Lots going on at Flying Pony Studios!

My new drafting table

It has been a massively busy weekend here at the studio. To begin with, my illustrations for Tetong in the Land of the Unknown by Ludvimin Reyna got a nice mention in a Kirkus review. *yeah* It’s always nice to get good reviews, especially with the new book coming out soon.

Following this bit of good news I bought a new (actually, quite venerable) drafting table on Craigslist last Friday. Wow! It's fabulous. There is such a huge difference between professional and amateur drawing tables. This fine table is at least as old as I am, made of heavy wood, has foot rests(!!!), and a built-in light box.

As we were setting it up, I asked Matt to raise the tilt of the table until it literally matched my drawing hand for best comfort. What a joy! Of course, my old drafting chair was way too short for this tall table but I magically inherited a wonderful drafting stool from a dear friend who lives nearby. He owns a barn filled with all sorts of mysterious things. I swear that place is magical. The same friend also loaned me a lovely cutlass to use as drawing reference for my hero’s sword. Fantastic!

The other thing that happened last weekend was that our old Privateer Princess webcomic site was hacked. This precipitated taking down the old site content making way for the new novel website to come. I have put up a temporary "coming soon" page for the new novel. It’s pretty exciting actually! The first real evidence of the books to come. Here’s the link for the new page: http://www.privateerprincess.com/

So that was my weekend. If it sounds like a lot...it was! But there was even more. In my next post I'll describe my newest painting and what I've learned (or more properly...unlearned) about watercolor painting from Golden Age illustrator, Rene Bull.

Cheers all!

Just a reminder

The original tag line for the Privateer Princess web comic was: A tale of half-alien street punks, space pirates, and forbidden love. Works just as well for the new novel...just sayin. ;-)

Daily Report: Snow Wolf Reappears in Anchorage

Snow Wolf as she appeared in "Privateer Princess"

Here’s a book spoiler for you, the heroine of my novel is named Snow Wolf. She’s same girl heroine as seen in the our web comic, Privateer Princess. The Snow Wolf in my novel is not exactly the same girl as the one in the web comic. She doesn’t even look exactly the way she did before. Most noticeably missing is her trademark topknot. My novel heroine is going to get some serious fashion lessons as the books go on and in Book I she ends up dumping her topknot pretty quickly. But she still has it at the beginning at the book and if you look closely you'll see it in one of the illustrations in an early chapter. This is the drawing I’m working on right now. It'll be the only place in the book where she appears as she does in the comic. I just had to do it as a homage to where everything started.

Another fun thing about this current illustration is that I’ve been able to show some of the characters from the web comic in the way I had originally envisioned them. When I was drawing Privateer Princess, I was using a manga style that didn’t really support the kinds of images I had been seeing in my head. The style I’m using for the book illustrations does. It’s nice seeing the characters the way I’ve always imagined them, it’s like seeing old friends again after a long time apart.

Studio News for November

Heart Ravenna - the hero of "Privateer Princess" soon to be seen in a novel

I haven't been blogging much lately but I thought it might be time to do some updating today. So here's the scoop. I’m just now finishing up some children's book illustrations for a book coming out on Kindle this weekend. More to follow on that when the book is up on Amazon.

Editing is going well on Book 1 of my new Sci-fi/Romance series. Expect to hear more about that soon too. I have about half of Book 2 written at this point and that’s been distracting me somewhat from the editing of Book 1. I want the first two books to come out pretty close together and now they can. Additional books in the series will be forthcoming coming in 2013. :-)

I’ll be rehabbing the "Privateer Princess" website pretty soon to give it a facelift as an advertising platform for the new book series which, in case you missed the news, is the novelization of the webcomic story. (Although the novel plot is somewhat changed from our original comic plot, my Muse apparently having some new and quite new cool ideas about plot changes.) So now Snow Wolf’s and Heart’s adventures will be continuing in novel form. *squee*

Finally, I’m about to start working on my Christmas/seasonal cards for 2012. Upper Case Books in Snohomish has asked me to make a few exclusive cards for them this year and I’m very excited to do it. For those who find themselves visiting the store, they are also carrying copies of my coloring book, "My Day at the Horse Show." You can find it in the local author section.

