For reals! I have an idea for an ongoing comic! And it’s not just a comic about me talking about how someday I’m going to make a comic. It’s called the Moose Rider!

I’m actually pretty excited about it. It’s the clearest idea I’ve had for a comic yet. I’ve got an outline and everything. It’s got a beginning, a solid concept for the middle, and I’ve got a really good idea of how it’ll end. The middle has some flexibility built into it so I can tell the story for as long as it makes sense and the mythology doesn’t get too muddied and/or nonsensical.

Contrary to what’s stated in the comic above, the Moose Rider isn’t a Dark Tower rip-off, but I’m “reading” the series right now, and I know it’s been a big influence. Please call me out on it if you think I’m borrowing too liberally.

So here’s my critique of the Eureka! comic…

Panel One
It’s okay. Jeff should be more happy, I think. That arm’s not my best work, and something’s up with the left eye. You should probably see at least a hint of his upper teeth, right? Also, I need to come up with a cartoon ear that I like — not quite there yet, but I don’t hate these. I do like the coloring — I think it makes the drawing look a lot better than it really is. Is the “Oh Really?” dialog too low? I tried moving it up, but I didn’t like how it blocked the arm.

Panel Two
I’m pretty happy with the coloring throughout this strip. Jeff’s face… I don’t think that expression, whatever it’s supposed to be, can be done in real life. Somehow his neck is half again as big, which doesn’t make sense because this is pretty much the same angle as the first panel. Also, that arm must belong to someone else or he’s got an extra elbow. I like the hand, but it needs a little better line quality — they’re all almost the same thickness.

Panel Three
I like the hands in this panel. The expression doesn’t really convey the feeling I was going for with the dialog. I probably should have drawn it for the last two lines, but instead, it doesn’t really go with any of them.

Writing
I think it’s funny. Although now that it’s done, I’m totally second-guessing it. Here’s a link if the Liefeld name means nothing to you. I get some grief about not drawing feet, but that’s not why I’m putting snow in the story… well, maybe it has a little to do with it.

Moose Craps is a game that my friend Jimi taught me how to play.

Well, actually, he taught me how to play Racing Horses, but then I “put [my] moose shit all over it.” Anyway, whatever you call it (please call it Moose Craps), it’s a fun, family-friendly (as long as your family likes to gamble) game that’s easy to learn.

Here are the rules. I ‘spose you don’t need to buy an Official MelloMoose Moose Craps Game Poster — you can make your own with some poster board, a ruler and a Sharpie (or print the attached image) — but, I mean, just look at the majesty of the OMMMCGP. And just think how much more fulfilling your gameplay will be with one lovingly framed and laid out on your coffee table (don’t forget the MelloMoose coffee cup betting pot for maximum majesty).

click to embiggen

]]> http://mellomoose.com/doodles/doodles-penguin-v-monster/feed/ 1 http://mellomoose.com/comics/replacement-penguin/ http://mellomoose.com/comics/replacement-penguin/#comments Tue, 10 May 2011 00:01:00 +0000 MelloMoose http://mellomoose.com/comics/replacement-penguin/

I’m hoping this one makes sense and is funny, because I made it for work.

In the real world, I’m a recruiter for an engineering consulting firm.  This exchange, except for maybe the third panel, is not unusual (I have been threatened with replacement by a monkey, but not a penguin with superpowers).

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This is Bob Knarley, bassist, theremin-ist and producer for Dread Zeppelin.  He’s an awesome musician, makes some really cool guitars and is an all-around nice guy.

Do yourself a favor and catch a Dread Zeppelin show sometime.  These guys are great musicians and great performers.

Also, check out some of my other artwork inspired by Dread Zeppelin in this gallery.

I’m running a fair number of plugins, so I thought that might be part of the problem.  Turning them all off trimmed about 10mb, so I’m still running bloated.

Anyway, I’m turning the site back on, minus a few plugins.  You may notice a couple glitches in the theme — I lost some formatting when I updated ComicPress and WordPress.

I’ll be posting two galleries tonight; one’s a miscellaneous gallery of finished art and the other is/will be an aggregate of all the “Doodles”.

The comic is…  I’m not real sure what I want to do with it.  I want to do something, but I haven’t been able to come up with a theme that’s new and/or original.  Without focus, I could see myself slipping into a shitty rip-off of Hijinks Ensue (which you should read — in fact, I have a pretty good list going of some entertaining webcomics on the left, so read them all).

Hopefully you’ll see an update that fixes the glitches.  Obviously I can’t leave the theme alone, so changes coming soon.  And art and stuff.

So I expect, any day now, to be getting a call from a powerful literary agent who wants to turn my comic into a book — or maybe it’ll be a Hollywood producer who wants to offer me a multi-picture deal based on my characters and stories. I’m by the phone, guys.

I was gonna have “the voice” give me shit for reusing the art from the first panel in the third, but I didn’t leave myself enough room for the extra dialogue and it’d mean a lot of work resizing the art to accommodate, so I — so I was lazy.

Anyway this is more practice (which is my excuse for not being funny). I drew the first (and third) panels entirely in Manga Studio — did major reworking of the second panel too. I tweaked the layouts and did all of the coloring in Photoshop, then added the dialogue in Illustrator.

The above is fine point Sharpie on scrap paper.  Took maybe five to ten minutes.

Scanned it into Photoshop (I need to figure out how to import stuff in Manga Studio) and spent an hour or so cleaning it up, changing line weights and re-drawing big chunks.

Just about everything I’ve read says you need to spend three or four days practicing to get the feel of using a drawing tablet, so this was primarily an exercise in doing that.  It’s strange watching the monitor while drawing on the tablet, plus I tend to spin the paper around to all kinds of weird angles when I draw–can’t do that with the tablet.

UPDATE:  Watched some how-to vids–I so half-assed my tablet set-up.

Basically still a test comic, but at least it has some drawing in it, right?  I have a few story ideas, but initially, I think the comic will be me working my way to a sustainable process.

So what’s not done?  It’s still very sketchy–not properly inked.  It will be in color soon, I hope.  There are supposed to be gutters on either side, so I guess I didn’t measure correctly when I put it together in Photoshop.  Also, I think I’m going to try something different with balloons for the disembodied “Voice”–I want it to feel other-worldly, but not look ghostly or mechanical.

I bought Manga Studio EX 4 and I’ve been practicing with my Wacom tablet (since no one’s sent in a Cintiq yet).  I’m trying to put together a hybrid traditional/digital illustration workflow that will allow me to make regular posts with my limited time (until I become one of the many stinking rich webcomic producers and can quit my day job).

Anyway, back soon, I hope.

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