Dark Matter

Been sketching a spaceman character in my notebook. Really enjoying playing about with a sci-fi theme and thinking up ideas for a possible short film. Threw in some robots for good measure too.

Bloodwhat 1st Anniversary

That's right, Bloodwhat comic started exactly one year ago today! The very first post on the old wordpress site was 29th April '09 and I thought it would be a good idea to look back and see how far this strip has come.

Tommorow's update will be strip #150, and just this week I have finished writing the script to the final conclusion of the story. When I started out I was planning a series of animated shorts, but I soon decided to make a comic and never looked back.

Obviously the comic is based on a computer game and it is one that my brother and I would play over and over when we were younger. It still held it's appeal over the years and with PC emulators and PSP's we've always been drawn back into playing it again at some point. For some reason this game was just hugely immersive and addictive so I am very happy to have created this tribute in the form of parody. I would suggest anyone reading the comic should try to get a copy and play through it... although maybe it is one of those things that requires nostalgia.

This was the first ever strip

And this is the One Hundred and Forty Ninth!

I think my drawing has improved a lot, during the process of drawing the strip 3x a week I have simplified the characters and boiled down the designs to fewer and fewer lines. I think my storytelling has improved dramatically too. I am now building up longer storylines that will unfold over the next few weeks. It is a gag strip and I try to make it funny every update but sometimes I like to break up the pacing and try something different. In #149 for instance there isn't a punchline at all, but it is building up a recurring story with Murlack having found a walkthrough guide to the game. I think when I eventually compile all these strips into a book it will be a very satisfying read through and that has always been my end goal.

I have learned a lot from making this strip, I often hear the advice handed out to create something that you would want to see... This without doubt is purely something I am doing for my own amusement and it seems like a few people might be enjoying it with me.

If you would like to leave Bloodwhat a birthday wish by leaving a comment or sending me an email I would really appreciate the support. dougwilson83(at)hotmail(dot)com

Read a years worth of comics here!

Promo Postcards

Here's the final designs for the free giveaway postcards I'm taking to the comic convention next month. I think it is a cool enough image that people will want to keep it and then it has two sample comics on the back which should appeal to everyone. I was very conscious of wanting to put the most accessible strips on the promo material. I ordered 100, I've no idea if that's enough but going to my first convention is all going to be a bit of a guessing game.

Haven't been blogging much of anything lately. Lots going on behind the scenes but haven't been drawing stuff that I can post yet, it's all very hush hush. Also busy with the webcomics. This was a kind of mood board for a sports comic freelance pitch. Didn't get it, but I like some of these.

K-9Lives - Animation production

I've been working for a few days on stage 2 of my independant animation career, making an animated short from my comic K-9Lives. I always planned to make this as an animation and saw the comic as a good way to storyboard it. There are a few ideas that I couldn't put into the comics as I set myself a strict structure of telling a story over one week (5 panels). Above is a background for one of the new elements in the story.... An exterior shot of the Animal Shelter. This gives you an idea of the style of the short.

This is a frame from the animation, as you can see I'm not using the same inking style as the comic... that's because I'm not inking it at all. I'm animating the whole thing in pencil on my lightbox.... and in scene's like this where there is action and fast pace I am using a very sketchy fast paced drawing style. I absolutely love seeing construction lines and the hand of the artist in animation so all those bits will be left in too. I came across a problem when I animated reservoir reindeers, when importing into toon boom (my animation software) I lost the aesthetic quality of the pencil line. Fortunately I've caught that problem and changed my process a bit. The plus side of this approach is that I can animate at a very fast pace. After about 5 days of production I have just over 1 minute done. The short is probably going to be about 2-3minutes in total length so I should be able to get it done and send it off to festivals in January.