Costume design - the impact of colour

Hi again,

I know its been a while but rest assured stuff is happening!

Firstly as a supplement to this blog, we are about to launch the Bolt Comics newsletter so you can get all the latest info sent straight to your inbox.

You can sign up here: http://tinyletter.com/Boltcomics

Anyway, on to today's topic.

As many of you would be aware, A Brigand's Tale began life in black & white. When designing the uniform/costume, I was very mindful of how the character would not only need to look in a black & white world, but also stand out.

I ended up having alternating black & white zones all over...

Brigand making himself all 'purty in A Brigand's Tale #2

Since Brigand is based on my faithful golden retriever, Samson, his fur is of a light colour. That made the choice for clothing easy - make it dark.  As you can see from the above however, if his pants were also black it would be too much dark. So they are white with a black stripe.

Fun fact: these pants are a homage to the excellent series Xenozoic tales by one of my fave artists, Mark Schultz.

Jack Tenrec, all pants, no shirt.

Even funner fact: I think Schultz's stripey pants are actually a homage to Alex Raymond's work on Flash Gordon from the 1930's and 1940's.

Flash Gordon, trendsetting from planet Mongo.

So yeah, it's fair to say stripey pants are perpetually cool.

Onto other design elements, what's guild without a logo, people gotta advertise. The hunter logo, once again is a vision in black & white.  Being black and white though, it can work on both a black OR white t shirt.

The Yin & Yang of T-shirts

This 'colour'  scheme however, is somewhat flawed when you have a whole universe of colours to choose from. At this stage, I am slowly dipping my toes into the water with colour on his uniform. Occasionally, Brigand will have a bluish tinge to his pants.His accessories have colour even his fur has shades of yellows and browns.

He even has baby blue eyes...(a homage to Robert E Howard's Conan for those playing at home)

A panel from the upcoming Bolt Comics Presents #1

I am certain we we continue to see our friend in a different light (pun intended) as time goes by, but you know, sometimes there are just black & white images that work, and to add colour to it would be superflouous...

STOP PRESS: I will be attending FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, Saturday 7th May, 2016 at the Game Cave in Nowra! If you're about drop in and say hi and stuff.

As ever, comments are welcome.

Brigand, Cheeks, A Brigand's Tale and all distinctive likenesses thereof are TM and copyright Daniel Tribe 2016. All rights reserved.
Xenozoic Tales, Flash Gordon are TM their respective owners,

A Brigands Tale OGN 1 week in - still on track

Calm down everyone, we can do this.

My preparation is complete.

I have everything I need to commence, namely:

1. Paper, I'm currently working on 220gsm Canson but mostly because I need to use it all up rather than it being my preferred weapon of choice, which is Bristol board preferably 300gsm, but, you know economics and stuff.
2. Ink. Some Japanese sumi ink that flows real nice, is waterproof when dry and doesn't  destroy my nibs and brushes.
3. Inking tools - The battle tested number 2 rigger, and the not as reliable (but still useful) Hunt 102 dip pen nibs.
4. Several really big erasers.
5. My premixed jar of grey inkwash ready to apply values.
6. A recent addition, masking fluid. OMG how good is this stuff. Just wonderful stuff. It says what it does but has made my life easier.
7. A reasonable variety of coloured inks to add the, well, colour.
8. Mad drawing skills and lots of reference material.

So I got stuck in to this sucker!

What ever could be going on here????

I'm approaching drawing whole chapters i.e. 6-8 pages, and getting some feed back off some peeps before I go to the inking stage.

And just to clarify to any worried fans, this is not a reboot. What has gone before will not be ret-conned or made irrelevant.

This story is a continuation from the ones featured in A Brigand's Tale #1 and #2 and will just be in a full length, full colour format.



STOP PRESS!!!

This week the Shoalhaven is in the grip of some superheroic events.

Unfortunately, due to unfavourable circumstances (you know, economics and stuff) Bolt Comics wont have an official presence  at the entertainment centre.
I will be hanging out the front of The Collared Box on junction street between 10:30 am to 12:30 pm this saturday the 3rd of October.

I shant be hard to miss as I will be dressed as a somewhat overwieght version of the FLASH!!

I will be selling assorted Bolt Comics items as well as some other cool stuff my indie friends have given me to sell.

So if you want support an actual Shoalhaven based creator, you know where I'll be.


Next week: Let's see how week 2 went...


Brigand,Sneakthief and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademark and copyright Daniel Tribe.
All rights reserved.

Pushing the limits...

Hi All,

It's been a while between updates, but the good news is nothing much has been happening so y'all haven't missed out.

So I've been kinda off lately. Very unsure about a lot of things pertaining to my pal Brigand and his cohorts.

But having no deadlines has really meant no work or progress getting made.

 

To rectify this, I have set myself a ridiculous and almost destined to fail goal.

I hope you all join me on my journey to make a graphic novel in a year!

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean a 300 page epic. I mean something more like the European album graphic novels.

Somewhere between 52 and 70 pages.

I think I can do it.

In the last couple of months I think I have finally nailed down the best tools and methods that work for me.

