NanoMango Day Post 2

Days 2-5, I guess! It doesn't look like much, but that's because I've put most of my work lately into the three pages that'll go up this Wednesday, and it would be silly to post them HERE when, y'know, Wednesday.

Also, the last page represents the point at which I always want to grab my friends and make them comment on layout. Because that is TOTALLY CLEAR, and my genius is on full display!:P

NaNoManGo 2012 Day 1

First five sketched pages for NaNoManGo 2012. I've got the lettering done too but you don't know it bwahaha.
...Please remember I've got a habit of chucking half of all my work, so there's a good chance you'll never see these pages finalized! Enjoy the sketches, I guess!

Just a logo for the LJ Nano bootcamp, since LJ hates dA.

Fantasy Comic Portal Ad

Greyscale version of a full-page ad. I will be doing this again in color, but I had to dash this out in a couple days. Having a large ensemble cast is not always the best thing for productivity...
'
In other news, I really love Fantasy Comic Portal. Check 'em out!

http://fantasycomicportal.com

In Which My Design Work is Done For Me

It hasn't come up in the comic yet- and won't, until well into the next arc- but I've nonetheless put some serious time into creating the logo for the Green clan's doctor-houses. I wanted something recognizable like the Red Cross, but fitting more with the blood-and-thunder rah-rah-Rasa jingoism of the culture. And nothing was really quite cutting it...

And then. Suddenly. Shockingly. Browsing on Etsyly. I found THIS image:

THAT is the logo for the Texas Surgeon's society. No pansywaist cross. No implication of healing or assistance. Star. SKULL. Weapon. Screw death, Texas Surgeon's Society gonna stab death in the face and leave it to corpse! Alternately, gonna sacrifice your flesh to the Force of Medical Knowledge and eat your bones!

Also the book apparently has an entire chapter on medical gavels. For some reason.

Regardless: I think I have my logo.

Drinks and Glasses

I think people are pretty much used to the idea of webcomics as "comics on the web". Which they are.  But webcomics are different than print comics. They're easier to distribute, cheaper to color...and oh yeah, they have about eighty billion more options for presentation.

For people who know what they're doing, I bet that feels freeing. For me, an art gonk who's just about figured out how to post pics on LJ, it's mostly panic inducing. When a page doesn't load, or looks too big, or is all fuzzy,  I have to check every variable I know-- and that leaves eighty billion minus five reasons the pic might still be screwed up.

So if, for example, all my pictures are wretchedly fuzzy over on Smackjeeves? I got nothing.


***
There's no getting around it- my pictures are loading all fuzzy on Smackjeeves. I have no explanation, no reason, no solution for this. I fear it may be because the original files are Painter-based; if all other options fail, I may have to print, scan, and re-digitalize my digital art. Stupid, but if my work's going to fail, I want it to fail on its own merits, and not because of a platform/file dispute I'm not even wholly privy to.

In my search to get around the problem, though, I've rediscovered Webcomics Nation, my first hosting site, now much improved! I'll be working on prettying the site up over the next month, but in the meantime, if you want to go look at my work in a rather nicer package, it's at

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/carapace/sevenhands/series.php

And I'm happy with it if only because I can use my chosen background colors. Hurrah!

Granted, the fuzziness issue remains. But at least I'm posting my images in 1980 for some reason! Yes, that's right, I'm sending back comics from...  THE FUTURE.

I'm totally telling 1980 Carapace to invest in Google.

Testing, Testing...

For some mad reason, all my images have been coming up fuzzy in SJ. Now I don't know yet if it's just some confusion between my monitor/browser and the sight settings, or SJ doesn't like art made in painter (but as a PSD and saved as JPG, darn it!), but it has driven me to, alas, make a tech check here. So, a quick image done in PS:

And one done in Painter:

...Huh. Here, they both look pretty much the same. Back to SJ to double check the look!