grOw/cOmic#6, page 99 completed!

The latest page that I worked on — page 99 — had more characters than the last few. On top of that, there were more faces, clothes, and overlapping, all of which take more time. 7 down, 11 to go!

grOw/cOmic#6, page 98 completed!

Whew... another highly detailed page has been completed — page 98. This is the 6th page of the issue, and thus, we are now at the third-way mark!  6 pages down, 12 to go!

In order to speed up the production of this page ("work smarter, not harder"), I once again delved into Photoshop's Brush palette to help me create many, many, many liquid drips at once. When I have to create a wall that is cascading in drips, I can't see drawing each drip individually. So, I made a brush that draws multiple drips of different sizes in one stroke.

I'm going to SizeCon NYC 2016. Are you?

The wife and I finally decided to pull the trigger and will be attending SizeCon NYC 2016 on Saturday, April 23, 2016.  I will probably have a booth there as well.  If you stop by, say "hello"!  Here is the promo I made for them.

What, you don't know about it?  Check out their website at sizecon.com or at their other sites:
sizecon.deviantart.com
www.facebook.com/SizeCon
twitter.com/nycsizecon

grOw/cOmic#6, page 97 completed!

The fifth page of issue 6 has been completed! Now that page 97 is done, we are past the one-quarter mark of the issue, which is 18 pages long.  5 down, 13 to go. This is yet another page that contains a high level of detail, all of which I could not create if I was not using the powers of Photoshop's Brush palette. However, one detail you see here that is created with a "per drop" method (meaning I manually paint each and every drop) are the "drips" or liquid beads that trail down the skin, leaving an ever-fading trail behind them. These are each painted with a single stroke, and then each stroke is faded with 2-3 more strokes applied to the mask until the proper fading is achieved — a laborious process indeed.

grOw/cOmic#6, page 96 completed!

Yet again, I completed a page one day, and forgot to post about it until the next. But that's because I'm on a roll on working on issue 6 in which as soon as I finish a page, I immediately begin the next. I've always held the updates until the end of the day, and because I was deep into the next page, I had forgotten to post. But page 96 is done, and I've made major progress on page 97, which will be past the 25% mark when completed.

grOw/cOmic#6, page 95 completed!

I had meant to post this yesterday, but I forgot. I had finished page 95 earlier in the day, and then immediately went to work on page 96. I had planned to post the latest update at the end of the day, but it being hours later, I had spaced off this idea. I had actually thought I would finish this page this past Friday, but then realized the amount of "details" required for these panels would not allow me to complete it that quickly. (Some of these details can be seen in the preview here.) This has to be the milkiest page I've ever done (and if you know grOw/cOmic#4, issue 3, then that's saying a lot). I even created 2 new Photoshop brushes (see the last post for an example of one) specifically for this purpose.

grOw/cOmic#6, page 94 completed!

I almost thought I was going to be able to finish page 94 yesterday, but then I realized that I still had to tackle the complex details needed for this page. (What details? Well, just check out the preview to find out!) And they took some time. However, it was well worth it. I really like how this page turned out.

In fact, to achieve the details needed, I had to take a few minutes to create a brand new, custom Photoshop brush specifically for certain "textures." I've included a quick example of a few brush strokes of this new brush.

grOw/cOmic#6, page 93 completed!

The first page (page 93) of issue 6 ("Plot Twists") of grOw/cOmic#6 ("Milking the Plot") has been completed. I am very excited to finally be at this stage in development after a few weeks of preproduction work. This included setting up the proper camera angles in my 3D program, and using simple Poser models within the scenes to make sure proportions and scale were correct and that the characters interacted with the background precisely. Some examples of this are when a character opens a door, or pushes a crate of M.O.O. across the floor, or when their bodies interact with the crates in other ways.  I have to make sure the characters that I draw properly line up with the items that are rendered in the 3D program (Shade3D, ver. 14).

So stay tuned, as I will continue to show a preview of each of the 18 pages as they are completed which will lead us to the release of this thrill ride of an issue.

grOw/cOmic#6, issue 6 pencils completed!

It took a little longer than expected (mostly due to some "real life" work, and an 8" snow storm that sapped my time by having to clear the snow today), but I was able to work a little later tonight and complete the last page of issue 6 ("Plot Twists") of grOw/cOmic#6!  Next week, it's on to the ink and paint stage.  As usual, during this stage, I will be posting color previews as each page is completed.