ROOT AND BRANCH: PART 2 PAGE 1

A HUGE FAVOUR: Ok, I've never really thrown this out to everyone, but I need some help. I just got shown the latest copy of Previews. Previews is the book from which all comic book stores order their comics. Now, obviously most of you are going to be very happy to hear that the second HEROES hard cover has been solicited, which means you can order it and get your little hands on it in October. Now, there's one more thing I'd like you to order. On page 172 is the solicitation or ad for my first comic: ZERO G! I'm asking all of you to please go to your local comic book store and ask them to order in a copy for you. It's only US$3. I don't see a cent, I just want it to do well. So what you need to know is:

- Zero G on page 172 of Previews
- Where your local comic book store is

Thank you! Now returning you to your regularly scheduled blogging...

Apologies I haven't been blogging. I have very little time to myself during the day. On Monday I had to pick my fellow artist and art director on Zero G, Chris Moreno from LAX and it felt like I drove him all over LA to get him home. I looked at my journey on a map after and noticed that I had indeed driven all over LA. I went from the south to the far north and then back south. I was exhausted. Three hours in the car got me a nasty case of driver's tan on my arm.

Yesterday was more fun. I was invited by Top Cow to go see their premiere for WANTED at 2pm at a private cinema at Universal Studios. I sat between a good friend of mine, inker Rick Basaldua and superstar penciller Joe Benitez (Titans).

WANTED is off the charts. I thought they took the graphic novel, toned down the gratuity and the super-heroics and created a really fun, smart movie with a new twist and a great, satisfying ending. It has an excellent structure and the performances are fantastic. I heartily recommend this as I guarantee you will see stuff that you've NEVER seen before as the special effects are off the chart.

Continuing my brush with Hollywood, I met a guy by the name of MARC SAMSON who is a fantastic matte painter and concept artist who worked on Superman Returns, I am Legend and a bunch of other big Hollywood productions. He invited me down to his studio today so I can watch him work. I was really excited, but I had to cancel to because I had to redraw a cover for HERESY (also solicited in previews - yeah, when it rains it pours.) I had already drawn a cover, but I had an epiphany and realised that it was so similar to what the other artist did. Inspired I attacked it again, and with the help of the Spacedog team I put together a cover that I think is stunning. I can't wait to show you. Anyway, I had til the end of the day to get it done, and I finished it at 630pm on the dot. Close call.

As if that wasn't enough, tomorrow I'm heading off to meet Ollie Grigsby and Zach Craley on the HEROES set! I'm so damn excited. I have no idea what they're shooting, but I can't wait to see. I wonder if I'm allowed to bring a camera. It would be a crying shame if I'm not.

My second week in LA and I've gone to a movie premiere, met an elite special effects artist and heading down to the HEROES studio. Surely I can't keep up this pace?!






Anyway, Root & Branch part 3!

<- I can't remember this guys' name, but I met him at the Alan Moore signing. He really put the pressure on with a flying Nathan on the inside book jacket! I'm quite happy with how this one turned out.

I really do love this second part. We had some scripting issues but Zach and I turned problems into challenges and cranked up the pressure and quality. I think part 2 is my favourite part. Part 1 warmed me up, and I was so rushed for part 3, but I got to really take my time and enjoy part 2.


<- This guy was a designer who did these t-shirts in England. He asked me to do the HEROES logo and sign the tshirt. I was honoured. I then whipped him up a smart little Hiro.

As you can see, page 1 is largely a digital painting. That means there's no linework. I've included the line work layer here so you can see what I just painted. There is no way I could do something like this with Annette. It's too much of an overlap of both our jobs. So flying solo it was fun to do this. Actually it was arrogant and terrifying. I was fueled with confidence from the digital painting I did of the backgrounds on part 1. Feeling like the big man, I thought I'd have a smack at the title again. Thank god it turned out well! I'm so proud of how it looks.


<- Another Peter. Poor Milo, got a great haircut and worked out and no one wants season 2 Peter.

