Original Art Sundays No. 304: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 44

 What a week! Somehow I got the next page done and did a good job, despite attending Autoptic and doing more prep for the MCAD Faculty Biennial show. Autoptic was such a delight! So many people I haven't seen for too long, a couple possible publishers, and bought a bunch of cool comics. There's some works where I like the art, some where I like the writing, and some where both shine. Such events lead me to ponder the possibilities of our chosen art form. In a conversation after the event, I mused on expanding my comics work. I was told I'd never make a lot of money, but that's not the point. I want the same things I always wanted. I want to tell my stories. I want to improve my craft. And I want someone to get something out of them. If I can get a few bucks or some recognition/accolades along the way, that would be great, but that's not why I do it. Events like Autoptic remind you of that, in the best way.

Ahem. The story at hand.

When we left our hapless couple, he had just thrown an ashtray at me. It shattered on the wall behind me. Then he trashed another guitar. 

Read on.

I like a lot about this page. The top banner panel, done in pencil, is quite effective, I think. Breaking up the thoughts in a banner panel is a nice pacing device. I'm sure it's been used before, but I don't recall seeing it anywhere. The next three panels are clean and serviceable, but the silhouette of the strange action in the last panel also works well. So often the simplest things pose the most interesting artistic challenges, like a woman sweeping a floor or getting into bed. He never did use the gun, but it was in my thoughts, so it's part of the story. My line in Panel 2: I was taking a real risk, being that sarcastic when he was escalating like that. He'd knocked me down a couple times before that, but there's a clear and dangerous progression to these things, and he was very close to giving himself permission to physically attack me more intensely.

The moment in the last panel bordered on absurdity. What a weird thing to do. He was pushing me with his torso, so he could claim he didn't lay a hand on me.

Thought on last week's page: one of my readers liked the iris panel of his hand grabbing the guitar neck. That inspired me, so I might put together a small sketchbook of guitar illustrations I've done over the years, and throw in a couple new ones. I don't want to lose sight of my big goal, but there's something to be said for completing a small project along the way.  

Almost no ink brush work on this page.

Tools for this page:

• Canson Bristol board, Bristol strip slipsheet, masking tape
  
• iPhone for photo reference.
• T-square, triangle, Ames lettering guide
• Tech pencil, Cumberland 6B pencil, HB, 3B and 4B Woodless pencils
• Dr. Martin's Black Star Matte Ink
• Blick #6 Round Brush
• Pen nib & holder
• Micron .005, .01, .02, .03, .05, .08, 1.0
• Faber Castell Brush Tip Marker, Copic Small Brush Tip
  
• Plastic eraser
• FW Artist's Acrylic White
• Tight Spot correction brush - treated myself to a new one of these this week, along with some papers I plan on experimenting with soon.

Next: one foot out the door in the coldest of winters.

Original Art Sundays no. 303: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 43

 Next page!

When we left our hapless couple, Curt was preparing to throw an ashtray. Anyone taking odds on him following through?

Content notes: This happened, but not quite this way. I didn't see him trash another guitar, but I did see the wrecked guitar afterwards. This guitar, which I also loved, was a replacement he got me for the one he destroyed a couple months prior. That will be covered in the text of the next page.

Craft throughts: Time in comics is so elastic. I can cover months or years in one panel, or cover one night in multiple pages as I'm doing here, or make a single moment so elastic as Scott McCloud does in the exquisite framing sequence for The Sculptor. We're also manipulating perspective here. The first panel is from my POV, the second from his, while the rest of the page is back to my viewpoint.

I would like the darks to have more weight in the first two panels. I like clean lines (the clare ligne technique used in Tintin is so delicious), but it doesn't always serve the narrative. Also, it's not really my style, although I certainly lean towards it! I love the iris on panels three and four. While it was intended as just a design device, the iris on the last panel resembles an eye opening shape- a happy accident. The inks on Curt's face in the final panel went someplace strange, so a bit of Photoshop cleanup was in order. I've been considering trying different illustrative programs, as I sometimes find Photoshop limiting for my purposes and my Illustrator chops are very rusty.

