Original Art Sundays No. 293: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 25

 You know, I didn't think I'd make it this week. It's a good page, but the content... well....

Remember all those times with Delia and Sara before our heroine moved in with Curt? Well, turns out these things are almost always revealed eventually. In the vernacular, I was busted. In most cases, that's the end of the relationship, or the beginning of counseling. In this event, it was the death of my 1972 Picador guitar and my first exile from my new home, with almost no money in my purse and only the clothes on my back.

This was a very difficult page to create from an emotional standpoint. We're starting to get to the really ugly stuff in the relationship. I'm not interested in painting myself a hero, but I do want to show what happened as clearly as I can.

The first layout for this was pure exposition, a talking heads page. Boring! I played with slicing it up in different ways, doing some work with jagged panel edges and lots of little slice panels, but that had no impact. 

This is a big dramatic moment, with lots of action. I realized that his actions had to dominate the page, so settled on the two-column full figure layout. I took some license with his stomping my guitar. It really happened, but it wasn't quite as destructive as shown. He just put his foot through the top and stood there leering shards of the guitar and broken strings tangled stupidly around his foot.

For background consideration, I opted for a simple gray on the panels with me in them, which is repeated in the last panel, to anchor me to the visual space. I referenced the TV, door and windows seen in previous pages showing this space. The gray value comes from ink wash and not a Photoshop solid or texture. I wanted it to look a bit uneven, to echo the emotional content. I like the word balloon effect in the second panel of the right column, the dotted line inside the solid line. I think it emphasizes the smallness of my voice in that moment. I went with a heavier border than usual, again for emphasis. Curt's cast shadow in the last panel was a last minute touch, possibly superfluous, but I don't think it hinders anything.

I still miss that guitar. I've looked into replacing it a few times, but they're very hard to find. I do have other guitars now- more on that in a subsequent page.

The emotional toll of these pages is heavy. The only way I can do it is by focusing on the craft and circling back to be sure the final result isn't too analytical, too cold. Even then, it takes a day after finishing the page to recuperate.

Tools are pretty much the usual with a couple interesting additions:

• Canson Bristol board
• Lead holder with 3B leads
• 3B Castell pencil (good old greenie!)
• Ames lettering guide
  
• Castell eraser
• Micron numbers .02, .05, .08, 1.0 and brush tip
• Dr. Martin's Black Star Ink
• FW Artist's Acrylic White
  
• Round 10 well paint palette (for ink washes)
• Crow Quill and nib
  
• Brushes: Blick No. 2 and No. 6 synthetic
• Tight Spot for corrections
• And our old friend Photoshop 2019

Next: aftermath

Original Art Sundays No. 292: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 24

 The semester has ended (still some grading to plow through!). This is a mixed blessing. More time to work on The Book, but limited large scanner access. So it's back to scanning in tiers on the Brother printer/scanner for a bit. It actually worked out pretty well today. But I do much prefer a large bed scanner. So much easier, such better results overall.

Into the next page:

 

Lots to unpack on this one. First, I'm quite pleased with it.

Narrative: Other than it happening to me, transgender identity isn't a significant part of this page. This page is intended as a meditation on Curt's mindset. We're all heroes in our own minds, and I thought a page showcasing some of his philosophies might be useful. It's too easy to just paint someone as a villain and let it go at that. One of my favorite films, Princess Mononoke, has a very complex villain who could be considered a hero in some respects. I've no desire to make him a hero, but showing some of his perspective helps the story, and it's the decent thing to do.

I originally considered carrying the page title's "gospel" theme further and having him preach from a lectern. But it didn't work visually all that well, and I thought it might cause confusion about his character. He was far from religious. He was agnostic and ridiculed people of faith. I considered doing a second, similar page, quoting him talking about the stupidity of other people, but decided that this would suffice. His actions tell the story, more than anything.

