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Despair and Victory
1 min read
Direct links to this week's images:
Page 3 pencils
Page 10 pencils
Yet another week of despair and victory is behind me. I spent alot of time on my blog posts this week, so excuse me if this week's journal post is a little sparse.
Toodles till next week!
-Matt
Mainers- want to buy my books without paying shipping? Now you can! My comics are now for sale in Casablanca comics, Longfellow books (their normal website was pretty boring and uninformative, so I've linked to their Myspace page. Dig the fugly typewriter background.), and Strange Maine.
Don't forget to:
Check out my blog, updated every week!: www.mattbernier.blogspot.com
Buy my comics!
Visit my website!
Write to me at contact (at) matthew-bernier.com
Page 3 pencils
Page 10 pencils
Yet another week of despair and victory is behind me. I spent alot of time on my blog posts this week, so excuse me if this week's journal post is a little sparse.
Toodles till next week!
-Matt
Mainers- want to buy my books without paying shipping? Now you can! My comics are now for sale in Casablanca comics, Longfellow books (their normal website was pretty boring and uninformative, so I've linked to their Myspace page. Dig the fugly typewriter background.), and Strange Maine.
Don't forget to:
Check out my blog, updated every week!: www.mattbernier.blogspot.com
Buy my comics!
Visit my website!
Write to me at contact (at) matthew-bernier.com
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Wacom weekend
2 min read
Direct links to this week's images:
Page 2 Pencils
Page 7 Pencils
Langostino del Muerte! color
Dr. Freedom color
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I was sick with fatigue and muscle aches, so I took the opportunity to practice my digital coloring. I always keep a few drawings around to color, for when I'm sick and can't draw. It passes the time, makes me feel like the day isn't completely wasted, and improves my skill at something I'm terrible at, slow at, and which I rarely have time to practice at. The result is the two color drawings this week, the inks for which are in the gallery. I'm not completely satisfied with Dr. Freedom, but Langostino del Muerte couldn't have come out better, I think.
Toodles till next week!
-Matt
Mainers- want to buy my books without paying shipping? Now you can! My comics are now for sale in Casablanca comics, Longfellow books (their normal website was pretty boring and uninformative, so I've linked to their Myspace page. Dig the fugly typewriter background.), and Strange Maine.
Don't forget to:
Check out my blog, updated every week!: www.mattbernier.blogspot.com
Buy my comics!
Visit my website!
Write to me at contact (at) matthew-bernier.com
Page 2 Pencils
Page 7 Pencils
Langostino del Muerte! color
Dr. Freedom color
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I was sick with fatigue and muscle aches, so I took the opportunity to practice my digital coloring. I always keep a few drawings around to color, for when I'm sick and can't draw. It passes the time, makes me feel like the day isn't completely wasted, and improves my skill at something I'm terrible at, slow at, and which I rarely have time to practice at. The result is the two color drawings this week, the inks for which are in the gallery. I'm not completely satisfied with Dr. Freedom, but Langostino del Muerte couldn't have come out better, I think.
Toodles till next week!
-Matt
Mainers- want to buy my books without paying shipping? Now you can! My comics are now for sale in Casablanca comics, Longfellow books (their normal website was pretty boring and uninformative, so I've linked to their Myspace page. Dig the fugly typewriter background.), and Strange Maine.
Don't forget to:
Check out my blog, updated every week!: www.mattbernier.blogspot.com
Buy my comics!
Visit my website!
Write to me at contact (at) matthew-bernier.com
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Playing hookie
1 min read
Direct links to this week's images:
Page 4 pencils
Page 5 pencils
My dear Friend Christy has been in Maine this week, so I spent alot of time with her and not so much with the comics this week. Next week: INKS!
Toodles till next week!
-Matt
Mainers- want to buy my books without paying shipping? Now you can! My comics are now for sale in Casablanca comics, Longfellow books (their normal website was pretty boring and uninformative, so I've linked to their Myspace page. Dig the fugly typewriter background.), and Strange Maine.
Don't forget to:
Check out my blog, updated every week!: www.mattbernier.blogspot.com
Buy my comics!
Visit my website!
Write to me at contact (at) matthew-bernier.com
Page 4 pencils
Page 5 pencils
My dear Friend Christy has been in Maine this week, so I spent alot of time with her and not so much with the comics this week. Next week: INKS!
Toodles till next week!
-Matt
Mainers- want to buy my books without paying shipping? Now you can! My comics are now for sale in Casablanca comics, Longfellow books (their normal website was pretty boring and uninformative, so I've linked to their Myspace page. Dig the fugly typewriter background.), and Strange Maine.
