Fossil record

What can we tell the trees?

Work in progress on a strip "What can we tell the trees?", the title being a loose riff on something else I did a while back.

Loosely, part of the Kendal improv series. At last year's Lakes Festival, I decided on the spur of the moment to ask Stephen Holland of Page45 if I could film his excellent talk on selling comics, to use as material for a strip. Thanks, Stephen!

(Page45 is a comic shop in Nottingham, and one of the best voices in the UK comics scene, promoting a far wider range of material than just the usual superhero fair. If you don't live in the area, you can still buy from them via their comixology storefront. This is not an ad, by the way, just a genuine recommendation.)

Tech note, because of that white jacket, and a dark background, the usual cross-hatching technique didn't work well, so I tried something different - which is always good.

Paradox

Talking Over Yourself

Process: Improvised Comic Strip

I've spent a few (somewhat) happy hours learning how to record and edit a movie, as a result of which, here's a short film showing the techniques I use to create comic strips from cartoons.

There are two types of technique on show here:
1. The technical stuff : how I use The Gimp, and some custom scripts, to create the artwork
2. The storytelling : figuring out the layout, sequence and story as I go

Here's the speeded-up, 7 minute video showing the whole process:

And here's the completed strip:

The approach I use in my longer-form work isn't that different - I will script things up in advance (and edit the heck out of it), but typically don't start on the story until after the video's been shot, and fine-tune the dialogue on the page.