MG&GL has been going pretty well so far, although the slow speed I’m able to work on it is being a little excruciating. Jack and I actually have quite a lot of story planned out for the thing that I can’t wait to get to. And in the mean time it’s been fun to draw, and an interesting challenge adapting his prose into single-page suitable scripts (when I’m much more used to working long-form.) Makes me want to break out and re-read the Nikolai Dante that much more… there’s something really special in the pacing of stuff like that series, where you have these great on going stories that also have to work in 5-page chunks so every single page has to be spot on. I don’t buy the progs, so when I read them I get the story all at once but because or the original form it’s pretty much super-condensed. You don’t see that much in mainstream comics outside of 2000ad and print versions of web comics. Unless I’m wrong, in which case give me links, people.

(Interestingly, I’m not sure FreakAngels does it. I love it, but then I also love decompressed storytelling too. Instead of cramming in a tonne into 5 pages, FA seems to just flow from one intense moment to the next, it always leaves you wanting more without that hyper distilled storytelling you get in something like Dante.)

Back to me (egolicious, mmm) and comics though, I’ve been having great fun with a series of workshops I’m doing with the lovely Andrew Barton for CYC. The deal is this: For Culture Shock festival this year, we’re making a comic. A massive comic strip, on big banners to go up in the camp-site. We’re taking the banner to schools and youth clubs and each group is adding on, continuing the story. This has been some of the most fun I’ve had in a workshop, and the banner is looking great so far. The next date is this Saturday 2-5pm at Harrogate Trax, followed by another in-school one on the 15th. The Trax one is open to anyone, so come along and join us.

In other news, the web design work I’ve been doing has been making me want to spruce this place up again… but I’m gonna give it a wait, lest we have yet another thing where I spend more time doing redesigns than actually updating the thing. Online content wise, I should hopefully be doing some more streaming in the next couple of weeks as well, for a couple of commissions and possibly for colouring a MG&GL page, if people are interested in seeing that.

Meanwhile, I’m going to leave you with some sketches and pieces I’ve been doing lately. Enjoy.

(Granted, an incredibly silly story, but hey.)

It’s a pulp-parody, possibly to be a webcomic, and we’re throwing it around under the working title of “Bulletwitch Baretta and The Gentlelady Thief”. I’ve been really enjoying drawing up the characters, combining Jack’s design ideas with my own. They’re all done in brushpen and photoshop, and I’ll be covering the colouring method I used in the next part of my Masks tutorial.

No good will come of this. But oh is it fun. Enjoy.

PS: Gun-shoes are still stupid.

Oh boy.

And with that in mind, the more I think about it, the more insane it is that I never went to Musicport before.

If you don’t know the festival, it’s a weekend long celebration of world and trad music that used to take place in Whitby but this year took over Bridlington Spa. The atmosphere was great, really friendly and up for anything, and some of the music was top notch. Artists from all over the world, with music ranging from straight up traditional, through jazz and dance of all kinds from tribal to tango to techno. I paid my way by running a small workshop on the basics of manga drawing, which was a lot of fun and I’d love to do again some time. (Perhaps with more than an hour to do it in next time, although some of us relocated to the bar afterwards for more doodling.) I had been a little concerned it was a little unusual to run at a music festival, but there was a decent turnout and it was great to see people of all ages having a crack at drawing. I helped out with the artists’ green room as well, and then spent the rest of the time hanging backstage or being out there enjoying the music.

Suffice to say, I’m more than geared up to go again. In the mean time, I’ll leave you with some of the photographs I took while I was there.

Here are a few of the things I saw.

The metal was still there when I got back later in the night, so I took a photo of it for posterity’s sake. Looking at the building, I think it was one of the dark side panels that run up some of the buildings on the estate I live on. That particular block of flats has a 2 tiered roof, the lower part nearest where I was, so I guess the first clang was it falling and hitting the roof, then it bounced and fell 4 stories down to me. I could be over-reacting but I’m pretty sure it could have killed me, or at the least caused some serious damage. Thankfully I’m easily spooked enough I didn’t just carry on walking.

So, right now I’m feeling pretty lucky.

It’s also a time of me drawing pictures I have to be all secretive about so I don’t spoil people’s presents, and I never get as many done as I’d like. Still, I’m liking the paintings I’ve done so far.

Comic wise, I got my script done, though it needs a lot of work because it’s still pretty clunky, and I decided it’s better as a pilot issue for something than as a fully self contained thing and need to bring that out a little more. But I think I’m going to try and do the layouts first, it’ll give me a better idea of how much space I really have to play with. Also, I just found out I probably should change my protagonist’s name because, due to not checking first, I’ve accidentally given him the same name as DarkHawk’s alter ego (From various marvel stuff). While I don’t think anyone is going to confuse my unremarkable 20-something photographer guy for a teenage magic-amulet-powered superhero… DarkHawk has been in Runaways and I LIKE Runaways, so Chris is going to have to get a new surname.

Moral of this story, kids, is Wiki/Google your characters’ names BEFORE you get attached to them.

(I didn’t mind the real world people that the 2 main characters in the first issue shared names with. Because they’re not exactly uncommon names. But you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.)

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get the first issue done by Bristol, due to potential things with paid stuff I’m going to have to give priority to. I’m probably going to have it for Amecon in august though.

In the mean time, have some doodles I did while trying to get used to drawing the character. (Yes, I know you can’t hold a camera like that. Shhh. XD)

Okay, that’s enough babble for now. Laters.