Don't forget to:
Check out my blog, updated every week!: www.mattbernier.blogspot.com
Buy my comics!
Visit my website!
Write to me at contact (at) matthew-bernier.com
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
No pain no gain, FEEL THE BURN!!!!
4 min read
Direct links to this week's images:
Page 1 pencil
Page 6 pencil
Page 8 pencil
Page 9 pencil
Leaving Sanctuary rough
Drawing, it has been said, is like calisthenics. If you don't keep up with it every day, you'll become weaker, and when you try starting back up it will be as if you have never exercised before in your life. Months, or even years, of hard work can be undone with a short period of sloth. I'm running up against this effect both in my exercise life and my comics life. This winter I was sick quite alot, more than I've ever been, and I grew weak and slightly fat. (I gained ten pounds, and am currently the heaviest I have ever been.) Every time I'd try to start up my training again, I'd get sick again. Now that I am working full time on the book and the book only, my schedule has become much more regular than it's been these past months, and this last week I've been able to start rebuilding my body. I am very far from where I was, and it will be months, probably, before I'm strong as I was again.
This last week I also started executing pencils for the first ten pages of the book, necessary for contract renegotiations. My performance on these pages will be used to establish my actual, rather than boasted, working speed, which I hope will average to one finished page (or the equivalent thereof) a day. I have never done pages of this visual complexity before, ever. I'm drawing 15 characters that I've hardly ever drawn. My main character happens to be the very hardest to draw. Because of the style I have selected for the story, perspective and architecture need to be fairly accurate. Items like flamethrowers and costume must be drawn consistently. In these early pages, there are frequently6-12 people in a shot at one time, sometimes even more. Especially because this will be colored, I have to plan things like time of day, lighting conditions, and weather much more carefully, and be much more mindful than I'd normally be about where halftones will eventually be placed. I have never done a comic with this many characters, this many distinctive props, and these kinds of considerations, ever, and the last time I drew a comic with anything more complex than stick figures was a little over half a year ago. I figured it would be easy to slaughter 2 pencilled pages a day, if not more. It turned out that 2 pages a day was very hard, and in the first five days I completed four pages. Fortunately, mercifully, it's slowly getting easier. But I'm still losing valuable time redrawing faces 30-40 times to get them right, because I don't have a great grasp of their features yet, and reworking the composition of a single panel for well over three hours. I just need to get through the first forty pages or so, and I think I'll be quite fast. In the meantime, I need to make it through these ten, and do it in the time I said I could. If I can do a page a day's worth now, It'll be cake once my muscles are developed.
Toodles till next week!
-Matt
Mainers- want to buy my books without paying shipping? Now you can! My comics are now for sale in Casablanca comics, Longfellow books (their normal website was pretty boring and uninformative, so I've linked to their Myspace page. Dig the fugly typewriter background.), and Strange Maine.
Don't forget to:
Check out my blog, updated every week!: www.mattbernier.blogspot.com
Buy my comics!
Visit my website!
Write to me at contact (at) matthew-bernier.com
Page 1 pencil
Page 6 pencil
Page 8 pencil
Page 9 pencil
Leaving Sanctuary rough
Drawing, it has been said, is like calisthenics. If you don't keep up with it every day, you'll become weaker, and when you try starting back up it will be as if you have never exercised before in your life. Months, or even years, of hard work can be undone with a short period of sloth. I'm running up against this effect both in my exercise life and my comics life. This winter I was sick quite alot, more than I've ever been, and I grew weak and slightly fat. (I gained ten pounds, and am currently the heaviest I have ever been.) Every time I'd try to start up my training again, I'd get sick again. Now that I am working full time on the book and the book only, my schedule has become much more regular than it's been these past months, and this last week I've been able to start rebuilding my body. I am very far from where I was, and it will be months, probably, before I'm strong as I was again.
This last week I also started executing pencils for the first ten pages of the book, necessary for contract renegotiations. My performance on these pages will be used to establish my actual, rather than boasted, working speed, which I hope will average to one finished page (or the equivalent thereof) a day. I have never done pages of this visual complexity before, ever. I'm drawing 15 characters that I've hardly ever drawn. My main character happens to be the very hardest to draw. Because of the style I have selected for the story, perspective and architecture need to be fairly accurate. Items like flamethrowers and costume must be drawn consistently. In these early pages, there are frequently6-12 people in a shot at one time, sometimes even more. Especially because this will be colored, I have to plan things like time of day, lighting conditions, and weather much more carefully, and be much more mindful than I'd normally be about where halftones will eventually be placed. I have never done a comic with this many characters, this many distinctive props, and these kinds of considerations, ever, and the last time I drew a comic with anything more complex than stick figures was a little over half a year ago. I figured it would be easy to slaughter 2 pencilled pages a day, if not more. It turned out that 2 pages a day was very hard, and in the first five days I completed four pages. Fortunately, mercifully, it's slowly getting easier. But I'm still losing valuable time redrawing faces 30-40 times to get them right, because I don't have a great grasp of their features yet, and reworking the composition of a single panel for well over three hours. I just need to get through the first forty pages or so, and I think I'll be quite fast. In the meantime, I need to make it through these ten, and do it in the time I said I could. If I can do a page a day's worth now, It'll be cake once my muscles are developed.