Layout and design considerations: usually, I see the finished page in my mind before I start drawing. Not so here. This went through several evolutions, until it became his soliloquy. After abandoning the lectern concept, I wanted to keep the page title (rendered in Photoshop for fun). So the visual theme called for something preacher-ish to reflect that. I thought about televangelists (reminded of Lenny Bruce describing preachers as "those who save -save every penny they can get their hands on."). That led me to the spotlight and arms up pose of the first panel. The quote about emotions in the second panel is something he said quite often. It's so stark and shocking, so cold and sad, it screamed for chiaroscuro. I am fascinated by the shadows in the third panel. The lettering on one line of that panel got away from me- again, Photoshop to the rescue, using my favorite comic body copy typeface, Scott McCloud's The Sculptor! For the last panel, I tried it with and without my face included. Visually, it works better without, but I think it's necessary to remind readers at this point that the character (me) is living with the snakes in this guy's head. Also, I tried to indicate that he was inches from me and screaming so hard his face turned beet red, because that's how it was.

My only layout regret for the page is the lack of substantial backgrounds. But they will be back next week, so no worries. Loving the lights and darks on this page!

Tools:

• Canson Bristol Board
• Lead holder and #4B lead
• Triangle, T-Square, Ames lettering guide
• Faber Castell eraser
• Micron markers .02, .05, .08, 1.0 and Brush
• Dr. Martin's Black Star Matte Ink
• Brother scanner
• And our old friend Photoshop

Next: page 25 of this chapter.

Original Art Sundays No. 291: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 23

 Well.

When we left our intrepid heroine (me), she was settling into a repressive routine with her intended future husband. As she settled, she began to realize just how much settling she's done.

 Lots to unpack here. 

First, layout considerations. Slow zoom in from first to second panel, pull out on the last panel. Fairly static page, where the position of the viewer relative to the subject is pretty much the only thing that changes.

I wanted enough detail to be plausible, and to keep the moment as private as possible. I'm happy with the pose and the layout. Inks are okay and serviceable. His hand did something crazy in the last panel, but I touched it up in Photoshop.

Speaking of Photoshop, my original intent was to reverse the last panel for dramatic effect. It looked dumb. I opted to add a gray value to set the time more clearly.

Debating where it goes on the next page. His bombshell here cries for more exposition, but I'm eager to keep the pace, so I suspect I will go on with the action.

This is typical of abusers. They tend to demean and mistrust, and to think their judgment is better than anyone else's. He manipulated my uncertainty about being lovable as trans woman, and here reveals that my trans status is what drew him to me, but not in a positive way. I'm concluding that there's no need to elaborate on that in the narrative, and I can just let events communicate that.

Tools for this page:

• Canson Bristol board
• Lead holder with 4B lead
• Faber Castell eraser
• Triangle and T-square
• Ames lettering guide
• Micron .02, .05, 1.0 and brush
• FW Artist's Acrylic White
• Richeson brushes; synthetic no. 6 round, Sable cat tongue no. 2
• Of course, Photoshop

Next: page 24 of this chapter.

Original Art Sundays No. 290: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 22

Welcome back, loyal readers.

Much to discuss about today's page, so let's get right to it.

First thing to unpack here: the writing. The last page marked a shift away from the narrative heavy pages leading up to the move. There's a bit of exposition here, but I tried to frame it so it held its weight, without dominating the story. Clearly, layout was crucial to doing this.

We begin with the classic "frog in the frying pan", a metaphor often used to explain enduring abuse to those who haven't experienced it. This is a clear case of "show, don't tell."

My trans stuff doesn't figure overtly into this part of the narrative, but as we'll learn on the next page, it's omnipresent in the relationship.

For the balance of the page, I decided to channel my inner David Mack. I was so impressed with his use of layout and silhouette as narrative devices in Kabuki, Daredevil. and the brutal (but clever and beautifully rendered) COVER. It's thoughtful and still engages the reader. Also, it's fun to look at! And by isolating the text from the image, the idea that I was stuck in my own head with little to no attachment to the outside world is reinforced.