It really came alive at the final stage where I placed shadows and blurs on the final layer to create a sense of lighting and movement (it's so hard to make a car look like it's moving when it's not racing along at a million miles an hour - but with some dust and subtle blur effects it really works).

I remember being so happy I called my sister over to have a look. She just smiled not quite sure what I was talking about. What I was talking about was the lighting in the car down the bottom - I love how convincing it looks.

Now where my sister did help me was on Sabine's makeup. She taught me how to do makeup on asian girls. Here's a closeup so you can see my sister's magic (without the lighting I love). On the upper lid she suggested a deep dark purple blending out gently towards the eyebrow. Then she said I should work a silver/grey from under the eyebrow towards the upper lid. The silver also ran around the inner part of the eye towards the nose (but I kept forgetting this bit later) A light gloss for the lips and a slight rouge to the lips and Sabine was ready to kill some clones. I normally just fudge makeup, but given my sister is Eurasian like Sabine she was the perfect person to ask. I really felt it brought Sabine to life and my sister and I were both very happy with the result. From this point onward I really felt like I got a handle on drawing Sabine. I think she looks really consistent and convincing from here until the end of part 3.

<- A flying Nathan from a different angle.

As a final thing they asked me to add the licence plate code. Luckily I just copied and pasted it as it's actually a password for some file on some site. Those whacky HEROES kids!

I will post when I can, but with all this galavanting around LA, I'm a little behind on my pages this week. Redrawing the cover (losing a day) didn't help. But as I always say, the pain is fleeting, the pages are forever.

Don't forget! Please order a copy of Zero G. If you really love me, you will grab all four issues and watch it get better and better and better. You can take that to the bank!

ROOT & BRANCH: part 1 page 5

I have no idea what sort of post you're going to get today. My head feels like it's been wrapped in a alcohol-soaked heshen sack and beaten with a dead penguin. I've been staring at house listing in Los Angeles for the last 3 hours. I'm trying to find somewhere within a walking distance to work so I can put off getting a car.

I know, I know. I have to get a car. It's just going in the "too hard" pile right now.

But lets get back to page 5.

Oh man, if Ollie had been sitting next to me while I drew this he might have scored himself a punch to the face. I mean, who fills a cell with six identical versions of the same guy and then asks for all their shocked reactions in the next panel? I'll tell ya who! If Doctor Doom got together with Adolf hitler and wrote a comic, that's exactly what they'd write. Something to torture the poor bastard who's already going grey and losing hair. It's not enough that I feel like a dirty old man hitting on twenty year olds, now I look like one, and it's all because of pages like this! It's pure sadism on a page!

Right there people!

Sadism!

Right there!!!

Think about it! Body language, perspective, shading, personality and clothing all on a deadline! And they all had to look alike! Amnesty International would have a field day with this sort of inhumane treatment of a human being. Alright, alright. Maybe that was a little harsh. I'll ease off the coffee and get more sleep.

But it did make for a couple of really nice panels. It's a tough ask, but I think I stepped up to the plate and hit a solid one.

<- Future Hiro. Can you spot what's missing kids? That's right, his soul patch! Not that anyone else on the day picked me up on it. Should this dude ever hunt me down again, I will be more than happy to beard up our favourite Japanese time traveller. I think Peter S drew Julien in red in his sketches, but I decided to make him green. Green as in branches, green. Mis en scene eat your heart out baby!





<- Now this is a totally awesome request. Young Linderman! A first time for everything. God, I really enjoyed drawing this. I'm particularly proud of the third panel. Firstly, I like the cliff face. It's a fresh and convincing texture. Secondly, as you can see, the entire background is a digital painting. What the hell is a digital painting, you might be asking yourself? It's basically when I don't use linework. I just paint in colours. Because my brain works in blacks and whites I find this very difficult. But I'm particularly happy with the scale and scope of the final piece. I think it's the clouds that get it over the line.



