Art Summary 2012

Apparently the best thing to do on a break from work (and I have so much work this week I haven’t started on the next Cop Story page yet) is to sort through art. Hence this meme (I do it every year!) I wanted to fill it with comics only at first but then I decided to go for the most significant pieces of each month.

The year started with working on Getting Crabby (and I managed to maintain a pretty stable schedule until my computer broke down) which caused a huge gap and I’m still trying to get back in the routine. I’m hoping to continue the series after Christmas, if anyone is wondering.

In February Randy and Sean appeared and took over my life. Two charming sociopaths only interested in their Game. How could I say no.

March – first Re:Crimes short. I’m unhappy with the quality but happy I’ve done it. Re: Crimes constantly get the short end of the stick because I always have a comic or two running while working on them but I’m determined to get this story on its feet.

I also overused watercolour textures in February and March because it reminded me of my watercolour concept art (and was much less messy).

April-May – more Getting Crabby, using watercolour pencils for lineart, realizing that mixing together Doctor Who and Sherlock universes is incredibly entertaining for me and planning the next Madmen With A Box comic (what is it about? I won’t tell you but I have a script in my folder that 2/3s finished… it’s going to be BIG! Ahem, sorry, felt like Steven Moffat there for a second).

June – my computer breaks down. On the plus side, I acquire Jim the Eee Slate which helps me greatly with my work. I need to work with Jim more since I tend to do more art on my desktop (it was brought back to life)

July was a very hot month when I couldn’t motivate myself to draw something more than sketches 9and abusing half-tone patterns) because of the heat. July was also the month Nutter appeared. He threw his things in the corner and just sat there squinting and I realised that squint was not going to go away. And Nutter was not going to go away. So I had to figure out his story. At first I stuck him in the scrap of an old sci-fi story I worte years ago but… I think we all know how it turned out.

August – developing The Time Police. The Neighbour War ended up a useless comic since I had to scrap the whole TTP storyline but I learned a few things with it and developed the look for a town called Newton.

September – feeling inspired to brush some dust off Re: Crimes.

October – mostly sketched but finished a couple of bigger pieces. I think I was realising TTP was going somewhere I didn’t want it to go so I was putting off working on it.

Chauncey appeared in November. Initially he was a result of cocking about with friends and playing with words but he grew on me in three days and I realized that he was what the story was missing and all pieces finally stuck together.

So I started Cop Story this December. We’ll see how it goes….

I also launched TT strips at some point but they turned out to be more of a thing I do at the side than a full-time project. They are not dead, just taking a break.

Goals accomplished:
A significant amount of pages produced (more than a page per month which was my previous goal I think)
Diversity in colour schemes achieved
More digital art
Working on several stories at once (but I need to work on how to do it more gracefully), yay more diversity
Better anatomy, applying stuff I learned at the uni and re-teaching myself some things
More contrast shading

Goals not accomplished:
More lineless stuff, had no time for it
Finishing comics, my stories are too long to finish them in one year (sobs in a corner)

Previous years:


Personal art goals for 2013:
A stable schedule for Cop Story, Re:Crimes and Madmen With a Box (I’m thinking Cop Story 3-4 times a month and the other two comics once a month)
Finish Getting Crabby and start the second Doctor and Master story (for now titled The Smell of Fear)
Keep improving art!

Over and out. Allons-y!