I continue to prepare for the MCAD Faculty Biennial, doing digital prints of some pages, cleaning up others, meeting with the new gallery director to go over the plan for the work's exhibition. Fall semester also looms large, so it is indeed the busy season! But new pages continue to present themselves and evolve on my board, sort of a Petri dish of comic art. I have two comics and an illustrated novella in the hopper after this work is completed. Keeping joy, pace and spirit remain crucial.

Tools for this page:

• Canson Bristol board, plain paper slipsheet, masking tape
  
• iPhone for photo reference.
• T-square, triangle, Ames lettering guide
• Tech pencil, Paster 6B pencil, HB Woodless pencil
• Dr. Martin's Black Star Matte Ink
• Blick #6 Round Brush
• Pen nib & holder
• Micron .005, .01, .02, .03, .05, .08, 1.0
• Faber Castell Brush Tip Marker
• Plastic eraser
• Photoshop

Next: Hang on, dear readers, I'm nearly done with this chapter. But as I told one of my readers last week, these things must be done delicately, or you hurt the spell.

Original Art Sundays No. 302: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 42

 Okay, here we go!

When we last saw Curt, he was charging at me, full of rage.

Read on.

This was a tricky layout. The first panel portrays a really clumsy moment (in a physical sense). I almost went full cartoon on this one, since it was so absurd. Then this was going to be silhouette, but it seemed too ominous. I opted for a borderline approach- loose figures, awkward poses and just enough text to clarify the action. I opted for simple pencil for the ground shading, a leadless HB.

The second panel establishes the space from an angle we haven't seen before. For a simple, boring room with tedious 1970s architecture, this space is really challenging to draw! I took half a dozen reference shots of a similar setup in my living room, tried drawing it from six different perspectives. Nothing worked. Finally, I decided to simplify and make it about the characters, then made the environment another character. The anchor points related to other pages are the cabinets on the far wall and the open area where Mother's painting once was. No facial expressions in this panel. I wanted the poses to convey the emotions. Also, that's a really tiny drawing of a human body!

The last panel goes tight on his reaching hand an foreshadows the next page.  There's also the visual device of the hand reaching towards the corner, encouraging the reader to turn the page. Large curved area of black serves to anchor the panel.

I was almost late with this page, as I was also preparing work for the upcoming MCAD Faculty Biennial show this week. Show goes up in late August. Rest assured there will be photos. I reviewed about 30 recent pages and selected 14. The pleasant surprise was how much I liked some of them! My internal .dialogue on my art, my writing, my craft, leans towards lament. I tend to dwell on how much time has slipped by me and how the work suffers from that. That's human, but also very self-indulgent. My consolations/realizations are that the work is stronger than I think it is, and that if I use my time well, I can do 50 - 100 pages a year. If I manage to keep going another 20 years, that's a lot of story!

Tools for this page:

• Canson Bristol board, plain paper slipsheet, masking tape
  
• iPhone for photo reference.
• T-square, triangle, Ames lettering guide
• Tech pencil, Paster 6B pencil, HB Woodless pencil
• Dr. Martin's Black Star Matte Ink
• Blick #6 Round Brush
• Pen nib & holder
• Micron .005, .01, .02, .03, .05, .08, 1.0
• Faber Castell Brush Tip Marker
• Plastic eraser
• Photoshop

Next: things break.

Original Art Sundays No. 301: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 41

 As promised, a little action!

When we left our hapless couple, Curt had just snapped - I mean really snapped - because the phone rang and somebody hung up. 

The story: this is where I finally accepted the truth, that the problem wasn't me, it was him. I'm taking slight liberties with the timeline and omitting some events that bog things down. It all happened, but over a full day and night, and briefly involved some out of town guests, awkward witnesses to some of this miasma. It will take two or three more pages to resolve these events and a few more to deal with the aftermath.

In most abuse narratives, there's a point where the victim finally accepts that they don't deserve to be treated that way. This was that moment for me. All that's left is survival.