<- This is Luis the winner of the cameo competition for Part 3. If you check out the security guard who gets shot you can see that's Luis. To add to this man's total coolness he asked for a picture of Hana. I was so buzzed that he not only knew who Hana was, but that he wanted a sketch of her! The last panel was fun. My initial layout had a much closer shot of the clone, but NBC asked me to pull back out. I did so, and it was a good call. It sells it much better. And any panel where you can spray blood all over someone is a good panel. Chalk that up with withered squirrels. Blood sprays and withered squirrels. If anyone asks, THAT'S what the HEROES universe is about.

FACEBOOK: I've been getting heaps of people friending me. If you wanna say "Hi" just drop me a line and mention you know me or my stuff or Heroes. There's amusing photos and heaps of places to waste time.

<- Matt Parkman is easily my favourite character next to Hiro. While this is ok, I should really sit down and make him a signature likeness for me.

ROOT & BRANCH: part 1 page 4

Oh god, I have no idea what's going on. It's all gone to hell in a handbasket! It's chaos and anarchy in a big nfi sandwich. I think I posted about the wrong artwork in my last post. All that stuff about the chase through the Congo? Well, that's supposed to be this page. So to return you to your synchronised viewing pleasure I'm going to go back and uh... comment about page 3. Cos that makes sense doesn't it? I figured the alternative would be to swap the posts around, but I figured that would just confuse regular readers even more. And I'm guessing you're already treading a little nervously down this rabbit hole, you don't really need me playing musical chairs with my posts.

I must have been so jet-lagged to let that one slip through to the keeper. How do I write about the wrong page? Don't ask. Ah well. If blogging was a Mensa test, I totally failed.

<- A solid Claire.

All right! Page 4, um 3. Christ almighty I'm an idiot. This blog is about to turn into one of those stupid Choose Your Own Adventures. You know the ones with the numbered entries that say, "If you want to go left go to page 13, if you want to eat the orc remains go to page 99, if you want to get a life go to page 42"?

No idea what I'm talking about? I'm on my own? C'mon, thrown me a geek lifeline here. Anyway, remember this post but I'm going to be directing you to the one below to check out the artwork.

<- What the hell is wrong with my Peter's?! They look really ugly. =(


PAGE 3

I really had a ball with this page. I think it's one of the best pages I've drawn. The trick here was making sure that we knew who they were attacking yet not showing the guy's (clone's) face until the big reveal in the bottom tier of panels.

PANEL 1: I particularly like Thompson and Donna in this panel. I think she looks cool and looking back on it I love all the detail on their little bluetooth headsets. I also really dig the snow. It just sells the entire panel for me.

Obviously tasers don't make this sort of visual discharge. I know if they did all my mates would have one and we'd be zapping each other constantly. It would be like some sort of version of Punk'd on 10,000 volts.

<- A Hiro saves my dwindling self esteem. Two mediocre sketches in a row saved by this one.

PANEL 2: Here's a bunch more shout outs to all the SARMY kids who helped promote my recent Orbital Comics signing. AshZ is on the cork board for sending out a email to everyone. Lee Ann (Ororo) gets a big plug for organising it all and being just so all round awesome.

I love the movement in the panel. Biance looks so light and athletic. I really dig her movement. On the far left is a homage to cricketing great Merv Hughes. I'm not a cricket fan, but the guy is an Aussie icon. Some people commented that Devin looks totally different. I had no idea he'd appeared before. I just went off Peter's design sketches keeping pretty much to what he'd drawn. I did pretty Bianca up though. He drew her in a skirt. I ended up giving her a costume change or her super power would have been to show you what colour underwear she was wearing.

And lastly, I'd like you to just ignore the clock on the right...

PANEL 3: Some people thought that Sabine has a forcefield here. As I mentioned somewhere, whether you have to decide between the company violating their one of us, one of them policy or me screwing up, you should probably go with the latter. Those bullets are supposed to be hitting the wall next to her, and I regret not drawing it in more detail.

PANELS 4-6: These panels were tough. I had to make sure that he was recognisably the same guy. If that wasn't apparent then we'd lose our whole reveal. I'm pretty confident it worked.

