“Blackbird” Comic Completed. Paperless Animation?

I’ve finally finished the artwork on the “Blackbird” comic. Here’s hoping someone picks it up soon. I’m going to take a bit of a break from comic projects for a while (at least those that stretch a few weeks at a time) to focus more on animation and developing teaching materials for the coming semester. One of the modules I’ll be teaching this time around is 2d animation. We’ll be using one of those 2d animation software that’s become so widely used today (check out the newer stuff they’re showing on TV nowadays for some examples), so for the most part it’ll be ‘paperless’. Basically it means that the entire animation process from drawing to final output is done in the software itself. No scanning of drawings needed and no flipping of cels/pages by hand necessary. Time-saving as that may sound, I still believe you can never avoid drawing stuff on good old-fashioned paper. Character designs, thumbnails, pose studies - they’re so much faster and more intuitive to do on paper imho. Wacom tablet and software notwithstanding. Maybe I’m just too much in love with my pencil.
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Did a quick pen sketch of this kid (who I’m assuming is heading home from school) on one of my rare trips on the MRT the other day. I really should get on the public transport more often. And I definitely need to get more sleep…

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“Blackbird” is Gliding Along.

The new comic I’m working on is past the halfway point and hopefully it’ll get done before the end of next week. It’s 8 pages long so it’s more like a mini-comic than a proper one really. Here’s a set of drawings of the titular character I did as part of reference gathering:

I’m continuing my exploration of inking (and drawing using the pen both traditionally and digitally) with this project. I recently came across an article on spotting blacks in Draw! magazine which proved quite enlightening. It basically laid down some concepts I’ve picked up on albeit subconsciously when looking at comic art and doing my own. Now I’m planning to utilize it more prominently in my work - starting with “Blackbird”.

Anecdote: Apart from “Blackbird” I’m also trying to tidy up a set of storyboards this weekend for a work-related animation project.

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