I’m really excited because the preview for Bailey Giordano is almost done, which means I can focus on making it a real webcomic! I should have the website finished within the next few weeks. My whiteboard is in the trunk of my car, and I feel completely lost without my death list. I’m trying to keep it all in my head right now and I have a feeling I’m going to fail hard at that.

I hope you enjoy the new page! Please drop me a comment to tell me what you think!

I redid the tones of page 8 of LBG. I love experimenting with new technology, software and techniques, except for when it doesn’t work. Luckily I’ve spent a fair bit of time learning some key things that I can fall back on when things just don’t go the way I want them to.

I really am unfond of toning in Manga Studio. Mostly because I like to brush my tones on and MS doesn’t have a very good brush tool for the job. All the things that make that program the best for digital inking make it the worst for my toning technique. My compromise is to do the tones in photoshop and then import them to Manga studio to be bitmapped and printed.

It’s interested that once you get into the meat of making comics digitally, it’s hard to really use only one program. I know many people who will use photoshop, illustrator and manga studio in combination. I don’t know illustrator very well, but I have a feeling I will have to get to know it in the near future.

There’s a bit of a philosophy behind redoing art. The first thing I always tell myself is don’t panic. It’s okay that somethings need to be done twice, it doesn’t mean that I’m some sort of terrible artist. The second thing I work towards is re evaluating what works and what doesn’t. If I have to redo all the tones to begin with, I might as well go all the way.

I hope all you fine folks enjoy the page! Now that I’m finished the redo, I can move on to something new!

Anime Evolution was one big, eventful convention. I had a lot of fun selling books, meeting people, running panels and talking until I lost my voice. It’s recovering today and hopfully I’ll be in full swing again tomorrow. Luckily, I don’t need a voice to write things on the internet!

There are some exciting stories from AE, Vancouver’s largest (and probably only) Anime convention. Not to mention there’s some new art, books and prints for sale and all that fun stuff. I’m pretty sure it’s a  pretty appropriate time to launch the Epidigm store so you fine folk can order some of our fine art.

The Cloudscape Table

For a few months now we’ve been working closely with AE to create their program guide and flush out their panel lineup. As a big thank you for all our collaboration, we were given a booth in the Artists’ Villa. It was a great experience, and though AE fell into the trap of separating their artists into different rooms, we had a lot of opportunity to promote our books to a new audience.

Our table feature books and art by  Jeff Ellis, Jonathon Dalton, Chloe Chan, Steve LeCoulliard, Reetta Linjama, Camilla D’Errico, and of course Wei and myself. All of Cloudscape’s books are available for sale on our website, and individual artists may or may not sell things on the internet.

Panels and Workshops

I was really excited to teach two workshops and speak in one panel. Wei, Kevin and I did the Life Drawing Workshop, which focused on teaching participants how to use life drawing to their benefit and how to get the most out of their life drawing sessions. It was quite late, at 8:30pm on Friday or something, so I wasn’t expecting it to be well attended. Much to our surprise, the room was full. I got to be the model for the session, which was fun and challenging. I’ve been a life drawing model before, but I haven’t done it fully clothed before, and not in a very warm room either. The heat decided to come back this Friday, afterall.

My second workshop was even more surprising. It was a comics and manga workshop at 10:00pm on Saturday night. I had more people at that workshop than I had at life drawing, to the point where we didn’t have anymore chairs. I felt like I had to talk very fast, but I only had one hour to give everyone a crash course. Even though the workshop ended at 11:00, I ended up staying until about 12:30 to spend some time with individual participants and critique their work. Much like my adults graphic novels class at Bonsor, I love teaching teens and adults. They have a great sense of humour and work ethic.

New Paintings

In my work for AE, I made two badges for their convention. I painted the 3 day Adult badge and the 3 day Minor badge. I didn’t post the badges before the convention, for obvious reasons, but now they are available for all of the internet! I have 11×17 prints of the adult badge that I will put up on the new online store when I finish building it. If you want one before then, feel free to drop me an email and we can do the whole paypal thing. My email is anise.shaw@gmail.com