DevCon 1

Me and the lovely Diana Mazuru at our first convention table.

Carrying over from the last post, me and Diana decided that we would do our first convention at DevCon1 and so we got fairly busy preparing our table for the convention and we felt we had very little to put out there. Turned out we had a bit too much. Regardless we managed to have fun and we sold way more items than we thought we would. For instance I completely sold out my first print run of issue 0 of "A Shadow of Steel!" which caught me by surprise, but it was such a shot in the arm for my confidence and I am now more dedicated to actually doing more comics featuring 'The Silver Phantom'. 

It was also a really great social experience for us too, as we met some great and interesting people. 

In the words of Conrad Verner "It's surprising how many people out there are just waiting for someone to talk to them". 

Also I picked up a comic drawn by two good friends of mine called 'Arthur Shilling' and I have to say its one of the best indie comics I have read so far. If you're interested here's the link to their Facebook page. Drawn by artists Rob Cross and Steve May. 

Additionally I got to chat to other artists Lee O'Connor and Jock about comics and for them to critique my work that I valued. 

Finally if you missed out going to DevCon1 and are interested in buying my comic, I will be at 22 Panels at The Poly in Falmouth with soon to receive additional copies of my comic.

A Shadow of Steel! Printed

Hey folks it's been a hectic month since my last post, but it was a good hectic month. Since the last post I was working away at the pages of my comic and last minute additions to the script and then having to get off to the printers in time.

And here is the result of that hard work. I have to give credit to the printers for an excellent job with the print outs, the colours came out perfectly and the paper quality is a little thicker than normal comics, but that doesn't bother me. If you have a comic project going and you need to find a printer to go to, then I recommend UK Comics who did my comic, they are really friendly and give good service. Here's the link to their site.

Here is page preview of the interiors.

I am pleased that I completed a personal challenge to make and print my own comic, and now the real work begins with keeping the series going in tri-monthly issues. At least that's how long it took for this to be done, whilst doing other work too. 

Prepare for the Terror!

Its been a busy time for me and now I can show you what I'm working towards. I am currently creating my first comic featuring 'Thunder' who is now dubbed as 'The Silver Phantom' as a friend pointed out to me many existing comic characters that are called Thunder or have it in the title. So to avoid any copyright infringements I decided to give him a name that wouldn't sound too out of place from the golden era of comics. 

So here is the cover for issue 0 of 'A Shadow of Steel'. Its been a long time coming making this comic and its felt rewarding to finally have the confidence to utilize what I've learnt and create something that really interests me. 

Right now I'm at the stage where the pages are being finalized and getting the printing sorted out. So fingers crossed that this will be finished in time to be launched at the Plymouth comic convention 21st September.

Pencil Sketch

So for the first comic that I will be doing featuring this character of mine, I have been trying to figure out a way to create a moody atmosphere with the images with the intent that the comic would be printed in B/W, since printing in colour is too expensive. Originally I was just going to do it all in my usual single tone colour which would come out grey from the printing. But I wanted to do something that takes advantage of that print process and not let it hinder me. So I figured pencil is an obvious choice to make a dark, gritty, moody atmosphere that evokes Noir. 

And that brings us to this sketch, done in HB pencil and black watercolour pencil (a cheap one) and ink for the solid blacks. Upon reflection I feel its still a medium I am not used to in terms of rendering my images in this fashion and it will require me to keep on practicing until I think its good enough for the printed comic. 

So next time I will use different paper and a better black pencil too.

As for the story its still being refined. The first issue is being overhauled as there were too many comic book cliches. Also creating a voice for the character to come through the dialogue is harder than I thought. So basically it feels as though I am starting from scratch again.

I hope to get the comic finished by the end of August so it gives me time to get it ready and printed just in time for DevCon1. I should have some progress shots of the comic coming up soon, so keep watching this site.