Not to say I didn't have a little fun with this page. The frog (drawn freehand after a quick look at photographic reference) was a delight to draw. The third panel, with simultaneous exercising and cooking, is a playful comment on the idea of the woman who can do it all. In the third silhouette panel,  I took the conceit of using The Best of Both Worlds onscreen. We did watch that one together, but it first aired before the big move. But it's such an iconic episode, I had to give it homage. ST: TNG was still in its initial run during our years together.

Another layout consideration: gray values are mostly represented in pencil until the last panel, to increase the emotional impact of that image. I freely stole the pose from the iconic Alan Moore/Curt Swan Superman collaboration Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? 

Minimal Photoshop corrections this time. 

Tools used:

• Lead holder and 4B leads
• Ames lettering guide
  
• 4B graphite stick
• Faber Castell Erasers
• Dr. Martin's Black Star Ink
• FW Acrylic White 
  
• Crow quill and nib
• Micron nos. .005, .02, .03, .05, .08, 1.0
• Brushes: Richeson #2 Sable, Tight Spot for corrections
• Photoshop

Overall, I'm quite proud of this page. 

Next week, Page 23!

I may up the ante to more than a page a week, if my schedule permits.

Original Art Sundays No. 289: Inktober, Week 3

Day

 Sigh. Next page is done except for cleanup and scanning, and I'm very proud of it. But I'm in grading Hell and don't want to take the two hours to run to MCAD and scan, so just to keep on posting schedule, here's the next week of Inktober. These will be old news to those who are with me on Facebook or Twitter, but I hope they give some pleasure anyway.

Day 15:

From the Surrealist Cowgirls, our old friend the floating whale mule Whalliam. I never get tired of drawing him, and this is iconic- the classic "HI" word balloon (he communicates by thinking one word at a time, always with a period, remember?), him floating on an abstract landscape, and the sun wearing shades, smiling down on him.

I miss the Cowgirls. It's been too long since I had a new story for them. Such a joy to create them!

Day 16:

A friend's labradoodle,  from photo reference.

On this and the above drawing, I did minimal cleanup. I liked the energy of the pencil marks, and the paper texture showing through on the image. These were just shots from my phone, not scans. I like the immediacy, though I would not take them to print for any major project.

 

Day 17:
When I was a wee tad, there was a Beatles cartoon series. MY mother didn't trust the Beatles' music until this series made them seem more innocuous, so the cartoon was my road in to my lifelong love of the Fab Four.

TV Guide ran an article on the series, including full figure illustrations of each of the boys. I copied those like crazy! I got particularly good at George, but decided to revisit John for this round.

Another quick sketchbook work with minimal cleanup. Just revisiting a childhood drawing joy.

Day 18:

I seldom do anything remotely resembling technical SF drawing. I like some of it, but it's just not where my strength lies. But since Inktober is about pushing yourself, and I had been diving into a re-viewing of the Battlestar Galactica remake, I decided it was Cylon time. 

Still quick, but I spent a little more time on this one. I love all the curvilinear aspects of the design. It's harsh and smooth at the same time. A bit more cleanup on this one too.

I sure got some mileage out of that small sketchbook this month!

Day 19:

I had a request to draw "a Seuss bird."

I spent some time enjoying vintage Seuss art and applied my own style to it.

Everything got curvy and soft in this one. Aside from a straightedge to draw the post, no mechanical tools at all. Another quick thing that was just fun to draw. I did a fair amount of cleanup on this one.

While my regular work is serious, bordering on grave, at times, I do get such joy from doing simple subjects.

Day 20:

Okay, very happy with this one!

I was getting irritated with me. I like the fast and loose drawings I'd been doing, but felt the need for something more... involved.

This is my interpretation of Jaeger from Carla Speed MacNeil's great work Finder.

Mostly a straight copy, but I did take a few small liberties to make it my own. More time on this one, with lots of cleanup and care.

Carla is doing a Patreon now, I guess. I just met her the one time, and found her vibrant and eager to share her work. When the funds are there, I will honor her Patreon and a couple others that are on my radar.

Day 21:

Another straight copy, this time the wonderful Neil the Horse from Katherine Collins!

Just cutting loose a bit. Pencils not removed.

