ZLM_BlastingOff

Dairy will do that to ya, but it's so worth it, always.

Zero Like Me [Alive] #131:
Blasting Off
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-First Comic-

=Full post=
Easter Eggs: "Yale" upside down in diploma, cuz when I installed mine in its special Yale frame, I accidentally placed it upside down, but kept it like that for teh lulz. 11 tallies cuz there were 111 ZLMs during college. The Super Sad Waffle Show. Motion City Soundtrack, Animorphs, Team Rocket, and Magic, and that's all you need to know.

Fun Facts: I have the originals of every Zero Like Me except for two--this one, which I gifted to the Yale Radiology department after their request, and today's comic because it is the very first 100% digital comic--not a fiber of paper was involved in its creation, not even a consultation from my moleskine. All computer, what a feat! It was fun basically pencilling with a pen, but it did take a long time, so I'm not sure I'll want to do this too often. And since this was all done in Photoshop, there's no real Making Of to be had, but I can show you one of my preliminary layers, I guess.

The difference between paper and digital is that on paper, I have to do all the revisions basically permanently advancing, but with digital, I just create a new layer for the latest step and can go back and forth and edit anything any time. So first I roughly scrawl in everything, as seen above, and then in a new layer, I basically outline the figures once I get their poses down, plus any key expressions so that in a new new layer, I can start laying down the final lines which ultimately end up as the finished product you see at the very top.

I would show the outline step's layer, but I dunno, even though it's basically like mannequins holding our characters's places, the figures are getting accurate enough such that I'd feel sheepish for our zheroes romping around without their costuming. You have to draw the figures with clean detail so that the costuming and hair applied onto them don't look pasted on or guessed at, which means some blushing might occur while drawing this step. But you can get an idea of the process with the outline sample on the right. There's nothing nutty going on with the figure drawings, but, still, wouldn't want to parade a Ken or Barbie around without their duds.

Anyway, most of my comics start out purely as written scripts, and this is the very first layer I started with, which looks like something I might hurredly scribble in my moleskine--just words and key direction that relies heavily on my mind's eye rather than explicit detail:

Baa: I really like digital drawing cuz you get so much control over everything, which is kind of a bad thing, since I'm pretty indecisive about things--took forever to decide on the eyebrow in panel 2! And I also don't like not having a tangible result of my work, you know? I love the ease of drawing, revision, and manipulation, but I do worry that it might make my "real" (paper) game weaker if I end up relying too heavily on layers and digital tools to bumper-bowl me to the pins...

Regardless, the preceding has been an elaborate poop joke made by a graduate of Yale University. And it won't be the last.

Reuxben