Again, sparse backgrounds. The details fall away until nothing is left but the two of us, the crucible of the relationship's ugly truth. Gray values come from Ebony pencil and brush marker (a faded one giving a wispy edge), much more effective than wash or regular marker, I think. Using the old saw of having the panels touch on the top tier to slow time. Then things open up. Violation of the border on the 2/3 splash magnifies the figure and slows time again, despite this being an action driven panel. The distance between the tow of us is, of course, elongated for effect. I adapted the pose from one of my favorite books, Colleen Doran and Derek McCullough's Gone to Amerikay, a later page. There's been relatively little physical action in my story, and it feels good to break that. I recall an MCAD professor, Peter Gross, looking at someone else's page, a big action pose, and saying, "yeah, THAT'S comics!" Light whiteout here and there, mostly nib and Micron on this page. Photoshop used only for light correction on this one.

I noticed as the page evolved that this page was an ironic and bittersweet hint of an earlier page, where he came to visit me in Minneapolis and I ran to him. Here's a reprint of the earlier page for comparison.

More and more I find that my style is becoming itself. An elusive concept, which sounds much more high handed than it is. Every page, every image, is about discovering and rediscovering my natural artistic tendencies, ideally always in service to the story.

Tools:

• Canson Bristol board
• Ames Lettering guide
• Triangle, T-Square
• Tech pencil, Derwent 3B pencil, Ebony pencil
  
• Faber Castell Eraser, kneadable eraser
• Dr. Martin's Black Star Matte Ink
• FW Artist's Acrylic White
• Tight Spot
• Tech markers: Micron .02, .03, .05, .08 and Faber Castell Brush Tip
• Slip sheet

Next: the last fight continues. Something gets thrown.

Original Art Sundays (MOnday) no. 300: Sharp Invitations: Curt, pp. 39 and 40

 Posting on Monday this week. I wanted to take the time to make this a double header. Not only is it a crucial moment in the story, but it's post # 300! Something of a milestone that leads me to reflect on my art, my goals and the evolution of my process.

When we left our happy couple, they were in the throes of a very tentative idyllic domestic bliss. Here's what happened next.

That's the way domestic abuse goes. Everything can seem just peachy, and some innocent thing, like a phone ringing, can detonate an explosion. No overt trans content in this part of the narrative.

The backgrounds on p. 39 are tentative but serviceable. I put in a wash background on the first panel, used an old school marker on the third, and blended them out in Photoshop.

I got excited with a couple things on these pages. The last panel of p. 39 is influenced by Alan Davis' work on Miracleman issue 3, page 21, last panel. I got all brave inking this one with just one brush, and was very satisfied with the results. Some Kirby special effects were modified after the fact in Photoshop. The poses reflect the characters' emotional state, a lesson I took to heart from Archie Comics artist Harry Lucey.

The splash page was such fun! A few weeks ago, I was intrigued by an accidental ink smear and the energy the effect gave. I wanted to to incorporate it into this story, and this seemed the perfect opportunity. To get the effect, I used Frisket to mask out a pencil illustration, then masked the live area border. I used a slip sheet to cover the text area, went in with my favorite ink and a big #8 angle brush, let it dry and then just lifted the Frisket. The Frisket is applied using either a brush pre-treated with dish soap, or with adjustable nib ruling pens. This process requires patience. Everything has to dry and fully set up before moving on to the next page. I love this process and will use it again where it serves the story.

The crucial question is always what goes in and what stays out. Editing, especially in your own work, is a three step process: selection, combination and elimination. I love intricate and detailed comic work. But more and more, I find I'm working by Alex Toth's mantra.

I'm very excited that this chapter is so close to resolution. This is the trick middle of the book. Most of the first third is done, and the aftermath of this chapter and the story resolution remain. I greatly appreciate my readers sticking around for this journey!

Tools used on these pages:

• Canson Bristol Board 
• Triangle and T-Square, Ames lettering guide, masking tape, slipsheet (printer paper)
  
• 3B Derwent Pencil, tech pencil
• Inkwell dish
  
• Ballpoint pen
  
• Pen nib and holder
• Microns: .02, .03, .05, .08, 1.0 and brush tip
• Prismacolor marker gray 50%
• Dish soap
• Adjustable nib ruling pen
• Faber-Castell plastic eraser
• Dr. Martin's Black Magic Ink
• FW Acrylic White
• Dr. Martin's Acrylic Frisket
• Rubber Cement Pickup
• Brushes: Kingart Round 04, 06 & 08, Grumbacher Flat 02, Royal Synthetic Flat Angle 08, Princeton 10 round, Blick 02 & 06 round

Next: it gets more intense.

