Side by Side 4

The original Bolt page 4.

The Electrifying Bolt - Page 6

The Electrifying Bolt- Page 7

What a hectic year 2016 was! Hence a big gap between these instalments of side by side or "Why am I showing you this?' 

Once again the new version is a little extended with poor Bolt getting another whack for his "witty" remarks. In the original 4B2 (as he was then known) mysteriously spins the Bolt's energy "thingos" into energy balls. I went with a bit more hi-tech approach for the remake. Not sure that it was the right choice.

New improved dialogue provided by Michael Stoneburner. His version of Bolt has a lot more confidence than the original ... or is that overconfidence? Tune in next time to find out!

Adventures in colouring: I get by with a little help from my friends

As mentioned in earlier posts, The Bolt was an experiment in digital comic making. Not only was it a big learning curve producing an entire comic digitally I decided the Bolt would be colour. As I was drawing my comics for years, it never occurred to me that I may need to colour my comics. The Aussie comics I read growing up were all black and white (with 1 or 2 exceptions that cost a lot more to buy) and I liked black and white art work. I've often said your imagination colours the page anyway. I look at the colour versions of Bone (which I collected in black and white) and felt the art was made for black and white not colour. The colour revealed "flaws" that you didn't notice earlier, such as unfinished backgrounds to ensure the characters remain prominent in the foreground.

Besides, I naively thought a colourist would arrive out of the ether to do that dirty work. Pffft. Yeah right. Ah but that's the beauty of actually printing your comics and no longer dreaming of "the day". Printing The Adventurers 1- 4, it became clear that a solely black and white comic had it's work cut out to compete with others. In fact the primary critique I got from people was "Are you gonna colour it?"

As my formative years were influenced by classic Aussie Black and white comics I can say that colour theory/appreciation is a whole new paradigm of seemingly endless combinations.  Thanks to Cara (and her endless patience to my constant requests for tips and feedback) and online tutorials I was starting to get some of the basics down. But what about special effects? I couldn't find any way to make The bolts sparks have that glow that I know was part and parcel of modern comic colouring.

I had started this on Manga Studio 5 and was determined to only have to use the one program to create my comics. However, tutorials on using Manga Studio 5 are far fewer than on using photo shop. 

I was getting desperate. I put the call out to Mike Perry a fellow comic maker I follow on Twitter.  Thankfully, Mike Perry answered the call. He emailed me a tutorial he made to just show me how to give objects a glow! I still am in awe that he would go to that effort to help. Mike has been at this comic game for a while and I have always enjoyed his art. He is great at drawing comedy and never fails to make me chuckle. In fact I tried to channel my "inner Mike" for a panel in the Bolt. Mike's latest Mario inspired project can be enjoyed here: awesomeantonio.com 

Digital Adventures

It's been quite a while since my last post. There are two reasons; one is that it is hard to put up many images from The Adventurers issue 4 as I don't want to run the risk of spoiling any surprises. The other is I admit I have been a little distracted by what was originally meant to be a side project.

Over the last year I have slowly developed more skill with digital drawing. In order to improve and hopefully speed up my process as a result, I decided to revive an old character and redraw an old story I did while in my late teens. The idea is to see if I can complete a comic completely digitally.

The character is known as The Electrifying Bolt and here is the first completed, colour picture of The Bolt in many years (or possibly ever). He is a really fun character to draw. I know Mike Stoneburner finds him fun to write as well. He helped me tweak some gags from the original story and Mike and I have shared many laughs just throwing around ideas for origin/future adventures of The Bolt over the phone. Hopefully you'll be laughing out loud at his (mis)adventures soon as well.

The Electrifying Bolt flies again and yes... that background character is wearing a suit made entirely of wood.