oh, it’s just our town zombie. no worries
perfectly good door! right there! waiting for you!
I foolishly thought that this was the debut of the brick-pattern trick in the first panel, but on further researching I found it goes all the way back to #178. What I came to learn is that it’s entirely possible to give texture to a surface you’re drawing by simply doing bits and pieces of that texture here and there, then letting the brain fill in the rest. That way I can have, for instance, a brick wall without having to draw each brick. It’s hugely time-saving and it gives some variety to comics that are otherwise set in a vague, abstract whiteness. (Like most of the first year.)
I’m fairly certain I learned this from the work of Mike Mignola, who is like this black-belt-level-40 Master of Texture. That guy throws down a line and a couple of dots and hey presto, it’s an ancient, rough-hewn stone wall. [November 16, 2011]
Over the next un-specifiable amount of time, you may notice (and possibly already have noticed) the comic go through some visual adjustments. Do not panic. Interesting Times is simply going through a transitional phase to some new software/brush styles within said software.
If you find the changes too disturbing, find a cool, dark place, curl into a ball, and breathe deeply. Focus on a relaxing image, possibly something happy from your childhood. Do this for as long as you see necessary.
cheer up, Chris Martin
The Photoshop era begins here! In the wake of the collapse of Corel Painter X, which I used up until the comic just before this one, I needed something else to draw on. So I downloaded another “extended trial”…okay, yes, “pirated” if you prefer, of Photoshop CS3. It worked marvelously well out of the box. Actually, for quite a while I held that the Photoshop-era comics had my favorite line style ever.
I should try and explain that. Over the years I’ve spent a surprising — or possibly not surprising — amount of time fretting over exactly how I want my lines to look. In real life, I like drawing the best with a regular Sharpie marker, like the kind that people use to label their burned DVDs of Buffy or whatever. With those I can skip between light touches for detail and bold, thick strokes for bodies and otherwise. They’re not super hard on the edges, and if used properly the very ends of strokes can be pleasingly tapered.
The challenge, once I got an actual art tablet rather than a finicky touch-screen, has been to try and emulate the look of a sharpie drawing. And as a matter of fact the Photoshop era probably comes closest. But looking at them now, they actually seem too fuzzy, almost out-of-focus compared to my current work. There are still some things I like but I tended to aim for the “thick” side of things and I’m glad I reined that in. (Who knows, give it time and I’ll probably be saying the exact opposite again) [November 16, 2011]
can’t think of any off the top of my head, but still
Whoa, sudden style change! Thanks to the History page which I’m sure nobody reads, I can explain!
The tablet came with Corel Painter Essentials 2, which was just a thing to let you fiddle around with painting digitally. The “Essentials” part of the name meant that it was actually lacking a bunch of features of its big brother, and recognizing that, I eventually acquired an “extended trial” of the full Corel Painter X. *cough*.
Okay, cards on the table, I actually downloaded it without paying. I pirated it, to use the parlance of our times. And it worked great! If you’re looking over the comics you will probably notice changes in the line styles — thicknesses, softness of the edges, that sort of thing — every time I make a transition.
What happened is that I foolishly tried to download an update for my pirated software, and that update irrevocably broke it altogether. I was in a bind and still wanted to make sure I wrote a comic, so for one night only I switched to classy old Paint.NET. It actually doesn’t look too terribly out of place. [November 16, 2011]
the studying’s not going so great, no
webcrawler never had that kind of ubiquity
On Sunday mornings I’ve been reading mildly silly “Life Stories” to kids at my church. In the latest story, the Doodad Gang (a bunch of kids that help out this famous crimefighter named Detective Doodad) discovered the villain’s secret lair by simply searching for his profile information online.
Ready? I CALLED IT. [November 16, 2011]
bonus question: where do they all come from??
comics tomorrow. Friday. today? whatever. I broke my painter program a little and I’m not thinking clearly enough right now to be able to fix it. please wait patiently by a radio or television for further instruction. Be patient, be safe.