Big things that make life a lot easier....

I am currently inbetween game projects (though I still need to do 40 illustration sketches till January for one) and work (a lot) more on Chubs. The final goal is so damn close I could literally touch it... if I didn't have to paint everything. But... oh well... some pages take longer... some don't.
At them moment I have one of those "1 week for one page" thingies and it keeps unnerving me.

Anyways... when we started a lot of things were unclear. I had a rough plan of the cats' house but the more pages Lew and I did the more complicated it got.
Where's that cupboard? Where's the desk? If I have bird perspective will it look good. Should I zoom in? I had to do a lot of corrections because while drawing I realized the perspective sucked. Or didn't look right.

We decided to use Sketch Up. Lew was so patient and constructed the house up from scratch (isn't she great?!). We based it on the logic of the first comic pages and ended up with a pretty weird house probably nobody would built like that but it's cozy and I'd totally move in (if the kitchen was bigger...). Having a rough construction helps A LOT. If you ever decide to do something longer with a lot of interaction in one place you might be interested in using the (free) Sketch Up as well.

I still have to draw everything (digitally) and add a lot of details but the base is always correct and we can move the angle till the view looks perfect. It won't safe that much time in the beginning but the more I work with those screenshots the more I love it. Sketch Up doesn't love us back and is buggy as hell but that's bearable.

Color and Fails...

I actually didn't really have any time to blog and dang, I thought I'd still have more of the fails on my computer but no... deleted in shame ;)

Anyways, this was one of the comic color schemes I got mad over. I wanted to achieve a warm summer evening scheme with a darker setting but everything I tried just looked muddy or too dark.
The problem with sunsets is that of course gras doesn't really look green anymore and all colors fade over to the yellowish-brown-muddy-something range.
But the real problem is: It just looks shitty.
I have no idea how Kazuo Oga manages to get those moods done but I decided to go the unrealistic but more appealing way. Sometimes you have to tweak it and god knows I wouldn't have liked a mud page. :/
The whole problem took 3 months to solve. Sometimes it's really the best to put the page away and start mulling over the problem again if you feel you finally have the nerves to work on it again.
But so much for realistic nature... no idea if it would have done any good to test out another scheme.

I wanted to write something about another more delicate topic but still after some weeks I can't figure out how to wrap it up, so just enjoy the weather (hopefully awesome) and have a wonderful week.

Boom & a comic you should read :)

for work.... I have no idea how long it took to make it. again it's just a detail but I love how that part turned out. Nearly done with 50% of the first work-part and the more I work on those the more excited I am.

And now the goodie part:

Some people might still know "Aishite Knight" (in Germany the anime series was streamed as "Rock'n Roll Kids"). :) I recently found the books and after thinking about it I instantly bought those. Good old times when TV was good and didn't show series just made to sell products.

The books are quite thick which means for only 9 Euros you'll get over 300 pages including two color pages and a really fancy cover I'll write some more about later. :D Anyways, the whole series is completed in 4 books. The only (possibly) bad thing is: it's in French. I have to admit my French was never close to being perfect and I've been out of school for over.. uh... 8 years now (omg...).
It doesn't mean you have to be scared. My french was "enough" to get through the books without too many question marks over my head and though I didn't get every single word it wasn't too bad.
Honestly I think I spend more time reading those than with any other book I read. ^^;
The story is basically the same as in the anime and I was excited to see Shella and his group again and of course Guiliano. Man, how I love the cat!

The style is quite old-fashioned but alas, the series IS old. But I have to admit that the quality of the pages is much better than I expected. Though stumbling over some odd mistakes no editor would forgive nowadays it's fluently and I enjoyed the different faces a lot. Kaoru Tada had the -also nowadays very rare- gift to make every character 100%ly unique and just for that the books are worth... the French. :)

What I was suprised about was the cover. It SPARKLES. A lot. It's impossible to take a picture of it but every cover is partially coated with glittering varnish and it's oddly veryyyyy cool. One thing I love about the French publications is that the publisher tend to make those worth everything. I wish some German publishers would do that as well. I still want a sparkle cover for Kulla. Really >_<

Anyways, "Aishite Knight" is published by Tonkam and can be found easily via Amazon. I hope some hearts will flutter now. Hurry and get yours! :)

Anne

Comics you should read...

are those of Lew.
follow the white rabbit

I love her comics. Not only because Hanni and Tretel (after the last week named "Hantje and Tretje"... since Hanni IS orange) got their very own comic :3

Snow Kitteh

Frank!

I guess it's always the same. Somethings goes totally wrong and you start screaming "XY, DO something!"
(German for beginners: "Mach was!"... that's what I scream... say... cry.. whatever).
Frank is Pong's dad. He sleeps a lot. Obviously.
The more comics I do the more I doubt it's funny. But I like Frank. He's so calm. I would like to be a bit more like Frank.