Starting Again

It was my birthday earlier this week (on the 10th of December) and one of the gifts I received was a sketchbook. With that sketchbook, I've decided to use it for thumbnailing my comic pages. I thought it would be nice to have a focused place to have all my thumbnail drawings, and I guess it'd be cool to flip through all the work once I've got a decent amount of pages filled.

This was from one of my aunts on my dad's side

I'm starting with my 'Gone Unsupervised!' project, of course. I'll show the thumbnails I've done for one short here. It won't be a huge spoil since this one is a remake of an already existing short, so enjoy!

Although, I do feel like that before I actually get started on drawing the actual comic itself, I should set up the character reference sheets and make some concept art for the house that the characters live in, too. 

I should've drawn up everyone's shoes in the lineup, but whatever...

Maybe I should do concept art as I go, as in: before anything new shows up, I'll do the concepts for them, rather than doing everything all at once. It might make the pace of creating this project much faster, but I don't know how well this might work in the long-run. Maybe because this is a more slice-of-life project, it won't be too harmful.

In the meantime, for 'Project: Mydan', I'm just working on its story and characters, still.

Those are what I have planned to do for now.

Process of drawing 12F.Ave's lineup

As pasted from my logs on my art Tumblr.

Day 1

Here we have sketches of the first four. (I actually changed French’s pose a little since I took the pic). Maybe I should make everyone’s posture as straight as possible so their heights are more accurate…

Day 2

Sketches of the second four are now here!

Fixed up some of the first four’s poses to have them be standing more straight so their heights are more accurate, too. Also wow, I did not know how actually tall some of these guys were. (The final four of the house actually contain the most middle-heightened people in this group, haha)

Day 3

The sketches of the final four are complete! (Thinking about giving 2.0 & Barley some more height, tho. I dunno, yet)

Here’s how the whole lineup’s looking so far…

Also, here’s some context for the heights (that blue rectangle is a 30cm ruler, btw)

Attempting 'Gone Unsupervised!'

Because of all the plot stuff I'm still working on with Project: Mydan, I'm going to be drawing up another project in the meantime. That comic project is titled 'Gone Unsupervised!', which follows the more humorous scenarios experienced by these twelve weird teenagers who all live in the same house.

I don't really have a title design for this, yet

The twelve began as a group of characters I created when I was twelve, and at around that time I had no friends in school, so I used those characters as a way to cope. They've stuck by my side all throughout high school (and I have great friends now).

The comic format from 2020.
Also, notice its prototype title, 'No Adult Supervision!'
which I changed because it was too long.

Starting from 2020, I've actually tried making a comic strip series with them, but university got in the way and I didn't plan the whole proect out very well, so I stopped. I tried again to make a comic series with these guys back in 2022 and I stopped after one comic for all the same reasons.

The new attempt in 2022. I plan to divert from this style of
colouring when I draw it again, though.

It's nearing the end of 2025, and I'm also finished with uni, so now I have plenty of time to work on my projects again. I've also written a ton of scenarios for Gone Unsupervised!, which should keep me active for a while, and also, I'll have enough room to work on Project: Mydan in the meantime. 

When it comes to working on my projects, I plan to have two going on at the same time: 1) is something more narrative-focused, and 2) are more focused on small/simple scenarios and gags, without any big story or anything. My art style isn't too complex and I find it difficult to feel burnt out with my passions, so I think I'll be fine.

Subtle changing

When a character, place, or thing first appears outside of doodles and concept art, and into the canonical world that they're part in, it makes almost everything about them pretty much official. Even in my scenario, where I'm someone who's just making a casual webcomic project, I still feel that kind of pressure that everything seems all set in stone once something shows up in canon. 

However, as I'm making my comic, I notice that there are things that could have been done differently when I look back at the previous pages. There are things that I believe that I could have done better, so I try to change them

I can forgive myself because I'm working on my first webcomic project, but I have actually made some subtle changes to some certain elements. If you read Chapter 1, you may notice these if you pay attention. 

Take my my character Shashi, for example. He is Kamilla's cousin's son (AKA her second-nephew), who was introduced very early in the chapter. 

Here is what he looked like in his debut:

See all those stripes on his clothes...