Ok, now come back here and keep reading!

PAGE 4

I do have the layers for page 4, but I'm only really going to show you the black and white artwork. There's a funny thing that colourists do which I guess could be called "protecting the linework" and it's something Annette is very particular about.

Basically, if she sees that I've put a bucket and a half of effort into the artwork, she will do whatever she can to make sure that the reader is aware of all the detail that I've put in. She will try and keep the visual effects to a minimum and let the artwork breathe and strut its stuff center stage. Myself? Once I'm done with the line art I couldn't give a damn about it. I pumped that little baby out days ago, time to move on! I'm going to make a great father.

<- Sylar. Much better than the last ones, but I'm still trying to channel my inner Zachary Quinto.

So this page is a great example of me spending heaps of time on the line work and drawing trees and leaves and branches and roots and vines only to cover it all up with lighting effects. I'm so irreverent about it. If I was a smarter artist I would have just not drawn the bits I was going to cover up. But we've already established that you're not reading this because you're expecting to get intellectual smacked upside the head by my genius. Hell, I can't even post in order. There are kids watching Sesame Street that would probably do a better job of this than I am. Thank god I'm not competing with any other applicants. I'd be out of a blogging job and living in a virtual refrigerator box eating digital trash from the recycle bin out the back of McDonalds' website.

LA: Day 2 in LA. I've been made really welcome at Spacedog. I'm staying at Lauren's until I organise my own place. I should really get onto that instead of posting.

HEROES: Part 3 of ROOT & BRANCH is up. You can find it from the 9th WONDERS link HERE.

ROOT & BRANCH PART 1 PAGE 3

Ok, I'm not gonna chat for hours here. If I do daily posting to catch up, I just don't have the time. That is, unless you don't want to read any more HEROES comics from me as I deliver part 3 late and get fired.

I'm loving this story arc. Ollie and Zach have totally pulled out all the stops here. I'm finding it really easy to draw too. I think having a character as interesting and as easy on the eye as Sabine makes it a lot of fun too. I just read part 2 and the dialogue and art just came together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. I love part 1, but it doesn't hold many surprises for me when I read it lettered, as there's minimal lettering.

I read on the boards somewhere that people are getting tired of not reading stories with any consequences to the show. Let me say this:


<- This guy saved my ass later and brought in a HEROES magazine! I like this style of Claire that I draw. It's cute.

1. I was given a bunch of character designs from Peter Steigerwald to work from. Of which I used four. I was told that some of these characters are going to be cast. Maybe it's some of the characters in this story? So there! You're possibly reading back stories on characters you will soon watch.

2. Bennet is in the story!

3. Zach and Ollie are part of the writing crew on HEROES and have delivered a great story. Read the story! Enjoy the story! Stop trying to judge it solely on how it fits into continuity.

<- Yay! Another Hiro. I never get sick of drawing Hiro.

Some random notes and thoughts:

In my haste I flattened all my layers! I can't show you the step by step for this page. Sorry!

Panel 1: Donna is carrying a beretta 9mm rather than the standard issue company gun (the Infinity). I later contacted Ryan and he told me what they actually used. I made corrections in part 2.

Also, no one will ever notice, but I actually found photo reference for a young Eric Roberts to draw Thompson Jr.

<- Not my best Sylar. I just went totally blank on Zachary Quinto when I drew this.


Panel 2: This panel also ends all the shout outs I did. I got some emails from a bunch of people wondering why they weren't included in these shout outs. There's a couple reasons:

1. I can't abuse this opportunity I have. I can't go saying "hi" to everyone I know. I would love to, but not only would it make the ones I do meaningless, but the more times I do this, the more chance I have of them being caught by NBC and squashed. Did we learn nothing from Spiderman and season 1? Say after me now, "With great power..."

2. I specifically thanked all the people who helped me promote my recent Orbital signing. I firstly put the word out to Lee Ann (Ororo) who then conscripted Ashz to do a mail out and got Kurt (themightytruk) to do an official admin's post on 9th Wonders. Nat and Noo also offered to take photos and video. So this was my special "Sarmy/Orbital" thank you issue.