As noted on the Rosa illustration previously posted, there's a misconception that funny animal books are somehow simple. Nothing could be less true. It takes a special technique to pull this stuff off, and Katherine is a master. I haven't talked with her for a couple years. Based on the Afterword in her Neil the Horse collection from Hermes Press (sadly, color covers not included), she went through a bit of a rough patch, but has endured.

Next: the new page, at last!

Original Art Sundays No. 288: Inktober, Week 2

 Next page of Sharp Invitations is about 3/4 done. Rather than skip a week of posting art, here's some more work from this year's Inktober.

I may make a booklet of these.

D

 Day eight: Zorro.

So many great inkers have worked on Zorro. I've always been partial to Jesse Marsh, Tom Yeates (there's a definitive collection of the Yeates/McGregor Zorro strip soon- hooray!) and of course, Alex Toth. A perennial favorite, Russ Manning, even did a couple tryout strips! 

Such a great character, romantic and driven by justice.

This is loosely inspired by the recent McGregor Kickstarter comic. Almost no under-drawing here, just some brush work. I do love working with dry brush techniques. One of my goals for this year was to improve my versatility and craft.

Day nine:

Another work in walnut ink. I got this really cool catalog of fashion for the more zaftig woman, and she was the cover and one of the interior pages. 

A little more time on the under-drawing this time. Mostly brush work, but a bit of crow quill. I think the outline on the figure could be a bit more consistent. This is always the question: when does one ink right up to the figure, and when does one leave a silhouette? For me, it's about the quality of the figure's holding line. If I'm pleased with that line, I want to preserve it, and the best way to do that is to leave the ghost space.

Day Ten:

This is my character Blue Wild Abandon, who has never appeared outside my sketchbooks before. She's an intergalactic bounty hunter and seeker of justice. Her symbol is the Jungian icon for hero. I will render it more tightly in her first adventure, tentatively titled "No Beast so Fierce". It will be a while before we see it, since I have two stories ahead of it in the queue!

She looks slightly different from one drawing to another. She's been showing up in my sketches for years, but I only recently realized who she is. Then I tied her to an SF story outline I wrote decades ago, and it clicked.

Day Eleven:

Inspired by Trina Robbins' recent wonder, Flapper Queens: Women Cartoonists of the Jazz Age, I decided to try my hand at fashion illustration.

The proportions are weird. The face is sparse.

But boy, was this fun!

Quick pencil sketch, many corrections on the ink. This was was a little Micron, a lot of crow quill, and a BIG brush for the few heavy inks.

Day Twelve:

Athena from my old Tranny Towers strip.

I haven't drawn her for years.

I would love to do a collection of that strip, and include the related work that appeared at the time- my Gay Comics pages using the characters, the self- published work with her from around that time, my editorial cartoons for 90s trans political magazines. Also some paper dolls I was working on and some background sketches and sundries. Make a nice little book.

But in today's political climate, trans people can't even call themselves tranny without someone taking offense. It makes me sad, but I think I've talked myself out of the collection for now. 

Athena's bra and panty set is inspired by Francine in Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise #1.

Day Thirteen:

Ray Shulman of Gentle Giant. Taken from a photo in the Italian Super Star compilation album booklet!

Much as I love the band, I seldom draw or write about them. Back when I first started posting my work, about a million years ago, I posted some pages from a comic adaptation of the GG song Little Brown Bag. Gentle Giant comics came up in a discussion of a proposed documentary online recently, so that project, an anthology titled Gentle Giant Comics and Stories, could see life again.

 

I do already have a lot of projects, but my enthusiasm does not abate.

Day Fourteen:

Usagi Yojimbo

This was just fun to draw. Stan Sakai has a style that is deceptively simple. But when you take a closer look at his technique, it's clear he's a master. Subtle variations in line weight, and facial expressions that tell the whole story.

I tell my writing students that knowing what to leave out is as important as knowing what to put in. Sakai is the master there.

That's all for now. I'll save the last 17 Inktober sketches in case I need them to meet a Deadline Doom here, as the Marvel editors used to call it.