I do love that store! It’s so nice to be collaborating with an independent book shop in this day and age.

So that’s about it from here at the studio. I now must run along and start drawing for the day.

Cheers to all!

-Sara

Sketching Out a Comic

Horse Life 12 - rough sketch

Everyone has their own way of jotting down ideas. Around here, napkins are popular surfaces, as are random scraps of paper. Sometimes, I might even jot down an idea in an actual sketch book. But I don’t do this too often. Instead, I keep my sketchbooks for more finished ideas and keep a folder on my desk filled with low-quality sketching paper and soon-to-be-recycled printer paper. This paper is used for notes, ink tests, doodles, ideas, etc. I like having this paper really close at hand so I never need to go hunting for paper when I’m thinking/doodling.

I’d been contemplating several ideas for this week's “Horse Life,” but until today, none of them were really doing it for me.  While I was out at Starbucks tonight I suddenly had my idea! I thought I’d post my concept page here to give you an idea of how rough my initial ideas look. After this roughest stage, I'll re-draw the page at least once before inking it. 

This seems a remarkably simple process compared to “Privateer Princess” (our old webcomic).

As I wanted “Privateer Princess” to look more like real manga comic, each page went through four or five distinct stages of creation before posting. First, Matt did the initial rough. Then I re-drew it (at least once). After which I inked it and added tone on the computer. Then we added the dialog together. After this we re-sized the page for the web and then posted it. Phew! It was a lot of work to post weekly. 

“Horse Life” is much easier. Perhaps I’ve learned a few things since the “Privateer Princess” days. Perhaps I’ve just gotten a bit more laid back about it all. Either way, I’m finding “Horse Life” to be a delight. I hope you are too!

If you’d like to take a look at “Horse Life” you can see it here.

If you’d like to see “Privateer Princess” you can see it here.

Website Upgrades

Over the past few days I have done a massive upgrading to the Flying Pony Studios website. Several pages needed to be added and a few existing ones needed face-lifting. Here’s a quick overview of what has changed.

The home page is now more fun and funky, and I hope, more user-friendly. With the added pages I felt that the old design wouldn’t present as well for viewing. I think the new one works better. Hopefully you will too.

Speaking of the added pages …you will notice that I now have a section on the homepage called, “Logos.” I have been creating logos and business identity packages (including packaging) for many years. As I have recently had the call to do a few new logos for clients, I thought I would add those skills to my online list of skills-for-hire. On the new logo page you can see samples of logos that I have done, as well as price packages for logos, business cards, and letterhead design. This is part of the Illustration section of the website, where you can also see samples of my illustration work, illustration rates, my CV, and other helpful information about me.

The next set of fresh pages are connected to my new online comic called “Horse Life.” I had been posting it in my blog but found that the images were really too small for enjoyable reading. This meant that I would need to host the comic on my website instead. So that’s now where you’ll find all previous “Horse Life” comics and all future pages. I have also designed an Archive page which has links to all of the existing pages. You can also navigate through the comic pages with the navigation buttons on each page. The most current page will always be found on the “Horse Life Current” page.

The last change that I have made is that I have a free gift available to all who sign up for my mailing list and newsletter. The gift is clip art created by me for your use. While it’s not copyright free, I do give you permission to use it for personal use. To get it simply click the “free gift” button on the home page. That will take you to it.

And speaking of my newsletter, “Flying Free”…I do realize that I have been shamefully lax in sending it out recently. But that will change very soon. Now that the move to our new house is over, I have great plans to get out more information out to readers on a regular basis. There are lots of new things in store in 2012, and I intend to write about them and share them with you.