And here is what he ended up looking like a few pages after:

Some of his outfit's colours changed for the sake of balance, too

Notice how I've removed some details on his clothers because I thought they were just too much of a hassle to draw.

Next, let's look at the colours of Kamilla's day outfit. Here is her first appearance wearing it:

A few pages later, you'll see how there have been some slight shifts in brightness, hue, etc.

Here is a comparison so you can see...

I just wasn't exactly as to how overly bright it was before, and wanted to create a better balance in her colour palette. 

You'll notice that this doesn't just applies to characters, but the background, too. You'll see how, with the art style, I'm still trying to figure out what direction that I want to go. I want to be able to make the process quick, but also appear well with the subjects.

And just recently, the colours of the speech bubbles and thought clouds have changed from white to a light yellow-brown colour just in case I would need the colour white to appear brighter if the future ever calls for it. Also, some lettering has been written by hand to create a stronger effect, if needed. 

Maybe this is a regular thing only for now. And maybe this will start to lessen once I become better and more decisive when it comes to making designs for my comics. It doesn't bother me at the moment, but I hope this will come to an end eventually.

Doodling without sketching

Recently, I've discovered a skill that I want to put in a lot of my time and dedication into. And that skill is being able to draw my characters without there needing to draw a detailed sketch underneath. 

In other words, I want something like a "dumbed down" version of my art style so that I can quickly make little comic strips and shorts. This would especially be useful for if the comic is just a small scenario, usually for some quick laughs or for just to tell a moment.

Here are some of my attempts:

A dynamic pose

I may include "noodle arms" on occasion

This skill of drawing with minimal sketching should also be able to help me in creating strong character design, too. If I have too much detail in a character, I would either forget to include them or I would struggle to add them without having to erase what goes underneath it. This is especially useful because in comics, I would have to keep drawing the same characters over and over. 

It was actually only not too long ago when I realised I could apply drawing without sketching to my art. At the time of writing this post, my current media of interest is the TV series, We Bare Bears. This series was my main motivation to practice the skill.

We Bare Bears by Daniel Chong

I was looking at the art style used to draw the bears themselves and I noticed how simplistic yet strong and memorable they were. Eventually, I doodled them on paper and I loved how easy it was. 

I eventually found the webcomic that inspired We Bare Bears: "The Three Bare Bears" and this was the hammer to the nail. I want to make dumb little comics, but I don't want to have to put as much time and effort into them as my more ambitious projects. This was the inspiration of the motivation.

The Three Bare Bears webcomic by Daniel Chong

I'll wish myself luck!

Drawing backgrounds

For some time, I've been trying to figure out how to draw backgrounds with detail, but at the same time, make them quick and easy to draw. 

There's a technique that I noticed in some cartoons where detailed backgrounds are painted with an "imperfect" sort of feel to it. The lines are mostly loose. The colours focus more in lighting & shadows, sometimes not even in line with the lineart. The main subjects are drawn normally with minimal shading and details. See what I mean, here. 

I kind of took some inspiration from that. I found that painting areas where there would be a lot of detail was a lot quicker and efficient than drawing every detail in the picture. I also found that painting with a more transparent brush that mimics how pain works in real life was quicker than cel shading because I could be looser and more laid-back.

Money ($$$) commissions?!

For months I've been thinking about opening up commissions where I get payed actual real money. I guess it's about time I started earning money since I've been officially an adult for a couple years now. At the moment, I'm unemployed, pretty much flat-our broke, so I've been doing a lot of job-hunting recently. But since that's going to take a while, I may as well earn some extra bucks on the side by starting to do some commissioned art.

Before I start though, I want to prepare myself a portfolio, just so I can let people know the kind of art that they're in for if they request something from me. Right now, I doubt I have much relevant art I could use for examples, so I'm creating some in my free time. But, I've been kind of slacking off in that aspect... On the bright side, my uni's mid-semester break's coming real soon so I could spare some time to work on that.

Here are some examples I'm planning on doing. I hope I'm not really overdoing myself, but since my art is more suited for comics & stuff, I've got the advantage of getting this done a lot faster than most. Anyways, here's the list: