Jeremy: We have done it. The ratio of female to male in a comic strip is 1:1! Ouro Bros is now (at least for this strip) equally representative of both sexes. Who knows? Someday we might even have a higher female count in the comic. I guess it all depends on how in touch Jeff and I get with our feminine sides.

Jeff: And the Groupies return! For those of you who don’t remember them, they popped up when the Ouro Bros played the Chameleon Club last summer in this strip. We’ve been meaning to bring them back for another appearance (and possibly more?), and this seemed the perfect time to do so. Of course, upon seeing them again, Stan and Bal seem focused on only one thing. Sheesh, men, amirite?

Jeremy: It had been so long that I drew females in the strip that I had this anxiety leading up to drawing panel 2 that it was going to be a difficult journey. Turns out, with the help of my trusty wife to give me the reference poses I needed, that I pulled panel 2 together very quickly and without fuss. What’s funny is that I struggled the most with drawing the guys. I drew panel 1 and 3 so many times, that I practically went through an entire eraser. Sometimes I just can’t get what I am looking for.

One particular issue I had with panel 1 was getting the perspective correct. I drew Stan and Chester first, rather than establishing the overall environment. I really liked the way the sketches of these two gents turned out, but the major problem was that I just couldn’t draw the background environment perspective correctly. Nothing I did looked right with the dudes. In my frustration, I reached out to the most excellent Brandon Carr via twitter, and asked him if he could help me figure it out. Brandon came through in fine style, and even gave me a neat little tutorial via email that he came up with to assist in my issues (teach a man to fish kinda thing). So, a HUGE thanks goes out to Brandon Carr, who is a killer comic artist, and a great guy to talk to. I hope that we actually hang someday in real life

Jeff: Check it out! Things are really starting to happen for the Bros. And with this show in Philadelphia’s own Milkboy, The Gordo Bordello Orifice Ouro Bros are on their way to fame, right? Woo!

Jeremy: So the Ouro Brothers, and that muscular guy in the purple shirt, arrive at another real life location. Seems that neither the fictional clubs, nor the real world venues, can get the band’s name right. Serves those guys right for having a name that is hard to pronounce and/or spell!

It’s fun to find real places for our cartoon band to make their fictional tour stops. Where else do you think these guys should play? Please weigh in down in the comments section! And while you’re at it, what are some other fun incorrect versions of “The Ouro Bros” that you would like to see misspelled/misinterpreted on a show bill? We might just use your suggestion in a comic sometime (and we’ll gladly point out who suggested it in the comic blog, too). Thanks!

Jeff: In the three weeks since I wrote this strip, I’ve heard 3 or 4 call-backs to this exact same gag. Which would make me feel like a trend-setter, except nobody (except Jeremy and my wife) have read this strip until now. Can you be a retroactive trend-setter? Does that work in reverse? It should.

Jeremy: I guess it doesn’t help that we have a buffer, and that our strips are complete and in the can several weeks before they publish to all of you. At least we can write these blog posts the night before a strip publishes to stay “current” with the times. Maybe we should totally destroy our buffer and do these strips the day before they are due, eh?

Nah, I like the safety measures.

Jeff: I figured it was time to address the fact that, here’s Chester, joining the Bros on the road, not a single piece of sheet music evidenced anywhere, and he’s rocking out like The Starlighters do with Marty McFly on “Johnny B. Goode”! Sorry, but that sorta thing only happens in the movies. I figured it made sense, with as much of a renaissance man Chester seems to be, that he has a noggin for musical theory, so he’s not only keenly aware of how western music is constructed, but also is able to extrapolate from there how the Ouros’ music works by doing the exact opposite.

…OK, that sorta thing only happens in the movies and comic strips. Yeah.

Jeremy: It’s actually pretty funny that Jeff wrote that in as a character trait for Chester, because the idea of Chester is largely based off of a guitarist friend of mine, who has a really keen mind for music theory. Jeff might not have known of this connection, but it only fits with Chester’s innate understanding of how things work, and the building blocks that make up those creations. These boys certainly seem to have hit the jackpot in finding this new member.

Jeff: For today’s strip, I specifically asked Jeremy to mimic the layout and angles of our very first Ouro Bros strip. More than anything, I thought this would show off just how much more awesome his art has become over the year and a half or so that we’ve been working on this strip. Pretty fantastic progression, wouldn’t you say, folks?

Jeremy: Aw, thanks, Jeff. How very complimentary of you. Yes, when Jeff told me about doing a revisit to the look of the first strip, I was totally ready. For a good bit of those earliest strips, I would love to go back and “George Lucas” the crap out of ‘em. Of course, I won’t do that, but it was nice to have a revisit to that first strip to see for myself how I would do, if given another crack. Now I will just have to do another re-visit in about a year and a half and see where my abilities stand then. Thanks, Jeff!

Jeremy: I have been doing a lot of reading recently on the topic of comic making (since I pretty much just jumped in and winged it over a year ago when Jeff and I started the Ouro Bros.), and one thing that I really paid attention to in this particular strip was trying to place the characters in an environment, rather than having the talking heads/bodies in the foreground, with a separate background as an afterthought. Not that I don’t feel I have successfully achieved a setting in past comics, just that the characters were sort of “pasted” in front of a scene. With some new angles/shots implemented in today’s strip, I feel like I placed the characters in a world with actual depth and perspective. They are one part of a visual environment, yet the focus is still on the speakers.

Jeff: And thusly, we bid adieu to you and you and you-ou… no, I mean to 2011. It’s been a great year for both us and the Bros, and we thank you, our readers, for coming along for the tour. We’ve got some really cool plans in place for where the boys are heading next, and we can’t wait to show you! …But we will. ‘Cause that’s kinda the nature of time passing: Cool stuff happened before, cool stuff will happen again, and in the meantime, deal with the cool stuff of the present!

Jeremy: Wow, Jeff. That’s like, super deep and things. You’re like some kind of smart, skinny old man on a mountaintop. Speaking of dealing with the cool stuff of the present, I forgot to mention that I recently won a blog comment contest drawing over at Shadowbinders, a long form webcomic about air travelers in a kind of steampunk dimension, and a criss-cross into the life of a character living in the “real” world. As the lucky winner of the drawing, it earned me a cameo as a pirate in the comic. See if you can tell which one is me. And read Shadowbinders from the beginning, while you’re at it!

Added 12/31/11 “Behind the Scenes”:

Jeremy: Matt’s comment below inspired me to create this addendum to the blog for this comic. Just to show you all an exercise in toning down the sketch a little bit for the final product, here is what I originally did in pencils. After discussing with Jeff, we decided that the final result didn’t need to look quite so zombie-like. But here for your viewing pleasure is a sketch that could have turned into a much more undead version of the final panel.

Jeff: The thing I enjoyed most about writing this strip was throwing in the fact in the last panel that Chester’s really just a big teddy bear. He’s big and bulky, but he’s worried that he freaked out Bushy the Mullet Man.

Jeremy: Speaking of Bushy the Mullet Man, and since this is our last strip before Christmas, I gave Bushy a Christmas-y color scheme – red, green, and gold. It’s the little touch that means so much, eh?

As far as colors go in general, sometimes I feel like I get an okay to half-decent color palette going for a strip, and other times, the color just really seems to come through spectacularly. I feel like today’s strips is one of the latter. I am really pleased with the level of color dynamics and contrast achieved. I don’t really have an extensive knowledge of color palettes; I kinda just keep picking hues, etc. in Photoshop until a color I am adding looks decent with other colors on the page. It’s more of a trial and error thing, than it is any kind of learning. I really should study color theory and palettes a little more. Hmmmmm. Maybe I should enroll in art school or something, eh? No wait. I don’t want to go back to school. And YOU’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE ME!!!

So, online tutorials it is, then.

Jeremy: Looks like a beautiful day to start a new leg of this journey! Now that the green and green van houses a little more baggage, and a very large man in a purple shirt, that is. It’s great traveling weather for a cramped van, three boys and a GPS. Tell you what, these guys need to find a way to maximize passenger space, or get a tour bus or something. Okay, the tour bus is putting the cart way before the horse, but maybe they should get a trailer or a sidecar or something. Have any ideas on what these fellas could do to allow for a bit more traveling comfort? Weigh in down at the comments section!

Jeff: Every now and then I think of how nice it’d be to throw all my necessities into a backpack, and go wandering about somewhere. But then I usually remember that I’d miss all my other stuff…

Jeff: As much as we loved Elle’s contribution to the band, it looks like she’s not the one to turn the Dynamic Duo into a Triaminic Trio (Editing Note: Check to see if that’s what Triaminic means or not). I also thought it was high-time to throw out a little tidbit of what got this tour started in the first place. What do you think, folks? Any thoughts on the Original Backstory of our dear Ouro Brothers?

Jeremy: Stan and Balthazar have a mother. What will these crazy cats think of next? Watch out, they may have a father someday, too. But in all seriousness (or as much seriousness as one can muster in this story), that’s just one of those things that you take for granted, isn’t it? That parents were involved in the history of the main characters, but you don’t necessarily ever need to see them to validate the story. Personally, I think it’s kind of nice to explore character history a little. And maybe we’ll do that someday (or more, rather). ;)

But let’s get back to Jeff’s question. Do you have any ideas on what the Ouro parents were like? What they did? How the brothers got pushed out of the nest and into the world of independent touring? Leave your comments below!