Additionally, and this is not new news but bears repeating, you can get to my on-line store from the “store” button on the homepage. I have been finding that PayPal seems a bit daunting as a payment option for many people so…in the near future there will be the addition of credit card payments for all Flying Pony (and Sacred Touch Healing) products and services. Further news on this to come in the near future.

I think that about sums it all up for now. At this point Flying Pony Studios is up and running as a full-service design studio. Of course, I do other things too, like creating children’s books and pet portraits, but if you’re looking for illustrations or graphic design, please remember, I’m your gal!

Bye for now! - Sara

Technique Files: Creating a comic/webcomic

Part 8: Closing a Creative Chapter

I am a storyteller by nature and whether that means words or pictures, I love telling stories. As a writer and illustrator, using the comic/graphic novel/webcomic medium feels like a natural fit for me. So why did I get involved in a collaborative effort in the creation of Privateer Princess? The easy answer is…it was really fun! Our point was never to have the most famous of webcomics but instead to create something that we really enjoyed doing. Although the collaboration proved difficult, Matt and I are both proud of the accomplishment. So would I do it differently if I had it to do over again? Probably. Well...almost certainly, in some ways. In others I’d do it just the same.

Each time you create a piece of art you learn something from the process. If you stick with one technique long enough, you improve and begin to experiment. We worked on our webcomic long enough that I felt confident experimenting with the art, layout, and design. What I learned from that left a deep impression on me. Ultimately, it as a worthwhile, if incomplete project. But maybe I should reframe that last statement. Incomplete…? I don’t think so. It was a chapter completed. If we ever begin it again it will be the start of a new chapter in its life, and ours. In my experience, that will probably bring forth both new energy and a new direction. That’s how life works, after all. New energy in the Spring for renewal and the growth of new things. Whether in art or in life, that sense of renewal is what keeps us moving forward.

So what about the return of Privateer Princess? Maybe someday…but in the meantime it's onwards and upwards to new things!

Bye for now from Snow Wolf and Heart

Technique Files: Creating a comic/webcomic

Part 7: Learning from the masters.

There are many styles of comics on which to model your comic/webcomic. Often comic creators have favorite comics or comic book artists/manga-kas they wish to emulate. I know I do. If given my choice I would like to be an artistic combination of Yuu Watase, Chie Shinohara, Shoko Conami, Kaori Ozaki, with a dash of You Higuri thrown in. Impossible, but a dream nonetheless. In my case, all of the artists I have just mentioned are very famous shojo manga artists from Japan. They generally create black and white comics published in serialized chapters for Japanese Tankōbon, phone-book-sized weekly or monthly anthology manga magazines. But that’s only one style. There are many other styles of comics. I was actually raised on Western comics like the “X-Men” and  “The Sandman” and had never even read a manga until a few years ago.

There are many models out there for newbie comic artists to emulate and that is a great way to learn. Study your favorites and imagine how you might do the same (but better, of course). There is nothing wrong with learning from masters of your craft, even though in this country, oddly, there is a certain prejudice against it.

What about color? Many people think a comic must be in color in order to interest people. I don’t believe that. I am an old school illustrator. For many years most newspaper comics and comic strips were published mainly (or totally) in black and white. Good art is good art in my book. It’s actually quite an accomplishment to create really great illustrations in black and white and there have been many suburb illustrators in the past who have done it. From Winsor McCay’s “Little Nemo” and “Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend,”  to Hal Foster’s “Prince Valiant,” magazines and newspapers in the early and mid 20th century were packed full of wonderful black and white comic art.

Today, many people make the mistake of thinking that color can and will make up for weak art. This is not the case. Strong drawings will always shine, not matter whether they are in color or not. Ultimately, though, no matter what you put down on paper take the time to make it the best you possibly can. That way you will always have something to be proud of.

Next up: Closing a Creative Chapter

Technique Files: Creating a comic/webcomic

Part 6: Creating characters/Character design

Once you’ve created a place to put them, your story will need characters! How do you decide what they’ll look like? How many do you need? Sound overwhelming? It needn’t be.

