Eik of Late

It's been ages since I put up anything from Eik, and much has progressed. I have about 40 pages (of 52) inked right now, and colour is just around the corner. This wintersession, I am working under the guidance of R. Kikuo Johnson, with my two fellow comic artists, Myken Bomberger and Anita Tung. To summarize, our project is a three-person anthology under the working title Fracture. Each of us is working to complete a comic of around 40 pages to be placed in one book. Our works are pretty diverse both in themes and visual style, so it should make for compelling reading. I'm honored to work with Myken and Anita, as they are both very talented artists. Anyway, enough back-patting, below are some inked parts from Eik, mostly in order.

Last note, say 'Eik' similar to as you would 'Ike'. Eik is primarily a Scandinavian name which can be used for any gender. Literally, it means "oak". The world of "Fangren" is based on the word for "prison" in Norwegian and Danish, which is "fengsel" and "fængsel" respectively.

Recent Activities

It's been a while since I've posted, so I thought I'd put up some photos of a couple zines I put together in the last few days: WoRM and Encounters.

Conflict: pleased with zine production, displeased with neglected homework.

WoRM is my first assignment from my Self-Publishing course this winter, a zine that doubles as an exhibit. Below are some of the spreads, not all though 'cos where’s the fun in that. Wanna see the whole thing in the flesh? I made some extra copies and they're waiting on my bigcartel just for you.

Next up, Encounters.  Encounters is the latest collab zine to come out of the Inkmaggot studios (aka my hands).

Fully endorsed by Optimus Prime, It’s 24 Pages B&W, each copy has a unique spray paint cover to keep you warm and cozy. Waiting for you are illustrations and comics of “documentation of the extra-terrestrial run-ins of providence, winter 2013.” Whatever that means to you. Works by the following lovely humans: Anita Tung, Jessica Kleinman, Toril Orlesky, Vinnie Neuberg, A.T. Pratt, M. R. Trower (yours truly), and Ivy Bradley.

The truth is out there. The zine is for purchase out here.

Inking Early

There's still a bunch of pencil revision to do..but I started inking anyway. Oops.

Strip Mall

I'm still making short strips for RISD's online paper. It's nice to have a very small space to experiment with story/composition/colouring without much pressure. Also included below is a submission for a the "L O O M" zine curated by a couple of risd students.

Drawing along...

More Eik (first two are consecutive spreads, the third is from later in the story)..it's coming along. And now 52 pages long!

It's a very comics fall.

Below: Two random spreads from Eik and my first strip to be put in the All-Nighter once it restarts up.

Eik is still coming

I swear! (proof below)

What I'm doing with my life currently.

Usually when I'm bad at blogging, it's cos I'm too busy doing real actual things in the physical world to document them in the digital one. No exceptions here. I wanna take a couple seconds here to explain what's eating up all my time.

This fall I'm doing a collaborative independent study with Myken Bomberger and Anita Tung, mentored by the great Paul Karasik. We're each doing 30-50 page comics which will eventually all sit side-by-side in an anthology this winter. My comic has the working title of 'Eik' and is a kind of confusing complicated story about a character in another universe who repeatedly breaks up the social hierarchy and pays the price. But it's also about drawing little weird characters running around and trying to communicate in frenzied pantomime (metaphor for my life?). It's super intimidating since I've committed myself to 50(+?) pages and time is already ticking away.

I've made a bunch of process work in developing this so far, so enjoy some random images from the first stages of development.

Some Character Designs (Eik is top Left)

More character business

thumbnails pt. 1

thumbnails pt. 2

Working on using sketchup to create buildings/perspective to save time. Also sketchup is apparently a good skillset to acquire.