Outcastes #7 cover

Outcastes #7 is entitled Off The Rails, and if that wasn't enough of a clue:

#6 is due out the end of this year.

Outcastes #6 completed

Christmas may not have come early this year, but Outcastes #6 certainly has. Yes, I've finished it a whole month ahead of schedule, and it's currently winging its way to the printers, hopefully for a pre-Christmas release. If you want to get your pre-orders in now, you may receive it before the end of year, depending of course on the Christmas post.
Although it's probably the most complex issue yet in terms of scenes and backdrops, I fled through #6 and really enjoyed drawing every page. Hopefully that shows in what I'd like to think is the best issue yet. Here are a couple of unlettered pages from it, and I'm about to add a full 4 page preview to the amalgamated Outcastes My eBook.
2010 promises to be a very busy year for True Stories Comics, with the concluding half of Outcastes kicking off in the Spring. I'm also hoping to get underway with the collections, starting with Dark Weather and possibly Outcastes Book 1. These should be reasonably priced at around £7 to £10, with discounts for anyone pre-ordering, as print runs will be very limited. The Order page has been updated accordingly, look for more news on the trades here very soon.

Angel Nebula book cover

It's long been an aim of mine to collect my earlier 3 series into proper handsome books, something which has become feasible with the advent of affordable print on demand services. So I figured it's about time I got cracking on that daunting task of scanning and cleaning up 500 or so pages of old artwork. I already did a nice cover for a Dark Weather collection, and an acceptable Frontiers one, so now it's the turn of Angel Nebula to receive the colour cover makeover treatment. I'm often asked how I put these things together, so time for a tutorial, which will probably take me longer to explain than it did to colour the image...

I always liked that sketch of Thena sitting on Mars looking up, so that became the focus for the thumbnails. I planned to include the greenhouse in the background, but in the end there just wasn't enough room. So I pencil shaded the 3 elements separately, Thena and the ship with a H, and the Mars landscape with a 2B. Then I composited them on computer, positioning and resizing the foreground elements to fit.

Next step is to separate Thena from the white background using the magic wand tool. I then went in and cleaned up the outline, then filled a Flats layer underneath with a light purple. Then I go in and paint over the details like the skin, hair, highlights etc. Left you can see what the Flats layer looks like without the pencils overlayed.
Now the fun part, adding on pencil layers. Much of this is trial and error, playing with the Layer mode box and Opacity slider to see what works and what doesn't. First I filter the pencils to smooth out the rough edges, without losing any clarity. I usually set the first pencil layer to Luminosity mode at around 70%, which lets the flat colours underneath shine through. Then I duplicate that layer and change the mode to Linear Burn, anywhere from 30 to 100%. This darkens up the pencil outlines and the overall contrast. I then copy just the hair and skin pencils to a 5-15% Vivid Light layer, to add a bit of shine and a healthy glow. Here I've also added Color Burns at 70% to enrich the skin and hair tones.

To blend Thena into the dark red background, I finished off with a couple of special effects layers using the Blending Options. I gave Thena's spacesuit more of a metallic finish with the Sketch > Chrome filter. The Satin and Inner Shadow blending were set to red and purple, to give Thena's outline a warm glowy ReadyBrek look.

To cut a long story shorter, the ship was coloured in much the same way. These days I tend to group layers together, so I can turn on and off different elements, like the ship here. The other advantage of that is applying a Layer Mask to a group. You can paint black on these to erase on all the layers grouped underneath. But the real beauty is using black to transparent gradients to fade objects into the background, like the ship here.

So onto that background at last. The sky was sketched very lightly, so I used Levels to bump up the contrast to give it a stormy look. The Vivid Light layer here over a dark brown background really brings out the light and shade. All that's left is to darken and enrich it with Darken and Linear Light layers respectively. I painted on a few star brushes to get that faint star effect, on a Color Dodge layer, giving a nice spectrum of white to red stars.

In comparison with the rest of the piece, the Mars rocks were almost too easy. I set the pencils to dark 100% Linear Burn, and overlayed with 75% Vivid Light, which really brought out a great range of colours.

One thing I love about the Angel Nebula montage covers is the circular design, so I tried to incorporate that somehow. I basically traced over the Book 1 cover using the circle tool to get the same effect. Then I set the layer to Soft Light so it's just about visible on the final image. Add logo and 2 hours later, Bob's your uncle...

Head shots

I used to love those corner boxes on Marvel comics, particularly the team books with head shots of the main cast. Outcastes' equivalent is of course those who's who character boxes on the inside cover, which I figured were overdue an update...

