Ladies and gentlebloggers, I'm proud to announce that my graphic novel is now on this site for your perusal! To find it, simply go to the tab that says "Online Portfolio." There, you'll be able to read Dreamlocked, the graphic novel that Sawyer Traver and I spent months working on. Even if it looks like it took five minutes, I swear we spent months doing it. Making a graphic novel is exceedingly hard work, and I have a newfound respect for graphic novel and comic book artists.
I sneaked my online portfolio onto my site a few months ago, since I was applying for an internship that required one. I didn't make an announcement about it because I was still trying to work out a few kinks, but consider this my formal announcement!
My online portfolio is comprised of works I've written for my creative writing and English courses at the University of Alabama. These are the works of which I feel most proud, and the works I think are most fit for internet viewing.
If you were interested in Blue Justice, the poetry chapbook about the butt-kicking policewoman that I created last spring, I also uploaded that. I tried so very hard to include the cover in the file, but when I included the image in the PDF, the image always came out distorted and discolored when I uploaded it to Google Drive. I'll be working on that with my technicians, but in the meantime, I've provided a link to the blog post in which I uploaded the cover.
Enjoy! And if you run into any problems while browsing, let me know in a comment. I'm sure there are probably a few kinks that I haven't yet worked out...
Showing posts with label dreamlocked. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dreamlocked. Show all posts
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Thursday, December 12, 2013
It's Done
It's done.
Dreamlocked is finally complete.
Finally.
Finally.
I finished the art last night, and my partner finished all the InDesign work today. We met at the library to print it all out, and of course something was messed up that we had to scramble to fix at the last minute, because nothing is ever easy, but we managed to fix it and get it turned in with time to spare.
And if I ever stop being mad at it, I'll put the pages in order and put a copy in my online portfolio so y'all can see the finished project.
But for real. In order to finish on time, I penciled and inked six pages in five days, on top of all the other final exams and essays I had going on. Considering an average page with pencil and ink took me 3-4 hours to complete... Yeah, it was not fun, and I did not sleep very much. And THIS, kids, is why you should NEVER leave projects to the last minute.
And with that, ladies and gents, I am a free woman. I am completely done with finals! Woohoo! Time for Christmas!
Dreamlocked is finally complete.
Finally.
Finally.
I finished the art last night, and my partner finished all the InDesign work today. We met at the library to print it all out, and of course something was messed up that we had to scramble to fix at the last minute, because nothing is ever easy, but we managed to fix it and get it turned in with time to spare.
And if I ever stop being mad at it, I'll put the pages in order and put a copy in my online portfolio so y'all can see the finished project.
But for real. In order to finish on time, I penciled and inked six pages in five days, on top of all the other final exams and essays I had going on. Considering an average page with pencil and ink took me 3-4 hours to complete... Yeah, it was not fun, and I did not sleep very much. And THIS, kids, is why you should NEVER leave projects to the last minute.
And with that, ladies and gents, I am a free woman. I am completely done with finals! Woohoo! Time for Christmas!
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Non-Shenanigans Art Post
I'm taking a break from my paper and working on some penciling. I drew an expression on the main character that I'm extremely happy with, and since I'll probably destroy it when I ink it, I wanted to share it here for the world to see.
The character has an encountered a sphinx in a labyrinth and has struck a deal with it: an answer for an answer. If Darcy can solve the sphinx's riddle, the sphinx will tell her where to find the lost queen. If Darcy answers incorrectly, however, the sphinx will kill her.
In this panel, Darcy has just heard the riddle and is thinking something along the lines of "Oh #$@&, I have no idea!"
Good luck, Darcy.
The character has an encountered a sphinx in a labyrinth and has struck a deal with it: an answer for an answer. If Darcy can solve the sphinx's riddle, the sphinx will tell her where to find the lost queen. If Darcy answers incorrectly, however, the sphinx will kill her.
In this panel, Darcy has just heard the riddle and is thinking something along the lines of "Oh #$@&, I have no idea!"
Good luck, Darcy.