Original Art Sundays No. 299: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 38

 Another page into the fray.

I was originally doing a second page for this week, as a bridge to next week's action, but I did a very similar page to the one planned earlier in the story (the page about him dating me because, as  trans woman, I couldn't get pregnant), so decided to forego.

 

 

 I do like doing these quick gag strips on occasion. They're a nice break. So fast and loose! They're freeing, and a good way to advance the story by small anecdote. Aside from light cleanup in Photoshop, this is pretty much the original. At one point, I considered doing the whole book this way. I shied away from it because that's the not the kind of work I like doing most of the time, and because Sophie LaBelle already does it so deftly over at Assigned Male Comics!

The astute reader will recall that Curt prided himself on being logical. The incongruity in his opinions on this was a shocker and a bit of a road into his mindset. Also, I love musicals, so this hit me in the gut.

We're entering a period of relative calm before the final storm, so something lighter is called for.

Very simple tools this week.

• Printer paper
• 3B Cumberland Derwent pencil, tech pencil
• Ames lettering guide
• Staedler Mars plastic eraser
• Ballpoint pen
• Photoshop
  
• Scan done with IPhone 12

That's it! 

Next: the calm ends, the storm starts.

Original Art Sundays No. 298: Sharp Invitations: Curt, pp. 36 and 37

 Hello again!

Two pages this week instead of one! I was having fun with it and decided to push a bit. 

This is my response to Curt's reaction to my attempt to slit my wrists.

Well, out of the fire and into surrender! Really, I tried running away, I tried escaping into death (however halfheartedly). The only thing left to try was surrender. Plus, part of me always wanted to be the little housewife. I don't think it's every trans woman's dream, but it was one of mine. However, I myopically believed I wouldn't have to surrender my autonomy to fulfill it.

Also, as anyone who's been involved in domestic abuse will tell you, it's a labyrinth, a tangled mess of conflation and subversion. It's jarring to live through, but excessive detail on such things makes for a convoluted and uninteresting story. Better to condense and summarize.

Soliloquy and paper dolls seemed a good way to sum up this turn of events. This story is a bit heavy, and an occasional respite is called for. Plus- paper dolls, what fun! I've done paper dolls of most of my other characters, so why not me? In my research, I discovered that the Cleavers' home town of Mayfield isn't in a specific state, hence the USA locale. All the costumes are period, evoking the 1960s housewife cliche, except the Omaha lingerie, which is there in homage to sensei Reed Waller. They're also all things I really enjoy.

Layout is pretty direct on these. I've done soliloquy pages earlier in this story, and followed the same pattern of reversal/reversal. I love the high five in the last panel on that page. 

Tools for these two pages:

• Canson Bristol Board, tracing paper
  
• Pencils: Tech pencil, 2B Ticonderoga, 3B and 6B Cumberland Derwent, 4B Graphite stick
• Holder & Nib, ballpoint pen
• Triangle, straightedge, T-square
  
• Dr. Martin's Black Star Matte ink
• Brushes: Blick #6 Synthetic Round, Escoda Kolinsky Sable Flat #4. Tight Spot for corrections
• Microns: .03, .05, .08, Brush Tip
• FW Artist's Acrylic White
• Photoshop

Next: Domestic tranquility moments, the calm before the final storm.

Original Art Sundays No. 297: Curt, p. 35

 Once more into the breach, dear friends.

When we left our heroine (me), the half-assed suicide attempt was truncated by a neighbor's phone ringing. Before I could clean up, Curt came home. How will he react to the woman he claims to love attempting such a thing?

Well, there you have it. As was noted by one of my Beta readers, knives are intended for cutting meat, so his asinine wrath was also factually inaccurate. This is what happened, but I condensed events slightly for narrative flow. But even with the danger implicit in living in this situation, it starts to seem absurd at some point. Abusers often pride themselves on reason, but are often irrational in their micromanagement and rage. The challenge is to navigate their anger and feed into their egos.

