Prestidigitation

Whee, J16 strikes again! The first sketch is for DarkMousy, who wanted to see the intrepid Adelbart de Poncerton interact with Gauth in some way:

I figure this took place shortly before Page 100.

Awesome concept suggested by Catherine, for the 2011 TM holiday sketch:

“How about Santa Jen being pulled in her sleigh by Henson, Kiku, Bob and Joe?”

Yep, there was pretty much no way I could avoid drawing that.

Happy holidays, guys! <3

(AKA “How to Cheat at Webcomics”)

Just for fun, here are some progress shots from the last panel of Page 150, along with a few tips for being lazier more efficient about drawing:

(Larger version here.)

Step 1: Google SketchUp! Very fun to play around in. Best thing ever when you don’t want to figure out environment perspective and proportions from scratch in every panel.

Step 2: MyPaint! Free and open source. Inking is so much faster and easier here than in Photoshop, it isn’t even funny. Try the Ico_Precise_Pen_02 brush (in the Ink set) with a boosted radius. You can even zoom way out to ink a long line, and when you zoom back in, the line will be perfectly smooth. ♥ So good.

Step 3: Photoshop Actions = Win. Flat fills take about one minute per panel once you have a good select->expand->fill Action set up (assuming you’ve closed most of your lines).

Step 4: I haven’t figured out how to cheat at this part yet. Any suggestions?