My Comic Book: Page 23 final colors (cheat page!)

Creating comic books is such a giant mental challenge. Locking yourself away to write, draw, ink, letter and color takes it's toll after awhile. It's so easy to procrastinate or make excuses after a tiring day at work.

When I work, I find that if I do little countdowns for myself on how many pages I have left to finish, it helps push me on. I usually have a couple pages in the Bomb Squad that I know should be easy for me to color. I usually color those last, like a mental ace-in-the-hole that I bust out when I'm starting to get fatigued. Does that make any sense?

Anyhow, this is one of those pages...

Fortunately, this page works with the simple monochromatic color scheme to signal a flashback much like in the first issue. And that's it for tonight. And that brings me to...

2!

more!

pages!

left!

God Bless you guys and good night... er, morning!

My Comic Book: Page 21 Final colors

All done. 3 more pages! Woot!

My Comic Book: Page 21 WIP

Blocked out a few colors in this pass. Hopefully I'll be able to finish this tomorrow. I'm so CLOSE to wrapping up the second issue... I'm actually getting excited! maybe a month or so from now, I'll be ready for the final print! Good night and God Bless! Onward, Battle that never ends..!

My Comic Book: Page 20 final colors

4 more pages to go!

The Neverending Battle continues!

My Comic Book: Page 20 Colors (Work in Progress)

Swimming, swimming, just keep swimming...

My Comic Book: Page 19 final colors

Colored in Page 19 after the break. Not sure if these crazy colors are going to look okay in print, but I gotta keep moving! 5 more pages to go!

Francisco V. Coching

My Dad bought me a book I was searching for yesterday. It's a book called "The life and art of Francisco Coching". Here's a cover shot that I got from an article Gerry Alanguilan wrote up:

My dad read a few of those komiks from back in a day when he was growing up and he remembers some of Coching's titles and a few others of his contemporaries (with Virgilio and Nestor Rendondo as his favorites). It's sad, because Filipino Komiks didn't seem to survive very well at all. Add to that a few of the amazing talent left the county  to work in the states (and they seemed to disappear there even though they kicked SO much butt). Anyhow, it seems this book does a great job of showcasing a lot of Coching's work in that era (that I unfortunately missed).

So, have a gander at some of the pictures I took from the book and join me in enjoying his artwork.

The 'banjo' playing girl is my fave of this batch.

I like that tiny figure of the woman on the middle on the left side.

Love this cover.

I like the dress drapery here.

I see some Hal Foster in there, Great use of the graphic blacks.

Awesome.

What's crazy too is that he was able to draw and write 3 different projects with a bi-weekly schedule! Hope you guys enjoyed this stuff as much as I did! Hangang sa susunod na kabanata!

McFarlane + Alcala

No drawing updates today.

I'm on vacation and spending time with my parents, siblings and many assorted nephews and nieces for the Holidays in the Philippines. My wife and I have been staying in a room where my old comic books are still in.

Quite a few have gotten dinged up, tore up, misplaced or simply given/taken away. Everything else that's still there is ravaged by the heat and humidity.

I was tidying them up and deciding which ones to bring back to the states with me, and of course I can't help but flip through most of them and relive my childhood.

I found a few of the american comics I got actually have a few filipino artists in them doing pencil or inks. Which is an extra treat for me: I always feel like I never got influenced by the awesome filipino comic book artists when I was growing up, and I'm craving their stuff more and more as I get older.

Check these panels from Batman Year two, with Todd McFarlane penciling and Alfredo Alcala inking:

Great looking Alcala inking, giving a very solid, gritty feel to McFarlane's pencils

Check out the awesome hatchwork that's a nice contrast to the graphic looking Batman in panel 1

 When I was young and stumbled onto this book, I had already seen McFarlane's Spider-man run before it. I remember not liking Alcala's inks because I was an Image zombie. Now that I'm older I realize I was a total idiot. Haha! I like how 'crime-booky' Alcala's inks did to the pencils and it fits the story pretty well. And hey, Alfredo Alcala is always awesome.

Switching gears, check out this awesome panel I stumbled onto, flipping through The Vision and Scarlet Witch #8:

That could be the best comic book sound effect ever. Gonna have to steal it!

That sound effect elicited a loud chuckle from me when I saw it! The title is also very Powerman appropriate! That's it for tonight in the PI! God Bless and a belated Happy New Year and hope you guys had a, as Powerman would say: 'Sweet Christmas'! 

What??!!

I was flipping through a recent Superman compilation book that was given to me as a birthday gift (well, it's an early present), and saw this image and wanted to share.

Too awesome.

The book is called Superman from the 30's to the 70's. It's a good compilation of work, mostly in black and white, but it doesn't list out the writers or artists of the issues reprinted. Or even which issue was reprinted, so unfortunately I can't give credit where credit is due. The story, from what I can tell is called "Superman: Our first imaginary story." At least in the splash panel's lettering. In the caption on that same panel it says: "Read the adventures of 'superman, matinee idol'..."

Anyway! Just thought to share what I thought was a cool sequence.

My Comic Book: Page 17 final colors

Just finished up this page!

Final colors

I originally intended the last panel to be a totally monochromatic orange color since it seemed to really emphasize the action. But while coloring, I found that because of the way I composed it, it would still work even if the only thing orange was the background. The green colors from the panel next to it seemed to help connect the action just as well.