Again, no overt trans content on this page, other than it being a trans woman's story.

Technical notes: The layout is pretty direct and flows well. I particularly like the tight shots of Curt's eyes framing his gaze down the cut arm to the bloody knife. At one point, I had divided that long panel in thirds, but it seemed more of a distraction than a dramatic effect. I hand-rendered the text, but reworked it in Photoshop. Lower energy, but it reads better. A sense of place is crucial to this page. Perspective is key on the first panel. I seldom do such detailed work on environments, but this is a time where it's necessary to ground the space. Looking at it now, the page still needs a couple minor corrections, but it's 95% there.

The gray values on the ceiling in Panel 1 are a simple gradient.

Instead of scanning, I tried a photo with my iPhone 12. I'm not 100% happy with this method. Too much work in post to get the levels right. If my other option, using the document capture in Notes, yields similar results, I'll just go back to scanning. 

I used my favorite scumbling brush with masking tape on panel 3 (the arm). Don't you love simple production tricks? I got this fascinating sort of dry brush smear by accident on my drawing board, and it's inspired me for a page down the line. A pen nib and a brush marker died creating this page. We will now observe a moment of silence.

Tools:

• Canson Bristol Board
• Pencils: Ticonderoga 2B, Paster Classics 6B, 4B graphite stick
• Erasers: Staedtler Mars Plastic, kneadable eraser, erasing guide
  
• Brushes: Blick #2 synthetic Masterstroke, Blick #6 Synthetic round
• Pen nib and holder
• Microns: .005, .02, .05, .08, 1.0 and brush
• Photoshop

Next: survival strategies.

Original Art Sundays No. 296: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 34

 Hi, all. Here we go with the next page.

Last time we saw our heroine (me), she was in the tub, high on booze and prescription meds and bleeding out of her cut wrist.

Here's what happened next.

It's often something mundane that stops these attempts. I read a writer's account of their own attempt (I'm embarrassed to say I can't recall whose). They were all ready to do it, to end their lives, staring at the gun, when they got a casual call from a friend who was unaware of the crisis, inviting them to a ball game. They went but never told the friend what that friend had done for them. 

One little thing. That's all it takes sometimes.

In my case, someone else's phone rang. I went on automatic pilot to answer the phone. Can't be rude, you know.

This page also serves as a reminder of some of the small and not so small things that drove me to the attempt in the first place. Curt not trusting me to do something as simple as carrying on a phone call, me being so afraid of his reaction to anything I was doing.

Technical aspects: we're back to a pretty standard grid this week. Just advancing the narrative panel by panel. I'm in every panel, but not full face shot until the last panel, my shocked reaction to his return home. 

Nothing overtly about trans identity on this page, but it's one of the core elements of the story, so its presence or absence must needs be noted.

I'm back to rendering background textures in wash and grease pencil. It seems to serve me well as my style continues to evolve. There's a little #2 pencil texture on the tub surface. I continue to grow my relationship to backgrounds/environments, following Ursula Murray Husted's encouragement to think of the environment as a character. I balance that against a line that sticks with me from David Chelsea's Perspective for Comic Book Artists, in which one of his characters describes the function of perspective not as mechanical accuracy, but as a desire to "make things more or less plausible." Think about it. Realistic mechanical rendering isn't always necessary or desirable, in that it doesn't always serve the story. And one should always do what serves the story. It doesn't have to look precise, but it does have to look real, in the context of the story.

The last panel really got away from me in early attempts! The first inked version had a distorted, elongated face with a mouth one might find on a blow-up doll. So back to tracing paper, whiteout, and re-rendering. The final panel was still messy. I cleaned it up in Photoshop, then put some of the mess back for effect. I might do just a bit more correction on this before going to press, but it's pretty much there. It was fun drawing a body just out of the tub and not toweled off. Those little drippy effects are exciting to play with.

Tools for this page:

• Canson Bristol Board
• Pencils: 2B Ticonderoga, Lead holder and 3B lead, 4B graphite stick
• Erasers: Steadler Mars plastic eraser, kneadable eraser
  
• Dr. Martin's Black Star Matte Ink
• FW Artist's Acrylic White
• Plastic painting palette for washes
  
• Tight Spot brush for corrections
• Pen nib and holder
• Brushes: Blick No. 6 round synthetic, Reeves No. 8 nylon flat for washes
• Photoshop

Next: will Curt be sympathetic and supportive? What do you think?