Next: back to Sharp Invitations.

Original Art Sundays no. 287: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 21

 Here we go with the next page!

As you may recall, our heroine (moi) had just arrived at her new home, 600 miles from her old one, and was greeted with less than a ticker tape parade.

Read on.

The events of this period are such a jumble, for reasons that will become obvious on the next page (if they're not already).

Backgrounds were kept sparse deliberately. The encroaching black from panel to panel is a visual cue as to what's going on in this descent.

Beyond me being trans, there's no overt trans content on this page, other than the only slightly veiled "someone like you" comment in the last panel.

Curt's figure gets larger as the panels progress, while mine gets smaller. That's pretty blatant symbolism.

Figures are also kept simple, echoing some of Terry Moore's work on Strangers in Paradise, specifically the sequence where Katchoo is talking to the detective. Figures are stripped down to essentials, and eyes are often just dots. He did the same thing in the panel where Tambi says "I hate working with men!"

It's fascinating how much I emulate Terry's techniques. His work is a Master class in style and emotional resonance. Plus, he tells cool stories.

Timeline: This didn't happen week by week, but it seemed the best way to efficiently indicate the slow burn of someone taking over your life.

This one was mostly ink, very little marker.

Tools:

Bristol board

Lead holder, #3B leads, various erasers

Pelikan Ink

Crowquill nib and holder

Richeson #10 Synthetic brush, #4 synthetic

Micron .05, .08

Next: At the very least, the next page. I have three works worth of Inktober stuff I haven't posted here yet, much of which has made me proud. Either way: back soon!

Original Art Sundays No. 286: Inktober 2021, Part 1

HI all;

Next page is nearly done. Rather than post late or skip a week, here are my current efforts for Inktober. 

Day one:

 We start with a swipe from the cover of a swing album I discovered on Apple Music, Naomi and Her Handsome Devils.

More stylized than my work usually is, but such fun! 

I played with BIG brushes filling in the background.

I always love the geometric elements associated with this era, as anyone who recalls my Speedy Recovery and His All-Girl Orchestra comic will attest.

Day Two: 

A pretty straightforward swipe of a panel from Dean Motter's Mr. X.

I'm re-reading this and finding new stuff in it. The design paradoxically feels like both 80s-90s and 1920s.

I adore his facial expressions!

So vibrant with just a few well-placed lines.

Day Three:

Charles Mingus, in Walnut ink. From photo reference.

I didn't quite capture his majesty or exreme coolness, but I like this one anyway.

I was privileged to see Mingus live once. In the middle of the set, some guy in the back yelled out, "Do it, Charlie!"

He peered over his sunglasses and replied, "Ah, do what, man?"

Day Four:

One of my favorite panels from the Don Rosa classic Life and Times of $crooge McDuck.

Honestly, this whole sequence is just so powerful, but this panel, with him chained by his evil rival, as he is ridiculed and informed that his mother is dead, is just so perfect.

I've tried to explain the virtues of funny animal stories to the uninitiated, to no avail. I fear it's one of those things where either you get it or you don't.

Day Five:

A mocking Big Cat from Craig Russell's adaptation of The Jungle Book. 

Russell is another one of those artists whose work leaves me breathless. There's a classic elegance to his work, but when you look at it closely, his lines are almost breathy. I wish I could afford to get some of his video tutorials! I learn so much from such things.

Day Six:

Very loose pen and ink rendering of the sadly demised jazz great Emily Remler. We lost her to heroin some years ago. Her style was her own, but based in the work of Wes Montgomery.

This is deliberately sketchy. I wanted some quiet energy on this one.

Mixture of ink and marker.

Day Seven:

Now this was fun!

There's a little concrete warthog on a stair post in front of a house near MCAD. We all know it and love it. It became a character in my only Surrealist Cowgirls cartoon, now lost to the ages. But it elicits such warm feelings as you walk by!

This is brush work. The background is crow quill, and the background is loosely inspired by Jim Woodring's work.