I also decided to do a Merv Hughes homage in panel 2. He's a famous Australian cricketer known for both his skills on the field and his drinking ability. I'm not a cricket fan, but his face is an Aussie icon.

<- Peter. I'm still trying to remember what he looks like. It's funny, I think almost everyone wanted season 1 Peter. Poor Milo hit the gym and got a haircut for nothing.


Panel 3: I screwed up here. I thought it would be obvious that his bullets are just missing all around her and that she's just shooting wild with the taser but such was not the case. People on the forums thought that she has her hand up extending a forcefield. She does not have a forcefield. If she did, I'd make it bloody obvious. So obvious, you'd be like, "Hot damn! That's one serious forcefield!"

Panels 4-6: While I tried to keep to the character sketches that Peter sent me, I do have a nasty habit of "prettying" people up. Julien was not as good looking as I eventually drew him. I also (accidentally) probably made him look a little younger than his 44 years.

Facebook: Friend me up. Say hi. Chat away on my photos and art there.

ROOT & BRANCH part 1 page 2

Before I launch into talking about page 2 of part 1, I should firstly thank everyone who came to the Orbital Manga signing I did yesterday. From all the awesome, lovely fans who heard about it from forums and Facebook, to those who just wandered past. From those who came down the road to those who came from outside, London... Thank you. One gentleman came all the way from Manchester, a journey I'm told that could take up to four hours!

Congratulations also to Luis who won the competition. He will be appearing as an agent in the third part of Root & Branch. He was such a great sport and really went for the poses and feel of the action despite the crowd of people who were in the shop at the time. That took a great deal of courage and it's going to pay off in spades! Thanks for being such a great sport, Luis.

<- I'm starting to work on Super-Hiro. Photo by Nat Wells of NOTHING MORE

And thanks also to my great hosts at Orbital Manga: Damien, Finn, Hanna, Kip (and the other asian dude who I never got your name!). And lastly, the biggest thank you to Emily, the marketing guru for Orbital who did such a great job promoting this. It's thanks to her great work, on such short notice (merely two weeks) that I had such a great and busy day. There's nothing more terrifying than the prospect of turning up to your own signing to find that the only thing you can hear is the empty echo of your own footsteps. Emily made sure that wasn't the case.

After five hours of signing, the lovely Emily comes over with a shy grin on her face. She looks at me, "Can I ask a favour?"

<- Noo and I double team Super-Hiro. Photo by Nat Wells of NOTHING MORE

"Anything you want."

"I know you're really tired and you've been drawing all day, but I was wondering if you'd draw a picture for the shop?"

"Sure!" I grinned.

She then pulled out this massive A1 piece of cardboard. I gaped at it. Shocked. I hadn't worked on anything that big in years! I was curious if my pen and ink skills still had it going on. It was a challenge and it was terrifying. She wanted me to draw Hiro. Luckily one of my fans had left me a HEROES magazine and I was able to blend a couple of the faces to get the look I wanted. I then drew the body. Now the trick to working on a piece this size is to step back from it constantly to check your proportions. You just can't see it up close.

<- A very tired Jas shows off Super Hiro. But I was so tired, so I just drew away and crossed my fingers. I conscripted the very talented and steady handed Noo to fill in my blacks. Eventually I roused myself to step back and look at the piece. I was horrified! His arm was so short it was ridiculous! I cursed myself as I had already drawn it in ink. I stared and thought and stared and thought some more. What the hell could I do?! How was I going to fix this? Emily, Noo and all the onlookers watched in dismay. I asked Hanna if she could get me some liquid paper (Tipex as the poms call it), and she said it was no problem. Noo turned to me, "You're not going to cover it all with Tipex are you?"

I grinned and shook my head. Inspiration had struck.

