Jeff: From all of us, to all of you, Happy Holidays! …That always makes me think of local television station IDs in December from the mid-’80s. Any second now, we’ll see that spinning logo and hear that conga beat for A CBS Special Presentation, and Rudolph will start!
Jeff says: Hey, everyone! Sorry for the momentary time-out from the comic, but we wanted to talk about our time at #SPX.
We had a fantastic time at the Small Press Expo in North Bethesda, MD, this past weekend. Met a lot of people, sold a few books, and generally made a lot of good connections in the independent comics world. We shared table space with a lot of really great people, a number of whom are shown in the sketch above. In case you’re curious, they are (from Left to Right):
One of the things that we really strove for was to look professional. This was our first show – not to mention the debut of our book – so we figured we’d dress (the table) for success, as you can see below.
It was hard not to be inspired by the raw talent of the artists around us. For instance, mid-Saturday, a cup of coffee tragically spilled across some sketch paper we had lying about. We won’t mention that Monica’s tippy display stand is what knocked the coffee over, but what we will say is that she then took that stain and turned it into an adorable (if kinda icky) doodle that I share with you now:
I’ve come away from the whole experience feeling a bit like I just left summer camp. There wasn’t much marshmallow roastin’ or ghost-story-tellin’, but there were friendships forged among this pen & ink crowd, and I’m already looking forward to next year.
Jeremy says: When I attended SPX in 2012 for the first time, I left feeling quite overwhelmed. There was so much talent on display there, that it was difficult not to compare myself with the exhibiting creators. The fact that I was experiencing a comic creator’s convention for the first time ever made me feel a teeeeensy bit out of place. It was hard not to see my own work as chicken scratch, after seeing so much amazingly polished work.
One year later, this time as an actual SPX exhibitor, and with another year of drawing the Ouro Bros under my belt, I left the convention feeling like a colleague of other comic creators. Yes, I saw an overwhelmingly large amount of incredible work, but this time I felt like I measured up to the standard. It certainly helped being (literally) surrounded by a group of awesomely supportive friends and fellow creators (not to mention all the great new people I met this year!). The work of these familiars and other attending creators has this time served as an inspiration to me. I want to be a much better cartoonist/comic artist, but I don’t feel depressed that I still have a long way to go. I am excited to see what drawing hurdles I will jump over next, and what Jeff and I can do with the story of the Ouro Bros that will make the comic ever-engaging and fun to our audience. Here’s hoping we make it through the registration gauntlet to exhibit at SPX 2014!
Boys and Girls, we’re headed to SPX 2013 this week! It will be the first-ever con appearance for The Ouro Bros. and the Neverending Tour. If you took a look at the big version of the map above, we’re going to be hanging out in the highlighted green area (you know, where that image of Stan is popping out). We also have the good fortune of sharing that area of the map with comic friends Chris Williams (Christopher), Lee Cherolis (Little Guardians), Samantha Kyle (Random Assembly), Joe Dunn and Phil Chan (Digital Pimp), Perry Alter (The Tale of Tamarind), and Monica Ray (Phuzzy Comics). If you’re going to SPX this weekend, please come on over and hang with us!
Jeremy: All this behind-the-scenes updating that we have been doing these past few weeks leads up to the final work you see above. This is one of 15 unique art pieces in the printed book, which also serves as a chapter title page! The theme throughout ties in with the title of the book On The Road, Off The Record, as we present Ouro parodies of iconic album covers, with set lists “written” by band members that lay out the strip titles in each chapter. We wanted to give you a preview of one such piece, and some of the process behind creating it, while we take a break from the story to focus on the book campaign. If you want to see the rest of these works, plus special chapter commentaries and notes, even an Ouro Bros story exclusive to the printed book, all you need to do is buy the book through our Kickstarter and it’s all yours!
And speaking of the printed book, every book sent out as a campaign reward will have a special campaign-exclusive stamp in the inside of the cover. Books produced in this first printing run sold AFTER the campaign ends will not have this campaign-exclusive inside cover stamp. You are truly getting a limited edition book when you pledge the campaign!