Original Art Sundays No. 295: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 33

 Hi, all.

After numerous delays, here is the next page.

This one was a huge challenge. The actual layout and illustration was relatively easy. The art and layout only took a day or two. But in doing it, I had to face my own stupidity and relive some stuff I've long put behind me. 

I'm not that person any more, and revisiting her was anguish. Still, memoir demands honesty, so here we are. My challenge remains the same: show these events honestly without romanticizing or sensationalizing them. I'm not doing violence porn.

When we left off, I had taken a few too many prescription meds, washed them down with liquor, grabbed a knife and headed for the bathroom. What happened next is pretty predictable.

I had drawn this conventionally, using conventional tools. When the art was done, I realized that this page would be more effective reversed out, so Photoshop to the rescue again! I penciled the borders with a straightedge and inked them freehand to get that ragged effect I use from time to time. 

The tub panel is a variation on a panel I used in a similar storyline in my old Tranny Towers strip.

Thoughts: the bathtub looks like a coffin. I wasn't overtly aware of that until I worked on this page. Also, since that day, I've preferred showers to baths. It's still hard for me to relax in the tub. I didn't make that connection until this.

Abuse victims are prone to depression and suicide attempts, especially while it's going on. This is not unique to trans people. I contend that our suicide rate is higher, not because we're more unstable (we're not), but because so many people seem to want to make our lives harder, either for "our own good" or for their own venal, perverse amusement. When supported and encouraged to live full lives, trans people tend to thrive. Yes, some of us are messed up, but you could say the same about cis people. That just makes us human. As noted in the "Get A Job" chapter of this book, when I came out to my boss, I was told that they would be watching my work more closely, even though I was the same person doing the same job. Think about that for a minute. When you come out, your relationships, family, home and safety are threatened. Great time to add stress to the job! Thanks, boss!

That approach has improved in a lot of companies and organizations over the ensuing years. The narrative now is, more often than not, "what can we do to help?" Likewise, many families and loved ones are now much more supportive of trans people in their lives. Again, far from everyone, but it's better.

I am grateful that at least some of the world is behaving more humanely about trans issues.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to volunteer at the Sexual Violence Center. I suppose I still do, but I don't think I'm really strong enough for that. Maybe. Another day. Not to minimize my experience, but compared to some abuse victims, I got off fairly easy. I always want to help, but... well, I still have emotional limits, I suppose.

There's a bit more of this chapter of the story to complete, and some pages from it will be shown at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design's Faculty Biennial exhibition this fall. I'll keep you posted.

Tools for this page:

• Canson Bristol board
• Graphite stick, lead holder with 3B leads, Ticonderoga 2B classic pencil
• China marker/ grease pencil
  
• Windsor & Newton eraser, kneadable eraser
• Straightedges and T-Squares
• Dr. Martin's Black Star ink
  
• FW Artist's Acrylic white
• Photoshop

Next: Will I get out of the tub in time? Will I bleed to death as I pass out? Will an ambulance be called? Find out next week.

Original Art Sundays No. 294: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 32

 Wow, what a rough page! 

Every panel went through a dozen permutations. I tried collage, reversing, visual metaphors, tons of dialogue. Nothing was working. So it was back to the basics.

This page also has a strong emotional resonance. Or so I hope.

Well then.

Here's our heroine (me) taking a handful of prescription meds, washing them down with hard liquor, grabbing a sharp object and heading for the bathtub.

In terms of storytelling, I opted for pure image. Sometimes I think I rely too much on text. Let the pictures tell the story!

There's only two full face shot on this page, and even those are obscured partially. The intent here is to convey story and emotion through action.

Top tier is white on black. I used China marker for the background texture. Still finding balance between detail and solid fields of tone for backgrounds, as I go. Note that the second tier is black on white, again popping some of my reliable silhouettes. The bottom splash tier is pretty straightforward. I had some fun playing with textures on the tiling. I also took a few liberties. Our bathroom was nowhere near that big or nice!  I hope the little floating icons in panel 6 convey the effect of being slightly buzzed, as we used to say. I didn't want to overdo it, to drag the page into the realm of silliness.