I drew in where the arm should be, blending most of my rogue lines into the lines of his jacket. He already had a heavy shadow on his right side, so I just broadened that to absorb what I could. there was only one line, the outer thick line that was the edge of his arm to go. I stared at it. I was reluctant to use any whiteout at all. Eventually it hit me! I could turn that thick line into a stripe on his jacket! If you look carefully you can see where the arm used to be. But if you can spot it without me telling you, you're doing damn well. Noo and Emily exclaimed that while the piece was impressive, it was made even more so by how I fixed the arm.

And BAM! Here ya go! One Super-Hiro. I would say this is the best piece of non-digital art that I've done. It took a couple of hours but it was worth it!

At the bottom of the Root and Branch pages I'm going to start posting all the photos of all the sketches of everyone.

I also promise to post super regularly to catch up to Root & Branch part 2 which just got uploaded today (but my posts may not have all the writing). Did anyone catch part 2? I cut my teeth on part 1, and I really think I kicked some butt on part 2. I'm so damn proud of it.

But part 1, boy Ollie Grigsby knows how to trust. Look at this page. No dialogue. It's all just me, and I totally appreciated his faith in me.




<- A Claire sketch I did that morning to warm up on my likenesses.

Panel 1 is pretty straight forward. Ollie didn't mention what the clone would be doing so I just figured he'd be sitting in front of some communication equipment. That way he's up to no good, right? If half my mates had that stuff they would just use it to "back up" all the porn on the internet.

Panel 2 is the first installment of the screwed up clock. Two things happened here. I explained one of them on the 9th Wonders forums. The first is that I calculated and re-calculated the timezones that many times I probably checked the wrong notes. The other thing is something very few people know about me. I really struggle to read analog clock faces.

<- This dude looks like the actor Jurgen Prochnow. I tried re-create that Claire I drew that morning.

Embarrassing I know. I'm just a little retarded like that. The other thing I can't do is a subtle wink. When I try to wink it's this ridiculous face-scrunching exercise. Nothing subtle about it at all.

Anyway, panel 3! I like the depth from the lighting behind the trees. And Sabine looks cute too. A poster on 9th Wonders mentioned specifically how great my women look. I'm so glad, as women are the thing I find hardest to draw.






A Hiro! Tough to compete with the big one, but it's my first of the day, and my first one in a VERY long time.

















This dude was awesome. He comes back later and gave me a lot of laughs both times. He asked for a Peter. Boy my Peter's were rusty! I couldn't remember if his lip went up or down, and I know I used to remember how I did his eyebrows but I forgot.




OTHER NEWS: I just got my visa approved! I'm off to LA Sunday. I'm so excited!

FACEBOOK: If anyone else is on this time-wasting nonsense, feel free to friend me up. Just please let me know you know me - or that you don't. =)

ROOT & BRANCH PART 1 PAGE 1

<- THE PAGE THAT GOT PRINTED

When I read this script, I almost laughed as to how much I enjoyed it. Some people have complained that it's a fast read. That's due to the decompressed nature of the storytelling that Ollie uses. It's a very modern way of telling stories, and a style that I love. In fact, I would argue that I have been developing a visual storytelling style that embraces decompressed storytelling. So reading the script, I knew I'd be right at home.

Ollie does what any good writer should do, and that is to trust the people he's working with. In this case, his artist. He left it up to me to tell the story. He left it up to me to control the pacing. It's a very fast read if you just skim the pictures and read the sparse, yet incredibly dense, powerful and layered dialogue. So I tried to create a visual density to slow the reader down. I hope that eager beavers who power through it looking for revelations will go back and enjoy the view. I did spend a hell of a lot of time on working on that view. I hope it's apparent.

<- BLACK AND WHITE ARTWORK

Unfortunately Annette was busy on other projects so you're stuck with my colouring. While I always prefer Annette to colour my stuff, this is easily the best comic book colouring I've ever done. I'm so happy with how easy it is on the eye. But having said that, there's a caveat that I need to get out of the way.