I have a couple more, but I'll save them for the next posting. The next page will be posted in a couple days, and I'll just sneak in more Inktober throughout the month. I've been crossposting my Inktober work on Facebook and Twitter, if you just can't wait.

Original Art Sundays No. 285: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 20

 Now that the chapter on surgery is complete, we're going back to the Curt narrative already in progress. 

We had 19 pages of our heroine (me) meeting Curt, developing a relationship and having, ahem, intimate moments with others. There was more of that, but rather than make the waters any muddier, it's time to move on, in every sense.

I left out a couple details, and a few events are not quite in the order in which they occurred, but that doesn't disrupt the veracity of the story.

The temp job was much less sophisticated than I made it look here. Nice people and fairly easy work, but pretty mindless, doing document recording and retrieval at an insurance company.

Several things about this page are quite deliberate. The only face the reader sees straight on is Curt's. This is a story about abuse, and like most such narratives, it builds slowly and becomes largely about the abuser.

 Time is very condensed here. This page represents three months. The art is serviceable, but no more. There are some obvious and deliberate exaggerations, like the hyper-extended U-Haul.

I had hoped to add a wood texture to the door, but Photoshop was missing some patterns. Rather than dink around with it, I went with a solid gray for the door.

Design consideration: to give the page a bit more weight, I used the old Terry Moore trick of adding a solid black behind the panels. In a moment of inspiration, I used his How to Draw book as a template for the shape! Just lay the book on the page and make a black outline, fill it in, and you're golden.

The tools for this week are very straightforward. Entirely Micron pens! But I haven't forsworn my beloved inks.

Tools:

• Canson Bristol
• T-squares and straightedges
• Lead holder, #3Bl leads, and erasers
• Micron .005, .2, .3, .5, .8, 1.0 and brush
• Photoshop
  

I'm also doing Inktober this year. Last time I did that, I didn't make it through the whole month, but I have high hopes this year. I have been posting my inks daily on Facebook and Twitter and will post them here weekly.

That said, next week we continue the Curt story. Current plan is to resolve this part of the narrative quick and clean, four or five more pages. Then two or three more short chapters, some hard editing decisions, and we're done with this project. I have two more comic and illustration based projects in the wings, and two text projects in the works.

Original Art Sundays No. 284: The Third Sharp Invitation, last page

 Concluding this short but important chapter.

This is the aftermath and the prelude to the next chapter. If you were reading along in the actual book, this page would be a teaser. But if you've been following for a while, you've already read 19 pages of the next chapter, making the teaser somewhat anticlimactic.

Anyway, here we go.

When we left our heroine (me), she was contemplating the aftermath of her surgery. The naming of that procedure is constantly shifting. It used to be called sex change. Then it was gender reassignment. Then it was gender confirmation. I haven't kept up, but I think we're still using that term, so we'll go with that for now. It's also a term that makes sense, which I think overrides squabbles about nomenclature.

In any event, she was eager to set the world afire now that she wasn't constrained by body/mind incongruity.

And of course, it didn't go that way.

Notes:

I had done this page about a year ago, just before the move to my first owned home (hooray!). It had different text and was intended as the end of the next chapter. That page is still somewhere in the storage bin. I opted to redo it, rather than dig through everything looking for the older one. I like this version better than that one. It's very simple. 

It's far from mechanically accurate, but that wasn't what I wanted. Technical drawing is not right for this page. This was one of those times when the world goes out of focus and you feel somewhat lost. I wanted to convey sparseness and a slight sense of disorientation.

The sky textures and the bus texture are Photoshop. Simple filters and the Fade command. I rather like the way the sky turned out. I had intended that what are perceived as stars be snowflakes, but rather than dink around with minutiae, I just went with it. Terry Moore draws such great snowflakes! Context from the surrounding pages will also clarify that it's winter. The ground texture is the joy of hand work. I do love the meditative quality of rendering random patterns.