The very simplest way to design characters is by making them similar to people you already know. Characters frequently bear some sort of resemblance to their creators and people their creator knows well. As artists we sometimes can’t help it, we need models and friends and family (not to mention ourselves) work cheap! 

Some people really love designing characters and can quickly create a whole lot of them. But can you use all of them in your comic? Another caution here. Too many characters in a story can cause a lot of confusion for your readers, especially if they have foreign or strange-sounding names. Of course YOU know who they are but try and have mercy upon your poor readers. Beyond the main character(s) and a few best friends and/or helpers, try and keep the rest of the cast down to a reasonable number. That way each important character gets more “screen time” and you can tell a better story.

Take some time developing your characters. Think of them as the actors in your own TV series. Just like in a TV series, characters change and develop throughout the season(s). The same will be true for your comic characters. Expect them to grow and change too.

Sometimes certain characters will get their own ideas about how much screen time they would like to have in your comic. Be careful with these attention hogs. They may even start upstaging your hero/heroine. That’s not good! It’s not their comic after all. We had one of these characters in Privateer Princess. His name was Big Atom and for some reason this minor character started appearing more and more often and even began to look like a rival for heroine’s affections as time went on.

This took us completely by surprise but we quickly realized that sometimes it’s ok to allow certain characters grow and change in service of the story. Even if you didn’t plan it initially. Remember that a story is an organic thing that sometimes takes turns you don’t expect.

Next up: Part 7: Learning from the masters

Technique Files: Creating a comic/webcomic

Part 5: Finding the right visual balance while telling your story

Matt (the writer) and I (the artist) learned the hard way that it’s not always easy to agree on how much dialog and descriptive writing to use in a comic. When all else fails it helps to remember a simple rule for graphic-based stories – show, don’t tell. (This is also true for writing, by the way.)

However, depending on the sort of graphic story you’re planning to tell this can mean very different things. In shojo manga the emotion of the story is very important. Each page frequently has less words with more (and larger) images to better capture the emotionality of the moment.

Other styles of comics, like most superhero comics, have much more exposition and dialog per page. They will also have more panels per page with art that is relatively small.

In our web story, we used a hybrid form of shojo story-telling. This was a compromise that Matt and I made when we couldn’t agree on what style of story to tell. Shojo – with its larger images and more leisurely storytelling style? Or more western superhero – smaller panels/artwork, more exposition/dialog, and a faster storyline? It was a tough call that eventually led to our compromise, which, unfortunately, neither of us could ever completely get behind. So when working in collaboration, even with someone you work with very well, remember that compromises will sometimes need to be made.

Despite our disagreement over style, Matt and I did have an important storytelling rule that I'd like to share. One of the ways we checked how well our story was progressing was by making sure to change the scene or introduce a new element every sixth page. That way readers wouldn’t feel like they were stuck in the same room with the same people for too long and get bored. This rule wasn’t always easy to follow but we felt it was really important. 


Next up: Creating characters.

Technique Files: Creating a comic/webcomic

Part 4: What kind of story do you want to tell?

Many webcomics are not based around story so much as episodes or single page incidents. On the web these “ultra-short” stories or incidents work really well because they make it easy for you to read quickly and not invest too much time.

If you want to tell a longer story you really need to think about it carefully before you start drawing. Why? Because, and trust me on this, it’s really easy for a comic story to get out of hand. A written story is very different from a heavily illustrated one. A graphic novel or webcomic takes longer to tell. It must because it’s telling a story with many, many pictures. As a webcomic artist (and previously a children’s book illustrator) I love telling stories with lots of pictures. But, if you write a novel and then want to turn it into a graphic story or comic, things are going to get ugly really fast. Where do you put all of those words, eh? If you have a long story it’s going to take a really long time to tell when you add all those really great pictures. In fact, it might take several issues (or volumes in manga) to tell it. Do you have the patience and fortitude for that? Think about it carefully before getting in too deep. A shorter, simpler story WILL be easier to tell in a comic format, especially for a novice. I know what I’m talking about here folks.