This is NOT the page you're supposed to be looking at, nor the droids you're looking for. I finished this very early and uploaded the piece. I then had a good look at the BLACK TOWER piece from the previous post and tried to attack the colouring of the second page in a similar style. I was so happy with the result, I went back and recoloured and re-uploaded page 1. Little did I know that the letterer had already grabbed my page 1 and lettered it. I forgot to remind anyone that the page had been redone as I underestimated the letterer's eagerness and speed. Something I won't do again.

So let me play spot the differences. Overall the version that was lettered is muddier and lacks shadows and effects, but there's a host of subtle differences too. The page as it should have appeared is down the bottom of this post.

<- TONE WORK

PANEL 1: I added the snow and sleet, as it seems to come from nowhere in page 2! Looks fine one minute and then, BOOM! Thompson kicks in the door and it's a snowstorm. Funny how no one complained about that. It's also a lot brighter. I added the dragon tattoo on Thompson's jacket as a contrivance, but one I felt was important to help identify the character. It's for the same reason that you see Donna's hair. She should be wearing her hood to protect her from the cold. Hell, she should be wearing goggles too.

PANEL 2: To create a more convincing lightscape I added shadows on the hillock and the tree. I should also point out the first two of five easter egg shout-outs to SARMY members is in this panel. I've been hanging in London with Nat and Noo (see photo of me with the two lovely ladies with Superman behind us a couple posts down). This was my way of saying "Hi". As we speak, they're trying to figure out how to refurbish the place with the insurance money from Devin and Emily's brawl. Currently it's going to become a 1920's themed horror pub in the middle of nowhere. I guess not many fans can say they own property in the HEROES universe. I think Ryan Gibson Stewart of HEROESWIKI and GTV can make the only other claim with his nightclub in THE DEATH OF HANA GITELMAN.

<- BASIC COLOURS

PANEL 3: This is a HUGE change here. I crafted beams of sunlight coming through the overhead canopy to help separate foreground and background. You can really see a more normal skin tone with only a hint of green here. You know I've been watching too much LOST when you can see I remembered to put a huge sweat patch on the front of her top. I figured if Evangeline Lilly can make a sweat patch look sexy, then Sabine can give it a go too.

Panel 4 remains exactly the same. But it's worth downloading both versions and flicking between them to see the difference. Ahh well.

Sheindie asked if Australia was chosen by me or the writers. Ollie chose Australia as he used to live there when he was a kid. In fact, he also lived in Melbourne and our schools were about a 5 minute drive from each other.

<- SPECIAL EFFECTS

The only thing I pulled Ollie up on, was that he asked that the hat that "Aussie Julien" wears be one of those cork hats. I wrote to my editor, Frank and asked if he could just be wearing an akubra (what he wears now) as NO ONE wears those cork hats. It would be like me asking you to draw an American dude who lives in the woods and insisting that he has to have a Daniel Boone racoon hat.

As a point of extra detail, I actually jumped online to figure out what the time would be in each of the different places. Here's what I chose. It would be about 6pm in Antarctica, 4pm in Australia and 8am in the Congo. I say about as those were my rough calculations. I knew I might be up to an hour off in either direction with daylight savings time and my screwed up math and geography so I made sure that my lighting covered that standard deviation of my stupidity.

<- PAGE AS IT SHOULD HAVE APPEARED

Because the general HEROES comic reading public isn't a hardcore comic reading public I tried to make the palettes as distinctive as possible to avoid confusion when there is no captions to distinguish that we're switching between scenes. From everything I've read on the 9thWonders so far, it looks like I succeeded in that.

Looking forward to the second post!

TOTALLY COOL

I would say that the premiere comic book gossip column has to be LYING IN THE GUTTERS by Rich Johnson at Comicbookresources.com. So it was a huge buzz for me when my mate Mitch emailed me saying that I was in it. Click on the link and scroll down to PRETTY IN PINK.

That put the biggest grin on my face and a high that lasted all through a very tough day.

SIGNING

Don't forget, Londonites! I'm at ORBITAL MANGA this Saturday the 7th of June from 12pm, signing and sketching. And one lucky person will get drawn into the third part of ROOT & BRANCH. Click on the above link for details.