chronin

I’m going to be using dip pens for a small side project,...

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:43:48 -0500

I’m going to be using dip pens for a small side project, but I was REALLY out of practice. This page was both a warm-up exercise and an excuse to draw Mirai and Kako in a different medium than usual!

Man, drawing a whole comic page ON PAPER…crazy!

It’s been a little quiet over here while I figure out...

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:52:00 -0500

It’s been a little quiet over here while I figure out what’s next for this book. But Chronin is still taking up a huge portion of my brain, even as it waits for the next step!

Here’s a sketch I did in Paper on my iPad over the holiday, to break the radio silence! It was getting a little intimidating….

Site redesign! Hooray! CSS by The Sockdolager, who is the...

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 09:31:10 -0400

Site redesign! Hooray!

CSS by The Sockdolager, who is the greatest.

I had to kill some time at Tekserve today, so I played around...

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 22:48:03 -0400

I had to kill some time at Tekserve today, so I played around with one of their giant Cintiqs and ended up with a sketch I really liked!

I emailed it to myself and used it for iPad painting practice. Picked up a stylus a couple days ago and it’s helped a lot with the detail work.

Finger-sketching Mirai on my iPad while I wait for Photoshop to...

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 23:47:43 -0400

Finger-sketching Mirai on my iPad while I wait for Photoshop to crunch through huge batches of finished pages.

Sometime tomorrow I’ll be sending PDFs out to a few friends for proof reading before moving on to the next stage of trying to get this book out the door. Exciting stuff! Also pretty nerve wracking!

bybystarlight: Yup. :/ Replace “hours” with...

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:59:32 -0400

bybystarlight:

Yup. :/

Replace “hours” with “years.”

ACCURATE.

Toning continues. Man, I hope people other than me like how this...

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 22:57:28 -0400

Toning continues. Man, I hope people other than me like how this is turning out!

Comics reading comics!

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 11:59:09 -0400

Comics reading comics!

Toning toning toning toning toning (I decided to keep it simple,...

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 11:46:00 -0400

Toning toning toning toning toning

(I decided to keep it simple, in the end. Everything else was too distracting and/or too time consuming. I liked this particular compromise of texture and simplicity.)

Mirai Yoshida, high school class of 2042, president of the...

Wed, 23 May 2012 16:23:00 -0400

Mirai Yoshida, high school class of 2042, president of the Japanese Pop Culture Club AND the Kendo Club, sporting an ironic tee shirt mashup of animated classic “Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann” and vintage Sarah Palin slogan, soon-to-be scholarship student at Columbia University’s Timetravel Studies Program with a concentration in East Asian History.

Tuesday morning eye rolls.

Tue, 22 May 2012 09:53:11 -0400

Tuesday morning eye rolls.

Tough conversations on a Saturday night. (16 more pages to...

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:16:36 -0400

Tough conversations on a Saturday night. (16 more pages to revise)

Studying. 15 minute, limited-palette speedpaint.

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:42:52 -0400

Studying.

15 minute, limited-palette speedpaint.

“My parents were hippies…” Context: Mirai,...

Sun, 13 May 2012 13:31:00 -0400

“My parents were hippies…”

Context: Mirai, or 未来, means “Future” in Japanese. When Kako asks why she has such a strange name, Mirai mutters the above line. Lucky for her, Kako is too polite to ask what a “Hippie” is.

All of this reminds me that I should probably design Mirai’s parents at some point.

Hmm.

(Another speedpaint, more like 20 minutes this time due to fussing, which I need to work on. :| )

10 minute limited-palette speedpaint. Going to try and do these...

Sun, 13 May 2012 12:38:00 -0400

10 minute limited-palette speedpaint. Going to try and do these every once in a while to loosen up.

Back from Florida. Drawing crowds of dudes.

Wed, 09 May 2012 16:42:39 -0400

Back from Florida. Drawing crowds of dudes.

comics comics comics

Tue, 08 May 2012 14:06:23 -0400

My friend, Liz, recently asked me to explain why I love working in comics, and the answer I came up with seemed like the sort of thing I should post here, too.

My schooling and my first job focused on animation, but over the years I’ve found myself more and more compelled by comics as a medium and as a career. With animation, you need an enormous amount of money and manpower to create anything longer than a couple of minutes, unless you’re willing to make some pretty serious artistic sacrifices. But with comics, one person with enough time on their hands can write and draw something like Bone, or Finder, or Strangers in Paradise — a sweeping, engrossing, gorgeous narrative that spans hundreds of pages. I read a comic like that, and I’m reminded that the only thing that’s standing between me and telling my own story is practice, patience and effort.

I like that feeling. It’s terrifying, but it’s pretty inspiring, too.

Commissioned the lovely and talented Emi to draw Mirai, and THIS...

Tue, 01 May 2012 17:49:09 -0400

Commissioned the lovely and talented Emi to draw Mirai, and THIS IS WHAT SHE SENT ME. <3

( Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my hearrrrrrrtttt….. *___________* )

Coworkers.

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:06:00 -0400

Coworkers.

Yeah, it’s been kind of a long week for everyone, Mirai.

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:14:27 -0400

Yeah, it’s been kind of a long week for everyone, Mirai.