Technique Files: Creating a comic/webcomic

Part 3: Populating your world

Once you have created your wonderful (or horrible-“I’d never want to live there myself but it’s really exciting”) world you’ll need to decide who lives in it. In the case of Privateer Princess we needed humans, aliens with telekinetic hair, and Offspring - hybrid human-alien crosses with huge sideways elf-ears (or just elf-ears in the Japanese style.)

If it’s a fantasy/sci-fi story like ours you’ll need to consider who is the dominant species in the world and how many of the less dominant species there are. Even though it’s more exciting and fun to draw the funky, cool-looking characters in your comic (not to mention your hero), drawing ONLY them takes the thrill out of them for the reader. What I mean is that without having at least as many “normal” characters in your story as extraordinary ones, you'll lose the feeling that your “super-cool” characters are in any way special. (This is not the case if your entire world's population is alien (or definitely not human), then ordinary humans become extraordinary!)

As in any art, contrast is the key. So don’t forget to have lots of  “ordinary” people in your story alongside your really extraordinary ones. Even if your story isn’t about aliens, or vampires, or fairies, it’s important to show your main characters (who are by definition special) surrounded by plenty of  regular guys and gals to point out how unusual they really are.

Next up: Part 4: What kind of story do you want to tell?

Technique Files: Creating a comic/webcomic

Part 2: Building a world
When you are considering creating a comic one of the first things to think about is where does it take place? Is it in the real world or a fantasy one? Or is it some combination of the two? I realize that the last choice sounds strange but it really isn’t. Our comic takes place on Earth but in an alternate dimension where aliens invaded and conquered 40 years before. So some of our locations are real but in a state of post-apocalyptic decay while others, the alien cities for example, are created whole cloth.

Matt and I took our inspirations for the Privateer Princess world from many sources. We took our time creating the world and that was really fun. Some folks don’t enjoy world-building but I certainly do. It’s a chance to sit down and figure out how things work and where things go. Today, with so many things not working in our own world, world-building can help think about how to make things work better, or at least differently! The more time you spend creating the background of your world, the more interesting it will seem to your readers. However, trying to squeeze in too many details will make your world seem confusing. Try to reach a happy balance.


Next up: Part 3: Populating Your World

Technique Files: Creating a comic/webcomic

I'm deep into personalized pet portrait work right now. That means that I can’t share my current works here until after they are completed for my clients. But, in the interest of talking about something artistic for the next little while, I’ve decided to talk about webcomics. Specifically what I’ve learned from doing my own webcomic, Privateer Princess.

 

The Privateer Princess webcomic logo

Part 1: Back story
Privateer Princess went live on the web in the Fall of 2007. It is a *hybrid-shojo style manga done mainly in black and white with screen tone but with color chapter covers and other spot illustrations. It was hand-drawn but inked, toned, and lettered digitally in a program called ComicsWorks.

Currently Privateer Princess has 84 comic pages posted along with many other pages relating to the characters and the world. For a webcomic, it was slow, posting only on Fridays. After a series of family tragedies in 2009, it stalled out completely in the Fall of that year. It was written and produced by my husband and myself and although I hope we can get back to it, I’m not sure we will. In many ways that would be a great shame, but, as some artistic projects are never brought to completion, I choose to use Privateer Princess as a teaching example for others wishing to create their own comic/webcomic. If my knowledge (and mistakes) can help someone else get started in comics all the better!


*I use the term “hybrid-shojo” manga rather sarcastically. Matt and I had trouble agreeing about how “shojo” the comic should be. The end result was not quite shojo (a Japanese girl’s comic – more relationship-based) and not quite shonen (a Japanese boy’s comic – more action-based)…unfortunately.

Tomorrow: Part 2: Building a world