Equipment and tools:

• Canson Bristol Board
• Lead Holder with 3B lead
• Various erasers
  
• Sumi-E ink
• Windsor & Newton 680 1/4", Dick Blick #6 round synthetic, Princeyon #10 Round, Royal #8 flat angled brushes
• Tight Spot correction brush
• FW Acrylic white
• Micron #.1, .2, .3, .5, .8, 1.0
• Trusty Ames lettering guide
• Photoshop

Next: a recap of the next chapter to date, then some concluding pages to that one. Four or five chapters of varying length to go before this book is done.

Original Art Sundays No. 283: The Third Sharp Invitation, p. 5

 Here is the penultimate page of this crucial but comparatively short chapter!

Thoughts:

My body never looks better than when I draw it! I don't know if that's false advertising or wishful thinking.

Text is crucial on this page. Economy of words is vital here. As I tell my writing students, communicate more with less and trust your audience to fill in the blanks.

I don't have to worry about not having enough black on this page! The background is sparse by choice. Originally, I thought of doing a grayed back collage of previous moments from the story, but the more I played with the idea, the more it seemed both contrived and visually confusing. Dramatic collage in comics is very difficult to pull off. Jack Kirby's collages were ambitious but clumsy, at least to my eyes.

On the figure, I could have done more internal inks, shadows of body contours and such. I usually do such on draped figures more than on nudes. Now that circumstance are conducive to it, it might be time to get back to a figure drawing co-op. You learn so much from drawing the human figure!

Reversed lettering is a challenge. There are three basic approaches, and I've done all three. You either ink around the individual characters, use white ink after filling in your blacks, or just use the lettering tool in Photoshop. I opted for the third, using the Comic Craft typeface The Sculptor from the Scott McCloud book I so revere.

Not sure if there are one or two more pages to this chapter. It's set up for one, which will serve as prelude to the Curt chapter (already 19 pages posted on that one).

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with this page!

Materials:

• Canson Bristol Board
• Lead holder with no. 3B leads
• Various erasers
• Tech markers: Micron numbers .01, .03, .05, .08 and 1.0
• Sumi-E black ink
• FW Acrylic White
  
• Crow quill nib and holder
• Brushes: Royal synthetic angle flat no. 8, Blick round synthetic no. 6, Sceptre Gold sable/synthetic no. 0, Tight Spot for corrections

Next: the conclusion and lead-in to the big chapter, already in progress!

Photoshop

Original Art Sundays No. 282: The Third Sharp Invitation, p.4

 Here we go with another new page. 

To recap, the book's title, Sharp Invitations, refers to the things that you want that cause you pain. You're pulled towards them and afraid of them, even though you want them.

In case you've lost track, here's what's gone before, documented in previous chapters. My first sharp invitation was my impulse to touch the blade of a push lawn mower when I was five. My second was my attempt to hang myself when I was eleven over being trans, though I didn't yet have the language for it.

My third sharp invitation was gender confirming surgery. That's where we are now, in the aftermath of the surgery, still in the hospital, with me drifting in and out of awareness.

Tried to keep this one simple. I finally got back into real ink! My walnut ink is lighter than I recall from my last bottle, even with darkening medium added. So I fell back on my monster sized bottle of Sumi-E ink.

The textures in the last panel are simple Photoshop fills. A couple minor fixes are necessary before going to press, but this one is pretty much there.

I just made up the skyline in the window. It's very much like the skyline I used as a background/environment on the cover of my first self-published work, Ink Tantrums, about a hundred years ago.

The middle tier feels a little light, which is common in my work. In this case, I'm okay with it, because it's balanced by the weight of the images around it, and because coming out of anesthetic is a very soft experience. 

The face in the last panel really got away from me! Grr! I compensated by re-drawing it, but still wasn't happy with it. My ultimate solution was to just take the face from the top tier, copy into a new Photoshop layer and goose it a bit. It works now.

Materials for this page:

• T-Square, Ames lettering guide, Canson Bristol board
• Lead holder, #3B leads, eraser
• Black Walnut ink and darkening medium, Sumi-E ink
  
• Crow quill pen and nib
• Brushes: No. 2 Kolinsky, No. 4 Richeson synthetic, Tight Spot for corrections
• Chartpak black marker
• Tech markers: .01, .05, .08, 1.0 
• And of course, Photoshop 2019
  

There are two pages left to this chapter. It segues into the chapter on Curt. I've already published 19 + pages of that chapter, so I will do some editing before concluding it. The chapter, in many ways the core of the book, has evolved considerably from its original 5 pages of crude sketches in the draft version!