Outcastes fashion

With Outcastes #6 taking place in that style capital, Par Isis, I figured now's the perfect time to give the main characters a makeover. Winter's drab coat had been bugging me for a while, but after a few fancy redesigns, I settled on simply enlivening it with a new shorter coat with trim and buckles.

Summer's flower girl look was getting a little old, so I turned to the red riding hood shawl rendition on the back cover of the rare first print of #2. I experimented with a black top, but went with the second lighter top in the end.

Armida's #5 peasant goth dress was a little overly complex, particularly the choker which I could never draw the same twice. So here's the new streamlined version.

I designed Astraea a couple of years ago now, so it took some practice just to remember what she was supposed to look like. For variety I added a slit to her gown, which is displayed in all its glory on the #6 cover.

As for Geo, well as he'd no doubt tell you, he's perfect just as he is.

Outcastes #6 cover

While you're all busy ordering your copy of Outcastes #5 (hint), I made a start on next issue's cover. Following the last cover's simple composition, I fancied a challenge and threw the proverbial kitchen sink at this new one. The basic idea was to emulate the style of a vintage magic poster, with various arcanery floating around behind the foreground figures.

After this rough thumbnail I pencilled the three main elements separately to composite and filter later. Surely the dullest thing I've ever had to draw, the curtains were done from reference, whereas the magician's pose was loosely based on this Thurston poster below.

I tried to stick to a red and white colour scheme, colouring in my usual flats and layers manner. Astraea's dress started off gold, but blue seemed more in keeping with the final image. The cards were done in a Tarot style. For the smaller two in the background I ended up tracing and colouring two cards I'd inked in #2. The crystal ball was straightforward, just using the circle tool and a few white radial gradients for the highlights. I warped the curtain background behind it to make it appear spherical where it shines through. I gave the cards, ball and skull a glow effect, something I'm usually loath to use, but necessary for this particular image.

Finally I pasted on a couple of star patterned brushes in the background. I always try to draw these things myself from reference, like the pentagram on #2's cover, but in this case there's no way I could replicate that same soft glow in pencil. It's a minor cheat but I think it really sets the whole image off, without becoming too over-busy.

So job done, just got to draw a comic to go with it now...

BICS 2009

Next weekend (3rd-4th) sees the annual British International Comics Show in Birmingham. I'll be there of course for the grand international (nay, intergalactic) launch of Outcastes #5. This and many more True Stories titles will be on sale at the MC2 (Midlands Comics Collective) table, so pop along, say hello and buy stuff. I might even throw in a free sketch if you ask nicely.

The Outcastes treadmill never stops turning, with the next issue in the works, although it'd be nice to squeeze in some more Eva Nova somewhere. Here's a quick teaser for #6...

The Big Push

The Birmingham Comics Show is in but a few short weeks (4 to be precise), which I perhaps unwisely set as the date for the release of Outcastes #5. So in order to have any chance of getting it back from the printers in time, I've been hammering away at the old drawing board like a demented person, sticking to my self imposed target of a new and complete page every other day. I've also been simultaneously cracking on with adding the numerous tones and lettering. 

Regardless, Outcastes and other True Stories titles will be on sale at the MC2 table as per usual. I'll be taking turns manning the stall, so be sure to pop by and say hello, grab a sketch, or even a comic.

Here then is a 5 page My ebook preview of the new issue...

Over The Sea to sky

As the title Over The Sea might give away, there's an awful lot of the wet stuff on display in Outcastes #5. Which posed the question of how best to render all those pesky waves and clouds. I'd used cloud brushes on a few scenes back in #2 & 3, so I employed a similar technique here, turning images of waves and clouds into black and white brushes which I then stretch and transform into place. Some panels work better than others, but overall it blends fairly well and looks natural enough. Plus it saves me the trouble of actually having to draw the things...

Welcome to the new look True Stories Comics

Take 6 bottles into the shower? Well that's how I began to feel about maintaining all the various social networking sites that have sprung up, like Facebook and My ebook. So I've reworked the True Stories home page into a central hub for all your TS Comics goodness, with all the latest news, updates and artwork appearing on this here integrated blog for you to peruse and comment on.

As well as gearing up for BICS 2009 Birmingham convention with the release of Outcastes #5, I'll also preview issues and older works on the Myebook page, with the newest stuff listed on your left.

Hope you like the new look layout, and see you all at BICS.