Aztecs Revised: Part 2

This round, I focused on making the lead lizard-man stand out a bit more.  At the very least, I wanted to continue experimenting with the coloring throughout the page.

In the first panel, I added some of the ground color to his back and added some reflected light to his arm. In the second and third panels, I covered him with some of the sky color. Even then, I feel like the lizard-man with the "hook/sickle"-like weapon wound up taking over the third panel.  It's mostly because I made the cave area darker. That's the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. All the lizard-men kinda pop better now, but I think I like the bright red dirt in the old version better.

As if I wasn't indecisive enough, THIS happened when I was messing around with layering effects.

I really like the contrast going on there, but I can't figure out how to replicate it without the green (which helps give it that glow). It has such a soft painterly look to it. Maybe I can keep some green around their bodies and blacken out the cast shadows. If I brought back the redness in the soil, that would compliment the green.

Hmmm. I don't know what I'll do.

Now, here I pretty much did what I said I was in the previous Aztec post. I brought a  little yellow back to the lizard-men in the second panel, added some value to the third panel, a gradient to the fourth. I decided to throw in that same gradient color to the first panel to tie the whole thing together. A big change I made was brightening up the glow in the second panel. I'm still iffy about that decision. I don't want the values to get too overbearing.  I'll keep playing around with everything and see where it goes.

Aztecs Revised

It's been a while since the last time I worked on these, so I decided pick 'em back up. I was originally just going to work on page 2 today, but as I was playing around with the color, I thought of some edits for page 1.

First off, I noticed that the orange and teal where waaay too dark in both pieces, so I lightened them up. Then I gave the lead lizardman some abstract reflected light. For more "pop", I varied up the colors in the 2nd panel and spread around the sky color in the 3rd. I'm only just now discovering how much some sutble gradiants can add.

And now page 2.....

I'm actually not done with this yet, but you can see that I'm trying to be more effective with the lighting. I can't believe it never accured to me to make the lizardmen in the back lighter. It looks a lot better. I haven't quite decided if I'm going to colorize their contour lines, or keep them black.

Speaking of contour lines, I touched those up here and there (mostly just in panel 1).

I want to keep the last two panels pretty monotone. In panel 3, I'll just add some flat value to enhance the forground and background. In panel 4, I might just drop in some slight gradiants.

Though I'm going against the cardinal rule of "powering through with no backtracking", I'm glad I re-thought my approach with pages 1&2. I'll have a better idea of how to handle the coloring of 3 & 4. It'll be good to have these pages completed. Not only to I want to finish the story, but I'm itching to do some new pages and gauge my artistic growth. These pages were drawn 2 years ago.

Aztec Comic Page 2

I started blocking in some colors and values for the 2nd page. I was going to wait until I'd done some values for the bottom panels, but I went ahead with the post anyway. I'm considering leaving the bottom left panel flat with very minimal values. Most of the page is already so dark so dark.

As you can see, I now have a logo in place for Empty Jar. It's kinda of a prototype, but It'll do for now.

Moar Comic Coloring

I did this over 2 weeks ago and haven't really gotten the chance to do much for it since then. It's a rough pass of tones and color detail. It's primary what the finished version of this page will look like.

Aztec Pages

aHey, hey! I found the rest of the Aztec Pages! You know I spent a ridiculous amount of time looking for the files I had saved on disc before I finally remembered that I had them saved on gmail.

Derp.

Never-the-less, here's the pages. Depending upon how well my coloring venture goes on the first page, I'll do these next.


All those waves are from the tracing paper I inked these on. In retrospect I should have used vellum. Maybe I could find any. I don't remember. Perhaps I thought vellum was too opaque to see the pencils.

Filler Update Part II

I began doing a color test for that comic I did about Coatlicue, the Aztec Serpent goddess. I've only blocked in the basic palette so far.

While that's in progress, I might as well post the other three pages. I wanted to wait until the anthology I submitted it to got released, but what the hell. Whenever I find the scans I'll put them up.

At long Last! A new post!

I've been in the process of renting an apartment, so I been preoccupied lately. I've signed the lease and everything, so by July 11th I should be moved in. Once that happens productivity should shoot up. I'll finally be alone to spent as much ungodly time on my personal projects as I want. That is, of course whenever I'm not working. By July 15th I'll be starting my full-time job as production artist at Anthem Design Group. So far I've only been contracting for them (sprite work, animating, low-poly modeling, and a little illustrating). I'll be doing more of the same, plus learning a little programing.

Now, without further ado, here's that revised 1st page of that Aztec comic I promised. I'll be letting you know whenever the anthology book is available.

Page 1 Inking Draft

Alrighty, here's the inked version of those pg 1 pencils I put up earlier. It kind of a rough draft since I have quite a bit of photoshop editing to do on it. I have to finish some tones here and there, adjust some of the line weights, and make that foliage look a little better.

All the others are done as well, but as a said before, I'd like to keep the rest of the story a surprise for anyone buying the book. You can see last years edition of the anthology I'm submitting this to here. http://groups.msn.com/awertystudio

ComicWIP

Well here's a sample from that sequential project I've been talking about. It's a short story loosely based around the legend of Coatilicue, the Aztec serpent goddess. I'm doing it for "Inkased", an annual anthology book comprised of SCAD student work. Since my entry will only be about four pages, I'll only post a sample of first page rather than my original intention of two. I'd have also liked to post all my thumbnails and sketches, but I only have those for pages 2-4. I don't want to ruin anything, so I'll post them up after the book comes out later this year.