Too tired and hungry right now to come up with a clever title...
I'm spacing out right now.... my eyes are doing that thing that they do when you're looking at a "Magic Eye" picture. I don't feel competently articulate lately (don't let that last sentence fool you). I think a lot of it has to do with not talking to many people in person and having been out of school for so long. I feel like I sit down to write something and everything comes out sounding like I have a learning disability... I have all this stuff in my head and can't seem to get it out in words that make sense. I guess it's fortunate for me that I express myself visually. I think my comics look good put together (dialog, line work combined) but man... you do not want to see the train wreck of a script that I work from. "He go over dere now". Draw, draw, draw.
Anyways, Al and I have been looking for a hosting company to start putting my comic up on but haven't made any decisions. I am thinking that I don't want to put it on a webcomic specific hosting site... rather have my own domain name like "Jaymzeecat.com" or something where I can put all of my comics eventually... instead of something like "comicgenesis.com/4359/splitscreencomic.org/thisnameistoolong.com". I don't think I'm going to throw all the comic pages up there at once like I did here... maybe biweekly in case I get some sort of following.... they have to waaaiiiiiittt fooor iiitttt... I do want to have some fun facts underneath each page which I was too lazy to type out when I posted the pages up on my LJ the other day, so I'm going to post them now... sorry, you may have to jump from this entry to the last one to see what pages each fun fact corresponds with.
Page 1:
I don't normally work in consecutive order but page 1 actually was the first page I did. When you look at it you can see the tension in my line work because I didn't know what I was doing yet. When compared to the later pages, this art seems much more.... fancy or anal? Yeah, the quality is nice but it would take me forty forevers to finish a page if I put that much detail into everything. You can barely see it, but there's tiny lace trim on Jan's bra and everything. The page itself is also smaller because I didn't know how how to scan my drawing in at the actual size.
Page 2:
I've never really been satisfied with this page. It was probably the tenth page I'd drawn by that point and I'd really gotten into my groove. But it doesn't really mesh well with the first page; being that there's sooo much detail on the first page compared to this one.
Page 3:
This may have been the second page I drew... probably because I was anxious to get to Jeremy because I like him so much. He's fun to draw being that he's just this goofy very anti hero. This was one of the pages drawn entirely in Photoshop when I was trying to decide which I liked better. Eventually I decided doing linework in Illustrator and Color in Photoshop worked best since Illustrator has better pen functions (and also the ability to straighten the shake out of my lines). Also, I can't get my selection tools to work in Photoshop anyways, so I'm pretty limited in what I can do when it comes to cloning, shapes, and moving stuff around.
Page 4:
It's easier for me to draw from what I know, so Jeremy actually lives in my mom's house (granted Mom's house is never this tidy and there's a hundred cats living there). Jan's apartment was drawn from a picture I found on the web (well, that's just some rental property or hotel she has for banging dudes, her real home is much nicer). My mom does have a view of the water like in the last panel, however there are houses by the shore that I took out.
Page 5:
When all else fails... cookies for breakfast! That's definitely something I would do. My mom got so mad at me for taking pictures of the inside of her fridge. She was actually running around after me while I took pictures all over her house yelling at me convinced that I was going to put pics of her messy house all over the internets.... because that would make such interesting blog fodder. My mom's messy house and cats... so many cats. These pages are all drawn in pencil before being scanned into the computer for completion (it's just easier for me to work from an actual drawing rather than freehand on my tablet). So, they're kind of like a rough draft. The panel where Jeremy is standing on the scale, I drew him to tall (you couldn't see the scale and would probably be confused... like "is he sighing at the floor tiles?"). So I cut him out, taped him further up in the panel, drew him in Illustrator and changed his size. The magic of technology. This page, as you can see is horizontal. I tend to visualize the subject matter in my head before it goes on paper and whatever seems the best layout is what I go with. Most of the pages have a six panel layout but there are a few that have less.
Page 6:
This page was drawn waaay late in the game. I don't like drawing cars and I don't like drawing buildings... a lethal combination for me! The buildings I drew are pretty much just basic shapes... much like a smiley face; it doesn't look like a real face but you get the idea. This is the introduction of Jan's mentor and best pal; Sergio. I pictured Sergio to be a younger, little funnier version of Tim Gunn. He was named after a friend of Latanya's who works at the wax museum in NYC.
Page:7
Damn these food trays! What a pain in the ass to draw over and over. And check out that creature passing by in panel two.
Page 8:
I don't know who's more of a bitch... me or Jan. I guess it's me since in essence I am Jan, haha. Jeremy really hasn't done anything to deserve the bullshit I put him through.
Page:9
I was pretty pleased with this page... it was the first one I did with only three panels. It has no dialog but the feelings of the characters is clearly written on their faces. Especially that kid in the last panel... subtle. The chick in the second panel with the afro puffs is amazing.
Page:10
I drew this page early on. My line work was different and the font I used was a basic font from Illustrator before I downloaded my Blambot font. But I liked the page and I am way too lazy to redraw it. In panel one and two we see that douche from page 9 again.
Page:11
This page was a lot of fun to draw. Having had an older sister growing up, I could depict that relationship here with Jan and her younger sister Jackie. I was just as obnoxious as Jackie (and there's a little shout out to myself with the owl on her pj's). I also love how Jeremy is really just forcing himself on Jan; as reluctant as she is.... and it's made that much worse by her parents' overjoyed reaction to her having company.
Page:12
I didn't like this page at all when I did the original pencil work. I felt like it was too simple. There was no dialog originally, but once I got it onto the computer and started laying down the line work, I heard the character's speaking in my head based on their expressions in the panels. Also, you can see that Jeremy is really growing on Jan not only by her change in attitude but her appearance and clothing changing. I was quite pleased with it as a whole when it was finished.
Page:13
This is one of the most recent pages I've finished. I have mixed emotions about it. Like Jan has a shit ton of money... but her family still lives in this tiny ass house... are we to believe she's not one to share the wealth? But then I came to the conclusion that her mother; being a bit of a free spirited hippie probably isn't into an extravagant lifestyle. No doubt she doesn't work... neither does Jackie. And having been taking care of Nancy for so long, she probably has other things on her mind rather than moving.
Page:14
This is one of the first pages I drew, but it sat unfinished for a long time (mostly because I didn't want to draw the grocery store fixtures and produce). The second panel was one of the first sketches I drew for this comic. I tried (unsuccessfully) to duplicate it and ended up cutting out the original sketch and fitting it onto the page.
Page:15
I finished this page recently. I had a good time drawing it although there's not a lot going on in it. Some of the dialogue was rewritten as I typed up the word balloons. You wont see Jan smoking a ton... it's only something she does when she's really stressed.
Page:16
Drawing this page was more of a pain in the ass than it seems like it would be. I had a hard time getting the proportions of both character's heads right in the first panel (I still don't think I did). This page had more panels originally so it was easier to understand what was going on... but I think you get the gist... Jeremy is being chased, he trips, Jan falls on him. Also, when I scripted this page they were running around the tree and Jeremy tripped on one of the roots and Jan fell on him because she didn't see him. The characters were thought to be a little younger when this happened, but I decided later to make them slightly older so they were a bit too big to be running around the tree.
Page:17
This is kind of the start of Jeremy's flirty-tease personality... and Jan's ongoing frustration with him.
Page:18
It's not entirely clear (yet) whether Jeremy had no special feelings for Jan or if he was just being apprehensive for some reason. From this page and the next few, we really only get Jan's perspective on what happened. We kind of get the impression on this page that Jeremy's an oblivious douche, haha.