ROOT AND BRANCH PART 2 PAGE 3

Here's my birthday post. I wanna thank everyone who sent me birthday wishes on email and Facebook. A huge thank you indeed! Despite this zombie-like state I'm in, I'm definitely feeling the love. I'm shuffling around the office moaning and I can tell you now, if brains had caffeine I would have made the full transition.

<- The final artwork but with the lettering I did on the phone.

I just finished work on the TRUE BLOOD comic. It was gruelling but fun. I did the cover and the interior of the comic for the San Diego Convention exclusive. You will find more pages up on their site finishing up the story.

I will go into the process of True Blood more after it hits the public at San Diego Comic Con. I believe it will also be adapted into their online reader too.


<- The line art. I was complimented on the cinematic focal blurring on the background. My cheat was that it was the same background over and over again just blurred out with different streaks of sunlight. I'm glad it became a credit to the artwork and not a detriment.

Anyway, it's done, and I'm exhausted. Heading out for pizza and karaoke last night didn't help. I really wanted to party my ass off but I was just exhausted. As the clock ticked over and ushered in my birthday, everyone gave my sleepily delirious body huge hugs. On the way home KROQ just happened to be playing one of my favourite songs, "Change (in the house of flies)" by the Deftones (which is also my ringtone).






<- The tonal work. I especially love the bottom panel.

But let's talk Root and Branch part 2 page 3.

I really enjoyed this page of Sabine bringing it on big time. I really enjoyed the performance created by the synthesis of dialogue and images. I especially like Sabine's face here. It's very hard to draw a woman's face contorted in anger and not make her ugly or old. The simple formula is that the more lines you add to a woman's face the older and uglier you make her.






<- Basic colours.

I kept the flashbacks in black and white. I felt that the technique worked well for both the show and for the comic. It's very important to me that flashbacks are obviously flashbacks. I've seen too many artists and colourists just colour them the same. As a reader I get very confused. I figure if an experienced comic reader like me is getting confused, then other readers must be ready to grab a sawn off shot gun and go hit their local post office.





<- The effects added in. I love that the bullet wound to the knee looks really damn painful. We see gunshots all the time in media, it's so nice to find a refreshing power to them. Still a colour balance to do.


The flashback was also an opportunity to flip the camera 180 degrees and shoot stuff from the other direction. It was quite refreshing as an artist to do this. I got bored of being on one side, but there are very few times when you can flip the camera. A scene cut is a good time to do this.