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!

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:

• Pledge of $100 – “Share the Roster” – Your (or your band’s) name gets put on the marquee of a venue for an upcoming strip. The Bros will even make some mention of you and/or your band (we promise that, if it’s anyone other than Elle, it will probably be a friendly mention!).
• Pledge of $120 – “Gimme a Beat” – Getting your name mentioned just once not enough for you? What if Bal permanently named one of his drums after you? Pledge at this level, and it will happen! You get to be a part of the band! …Granted, a part that regularly gets pounded upon, but still.

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 really appreciate 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!

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!

<<UPDATED 6/3/2013: Link to Kickstarter campaign: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1797824930/the-ouro-bros-and-the-neverending-tour-the-book. Thank you!!! >>

Jeremy: In lieu of our normal Thursday comic update, we thought we would fill you in on the big news – We are attempting to get a book made! And our vehicle, as you have seen through the above video presentation, is Kickstarter! This book will collect the entire online strip collection of the Ouro Bros to date, which is everything from this strip to this strip. That is 3 full years of Ouro Bros comics that we are trying to make into one printed volume, that will also contain some extra art, additional commentary by us creator types, and more!

We have happily published to the internet these past 3 years, as it is a great medium to connect us to all of you, and open up discussion through comments, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets. But, at the root of it all, it has been a burning desire of our hearts to one day have these comic strips in a book that we could hold in our hands, flip the pages, smell the paper, the whole printed experience, and we hope that some of you feel the same way! The Kickstarter campaign has many great rewards for contributors, from something as simple and meaningful as having your name printed in the Thank You section of the book, the printed book signed by both of us (including reward levels with personalized drawings by me!), to an actual character in the continuing comic storyline based on your likeness! And a whole lot more in between!

The Kickstarter campaign goes live this Monday, June 3, and we will not be shy about letting all of you know. Watch your twitters and your facebooks for notifications! To be perfectly honest, we want to get this book printed, and the only way we can do it is with your help. Please consider pledging to our Kickstarter campaign this Monday, June 3, 2013. There is literally something in it for everyone!

Jeff: Naturally, we could never have gotten to this point without a whole lot of support already from you, our readers and friends. You’ve come along with us through quite a lot, and we thank you so much for joining us this far. But, lest this sound like we’re saying goodbye or something like that: Fear not! We’re taking a little bit of a break from the strips for the next few weeks so we can really focus some energy on producing this book, and we’ll continue to post weekly to give you updates on the campaign and our progress. Hopefully, we’ll be able to throw out some sneak peeks of some of the new material we’re producing exclusively for the book. But even better than that, our Favorite Foursome will be back near the end of June with brand new material.

And, you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise then, too, as we’re planning on shifting away from newspaper-sized strips to larger ones! We’ve heard some of your frustration that the story is too slow-moving, particularly for a weekly strip, so we’re hoping to be able to pack a little bit more into each update, moving forward.

So, if you’ve ever taken a liking to our little project here at The Ouro Bros, then please, share our Kickstarter campaign video with all your friends to help us get this book off the ground, stay tuned to see what we’ll be putting into it, then get ready for brand new (and larger!) adventures with the Ouro Bros in late June!

Our 4th year, and the continuation of the comic, will see the new adventures upon which this foursome embarks together. And before we get started down that road, we have a special adventure in the interim. And trust us when we say that this is huge! Details next Thursday!

Jeremy: We want to thank all of you for seeing us through 3 years of Ouro Bros comic strips! It isn’t the exact anniversary yet (that date would be May 27, 2013), but today’s and tomorrow’s pages will be the LAST 2 comics of our 3rd year of publishing The Ouro Bros. and the Neverending Tour. We hope you enjoy this 2-day conclusion to a story that has been in the works for 3 years now. And then… we begin YEAR 4!

Jeremy: This band may finally be ready for a van renovation. Tune in next Thursday AND Friday to see what happens! That’s right, it’s going to be a two-page update. Make sure to mark your calendars for both Thursday and Friday of next week! One comic on 5/23/13, and one comic on 5/24/13. See you then!

Jeremy: Also, I did a fun little visual nod to something you all may have seen before…

Thunder-Bal is GO (Theme Song)

Jeremy: Behind every great theme song is a great artist. Brandon Maserati (born Marcel Lamborghini) saw his fair share of musical identities in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Probably best known as the original drummer for Blood Punch, Maserati was also the touring keyboardist for Julius Seizure and the Roman Candles, Piston Partridge, and Robo-Steven, with a short stint on tambourine, electric kazoo, and backing vocals for Germany’s most prolific electronic death-polka outfit, Princëss Drëss. After touring ran its course, Brandon branched out into solo songwriting. At the top of his game, with a short list of pop music’s best in his personal rolodex, Maserati saw the opportunity of a lifetime when asked to pen the theme song to what was to become the hit movie The Neverending Story. With the ink barely dry on the deal, studio execs tore up Maserati’s contract, after finding out that Britain pop star Limahl was interested in the job. Limahl, recently divorced from Kajagoogoo, running on the full steam of the band’s hit “Too Shy” seemed like an obvious choice for the role. Brandon was ousted.

After this devastating blow, Brandon Maserati disappeared from the music industry almost overnight, and for the next several years not much was heard from him. Flying under the radar, it was rumored that Brandon had taken to not shaving and consuming only boxed macaroni & cheese and powdered lemonade mix. It wasn’t until June of 1987 that fans applauded his return to music on the short-lived 6th reunion summer tour of Blood Punch, which saw Maserati back on drums. The tour lasted only 14 days, as in-fighting in the band caused Blood Punch to cancel its remaining tour dates in Spain, West Africa, Peoria, and Australia, after its singer Piotr Saab and lead guitarist The Fist destroyed a cafe in Madrid with an epic no-holds-barred brouhaha. Despite the disastrous end to the tour, Brandon emerged with a new sense of purpose, and an impressive beard to boot. Songwriting began anew, as Maserati found a home recording his music in the form of Saturday morning cartoon show theme songs, the best-loved and most remembered being “Thunder-Bal”.

We owe a debt of gratitude to our friend Michael Ferrari, the man behind the helmet and hammer of Brandon Maserati. Michael created the song after receiving lyrics from Jeff, and some minimal instruction from me. When he first sent me the song, I was doubled over my office chair laughing. Michael really gave us exactly what we were looking for (and more!), which was a cartoon show theme song for Thunder-Bal that felt like it was produced in the 80s, in all its dated regalia! Please go check out Michael’s music and follow him on twitter. Thank you so much, Michael!

Jeremy: I actually physically assembled a motorcycle using my drums and spare items in my motorcycle parts lab, to use as drawing reference for this comic. Some of what I just related to you may not be true.