The weird hands may or may not be fixed when I ink the panel.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Dreamlocked Page 2: Before and After
Good news- I was able to fix up the first page of my graphic novel project. That means I didn't have to start over from scratch. Starting over from scratch is something I really don't have time for.
In fact, I almost don't have time to write this blog post, but I thought I might as well take a short, short, short break while switching gears. After this, I gotta study Shakespeare. That final's tomorrow morning- yikes!
Unfortunately, my first draft of the second page was unsalvageable. I had to start over again from the beginning. It was kind of nice that I didn't have to think about the layout- I put all the panels where they were originally, except for the new margins and gutter space, although I did change a few things. Sometimes the changes were necessary in order to fit the new panel sizes better, and sometimes I just tried to save myself some time by not drawing an extra person or an entire new body. Unfortunately, time is short, and I can't afford to make each panel a masterpiece.
But here are the two pages, the before and after. You're really gonna have to squint to see the first one because it's only in pencil and I don't have time to darken it right now, but I think you can see the important stuff pretty easily. Enjoy!
In fact, I almost don't have time to write this blog post, but I thought I might as well take a short, short, short break while switching gears. After this, I gotta study Shakespeare. That final's tomorrow morning- yikes!
Unfortunately, my first draft of the second page was unsalvageable. I had to start over again from the beginning. It was kind of nice that I didn't have to think about the layout- I put all the panels where they were originally, except for the new margins and gutter space, although I did change a few things. Sometimes the changes were necessary in order to fit the new panel sizes better, and sometimes I just tried to save myself some time by not drawing an extra person or an entire new body. Unfortunately, time is short, and I can't afford to make each panel a masterpiece.
But here are the two pages, the before and after. You're really gonna have to squint to see the first one because it's only in pencil and I don't have time to darken it right now, but I think you can see the important stuff pretty easily. Enjoy!
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Inked!
Just a short post, since I'm trying to get some work done on my NaNoWriMo project, but here are the three pages of the graphic novel that I've inked so far. My partner arranged the panels in InDesign and added the text, but I'll just show you the art for now.
The inking went a lot better than I expected it to.
The inking went a lot better than I expected it to.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Dreamlocked Rough Pages 5 and 6
Hey, everybody! Because I'm just soooo proud of them, here are the rough drafts of pages 5 and 6 of my graphic novel project.
I originally drew the pages in pencil, but as is evident from other posts on this blog, pencil doesn't show up very well once it's been scanned, so I doctored these pages up just a little bit. When I scanned the pages in, I lowered the brightness and increased the contrast of the scans just a leetle bit. Then I opened them up in a free photo editing program called PhotoFiltre (because I'm not a real artist or anything like that and I can't afford to have Photoshop just for the fun of it). I applied a filter called Comic Book, which made the lines show up darker, and then I bumped the contrast up just a little bit more. I don't like to mess with the contrast too much, because it just makes the art look awful and weird when I do. I think the filter helps a lot.
Page 5 is my favorite page of everything I've penciled so far.
I'm going to begin inking tonight so my partner can get the pages into InDesign. I'm completely terrified. Usually, if I'm going to screw up any given piece of art, it'll be when I'm inking it. I've got scans of everything, so hopefully all will not be lost if I make a major boo-boo, but there's still a ton of potential for this stage of the process to go horribly wrong. That's why I've been putting it off, but I don't have time to do that anymore.
Wish me luck! Hopefully I'll be able to show you some nice inked scans soon!
Friday, November 8, 2013
Graphic Novel Update
Hey! I thought I'd post about something other than NaNoWriMo. I haven't written about non-NaNoWriMo stuff in a while.
My other big, huge project is the graphic novel, of course, and I actually met with my partner today. We discovered that the library has a scanner that is better than mine, and she found a good way to set up panels in InDesign. We decided that I'm going to go ahead and ink the panels and scan them, and then she'll arrange them in InDesign and digitally letter them.
In the meantime, I have to draw two more rough draft pages for Thursday, and I'm not looking forward to it. At all. I need to not wait until Wednesday night to start that...
And there's your update! Yay!
Now I'm going to work on my NaNoWriMo project, because I haven't written anything yet today and I have less than an hour for my words to count for today. So... toodles!
