DOBU ISSUE #1 in Print!

This arrived today, bleary-eyed I opened the package from America not really realizing what it was.

I am so pleased it has come out so well thanks to the excellent people at Ka-Blam they have done a really great job, it looks so much better in print than I could have imagined. I look forward to getting the other issues printed, even if they are only printed for me.

 

 The colors are great (I know there are only five of them), but yes I am super pleased with the results.

Here is DOBU ISSUE #1 next to the comic book which inspired the creation of DOBU. Now time to send off DOBU ISSUE #2 to Ka-Blam.

DOBU: The Infinite Issue #3

So this issue will again be a departure from the previous, as this will be a "choose-your-own-adventure-style" comic, where you get to DOBU's path through the story. I have always wanted to make an interactive story ever since I read "Space and Beyond" by R.A. Montgomery although I can't remember anything about the book, but the idea of choosing the destiny of the hero was something I liked and stuck with me. I will be making the DOBU comic very post-modern, blending modern role-play, video games with the comic book format.

The other very striking difference will be the action nature of the comic. I recently came across Marvel's Tales to Astonish Issue #100 in a comic shop you can check out the cover here. On the cover it features the words "AN EPIC-LENGTH 22-PAGE BATTLE" between HULK and the Sub-Mariner, it doesn't, although the whole issue is based around the fight, it falls quite far short of this, so I thought it would be funny for DOBU to have a "AN EPIC-LENGTH 22-PAGE BATTLE". Even though it is impossible to as the choices you make may lengthen or shorten that battle. There will technically be 22-pages of battle, however you probably wont' ever get that exact number.

Working Methods

I thought I would make a short post about how I work, I am by no means an expert I have just found (in the two comics I have made, these to be the best methods for what I was doing.

For Issue #1 of DOBU I drew each panel out on a separate piece of paper, it made me concentrate purely on that panel and I was pleased with it. I barely had a plan just a rough story in my head. It did however take a lot more time , approximately 2 hours per panel, penciling, inking, scanning, cleaning up and digitally coloring, so I decided for Issue #2 I would try something different. I decided to staple 6 folded pieces of paper to make a rough version of a comic with 24 pages, write the synopsis on the back cover and roughly sketch out what I wanted on each page. It was a lot quicker, and having a clear plan to work from it meant I was able to concentrate on the drawing instead of "what am I going to do to show this is happening" and then drawing it. When I was in a drawing mood I could simply pick out a page and draw that, instead plan then draw, plan then draw etc.

Pages 3 & 4 from DOBU #2 sketchbook

Pages 3 & 4 from DOBU #2 Finals

These are my pens and pencil. 

A Muji 0.5mm for writing.

Uniball eye Needle 0.3mm for inking, not for parallel lines, or as it dries too slow and smudges.

Staedtler Pigment liner 0.3mm for inking.

Staedtler Triplus Color (Black or Blue, they both come out black in the scanner)

Staedtler Noris School Pencil and the Staedtler Mars Plastic works well to remove pencil.

This, this is my roller ruler.

Necessity is the mother of all invention and I needed to draw loads of parallel lines for speed lines, I have ordered a roller ruler and I am still awaiting its arrival.  In the meantime I have fashioned one out of LEGO and it works really really well.

It's A Cover Up

So yeah, ISSUE #2 is done and will be available shortly, very pleased with it, the story is quite complex but I think I have managed to do it justice. Here are some images to get you excited about it.

Having dialogue and narration dramatically alters the production of a comic, everything had to be re-arranged to make way for text that was either smaller or bigger that envisaged in the original little sketchbook, so it has been a yet another learning process for me me.

Hope you like what you see.

Getting Things, Ship Shape

So I have been agonizing over the ships in the second issue of DOBU in the last blog I showed that I did them digitally and I am happy to say I wasn't entirely happy with them, so I went back, again and again and again. I needed them to be physically possible and yet as if a child had imagined them with all the defects and omissions that might entail.

First one digital, second one digital with smaller ones blacked out, third and final hand drawn (about 10 tens til I got it right) and my favorite. As soon as I got this right the floodgates openedand I got loads of pages done. So I am back on track and actually I am more than half way through this issue already so it might, be out by the end of the week.

Clear Warning

I am pretty sure somewhere I mentioned that the visual style of DOBU would be changing, in that I meant I would occasionally use straight lines. DOBU is a very organic looking comic, it's base art style is drawn from all kinds of inspiration like Aboriginal art for example. So when it came to draw the "V-Model" robots I wanted very digital straight lines to contrast it.

And... there is dialogue and narration too! (there was in the first issue, the rocks in the first issue aren't random, they are morse code), this is because DOBU #2 is about to get very complex very quickly contrasting the very simple narrative of the ISSUE #1.

The changes feel weird for me too, but I know it needs to be done to tell the story and make the different characters stand out, it is even harder due to the fact their is only five colors in DOBU.

Thanks to Blambot who make amazing fonts two of which I use on this page "Digital Strip" for the narration and "Mandroid" for the robots speech. You can find more info on Blambot here.

Keeping Up the Pace

Very pleased to announce that DOBU ISSUE #1 is available in .pdf format from Gumroad here you can also buy it in the sidebar to the right for $2.00. I am very pleased with it and hope you will be too. I will also make it available in my preferred .cbr and .cbz format as soon as I can make reliable versions that work across multiple computers.

Right beside me as I type this is the mock-up version on ISSUE #2 (I stapled several pages together to make a little comic book with the storyboard in it). Although it is very rough, it manages to illustrate the hyper-complex narrative which splits in to three streams to play out three simultaneous stories. Despite its simple beginnings in ISSUE #1 DOBU gets very complex very quickly, ISSUE #2 contrasts ISSUE#1 nicely in that respect.

It will be interesting to see how DOBU #2 takes shape, as I have 1) now had experience making a comic 2) have a much clearer idea of this story and how to tell it than I did for the first one and 3) know pretty much exactly what images I want for each panel now that I have sketched them out. I wonder what I will learn while making ISSUE #2 and how it will impact on the rest of the comics.