Comic: 28/01/2012

More comic fun. Honestly, mainly just an excuse to draw a skull! Nice to see my anatomy study from last summer paid off — cross-checked my drawing against a reference at the end and was pleasantly surprised to see that I'd kept (mostly) everything in the right place.

Again, that's supposed to be Jazzy... at least she looks vaguely human this time around!... (and not Amish) I suppose that, with hindsight, it's easier to caricature yourself. You don't need to worry about being too honest — though having said that I think I draw myself far too flatteringly. Need to up the ugliness ratio a touch!

I seem to be running out of things to say about these comics. Maybe that's a sign I'm not doing enough differently?

Comic: 27/01/2012

I'm going to consider this one an exercise in patience and consistency. Drawing the same thing consecutively and keeping it looking the same without going insane and taking 14 million hours. I'm trying to train myself to draw quickly and accurately — a useful skill to have at any rate, but also because I'm an impatient little sod.

Comic: 26/01/2012

Lots of exciting first person views here.

Significantly hastier and more sloppy comic; but at least it's remaining quite clean! I'm still not entirely sure why somebody was compelled to actually post me a box of beans. They're either having a laugh or they know me very well.

Comic: 25/01/2012

Chronicling the exciting events which led to the destruction of my phone. This is completely accurate and not at all exaggerated.

Rather more pleased with this one in terms of visuals (with the exception of the last panel where everything seems to fall apart) — it didn't take me too long, it's relatively neat and the people look at least remotely human! Still need to work a lot on expressions and posing but I think I'm making progress. I'm finding these comics are a really useful exercise — taking mundane events and characters and just turning them into ideas. I'm hoping it will be beneficial in terms of developing narrative in the future.

Comic: 24/01/2012

Simple comic for today — look and me being all topical! Taken a couple of steps backwards in terms of neatness — it's sketchy and messy again but it's the animation awards this evening and I'm all excitable and can't sit still. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Having a little more fun with things this time. Trying to loosen my representations of people — it still looks nothing like me (my eyebrows are nowhere near that cool) but, for me, it's just about trying to loosen up.


Yes, I read The Sun.

Comic: 23/01/2012

Feeling slightly better today (thank God)

Sorry... eraser peelings everywhere! Forgot to brush them off. Me stupid. Will re-scan later!

I took a bit more time over this one and it kind of shows (aside from aforementioned eraser leavings)? Still messy and that looks nothing like my dog at all but I'm thinking that I might try another tactic for cleaning it up. Rather than inking directly over the original pencils, which I would imagine fills most people with terror in case they mess up, I'm probably going to just scan or photocopy it, make the sketch blue, re-print and then ink over the copy. At least then I might be a bit more relaxed. Used to do it in ye olde days when I drew for fun and it got some quite nice results.

Our dog is horrible and she smells.

Comic: 22/01/2012

I'm feeling like a massive failure today. I'm sorry, I don't mean for this to get too personal.

(But hey, look! Clean lines.)

Comic: 21/01/2012

I'm having a really, really bad day today. All I drew was a generic and really terrible angst comic. It's not particularly dark or disturbing or anything, it's just embarrassing and pointless and I'm not entirely sure I want to post it. But I feel like I should, if only for documentation purposes.

I don't know.

Comic & sketchbook: 20/01/2012

Today's comic reveals what an absolute wuss I am. Why do people feel they have to talk about these sorts of things really loudly in public places? Eugh.

Had a bit of difficulty with this comic. Found my mind kept wandering and my heart just wasn't in it - but I ploughed on through anyway. I really can't resort to that sort of excuse to justify lackluster work - it certainly won't hold up in employment so I need to break it now.

Spent most of the day out in town today, ended up doing some quick drawings at the train station. Nobody else was around unfortunately, but it was a good opportunity to practice and see if I can successfully apply what I've been learning to my drawings without reference. (That sentence made much more sense in my head)

Above, just some quick experiments at applying action lines to poses without any reference. I didn't really have a clear idea of what I was trying to draw most of the time - I just kind of draw a line and went with it - so they're a bit weak.

Then just some things scrawled on the way back home. Drawing on a bus is difficult.