I went through a lot of old, painful stuff preparing this page. I also debated its merits in larger terms. Self-harm is a real concern in trans and nonbinary communities, and deserves to treated as such. But there are a couple cautions associated with that. The first is the issue of "violence porn". I don't want to create a page where adrenaline junkies are getting their fix off my work. At the same time, I don't want to soft-pedal what's going on. 

The other issue is that although it's true, although it's a real concern, self-harm is in so many trans narratives that it's almost a cliche. I don't mean in any moral or empathetic sense, but just from a standpoint of storytelling. It feels like lazy storytelling, and it feeds into the uninformed cliches about who we are and how our lives work. It's also a common side effect of domestic abuse, both in trans and cis worlds.

So I think the answer is to just tell what happened, without aggrandizing or diminishing it, and trust that a discerning reader will see it for what it is- a rough moment in a bad part of my life, that should have been much better.

The usual tools:

• Canson Bristol board
• 2B, 3B and Ebony pencils
• Lead holder with 3B lead
• Kneadable eraser and Canson eraser
• Ames lettering guide
• Micron .02, .03, .05, 1.0 and brush tip
• Dr. Martin's flat black ink
• FW Artist's acrylic white
• Brushes: Richeson no. 6 synthetic, Kingart no. 4 sable/synthetic hybrid, Tight Spot for corrections
• Minimal Photoshop

Next: making the cuts.

Original Art Sundays No. 293: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p.31

 Here we go with a new page.

When we left our heroine, Curt was being nice. Who's taking odds on that continuing?

Notes:

This shows the emotional turmoil of being with an abuser. Here it's taking its toll. Things are all right, then they're not, for no apparent reason, and you're told it's your fault. We had one good night after I failed to have myself committed, then it got worse again almost immediately. Trans issues appear on this page as a matter of course.

There are 3 actions on this page. He leaves without a reason. I look out into the rain. I arrive at a conclusion. We'll see the result next week.

Layout considerations: still loving the ink wash for backgrounds and flexing my muscles, using it as a rain device. The head shot coming out of silhouette in the text heavy panel has just a hint of dry brush work, something else I love to play with.

This will need to be rescanned. For the moment, it serves. I need to get some pages together and spend a day rescanning, possibly over spring break next week.

We'll see. I treated myself to a new brush this week, and I'm pretty pleased with it!

Tools:

• Canson Bristol Board
• Lead holder and #3B leads
• Ticonderoga 2B pencil
• Tech pencil
• Kneadable eraser and Faber Castell dust free eraser
• Nib and holder
• Brushes: Blick 6 round synthetic, Richeson 777 Kolinsky (the new one!), beat up ancient Grumbacher no. 4, tight spot for corrections
• Micron Numbers .02, .03, .05, .08 and brush tip
• FW Artists Acrylic White and Dr. Martin's Black Star Matte Ink

Next: Things get bad, really bad. Sorry, but they do.

Original Art Sundays No. 292: Arrowsmith sketch cover

 Hi, all.

I had a better idea for the next page partway into it. I was planning a single page gag filler, because I had a great one and haven't done one in a while.  But then I was re-reading Buseik and Pacheho's Arrowsmith: Behind Enemy Lines #1, and I noticed that there were almost no women in it. 

Busiek has written some very good stories with women in prominent roles, so I wasn't particularly offended by this. And it's been a while since I read the first series, so I didn't remember if this was addressed there. But since the copy I picked up was a sketch cover, I decided to give it a whirl.

 

Okay, I'm pretty happy with this. Just a #2 Ticonderoga pencil, a kneadable eraser and a bit of Photoshop tweaking. Photoshop was just levels and threshold, and some use of the Fade command, which I love. That's the whole tool list!

I thought about inking, or adding color, or putting in a background. But I enjoyed it so much the way it is, I decided to leave well enough alone. I had real fun drawing the little dragon! Not usually my thing, but once in a while...

I do enjoy these sketch covers, though I almost never buy floppies any more. 

Next: back to our story.