editorial
Carrandolan revisited
11-10-2019
Hi everyone! In New Short Stories you can find part one of a two-part story I'm working on. It was inspired by some of my older work, and it is a combination of two things. First of all, I ran across this sketch for one of the drawings from JD8.
I had always wanted to write a story about this situation, but unfortunately, JD8 had no room for text, so that idea remained on the shelf. But sometime later, I dug up this six-part comic about the Badhul Khani.
This was the first time I had ever used them, and this gave me the idea of exploring the situation in Carrandolan a bit further. I won't be using the picture from the JD series of course, but I will make a new one that is focussing on the same situation. I hope you will like it, but first here is part one, as an introduction.
Coco
Further updates in New, the Combi page, the Sketch page and Gifs.
Until next time,
CBAP
Please support Coco's art at:
https://www.patreon.com/cocoproductions
Light
10-16-2019
Hi everyone! Just a few quick words about the way I usually work. I start with a few tryouts in pencil, all on the same sheet of paper (lots of erasing), adapting and changing things until I'm satisfied, and then I work the whole thing out into a fullfledged pencil drawing. After that, I trace the page with a couple of micron pens (usually 0.5, 0.3 and 0.1), and if that's completed I scan them in and continue to render them in Photoshop. That's about the long and the short of it.
Now, I'm totally confident in this routine. I have been working like this for decades and it almost goes wrong. Long ago, when I was working with an actual airbrush, things might go horribly wrong from time to time. A sudden blast from the brush could ruin an entire page, painstakingly built up before. Or a whole pile of pages could be made useless by a glass of wine falling over.
So I'm very satisfied with this way of working. It has however one big disadvantage. This has plagued me even from before the time I started wielding the airbrush, and I was working everything out in pen and ink. The problem is: with the tracing process, my pencil drawing disappears forever. Of course, I do scan it in beforehand, and that's why we have the Sketchpage on the site, but still, the physical page is no more, and that has always bothered me. You see: the penciled page is the one with the most direct energy in it, with the most artistic input, you might say. And sometimes, people may actually prefer the pencils over the finished piece.
Follow up career move
09-26-2019
Welcome back! In New, there is a piece that is technically speaking a combination page, but as 95% of it is new, we decided to publish it there. (See if you can find that other 5%) There are also some real combi's in that section. Also updates in the Sketchpage and the Gif's. And there is a new short story under New, wherein we revisit Mrs. Davis and Gerald, from the 'Late career move' book. Check out how that relationship has progressed (and there's more to come).
Until next time,
CBAP
Please support Coco's art at:
Inking
09-04-2019
Hi there, welcome back! This time there is a new drawing under New in which I have tried to do something that I seldom do. You see, a lot of my favorite artist like Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri, have their pencils polished up and refined by inkers before they go to the colorist. Nowadays, inking has become a profession on its own (decades ago it was more usual for artists to ink their own work), and so, Jim Lee, for instance, has formed a team with the brilliant inker Scott Williams for many many years.