Toodles till next week!
-Matt
Mainers- want to buy my books without paying shipping? Now you can! My comics are now for sale in Casablanca comics, Longfellow books (their normal website was pretty boring and uninformative, so I've linked to their Myspace page. Dig the fugly typewriter background.), and Strange Maine.
Don't forget to:
Check out my blog, updated every week!: www.mattbernier.blogspot.com
Buy my comics!
Visit my website!
Write to me at contact (at) matthew-bernier.com
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Back from SF, brought the sun with me
2 min read
Direct links to this week's images:
First Second author portrait
FACA post battle commentary
Gene Yang sketch
Renee French sketch
Dr. Freedom sketch
Dr. Freedom Pencils
Dr. Freedom inks
Crosstown initial sketch
Crosstown pencils
Crosstown inks
Crosstown Final
My apologies to everyone for not updating last week- I was partly still frazzled/sick from the con, and I've also been clearing my plate of everything but the First Second book, so as to be as distraction free as possible. I do not have much of a multi-track mind. Lest you think I've been resting on my laurels, (Quite the opposite! I've picked up the pace a bit this last week, and I'm only going to be working more) here is a sampling of some, but not all, of the things I've been working on. I seem to get a very strong positive reaction whenever I post my process work, so I've done that here as much as I can.
I wish so much I could show you my fighter for the third fisticuffs championchip, but the new rules prohibit it. So go vote for the fighters you like best, and mey the best drawing win! (The fisticuffs tournament, which started purely as a voting battle between drawings, has turned into a meta-narrative/pseudo comic, with charaters delivering smack talk, congratulatory speeches, and commentary between and after bouts.)
I promise that there will not be any inturruptions to my weekly updates for a good long while.
Toodles till next week!
-Matt
Anybody interested in purchasing original art from me should write me at contact@matthew-bernier.com.
Mainers- want to buy my books without paying shipping? Now you can! My comics are now for sale in Casablanca comics, Longfellow books (their normal website was pretty boring and uninformative, so I've linked to their Myspace page. Dig the fugly typewriter background.), and Strange Maine.
Don't forget to:
Check out my blog, updated every week!: www.mattbernier.blogspot.com
Buy my comics!
Visit my website!
Write to me at contact (at) matthew-bernier.com
First Second author portrait
FACA post battle commentary
Gene Yang sketch
Renee French sketch
Dr. Freedom sketch
Dr. Freedom Pencils
Dr. Freedom inks
Crosstown initial sketch
Crosstown pencils
Crosstown inks
Crosstown Final
My apologies to everyone for not updating last week- I was partly still frazzled/sick from the con, and I've also been clearing my plate of everything but the First Second book, so as to be as distraction free as possible. I do not have much of a multi-track mind. Lest you think I've been resting on my laurels, (Quite the opposite! I've picked up the pace a bit this last week, and I'm only going to be working more) here is a sampling of some, but not all, of the things I've been working on. I seem to get a very strong positive reaction whenever I post my process work, so I've done that here as much as I can.
I wish so much I could show you my fighter for the third fisticuffs championchip, but the new rules prohibit it. So go vote for the fighters you like best, and mey the best drawing win! (The fisticuffs tournament, which started purely as a voting battle between drawings, has turned into a meta-narrative/pseudo comic, with charaters delivering smack talk, congratulatory speeches, and commentary between and after bouts.)
I promise that there will not be any inturruptions to my weekly updates for a good long while.
Toodles till next week!
-Matt
Anybody interested in purchasing original art from me should write me at contact@matthew-bernier.com.
Mainers- want to buy my books without paying shipping? Now you can! My comics are now for sale in Casablanca comics, Longfellow books (their normal website was pretty boring and uninformative, so I've linked to their Myspace page. Dig the fugly typewriter background.), and Strange Maine.
Don't forget to:
Check out my blog, updated every week!: www.mattbernier.blogspot.com
Buy my comics!
Visit my website!
Write to me at contact (at) matthew-bernier.com
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In