2002 - Sarah Follows the Leader (2)

I have always really liked this panel. It is Sarah and Borgia climbing out of an abandoned building found on the school grounds. I never draw trees or backgrounds of buildings or anything so something like this was quite a feat for me. Even now looking at it makes me happy.

Now I don't draw the word bubbles right into the comic like I used to here. Now I draw the image and panel fully and add in the word bubbles only after I have finished inking and everything.

2002 - Sarah Follows the Leader (1)

I have a lot more free time lately so I started to look at some of the old things that I drew. This panel here is from the comic I drew for the anthology Doujisoup back in the day. The title was "Sarah Follows the Leader," though now that I think about it the title doesn't make much sense when you read the story. Re-reading the story now, six years after I have written it is a rather strange feeling. It is as if I am looking back at myself from six years ago. Looking at the art I used to draw I feel that many things have changed and it makes me kind of sad. :-(

Anyway, I decided to take the time to scan some of my old comics and feature in this blog some of my favorite panels from these stories I drew. I don't have the computer files on hand with all of the editing so here you will get the images in their raw form.

To describe this image here... Borgia had accidentally knocked down a door to a closed off room, hence her position on the ground like this. I really like this kind of contrast between black and white. The comic I drew before this one in 2001 called Shashinshuu had a lot of play between bodies of black just like this. During this time I was drawing a lot of oekaki as well and was at my height of competence in this area (using the mouse- I did not own a tablet). I really like this. I don't think I could draw something like this today.

This comic and the ones I drew for Doujisoup had really haphazard panel layouts as I tried to be "creative" but only ended up putting too much information on to one page. This is a problem that I still face today with my comics- that I end up with crunched layouts and too many details that don't show up in the reproduction.

Today I found Lareine doujinshi I drew from the same period in 2001 and it is kind of embarrassing to look at since the line work is not that great. But there were some really good panels so I think I will try to scan these another day.

2008/04/26 Border sketches

Sometimes when I am bored in class I draw in the borders of my papers or in my notebook. People who sit behind me always say how they like to see me draw. The more boring the class the more I draw (I am sorry to my professors and classmates). On days when I'm really tired I totally blank out and enter a dream world while pretending to listen. I'm sorry again.

Sketching in class is fun I guess, but I always feel like I can't draw what I REALLY WANT TO DRAW, because people are watching me. I can't draw what I want unless I am alone in the evening. That is the best time to draw! Best to draw is also when I have lots of work to do but I don't want to do it. It's when I'm the most creative. orz

Borgia in swimsuit. If I had more space I would of course draw more of it. Only Borgia would wear a hairbow out to the beach. Somehow it looks like there is some kind of materiality to this. Like you could hold her. Does this make any sense?

Our regular gang here. What is Viv holding?!

And OMG, I haven't drawn 70s style in so long. Years ago I drew a comic all in this kind of style. It was pretty messed up since I had to try so hard to draw that style for the long comic (about 25+ pages)? But... I used to draw in this way all the time. I think my art is kind of 70s and 80s huh?

2007/10 Us three

When I think about my computer that crashed it reminds me of the sketches that I had scanned and had not put up on this blog yet and I feel a great sense of loss for the photos and all the images I was working on. :-( Borgia says, "Don't worry."

And I think Emily grew up somehow without my knowing it. When did that happen? I'll post the photo here someday when I get to scanning it. I knew she was getting too smart for her own good. Then she had to go and grow up on me! ha ha. One's characters have a tendency to do that!

When drawing sketches I like to layer faces next to each other as if a transition from different moods and expressions in a small frame of time. Thinking that by placing two faces too close to each other makes it seems like there is some kind of relation between them so I always balance out with three or four more faces, sometimes profiles, but most of the time these added faces don't look that great. I think Borgia is better than most in these exercises. I drew this on a slip of paper with random math-related scribbles.

2006/04/08 Blame

Borgia makes a cameo in this picture!  Poor Jorge is getting yelled at again.  Borgia feels his pain.  However, she is still caught up in the action whereas the guy on the left has more pressing and interesting matters to attend to.  I suppose that I really do like to draw birds a lot. (^^;  I wonder what this bird is eating in the drawing.  It looks like candy but...