Close Encounters (page 2)
Fitz on Aug. 7, 2008
A new page! Been a while, huh? Anyone missed the updates so much they cried? ;)
It's been… 2,5 months! And what an eventful period of time it was! Good things, bad things, sad things… My best friend moved to Australia last month - so next time we wanna hang out, one of us has to catch a plane and fly to the other side of the world. Her best friend just moved back to Poland this month. My other best friend stopped by for a week and then took off, back to London. And this week I saw one of my online friends in real life. Had such a good time :) Oh and I have a new hairdresser - and with a new haircut :D And a new t-shirt! An ORANGE t-shirt! And such a lot of awesome music cd's it's crazy! Jesus, I need to start a blog!
Aaanyway… a new page! Almost forgot what a peculiar feeling it is to post a new page: a mixture of excitement and butterflies going amock in my stomach. “Yay! The page's done! Is it? IS IT? Check for selling perrors! Check for factual errors! Again. Again. AAARRGH! I can't take it any longer! Send Pages” ;) I'm happy with this page :) Especially the birds. Which weren't very hard or time-taking to do, actually! Made good friends with the Smudge tool, that's all :) And I love the worms. Drawing them, at least. Icky critters of nature :D
Hope you enjoyed today's installment. More very soon, hopefully. Got two weeks off from work - so while I have a strong intention to spend half of it SLACKING, I'll use the other half to work, work work! So expect more cheesy goodness! And some changes in the near, future, too! And a little surprise!
Oh and you can vote for your favorite comics in the Annual DD Awards:
http://www.drunkduck.com/Drunk_Duck_Awards_2008/index.php
I'm heading there right now, myself, to vote for my faves! Good luck, everyone :)
trevoramueller at 11:52AM, Aug. 22, 2008
Fitz: Don't sell yourself short, my friend. Top Cow is looking for colorists that stand out, and your work certainly does that. They did have a cover colorist that does digital painting and recently turned him into a regular colorist on one of their main comic titles: Witchblade! I would say that if you have the time and the desire, to go for it!
Ziffy88 at 11:52PM, Aug. 11, 2008
Yes, just what I needed today. As always amazing design and great choice of words for each panels...
Fitz at 10:27AM, Aug. 10, 2008
Oh I have a long list of those ;) Starting with toe-nails. I mean, seriously, what's the use? ;) To practice clipping fingernails? LOL! I like the bottom left panel a lot, myself. For a bunch of reasons. 1. There's a worm in it. 2. It refers to three things at a time: the wormhole has the shape of a sad face (to signify that he's unhappy), Ryan mentions all the body parts that a worm doesn't have and it does look like a mouse tail (which didn't occur to me until you mentioned it). Panel 4 gave me quite the headache. Drawing it was a piece of cake - but the thought process was a LONG one. At first it was supposed to look completely different and feature a row of trees. But that felt boring, since there were trees in the previous page. So I kept thinking of what to put there instead - and as a result, how to continue the story on this page. The idea with wormholes... Can't really remember how that one popped up, but it kinda saved the day :) The other ones would've been dull. This one was fun to draw, made perfect sense, fit into my favorite device of "random lines forming meaningful references", let me introduce the DNA reference painlessly AND paved the way for the birds to appear. And I love the robin staring at the baby cuckoo bluntly :) And I had to remind myself they're still in the sewers, too. It HAS been a WHILE :)
Abt_Nihil at 3:38AM, Aug. 10, 2008
Oh yeah - there are some things natures shouldn't have given us, for sure. It goes without saying that all the stuff you're drawing/painting looks absolutely incredible... still my fav is the relatively "simple" panel at the left bottom of the page... and yeah, it does look like a mouse tail :-) I was just about to write that I don't get the fourth panel's context, but just while writing it, I got it :-) I had to remind myself the protagonists were still in the sewers, and considering the time and changes inbetween this and the previous pages, this one continues as if nothing happened. Meaning? Vague! lol
Fitz at 12:49AM, Aug. 10, 2008
Gary: Thanks :) Feels good to be back, too! As for how I do it... Just a lot of more or less random clicking here and there until it starts looking right - i.e. the birds. Or carefully planning it out - and hours and hours of... precise clicking ;) Trevor: The birds took a lot less time to do than I originally expected. The shoe took waaay more :) But precission takes TIIIIME - and I had to place the dots (holes) very precisely along the arcs formed by the band-aids. As for going pro - I'm not sure I could do that, yet. I did check the link and it DOES look interesting - but the problem is, I'm a self-taught amateur, not an educated artist. I'm just having fun trying out new things, at my leisure. And I strive for photorealism, anyway :) So if they wanted a photorealistic cover, then maybe I could be of help. But who knows, who knows? Maybe one day...? :) Nepath: Thanks! Now it's your turn to post new updates of Fearless! :) LBA: I never actually worked on Maya, but I do have some experience with 3D Studio (the pre-Max versions, which I worked on as a teen kid). And I'm a CAD guy now. I've actually been planning on starting a 3D comic. But I can't get the lighting to look the way I want it to with the crappy ray-tracing engine in SolidEdge. So it's PS for now :) And I'm not gonna cry ;) Dawn: Yeah, I'm back! Then again, did I actually leave? ;) And yeah, I guess I'm aiming to make my comic look more real than reality itself ;) So that soon I'll be able to use real pics as comic frames and you won't be able to tell ;) Tantz: A fellow worm enthusiast! Yay! ;) Even though the birds and the shoes took waaay more time to do, I think I still like the worms the most :) Vickie: Thanks :) BLNTmaker: Thank you! I seem to be enjoying drawing footwear... Maybe one of these days Converse, Reebok or Nike will offer me a job. Or at least pay me to place their products in my comics ;) Jeff: Notice where he put his hand :) And I'd compare posting a new page to Formula 1, I think. Heart racing (pun intended) as you check if every little piece is in place and working properly. And then: ready-steady-GO!
Coyotejeff at 1:48PM, Aug. 9, 2008
The Shirt? Ahh I Get it. No wait.. I don't. More must be reveled. I know exactly what you mean about the feeling after not publishing for so long. It's rewarding and Stressfully. Like Love? HHmm
blntmaker at 6:06PM, Aug. 8, 2008
I've always been impressed by your work, Fitz. That CONVERSE (I like CHUCK too) is just off the chain!
Tantz_Aerine at 4:03PM, Aug. 8, 2008
Good page as always! I love the worms - and the symbolism in the page's context. A very well rounded page! Kudos!
dgriff13 at 2:49PM, Aug. 8, 2008
hey hey! you're back! *whew* Constantly improving... excellent work on the shoes and the birds. The shadows add so much interest. I Like the "joke" at the end, "the tshirt"? lol, yeah.. the... shirt.
lba at 12:10PM, Aug. 8, 2008
That chuck ( converse, shoe ,whatever you wanna call it. ) is way awesome. I seriously thought you were doing it in Maya not PS. And people should totally vote in the DD Awards.;)
Nepath at 9:51AM, Aug. 8, 2008
Nice to have ABC updating again! Great page to return with.
trevoramueller at 7:24AM, Aug. 8, 2008
The birds are pretty sweet, but I really dig that shoe in panel 2! Your artwork and colors are always mind-boggling good! Beyond professional, in my opinion. I think Top Cow is doing a talent search right now, and you should totally enter into it! [url]http://www.topcow.com/Site/inside_jobs.html[/url]
Loud_G at 1:50AM, Aug. 8, 2008
WOO! This page is Sooooo lovely! Its great to see your awesome artwork again. I realy don't know how you do it. Beautiful job. I love the "t-shirt" comment!