Christmas is coming soon, so I think my output will probably have to slow down. Good night and God Bless! The Neverending battle continues! 

My Comic Book: Page 17 WIP colors

Quick post tonight. Just blocked in the basic colors for this page.

Blocked in colors

A lot of the color scheme's already been figured out in my previous pages, so I just dialed this one in. Next step will be to add shadows and speed lines to help focus some of the important stuff going on in the panels.

My Comic Book: Page 16 final colors

Finished up the colors for page 16.

Work in progress

Final colors

I've been going bonkers on the coloring lately, ie. adding a lot of detail using color. So much in fact that I had to go back to some pages and tone down some things (some of my clouds are looking a little 'poofy' instead of angular for example). I have to remember to try to keep the detail simple and keep the look of the book uniform. This page helped me try to figure out that balance a little bit.

The large solid areas for color are tempting me to fill it up with color effects, it's really tough to resist the urge. Anyway, that's it for tonight... er... this morning! Good morning and God Bless!

A ninja-shirt-birthday for my wife

Taking a break from coloring, I created a little design that I got printed onto a shirt using cafe press. I knew I wanted to draw her ninja persona from my wedding proposal comic around a year ago, but I honestly didn't know what kind of composition to go for. Here are some of my thumbnails trying to figure it out.

Preliminary sketches: I went with 3 one on the top row.

Still not really knowing a design, I went ahead and inked the character and tightened it up. I started trying to draw some tree by her feet in this weird 'fish eye like' perspective, but it wasn't working. It was too busy and called a lot of unnecessary attention to itself, and when you did look at it, you had no idea what it was supposed to be!

So then I started coloring in the figure and started putting a flatter background design. Just simple colors so the heaviest blacks (the character) would stand out. Also I opted not to tilt her in this composition. The tilt was just me trying to make a confused layout more interesting.

I was getting somewhere at this point but it just wasn't enough. The cherry blossoms and stars just just seemed so... loose. The pieces just weren't fitting together. After a lot of messing around, I found the best answer, was of course, the simplest one. I added the branches of the cherry blossom tree to ground the composition.

It's not perfect, but definitely better than what I was initially going for. It took a lot of me really messing around, but I got it done to a state I'd be satisfied with to present to my wife. I sent it off to cafe press and ordered it onto a tank top.

The color came out a lot more faded and a lot more CMYK-y than I'd like. Still the print version has a certain charm to it. The design's a lot lower on the shirt than I wanted too. Anyway, the wife loved it when I gave it to her! And that's all that counts right?

The Bomb Squad update: I've finished coloring page 14 of the book, and I'm onto page 15. I'll try to do another update soon. Good night and God Bless.

My Comic Book: page 12 and 13 final colors

That Flu really kicked my butt. Been out of commision for so long, but now I've decided to just push myself to just get this spread done. I'm still not 100% but I'm good enough to finish up these pages. There are still a few things I'd like to mess with on the colors for this spread, but I really need to move on.

I had a more monochromatic scheme for the panels on the bottom, but adding a few splashes of color helps it along a bit without taking away from the main image.

My plan is to finish coloring the remaining pages by the end of the year. I'm not sure if I'll make it, but I certainly won't do it by nit picking everything to death! Onto page 14! Good night and God Bless!

My Comic Book: Page 12 and 13 colors WIP (round 2 and 3)

 Still plugging away on these pages. Caught a pretty bad bug (and still recovering), so I was out of commision for 6 days.

Going for simpler color scheme initially...

...but I seem to be headed for something more colorful...

I had wanted to keep the colors simple, but the more I kept working on it, the more I felt the building also needed color. It needed presence, to make it have more importance. I mean it is the thing the Bomb Squad's trying to save for an issue and a half now, right? Not quite done with the faces on the bottom, and not really sure about their color scheme either yet. I'll figure that out next time... the Neverending Battle continues! Good night and God Bless!

My Comic Book: Page 12 and 13 colors WIP

Not much color going on in this spread, but believe it or not I've spend a lot of time trying to figure out how this page will work!

It's still not quite how I'd like this color scheme to turn out, but I think I like how the bright yellow "EEEEE"  lettering is working with the red and blue.

My Comic Book: Page 11 Final colors

Finally finished up this page.

Aaaand, onto the double page spread (gulp)!

My Comic Book: Page 11 WIP Colors part 2

Did I even do any work??

Slowly, but surely! The battle continues to never end...

My Comic Book: Page 11 WIP colors

Just clocking in a Work In Progress colors page for page 11 of the book.

Fairly straightforward coloring this time around... keeping the colors relatively simple compared to the past two pages. Okay I gotta sleep now...

My Comic Book: Page 9 final colors

When I laid down these colors, I thought it was too nutty. Usually when that's the case I walk away and then when I come back to a page, I realize it's not THAT crazy. That didn't quite happen for this page! It still makes my eyes bug out when I look at it.

But I think that's a good thing. This page is meant to be a big punch in the face when the reader gets to it. I'm not quite sure how the final print color will look like, but one thing at a time right?

Onwards to page 10! And the neverending battle continues! God Bless and Good Morning (and what a really nice morning it is from South San Francisco!).