Jeff: Pretty exciting, no? I can’t wait! And speaking of stuff I can’t wait for, c’mon back next week for the triumphant return of brand new comics!
Jeff: Swim, Elle, swim!
Before I let Jeremy talk a bit about the actual process of creating some of the artwork for the strip, I wanted to give all of you an update on the Kickstarter project. Not only have we met our original $1,000 goal, we’ve more than doubled it! The extra funds allow us to upgrade the paper that the book is going to be printed on, and we’re pretty darn excited about that. At the time I’m writing this, we’re actually about midway between $2,000 and $2,500, which prompted us to announce a few stretch goals. If a few more people pitch in, and we hit the $2,500 mark, we’ll be producing a limited run of character buttons and bookmarks for the strip. Anyone who pledges $20 or more will get in on that action. If we manage to make it all the way to $3,000 before the campaign ends, we’re going to be getting the Elle mini-comic (“Sound and Fury”) printed as a separate treat! That storyline was always designed to look and feel like a comic book; if we hit that stretch goal, it will actually be one!
Also, we noticed that the “Engineer” and “Producer” rewards went pretty quickly. Both of these allow the backer to make an appearance in the comic, and we’re stoked that people are that excited about joining our universe! Since we can’t really offer any more of those types of rewards, we put our creative minds together and came up with a couple of alternatives:
If you’re interested in either of these – or any of our other rewards – please check out the Kickstarter page and lend us a hand! You guys have been terrific, and we reallyappreciate your support! Now, Jeremy, why don’t you talk a bit about what we see up top, there?
Jeremy: As many of you may already know, I draw the comic completely in Photoshop, using a WACOM Intuos tablet to translate my movements and pen pressure to the digital canvas. The first thing I do is rough it all out with a custom brush that mimics pencil. I forget where I downloaded it, but Thom Pratt from the fantasy/steampunk adventure comic Shadowbinders is the person who told me about the pencil brush, and I have been happily using it ever since! Thanks, Thom!
Step 2 is inks. Earlier this year, I bought this killer Photoshop custom brush presets pack created by Ray Frenden, that I use to do my digital inks (buy the presets here! They’re an absolute steal, and I love them!). I particularly like using the “Organic” preset, with a few tweaks to brush angle. Using black as my brush color (values are R: 0, G: 0, B: 0), I create heavier, width-varying lines around the outsides of my drawings, and thinner lines to do detailing in the inside areas.
In Step 3, I lay down flat colors. In this specific instance, I created a general background gradient (lighter blue to darker blue) to represent the watery atmosphere color that I would build up to completion with details later. This simple background treatment also allowed me to fill in Elle with flat colors that would look good with the atmosphere. In Photoshop, I color flats one layer beneath the Inks, as I like keeping my line art and my colors separated.
In Step 4, I do shading and/or highlighting. For this image, I used a few different soft-edged brushes with varying opacity and pressure settings to add darker shades and highlights to Elle, the coffee cup, and the water. I created this in several layers between the Flats and the Inks layer. I am sure you all may be starting to get the idea of what this particular image is a representation, and we will show you how we used this art in creating some unique material for the printed book in next Thursday’s update!
REMINDER: We’re currently taking a little bit of a break to work on our Kickstarter campaign, but don’t worry. Brand new strips will be coming later this month!
Jeff: So. It turns out, you guys are, like, the most excellent fans, EVAR! With your help, we blew through our initial fund-raising goal within 4 hours. And in less than 72 hours, we hit 200% of our initial request! Because of the response, we’ve added some extra bonus bits to the whole thing, so if you haven’t contributed yet – or did so early on – you may want to check that campaign update page to see the update.
In the meantime, we thought we might show you a sneak peek of some of the book-exclusive material that we’re working on. This is the rough pencil version of an image that’s one of the chapter titles. Seems somehow … familiar, doesn’t it? Eh, maybe not. Nevermind.
Jeremy: The above should give you some small idea of the extra material (besides the actual comics) that will be added to the book version of the Ouro Bros story. We are very proud of this book, and are also extremely excited to show those of you that have so graciously helped us fund it!