Hello, all!
I thought my “writer’s retreat” would seem like an endless break from the weekly grind, but September is rushing by faster than I thought it would.
I’m sorry I didn’t send something out last week, but it’s been busy around here, and I didn’t want to clutter up your inbox with something if I didn’t have anything substantial to offer.
That said, here’s what I’ve got for you this week…
(Psst… be sure to read to the end for information about the giveaway!)
I’m going to start doing weekly (hopefully) livestreams on the Whatnot app where I’ll draw stuff and auction off original artwork. What is Whatnot, you ask?
Go HERE to learn all about it and sign up!
Go HERE to visit my Whatnot page and follow me!
The TL/DR on Whatnot is this: it’s a site for people to do live auctions and sales of merch. But it’s also a great new platform for artists to use for livestreams. So I’m going to see how this new tool feels and hopefully it will become a regular thing.
My first livestream is this Sunday, September 18th, at 8PM CST. I hope to see you there!
Word & Pictures
Way WAY back in 2008 I created a podcast called The Words & Pictures Podcast and co-hosted it with my friend, inker extraordinaire Marc Deering. It lasted about 15 episodes and it was about comics, movies, and visual storytelling in general (the podcast isn’t live anymore, so don’t go looking for it).
I’m gonna try to revive that idea here in my newsletter and talk about some of my thoughts on the subject of visual storytelling once in a while.
I’ll start things off by showing the process for creating a recent double-page spread in THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ.
As I’ve said before, I create my comic entirely in the Procreate app on iPad Pro. Things always start out with a very rough sketch. I call my process “Ugly To Pretty,” that way I don’t feel bad when the first attempt at a page layout is inevitably ugly.
I actually drew the first sketches for these pages before I even started officially working on the comic. I sketched out a few ideas that I knew I wanted to see from the first few chapters early on, and this was one of them. I knew that Ojo and Unc had to be showing making their way across Oz, and at first I thought I could show it in one spread to save time. That didn’t turn out to be the case, but this sequence remained in the comic nonetheless.
Here’s the first pass at this spread:
Next, I refine the layout, which may take a couple of passes to tighten up the lines, and this results in the digital pencils:
Then it’s onto the digital inks. My goal when I’m inking is to not lose sight of the energy in the earlier sketches. Sometimes those “ugly” attempts feel more alive than a finished, inked image.
Finally, the colors. I have a love/hate relationship with my Color work. Sometimes I wish I could hire someone to do this, but I’m very particular about lighting, so that probably wouldn’t work out. I had very specific ideas about what would and wouldn’t be in shadow in these panels, and I’m fairly happy with how they ended up looking.
When I look at the final pages, I think I’m most proud of the composition of these four, tall panels. They show Ojo and Unc not just crossing landscapes, but their movement across the pages show them going “up” the mountain. The spread tells its own compressed story of these two characters moving up the landscape of Oz. And I think it works.
Thanks for reading!
Okay, on to the giveaway…
I’ll be giving away signed copies of Books 1-4 of ODDLY NORMAL to two of my subscribers and announcing the winner in next Friday’s newsletter!
All you have to do to enter the giveaway is be a subscriber by Midnight CST on Thursday, September 22nd. On Friday morning I’ll randomly choose a name and announce it later that day.
Until then, thanks for reading, and be sure to check your e-mail on Friday to see if you’ve won!
Your pal,
Otis
Subscribe now so you don’t miss an issue of ESCAPE With Otis Frampton!
In the meantime, tell your friends!
How do you make frames in Procreate? In the past I’ve used grid and Drawing Assist. I wanted to ask to find out if there was an easier way.