (okay, I used the eraser tool for a couple spots)….

I can’t seem to stop drawing these guys. And this is just scratching the surface of their story and world.

Still messin’ in Manga Studio. Upgraded from the demo and acquired the full version. I’m sure I’ve but scratched the surface of this software, but this new comic I’m developing will be drawn digitally, using this program. I need to play more with coloring in MS, or may end up doing that in Photoshop.

This kid has got a hold on me.

He’ll be the pal of the adorable snowboy. I drew this one at the Book Festival last weekend with a thick marker, colored today with Photoshop.

Oh, there’ll be more…

I spent Saturday drawing with kids in the Children’s Pavilion at the Twin Cities Book Festival. Tried to teach ‘em a thing or two about cartooning, creating characters and stories. I learned from them, too. Always do.

All kids draw. Some don’t stop.

At the Festival, some kids drew known characters, some created their own. Some scribbled abstract shapes and textures. Some were off on their own, others wanted some pointers. Others called out ideas and suddenly I was taking requests. It was fun! I drew some cartoons versions of some kids who stayed by the table a while, gave ‘em a little memento.

It’s funny, at an early age, kids draw free ‘n’ easy. The sky’s the limit. There are no rules. In all my drawing sessions with kids, I try to encourage that. Sure, I offer tips, tricks, guidance and insight, but It seems a mistake to shackle young kids with too many boundaries and guidelines. There will be a time for that soon enough. At some point, if a kid keeps drawing, they’re gonna put in a lot of hours, learn the rules before they can break them again.

Lots more pix of the day and event viewable for anyone at my Facebook page.

A couple panels currently on the drawing board, half-inked, with a Niji Waterbrush….

Zooming in, I inked these details (below) with a Pentel Pocket Brush. They’ll be printed so small and knocked out in a single color, I can be loose and abstract. Fun!

In an hour or two, this will all be colored.

I’ve read this dozens of times – can’t get enough.

Toth’s right, I think. I’d been sucked into a myriad of inking/rendering techniques and tricks, trying over the years to strip my work of the stylized garnishments. But they crop up all the time – a tough habit to break!

Back to the drawing board/screen…!

Work in progress for the latest strip for Kid’s Zone, the magazine for Jewish kids worldwide!

Pencils in Photoshop…

…converted to blue line and printed on 11 x 17 smooth card stock…

…then inked traditionally with a brush, some markers.

We scan, LiveTrace in Adobe Illustrator – this page is all lettered and colored in that program. I’ll post the story when it sees print.

I’m falling in love with this kid.

I’m pretty sure of his name. Honing in. It suits him.

He’s innocent, a little mischievous and sneaky. Sometimes scared, sometimes downright angry. Y’know, a human being.

Can’t get enough of drawing him. Which is a good thing, cuz it’ll take a lot more sketches to fully develop and design the character.

A very rough layout for a portfolio illustration I’m doing today…

Finishes by tonight.

Update: The final art…

One of my jazz faves: Blossom Dearie.

Executed compeletly in Photoshop. View a larger version at Google+ …and Circle me while you’re at it. Make sure to check out other artists’ entries as they roll in at the Daily Sketch Challenge blog.

Sometimes the look of a comics panel can change between the inking and coloring phase to aid and enhance clarity, mood, tone, character and storytelling. Many times it’s planned, but in other cases as you go.In the case of this frame, I plotted out the color treatment from the get-go, which was indicated in my roughs. But there’s no need, and in the digital age a waste of time to include all elements in the line art. In this panel, these four kids are making a transition from something of another world or reality back to their home turf and original state. I had limited space to make that transformation happen in a clear way. This story has to do with giraffes, so I used the spots pattern as a background element to convey movement and flow. On the left, the spots and background yellow are darker and saturated, both fading towards the right. The coloring on the kids is also then treated more surreal fashion on the left (as a darker violet knock-out) becoming more natural and representational as we flow to the right. The kids are topsy-turvy and in close up at first, then shown in full figure moving across, as they become less disoriented, two of the boys grounded to their surroundings with simple shadows. A small portion of a  fence (established earlier in the story) is shown in the lower right to indicate place.

Yep, all that thought and planning for but one simple cartooned comics panel. Whoa!

From a series I draw of comics for Jewish kids.