The Insignificant Other

Fitz on Sept. 18, 2007

The new page is up, as promised. Which means Erica didn't kill me for posting her portrait before showing it to her. She's back from Boston and she's seen it already - but refuses to comment. Which could mean either that she hates it or - which is more likely - likes it but won't admit it, because she knows how much I want it :) Woe is me ;)

Anyway, new page is up! A new chapter - and a new setting. I actually could've left them indoors and have them observe the situation from the mousehole, for example. But that would've been boring, no? So there we are, watching her from outside through the window, in the rain - like plain old stalkers ;) I like it this way because I get to try out a new color theme - blue and yellow. I really like it how they stand out against one another and then sometimes they blend so well.

Like the previous episodes, this one is packed with minutiae, too. My favorites are the ripples, especially those to the right. Who can tell me what they stand for? It's tricky but it makes sense. Oh and the gargoyle. I love New York's gargoyles! I have a bunch of favorites. The funny thing is, this is not one of them. It's a statue taken out of a completely different context and put there in the role of a gargoyle. Anyone know who the fella is? The face is a bit distorted from the original. I was trying to make it look more like a chimera. And I still can't draw :P But the body and that thing he has on his head were left unchanged. Speaking of which, I spent quite some time trying to shade that little bugger. Tried and tested a bunch of methods, icluding cel-shading that I typically use to shade characters, but this one just looks better with soft, airbrush shading.

And I love it how Mick looks like a gargoyle in the last panel, too, sitting there in the rain.

I'm pretty sure I've seen a similar panel in some comic, aaages ago. Batman, most likely. Here the rain is coming down vertically. Kind of looks like a barcode :) And the background is black, just like Mick's silhouette, so you only see him because of the rain falling in the background. I like that effect. Rain was fun to draw in this episode. In each panel it looks different, marking the intensification of the downpour - and different angles. By far the coolest effect is the raindrops catching some light from the window in the third panel.

OK, enough yapping about the comic :)

IN OTHER NEWS:

Mick and Ryan made a guest appearance in Drunk Duck Zombies - a comic drawn by different artists, who borrow characters from their favorite DD comics and make them into zombies. So, my friend Bocaj, the author of Laugh Out Loud Zombies, made this hysterically funny comic with Hijuda's cat and my little pet rodents:

http://www.drunkduck.com/Drunk_Duck_Zombies/index.php?p=271168

Also, my friend Erstatz has a separate comic for fanart now (I'm jealous! I want fanart! Hehehe) I drew a comic for him:

http://www.drunkduck.com/Not_Ersatz/index.php?p=263759

Be sure to check the original version, too :)

I make another cameo in DGriff's “Zorphbert & Fred” 100th episode:

http://www.drunkduck.com/Zorphbert_and_Fred/index.php

And before I go, MY FIRST EVER FANART. This badass version of Mick was done by my friend JMT, the author of The Nonsandard Assembly:
http://www.jonnyaxx.com/images/mick.jpg

Be sure to check out Bocaj's, Dawns, Ersatz's and JMT's comics - you'll find them all if you scroll down the comments.

Till next time! :)