They probably wont work for you, mostly because I eschew digital workflows in favour of tactile analogue processes, or maybe its because I just like to make a mess...

Here's what I am starting with:

1. The first 2 chapters (of maybe 5 or 6) of the script ready to go.
2. A cool web page called Workflowy where I can organise my thoughts and a timeline all in one place. I haven't quite put my whole life on it yet but I can  already see the value in it.

Check it out for yourself https://workflowy.com/invite/31589e2e.lnx

3. A set of "rules "for the book in regards to the process of making each page.
4. A realistic page completion rate of 1 per week. I will however be completing pages a chapter at a time. For example, the first chapter is 9 pages long, so I will give myself 3 week s to pencil, 3 weeks to ink, 2 weeks to colour etc and one week to letter it all.
5. A deliberately ambitious goal to push myself to my maximum potential.
6. A plant to start serialising it online at the halfway point to up my commitment levels.

I will kicking it off this week because that will give me the goal to finish it just before my 38th birthday.

Let's see how I go!


The cover to ABT #3. A mixture of traditional and digital.

Brigand, the Bullfrog are trademark and copyright Daniel Tribe 2015. All rights Reserved.


As ever feel free to comment below!

See you at Supanova - A027 in artists alley!!

Hi all.

Supanova sydney starts tomorrow!!!!!

Due to family committments I can only make it for the saturday, but I am super excited to be there. Rest assured the Bolt Comics team will be there all weekend with a ready supply of all things Bolt Comics including both issues of 'A Brigand's Tale'.

This year I will also be selling some original, hand crafted pen and ink artworks as well:

I will also be taking commissions if you would like something else done for you in my unique artistic style.

We will be in artists alley at table  A027. Come on up and say hi!

Here's a link to a special preview of 'A Brigand's Tale' number 2 :

http://issuu.com/home/statistics/publications/abt2_preview

If you make it to Supanova but would like to commission me, please send an email to info@boltcomics.net and we can get rolling!

Feel free to comment below.

A Brigands Tale #2 - PREVIEW

Sorry this is a few weeks late, but the birth of my second child 4 weeks ago took precedence over blogging. I hope you understand.

Anyway, please click on this link  below for a taste of 'A Brigand's Tale' #2!

If the link isnt working go here: http://issuu.com/dantribe/docs/abt2_preview

I'm pretty happy with it.

If you feel like buying a copy hit us up at Supanova Sydney on the weekend of 19th - 21st booth A027 aw yeah!!!!

As always feel free to comment below with any thoughts, or hit me up on the twitter: www.twitter.com/TheDanTribe

ABT 2 off to the printers!

It's done. Gone to the printers.

And I'll admit it, it's done a little later than I had scheduled *coughDecember2014cough* but hey, that's how the cookie crumbles.

And while the slowness is down to me, I can't take all the credit for the finished product.

In my humble opinion, A Brigand's Tale Number 2 is in every respect superior to number 1.

Some of that may be from me, but it is largely due to the assistance from 2 other collaborators.

First off is Mike Stoneburner, not only did he write the 4 page back up story in this issue loaded with the feels, but he really helped refine a lot of the dialogue in the scenes in the book, and helped 'fantasy it up a notch' with his prose exposition skills. He also added some great jokes!

Then, while I think I did an OK job on the art chores, John, the man behind Midnight Runners publishing stepped in at the last minute and executed screentones on the art that just takes the whole thing to another level!

Not gonna lie, those 2 make me look good, but most importantly you, the reader will enjoy it moreover because of the effort and talent these guys put into the book.

So to celebrate, and because due to various family commitments, I will be unable to launch the book a ComicGong, but still go to that one, there will be a brand new issue of The Adventurers launched there that wraps up the first story arc for those cuddly critters! 

or even attend, this bad boy will now be officially launched at Supanova Sydney - yeee harrrrr!

To make up for this, from next week I will begin posting a page a week from ABT #2 replete with annotations.

Until then, stay tuned!

Brigand is trademak and Copyright Daniel Tribe. All rights reserved.

Keep up with all the Bolt Comics news by liking our Facebook page here:

www.facebook.com/BoltComics

Tips and tricks part 2

If you work digitally, this may not be of interest to you. 

This post is pretty much about if you wanna make a mess and literally get your fingers dirty.

I don't begrudge people who work digitally. I get it. It's faster. Your lines are straight, you can copy and paste backgrounds, instant resizing, blah,blah,blah. 

Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are exclusively digital. 

And that is all good. 

But for me personally, nothing is actually more FUN than splashing ink on paper. 

and ultimately I make comics because it is fun. 

The more fun the better.

I am a relative beginner so see below for some great resources I swiped from pros who are actually awesome and make this stuff look easy:

Artist extraordinaire Tom Richard on inking:

http://www.tomrichmond.com/blog/2006/08/21/inking-tutorial-part-i/

http://www.tomrichmond.com/blog/2006/08/22/inking-tutorial-part-ii/

Inking demo vides with one of my art heroes Sean G Murphy, I love the bit where he just pushes the ink with his fingers...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jelTniKtlZY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpOelUJqLA4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oO2J2ponho

Enjoy!

Think I'm wrong? Let me know in the comments below: