Well, I know there are a lot of Black & White fans out there, so I decided to do this one up in a classic inking style. Heavy lines and “when in doubt, black it out” for the rest. Even snuck in some gray tones like the old newspaper strips use to do. Believe it or not, it took me as long to do this as it does to just ink and colors. I spent more time thinking where to put the shadows and such, so it ate up some time, but well worth the effort in my book. There are no short-cuts in cartooning, so I’m just gonna bite the bullet and do what I want.
Did you ever have one of those weekends? Sure, we all do. I’ve been dealing with various “stuff” in my life and have learned not to play the “victim” and feel sorry for myself. It is what it is and move along. You can still complain, but I try not to let it get to me. This weekend was a bit different. I am pushing myself a bit to hard and have a lot on my plate. I actually kinda enjoy it, but the mental and physical states aren’t what they use to be. Just ask my aching back and you’ll know I’m not 25 any more.
🙂
So, I will look at this past weekend like this, at least I was able to get the pencils done. Trust me, the rest of the weekend sucked. And to top it off, GrooveShark.com, where I get the songs for each post, updated their site and the export widget thingy was a tad FUBAR’d… thus a perfect ending for a “perfect” weekend!
Song and a completed comic as things straighten themselves out in the Universe.
Okay, the song’s here now. Last week I mentioned Paul Rodgers and Bad Company. This week is my favorite song from Free, the first band I know of that had Paul Rodgers in it. This song, “Wishing Well” is really grungy and I love it. It kicked off side one of their last studio album “Heartbreaker” from 1973. I guess it’s an anti-drug song, or simply a story about one of the band’s mates that had a drug habit of some kind. I don’t know, I just like the music. Words don’t mean that much to me (as I duck the flying debris from all the song writers out there). Rock on.
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Can’t. Stop. The. Music. Go boys go!
As always, enjoying the rough WiP stuff 🙂
Road trip ? Road trip !!!!
That a way to take initiative boys. I love how they take the time to relish in what life has dealt them, but get up and push forward as quickly as they get down about it. Go boys go!!!
Sorry you had a rough weekend Byron. I hope this week more than makes up for it for ya. Have a great one my friend.
You take care of You, Byron. We’ll still be here when you get back. 🙂
Oh, and yeah – good ol’ Grooveshark has been a mess to work with lately. I noticed that while selecting songs for Arpeggio. Arg!
Ah, well – good luck with everything. *sits back, hangs out*
I guess “bat crap” sounds like much better slang than “guano”.
“Guano! We’re never gonna get that lawsuit paid off at this rate!”
Yup, sometimes ya gotta just go for it. 30 years ago I was playing in a Denver-based band & we weren’t getting much around action town, so we decided on an impromtu Colorado road trip, booking as we went: Boulder, Greeley, Ft. Collins, Grand Junction, Durango. Co. Springs – about 20 gigs over 2 1/2 months that were mostly successful & well received, but sometimes we didn’t know what we’d get… We booked a gig in Cortez that was billed as “Summertime Festival” if I recall right. Imagine our surprise when it turned out to be a HUGE – 400 people, hispanic wedding reception at the high school gym! Thankfully, there were alot of younger folks, so the rock went over well, & between the 5 of us, we knew enough mellower & hispanic stuff to mix it up & pull it off to rave reviews. The more hillarious thing about it though – when we got back to Denver at the end of the tour, me & two of the other guys went to see the new “Blues Brothers” movie that had just come out, and when the deja vu scene where the BB band plays Bob’s Country Bunker played out, we were literally screaming laughter all through it – the rest of the audience must’ve thought we were mental…
Get your motor running….head out on the highway.
Omg you’ve been updating this? yay! lol
Hey there “old” man, my take on what life throws at me is, Mr. Murphy and I go waaaayyyy back.
GREYSCALE FTW!!! The finished strip looks absolutely AWESOME, and brings to mind your crowning ‘1977 Noir’ achievement of a while back. Fabulous use of shadowing, and the strong lines make the strip positively jump off the page. Colour (as it were) me impressed 🙂
When it comes to old rocks songs called Wishing Well, I love the Free one and the Procol one equally. Totally different songs but both superb. IIRC Procol Harum’s track was actually called Wish Me Well, but everyone called it Wishing Well…
Well, I guess I’m the only reader old enough, and nerdy enough, to notice the awesomeness that was the Zenith Heathkit TV.
Doing it in B/W is not that hard once you’ve got the basics down. Don’t overthink it too much, and just let the darks come alive.
The great thing about using heavy pools of shadow is having the reader fill in the blanks with their imagination. Silhouettes and subtle darks can create some killer mood.
If you’re going for the halftone effect, you should check out Jonny Wander. The artists uses some really cool halftone patterns to create subtle shades, and she pulls off the old school newsprint reproduction stuff nicely.
http://www.jonnywander.com