I'm really trying to commit myself to using less lines when drawing - it's a habit, though, and a tricky one to break! I'm aiming to train my eye to really observe and THEN draw a line - just one - and really get the feel of that arm or leg or whatever. I just need to learn to look at the subject more than my paper.

Comic: 19/01/2012

In today's exciting installment of ~*MY LIFE*~, Alex gets his feedback. And promptly pisses his pants.

In all seriousness, though an initially terrifying prospect, the feedback was really really helpful. I'm very happy with the advice I got - it's given me more direction now that I know for sure what I need to be working on. The comic strips, especially - as pointed out the drawings in my last series needed a whole lot of work. I think the biggest problem is that I never really know how much time I should spend on these things - I could easily spend hours slaving away over each panel and making it look perfect and pretty (very much a temptation) but is that really the point? Plus, I'll be the first to admit, I'm incredibly impatient! I tend to just get an idea and want to roll with it as soon as possible. I certainly think I could stand to spend just a little more time over each comic - it's just going to be about finding the right balance.

Anyway, er yeah, this one's kinda a bit rushed. Whoopsie. Silly little mistakes like magical shrinking legs in the third panel caused by me not paying attention. In my defence - I'm distracted! I'm going home in precisely one hour and I've still not packed.

Comic: 18/01/2012

Look mum, no scribbles!!

Trying really hard to keep my lines as clean and focused as I can. I'm working on a pretty small scale which makes it a bit tricky as erasing any mistakes usually takes half the drawing along with it, peeling the surface of the paper away and making it very tough to re-draw. That's a really weird excuse, isn't it? But it's true! Paper that's been re-erased hundreds of times is really hard to draw on. I think I need a putty eraser or something.

Er. I'm digressing. It's still inconsistent and not terribly well drawn but I'm a bit more pleased with this one. It seemed to come a bit more easily — found myself not worrying quite so much about it — but that might be because I only had to draw myself again.

I must seem so narcissistic! 

Comic: 17/01/2012

And here's today's, in which I was (rather unfairly) accused of being a shoplifter. I think I'm a bit weedy to be lifting an entire shop all by myself, but hey ho.

Slightly better than yesterday's but still suffering problems. Mostly when trying to draw other people. I probably just relax when drawing myself because it doesn't matter how I look — I don't need to worry about offending myself!

Trying to reduce the amount of mess on my page by using less scribbles and more actual lines. It's weird and hard to get used to!

As an added bonus here are yet more kitty cats! I wanted to practice refining my drawings but couldn't think of any weighty poses to draw, so I opted for walking... and ended up drawing walking cats again. Thanks to Mr. Google for the lovely images.

The black ones were just me toying around with trying to keep the feel of the pose apparent with silhouettes. Didn't work too well, mostly because the cats themselves were black, so half the time even I couldn't see what the pose was supposed to be!

I'd intended to try and refine these properly with a pen and everything but I found myself growing too attached to the sketches... perhaps Mr. Lightbox might be useful in this situation?

Comic: 16/01/2012

Further to my previous post, here's the first in the next series of comics I'm attempting, in which I demonstrate a complete inability to draw anybody other than myself. Ugh.

 I was really disappointed in my last series — the drawings were hideously embarrassing and I know I can do better — so I'm hoping to tackle some of the problems I faced. 

It's not off to a great start — drawings are still pretty shoddy. I think a lot of it is due to lack of confidence in what I'm doing. I start really over-thinking what I'm drawing and worrying about every line I make — "what does this person look like? I hope I don't make them look stupid. What do I do here? What did they say?" etc. etc. All perfectly valid questions to ask but I find that I begin to seize up and every line becomes forced. I need to loosen myself up and just go with the flow. I think that I try to commit myself to every line that I make rather than working loosely and lightly. Combined with the fact that I tend to hastily scribble away using a billion lines, I end up with a mass of lines that are completely incomprehensible and completely lose the feel of whatever scene or pose I was going for in the first place.

Anyway, regardless, today's instalment chronicles the adventures of Lawrence and I as we encounter peppermint tea served in a glass. I swear that's supposed to be Lawrence.