Next: the penultimate page of this chapter.

Original Art Sundays no. 281: The Third Sharp Invitation, p. 3

 Back in the saddle again!

The story is reasonably predictable, but necessary, at this point. I'm in hospital, as the British say, and surgery is imminent. I freely stole this visual idea from myself. This is a theme that I used in a Tranny Towers strip about surgery: the idea of talking heads drifting in and out of the patient's mind as anesthetic takes hold. I also reincorporated the concept of one person's line leading to the next person, using words as "connecting footage". 

Thoughts on style:

The flowing smoky bits behind the spectral images can be read as many different things: positive shapes, negative shapes, abstract landscape, even cowhide! As long as they convey the overall sense of non-place, I'm content. I'm so tickled by leaving out the borders here and there.

Getting the overhead lights in the operating theater to "read" the way I wanted them to was a bit of a challenge. But once I decided on a neutral value instead of a cluster of smaller lights, I just needed my trusty graphite stick and I was in business.

For some reason, drawing the mask was an irritant! Possibly a psychosomatic reaction to the world of the last 18 months.

Still not quite back to real inks! My studio space is just about the way I want it, but I want a precise, pristine space before I jump into ink again. Amazing how owning your home instead of renting changes your perspective on some things...

I am feeling renewed conviction and confidence in the work. As I noted with joy the evolution of trans communities in recent years, I spent considerable time (probably too much time) pondering whether my story retained any relevance. I finally concluded that this wasn't my decision. I am committing (or trying to) to the mantra of just putting it out there and trusting my readers to see its merits for themselves.

Materials:

Canson Bristol
Lead Holder
No. 3 graphite stick
Various erasers
Micron tech pens, .01, .03, .05, .08, 1.0
Old school Chartpak black marker (for large areas)
Faber Castell brush markers, small and large
Tight Spot correction brush
FW Acrylic White for corrections
Photoshop for a bit of clean up

Next: Surgery, awakening

Original Art Sundays (Saturday) No. 280: Troia

 Well, hello.

It's been a while. About 10 months!

Hope you've been well.  Not easy to do in '20-'21.

Life got in the way of art. I bought a new place, worked two jobs (academia and healthcare) throughout the continuing but abating pandemic, and slowly... slowly... set up a new drawing space. Trying to be pragmatic about balancing needs and desires, as is our way (at least on a good day). But I love my place, and I love my art space. It's much smaller than my previous space, but much more efficient for the type of work I do.

I've opened up to doing The Work again. A few pages in, I'm not satisfied enough with the results to officially post them. Also been teasing new (and new old) ideas, but I'm keen to finish the graphic memoir as a first priority.

While my plan to focus more energy and effort on the project(s) takes shape, I thought you'd like an older piece. This has been posted elsewhere, but not as a stand alone artwork here.

I did this for my old friend Joel Thingvall, to contribute to one of his Wonder Woman galleries. This is the era of Donna Troy/Troia I like best- 80s Perez Teen Titans. She still had connection to Princess Diana, but was coming into her own.

In retrospect, the torso twists in a slightly odd way, the face is a bit flatter than I might like, and that left hand is not doing exactly what I would like it to. But overall, it works and I'm happy with it. The matte is part of the piece because of the text. I always equate anything related to Wonder Woman to the concept of wonder as joy, more than wonder as spectacle.

And I really like that little symbol on the tip of her right index finger. I've drawn that thousands of times- the slightly asymmetrical extended cross, whose cross beams are defined by curves. It will show up as an important symbol in a future project. 

I know, promises, promises.

For now, just enjoy this.

The materials are very simple: bright ink paper, pencil, eraser, brushes, a touch of Photoshop.

Next: no promises, but I am working.