I’m still here!

on September 27, 2025 at 1:36 pm

Okay, I’ve not posted in an age but I’m still here and I’ve been busy! Honest!

Issue #19 and #20 are now drawn and lettered and the shading worked out. I then switched over to Fenton Hud and worked on issue #4 and having got #13 pages in (13? Unlucky for some?) I realised I needed to take a step back as I work out the next few pages (I know where it’s going but really need to lay it out) so I’m back to doing the colouring on LatB.

Back when I started on issue #1 of the book I had some sketches of the main characters (some of which you can see in Volume #1 of the trade!) but when it came to colouring I had a sheet with each characters name and then the different colours beneath it.

Which… was fine but not 100% great as I still had to look at old panels to work out which colour block went where. Oh! Let me show you what some of it looked like!

So yeah, a whole page of these blocks? Not great. Also, over time I made slight changes to the characters looks (slight…. okay, in some cases A LOT) but with that as well I’d be looking back at old panels and seeing characters look different in some cases and this just confused me (and maybe even incorrectly draw new panels)!

I made the decision to go and sketch out each character fresh (their sized a bit dodgy but go with it!) and then actually point out the which colour goes where…

There’s going to be more pages as I bring in other characters and locations but this should really help me with getting the pages coloured quickly (and hopefully I’ll remember to post more of these panels as I go along!)

Soooo…… more soon! Bear hugs!

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Living the dream!

on May 10, 2025 at 12:05 pm

Okay, so go with me on this one! I went from doing issue #19 straight in to #20 as it was a two part story and I wanted to hold off doing the colouring for #19 until both books were done.

The big reason for this was in case I came up with something in issue #20 that would contradict #19 and I’ve have to go back and remove a panel that I’d already drawn, lettered and coloured. And good thing as I actually had to go back and change a panel

(Okay, there probably wasn’t a massive need to do this but Im being pig-headed and I really really REALLY wanted to prove myself right and it kinda made sense to do this! Anyways, so here’s the old and updated panel…

Now I know the old panel is a decent establishing shot with the background of some smashed up city buuuut the new panel has a circle thingy in the top right which will totally make sense in issue #20 and I wanted to have that wee bit of connectivity.

(Plus, I’ve done the ship landing shot before. Maybe even more than once…)

More soon! Bear hugs!

PS. I’ve still kept the old panel just on the chance that I need to use it at some point!

Is planning everything?

on March 22, 2025 at 6:01 pm

I mean, yes, yes it is. That being said…..

With issue #20 of Lloyd and the Bear it was my first panel introducing Grizzle’s ship and hey, I PLANNED. THIS. OUT. Like, I have angle shots from the front, side, other side, the interior…. okay, not ones from below or above but still, I planned but when it comes to drawing the first panel it still took tiiiiiime (backgrounds yet to be added later)

Is it just me or is this a thing for everyone?

(I really hope it’s not just me)

Okay, and with that self internalization panic I’m off (sorry, just wanted to share)

More soon! Bear hugs!

Whoops!

on March 11, 2025 at 8:06 am

So there was a time when working on Lloyd and the Bear that I use to go from really loose thumbnails to sketching out individual panels without seeing how the entire page looked until I put it all together (followed by some quick reworking of panels! D’oh!)

I’ve got better at taking my time and planning things out now but I recently lost some of my layout plans… until the other day when they were hidden away in a subfolder on my PC! So I’d already done a panel on one of the pages but wasn’t overly happy with it and then having found the original layout I went back and used that instead!

The top panel made it hard to fit in the speech bubbles I wanted to use and also it just didn’t look that interesting. Even though the new panel isn’t exactly dynamic I figure it flows better from the previous page.

I’ll keep the old panel in the hope of using it later in this issue but as everything if pretty much planned out I don’t think it’ll happen! Ah well!

Okay, on to the next panel of issue #20! More soon!

Bear hugs!

Update!

on March 3, 2025 at 7:30 am

Okay, it’s been a loooooong time since I did an update so here we go with me trying to make the most use of my time by doing a morning post before heading off to the day job!

So on Friday (before being away for the weekend) I finished the last ‘people’ panel of the book with this!

With this issue I’ve been doing things a bit different with first doing all the panels with our heroes and other people in them and then going back to do all the exterior panels AND THEN going back and doing the interior panels (which is why anything I’ve shown on social media lately looks a bit empty)

Why’d I do this? First I was still working on the design of some of the ships that show up in this book but I also wanted to get on and do some work. Secondly, I figured if I kept switching from doing pictures of our heroes and that to doing ships and buildings and what have you that over time people might look a bit different as my style evolves/changes.

So yeah, next ships, buildings and lots of Peow! Peow! Peow! Yay!

More soon! Bear hugs!