Comics

24 hour comic

Here are the results of my 24 hour comic this year:

http://www.elecorn.com/mikedsmith/ambition/

And here are those of a friend and coworker Marisa Erven:

http://marisaerven.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/24-hour-comics-day-100-panels-in-24-hours/

 

This year I went straight up Bic ballpoint pen.  I tried to reduce the amount of roughing out and go straight for the final lines.  It resulted in some pretty shoddy work, but it was REALLY fast.  I think I spent about 9 hours on this comic.  I got the idea for it while brain storming with my daughter the morning of.  I really didn’t want to do a fantasy setting, but the message was compelling enough for me to push through it.

Hope you enjoy it!


“First Day of Spring”: 24-Hour Comic

First Day of Spring

Just finished posting the 24-hour comic I did.  You can find it here (requires javascript):

http://www.mikedsmith.com/first_day_of_spring

It took much longer than 8 hours so it’s definitely not a working day comic this time around.  I wanted to produce some cleaner work this time so I penciled and inked each panel.  This took a lot more time than just going with straight ink (via ball point pen) as I have in past challenges.

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T-Shirt Design

The release of the next update for Caster is fast approaching so, time to make another t-shirt design!

I’ve always liked the negative space design ideas for t-shirts where the color of the shirt becomes a dominant factor in the design itself.  Here’s an example of a favorite t-shirt of mine from back in high school:

I’ve also liked the idea of an unbalanced composition where the design sits on one side of the shirt.  Here’s an example of a design I did back in 1998.  The idea was that the picture should sit on the left side if the shirt.

And here’s what I just finished for Caster.  The black is replaced with the color of the t-shirt (preferably a dark color for higher contrast).  And since this is a “Caster” shirt, the white is of course glow in the dark.  (Click image for larger view).

Now who wouldn’t want a shirt like that!


Life Light: 24 Hour Comic / Working Day Comic

So I did it again. I took and completed the challenge. Only this time… it was challenging in a way I didn’t even consider… scheduling.

Whats this?  A guest appearance from Caster?What’s this? A guest appearance from Caster?

If you don’t know what a working day comic is, it’s a 24 page comic book made from concept to completion within a standard eight hour working day. More info on 24 hour comics and working day comics can be found here: http://www.24hourcomicsday.com/ and here: Working Day Comic

Here’s a link to the comic:

Life Light

Even though the actual process of making this comic was pretty easy for me, this comic was close to not being done at all. I’m an assistant webelos leader for my church, so on the day of the 24 hour comic event, I had agreed to attend the also once a year scout leadership training conference. This is an all day even from 7:30 am until 5:30 pm.

I had resigned myself to the fate that I probably wouldn’t be able to pull it off this year… however, just in case, I brought along some copy paper and a BIC pen.

As it turns out, most of the meetings were not very involved. The speakers mostly stood up there and gave us some info and I took notes where it made sense. Well, I now saw my opportunity to get two birds with one stone and work on the comic during these meetings. However, I would still be VERY short on time. I figured I would probably end up having about 4 hours or so total to create my comic. This meant drawing a page every 10 minutes or less.

The result is a fairly simpler comic, no text, and a little artsy. Since I new I didn’t have much time, I didn’t bother spending much time on any given page. I added detail where it made sense, but didn’t bother cleaning anything up and tried to make every line count.

In the end, I think I may like this comic better than peas and carrots that I did last year. I’ve been wanting to do a comic with a little more meaning, something more significant than a joke or fun action stuff, and I feel I achieved that. I ended up putting some action in this one (and it does seem out of place) because, well, I mean c’mon! It’s fun!

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Working Day Comic Success!

I drove with my family to Spokane, Washington on Friday October 19th after getting out of work a little early and spent the night there with my in-laws. The next morning I got an idea for the comic and headed over to Merlyn’s comic and game store at about 11:20am. I started promptly at 12:00pm (the official starting time for the Merlyn’s group) and worked straight through until 4:00pm when I took a half hour break. By that time I had seventeen and a half pages finished so I was making good time. I came back and worked for another half an hour before my father-in-law and kids showed up when I took another half hour break to chat and look at the store with them and get some lunch. I completed all twenty-four pages of the comic at two minutes before seven o’clock. That’s fifteen minutes a page which is what I had planned for. I thought that I would run over, but I didn’t! This gave me an additional two hours to go back over my work and make adjustments and touch-ups here and there. The most significant thing I did in this “extra” two hours was to add dark black lines for panel borders.

So yes, I did it! I was the first one finished and I did all twenty-four pages in a Working Day–not spending more than eight hours actually drawing it! An entire comic from concept to completion!

I did a practice run the night before of three pages in an hour. I used a two pass method of penciling and then inking and was barely able to complete it. This is what prompted my use of going straight with pen and allowed me to finish all the pages with time to spare.

I’m very happy with how the comic turned out! I feel there is a lot of energy and expression that I was trying to capture. The pages and panels flowed from my hand almost immediately after the thoughts entered my mind. It lacks the stiffness of some of my other more well planned work. There is of course a significant lack of polish in the work. Honestly it mostly looks like quick thumbnails and chicken scratch… very sketchy. Since I was using straight pen, I had no chance to erase which increased my drawing speed, but made it hard to fix mistakes.

Next year, my focus will be on putting a little more quality into the work.

So there you go.

There is no need to burn yourself out for twenty-four hours when you can get great work done in a working day so long as you stay focused. I think about all the time some people waste when they know they have twenty-four hours to complete the project. Many probably only end up spending eight good hours on it anyway! I had a great night’s sleep and was fresh for Sunday morning the next day. No coffee, no energy drinks, no falling asleep at the table. Just a good solid day’s work. Honestly, outside of my hand cramping up a bit due to lack of practice, it was pretty easy going.

So next year, my challenge to you is to complete your 24 Hour Comic as a Working Day Comic.

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Working Day Comic

It’s that time of year again. Time for the 24 hour comic challenge!

Here’s a post from last year’s event.

I’ve decided to make myself the inventor of a variation on Scott McCloud‘s 24 hour comic. I’m calling it the

Working Day Comic

All the rules for 24 hour comics hold with two more on top of that.

  1. You can only work 8 hours on the comic (IE no overtime).
  2. You can take up to a 1 hour break for lunch that does not count towards your 8 hours.

That’s it!

So if you’re like me and love the idea of 24 hour comics but don’t like the idea of 24 hours, or if you’re a huge fan of the effectiveness of the 8 hour work day, you might want to give my variation a try.

I will be happy to post any and all Working Day Comics that you send my way. In fact, if I get more than 3 submissions (outside of my own), I’ll start an official web site for it.

Best of luck!


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