Making progress! There must be a better way to format speech bubbles, but I have yet to discover it.
Large image below the cut:
Continue reading “Last Watch Before Dawn: Volume 1, Page 6”Tag: dark fantasy
Last Watch Before Dawn: Volume 1, Page 5
Dialogue! Finally!
Edited to add: WordPress’s suggested tags on this were “Bible,” “Jesus,” and “Christianity.” Why, WordPress? Your AI is drunk.
Below the cut to spare your RAM:
Continue reading “Last Watch Before Dawn: Volume 1, Page 5”Last Watch Before Dawn: Volume 1, Page 4
I tried all those fancy brushes last page, and I honestly think I like the simpler look better: just the one brush, using cross-hatching for texture and in-between shadows. I’m interested to know your thoughts.
Here we have a big sci-fi reveal. Image below the cut:
Continue reading “Last Watch Before Dawn: Volume 1, Page 4”Last Watch Before Dawn: Volume 1, Page 3
This page kicked my butt and adding text in Photoshop is not exactly a nightmare, but more like one of those frustrating dreams where you’re trying to do a simple task and your brain keeps generating obstacles.
I’m still working out the art style and used some fancy brushes for this one. Let me know what you think.
Below the cut to save your RAM:
Continue reading “Last Watch Before Dawn: Volume 1, Page 3”Chrysanthemum Dawn: comic script preview
Here’s what I’ve been working on in between episodes of The Well Below the Valley. (The text is recreated below, for screen readers and/or people who don’t want to squint.)
Right now, I’m still learning how this process is going to work. For a traditionally published comic, the writer would hand a script like this to the lead artist(s), but since I am a team of one, I just need to have enough information that future me can remember what I was thinking. I also haven’t started storyboarding yet, so I’m guessing on layout and panel styles. Pacing in sequential art is a complex process of guiding the reader’s eye around the page, and it’s something I’m going to have to learn by doing.
Thanks for coming along on this journey with me! I hope this little snapshot intrigues you.
Text is recreated below the cut:
Continue reading “Chrysanthemum Dawn: comic script preview”The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapters Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Five: Answers
The mass of people under the dome turns to Isabel, and by extension to Berend, leaning on her shoulder. They’re packed in side by side, with barely enough room to rotate in place. There’s no room to sit. An old man leans on a younger relative, exhaustion and pain written in the lines of his face.
The little boy with the grubby face shoves his way out of the foyer. He stops short, pigeon-toed feet in too-large shoes skidding on the smooth marble, and stares at the sky.
“It’s all right, Jemmy,” Isabel says, but there’s no weight behind her words. It’s not all right. It’s probably never going to be all right again.
Jemmy’s eyes go wide, and he breathes in short gasps. A thin, terrified whine escapes his throat.
“Are we still safe?” someone asks from inside the foyer.
Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapters Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six”The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Twenty-Four
Endings
Isabel can only stare at him. “You’re bleeding out,” she says, uselessly. “I don’t think you can stand.”
Berend takes another breath, thin and shaky. “Sure I can,” he says.
“Why? Where do you want to go?” She’s got to find some way to stop the bleeding—and keep him where he is before he wanders off, numb from shock. She pushes his left arm aside and puts both hands to the spreading dark stain on his coat. The fabric squelches under her weight.
“Don’t know. Just would rather die on my feet.” He stops, breathes for a moment, and adds, “If I can help at all, more the better.”
Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Twenty-Four”The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Twenty-Three
Time
“Well, hello,” Berend says through his teeth, wincing from the renewed pain in his side as Isabel’s weight falls on his chest. “Fancy meeting you here.”
As far as grateful embraces after harrowing journeys go, he’s had better. Isabel’s sharp elbows dig into his shoulders, and she smells like mold, soot, old paper, and something that reminds him of lightning storms out at sea. He puts his arms around her anyway, despite the strain it puts on the wound in his side, and breathes in the terrible smell and feels like maybe things aren’t so bad, really.
Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Twenty-Three”The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Twenty-Two
Sacrifice
“What have you done?” Isabel gasps.
In an instant, the sky full of eyes turns to her, stretching the loose flesh of each socket. Though the eyes are bright and alert, the skin is gray and soft with advanced decay. Rot has settled in to the wall of books, as well, and the pages swell and blacken as white mold creeps over the covers. Isabel can only guess what happens once they disintegrate entirely. A cold, damp wind whistles between the moldering bookcases and across the office floor, tugging at stacks of wet, sticky paper and the lines of the ritual circle.
She takes one cautious step into the room and weighs a quick escape over the impending panic that will surge through the temple if the people there can see what’s happened. She closes the door and turns the lock.
The diagram on the floor is one she doesn’t recognize. Three concentric circles enclose the office from the line of books to a foot before the door; the outermost circle is solid and thick, while the inner two are thinner, with deliberate gaps of thirty degrees or so that don’t overlap. In each gap is a sigil. Isabel can recognize Ondir’s, Alcos’s, and the symbol for protection. Inside the innermost ring is the sigil for sacrifice. In front of it sits Father Pereth.
Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Twenty-Two”The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Twenty-One
Vengeance
Hybrook Belisia tosses the pistol aside and draws the rapier from his hip. He’s light on his feet, one polished toe pointed, his fingers loose around the hilt. “After all this,” he says with a sneer, “you still don’t have the good sense to lie down and die.”
In contrast, Berend grips his saber like he’s hanging from a cliff. It was a glancing blow, the pistol shot, otherwise his guts would be several feet behind him, but he’s still losing blood at an alarming rate. His shirt is already soaked through, and a thick, red stain spreads down one leg and into the heavy fabric of his borrowed coat. He presses his free hand onto the wound, hoping the pressure will keep him upright a little longer. He’ll worry about infection later, if he lives that long.
Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Twenty-One”
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