Blog
Two years of living Graphic Novelly – 5
One of the things that has been painful to learn was that the comic font that is standard with windows and Photoshop is not, I repeat, “not” a comic font. This is because of the way the capital “I” presents as a capital “I” whether in the middle of a word or at...
Two years of living Graphic Novelly – redux, Part 11
Using Sculpey for Character Development. For another animal character, I used sculpey for part of the modelling process. As this character was a rabbit and had long ears, clay did not work well for modelling that part of the head. The scupley, on the other hand was...
Two years of living Graphic Novelly – redux, Part 10
Using clay to model characters can be very useful for a number of reasons. I have been working on an animal character in my new book and wanted to have a more expressive face to show emotion on a more human level. As one of the characters is a cat, the eyes are...
Two years of living Graphic Novelly – redux, Part 9
As I am at the polishing stage of my manuscript, I have started the process of engaging a model to play the role of one of the main characters in my second graphic novel. In this case, a pre-adolescent child. I have been very fortunate to find a 12 year old who is...
Two years of living Graphic Novelly – redux, Part 8
I some ways I feel very lucky to be both writer and artist on my graphic novel projects. When writing I see the scenes in my mind and the movement of the characters in my mental visualization of the environment they occupy. I make notes along with the dialogue of the...
Two years of living Graphic Novelly – redux, Part 7
Where to ideas come from? I don’t know about you but I get my ideas for writing from visual images that make an impression on me or images that come to mind seemingly for no reason. For my first graphic novel, I had an image of a man in a desert with...
Two years of living Graphic Novelly – 6
Welcome to the world of self-publishing. Before moving on to my next novel, which is by the way, in first written draft and soon to be storyboarded (happy days - I can draw compulsively again), I wish to speak a little to my quest for...
Two years of living Graphic Novelly – 4
Part 4 The art of brushwork for those living Graphic Novelly. Computer graphic programs have added convenience by automating some steps in drawing and colouring that allow the artist to get on with the story. Some tricks that give you backgrounds, floors...
Two years of living Graphic Novelly – 3
Part 3 Using Sketchbook Pro and Adobe Photoshop CS6. There is so much to learn about using these programs at a professional level, but it is easy to get started with the basics and add on skills as you go. When I am doing my graphic novel work, I start...
Two years of living Graphic Novelly – 2
Part 2 Using live models and getting your drawing chops up to speed. I wish I could pretend that I knew a lot of this stuff all along, but alas, (reference steep learning curve mentioned earlier). I ended up quite early on deciding to use live models for...
Two years of living Graphic Novelly – 1
Part 1 Entering the Maelstrom a step at a time. My first graphic novel, The Oracles of the Dead, took me two years to write, draw, Photoshop and desktop publish in Indesign. I had retired from my life’s work as a psychologist and was bursting to get on...