NaNoWriMo Word Count: 5735
Graphic Novel Page Count: 4 rough
My other big, huge project is the graphic novel, of course, and I actually met with my partner today. We discovered that the library has a scanner that is better than mine, and she found a good way to set up panels in InDesign. We decided that I'm going to go ahead and ink the panels and scan them, and then she'll arrange them in InDesign and digitally letter them.
In the meantime, I have to draw two more rough draft pages for Thursday, and I'm not looking forward to it. At all. I need to not wait until Wednesday night to start that...
And there's your update! Yay!
Now I'm going to work on my NaNoWriMo project, because I haven't written anything yet today and I have less than an hour for my words to count for today. So... toodles!
NaNoWriMo Word Count: 5735
Graphic Novel Page Count: 4 rough
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
The Graphic Novel Project - Pages Three And Four
BLAAAAAGHHHHRRRAAAHHHHRRRRRIIIHHHHHGGGHHHHHFFFRRRUUHHHH.
I've lost count of how many hours I've spent working on the rough draft (it's only the rough draft!) of these two pages (it's only two pages!) of my final project for my graphic novel class. Now it's very late, and I still have other things to do for tomorrow, and I'm getting hungry again, but at least I've got these pages done.
This is a partner project. I'm doing the art. My partner's doing the words. The way it's working so far is that she writes a rough script, I draw some panels to go along with the script, and then she goes and fills in the speech bubbles and narration boxes.
Ay yi yi. I've had it up to here with this drawing business. And we're only four pages in. Into the rough draft, that is. Originally I'd planned to do just a quick layout on each page to turn in as the rough draft, but then I realized how much work I'd have left to do at the end of the semester when it's time to make the final product (and I'm simultaneously writing final papers and studying for final exams). So I decided I'd put a fair amount of effort into the rough draft and just fix it up later before I ink it (or whatever the heck we decide to do as far as color and stuff. we don't know. we haven't gotten there yet).
And I think that's a good idea, but I realize now that just one page is going to take me several hours. Good thing I started last night, or I'd be in a very bad spot right now!
Here are pages three and four of Dreamlocked, in which the main character is trapped in a dream and must fix the historical inaccuracies in it (in this episode, find Marie Antoinette after she escapes from prison) or she'll never wake up.
That, by the way, sounds like exactly the kind of problem I'd like to have.
There's no text- I'm only the penciler today. If you want, you can make up captions for the panels and leave them in the comments. It'll make me smile.
I've lost count of how many hours I've spent working on the rough draft (it's only the rough draft!) of these two pages (it's only two pages!) of my final project for my graphic novel class. Now it's very late, and I still have other things to do for tomorrow, and I'm getting hungry again, but at least I've got these pages done.
This is a partner project. I'm doing the art. My partner's doing the words. The way it's working so far is that she writes a rough script, I draw some panels to go along with the script, and then she goes and fills in the speech bubbles and narration boxes.
Ay yi yi. I've had it up to here with this drawing business. And we're only four pages in. Into the rough draft, that is. Originally I'd planned to do just a quick layout on each page to turn in as the rough draft, but then I realized how much work I'd have left to do at the end of the semester when it's time to make the final product (and I'm simultaneously writing final papers and studying for final exams). So I decided I'd put a fair amount of effort into the rough draft and just fix it up later before I ink it (or whatever the heck we decide to do as far as color and stuff. we don't know. we haven't gotten there yet).
And I think that's a good idea, but I realize now that just one page is going to take me several hours. Good thing I started last night, or I'd be in a very bad spot right now!
Here are pages three and four of Dreamlocked, in which the main character is trapped in a dream and must fix the historical inaccuracies in it (in this episode, find Marie Antoinette after she escapes from prison) or she'll never wake up.
That, by the way, sounds like exactly the kind of problem I'd like to have.
There's no text- I'm only the penciler today. If you want, you can make up captions for the panels and leave them in the comments. It'll make me smile.
If you're wondering why it's so dark, I was fiddling around with the contrast on my scanner to make the pencil lines show up more clearly. I'm making progress with technology!
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