Day 22 of 31: Drop Dead Sketchbook - the First Promo Pinup

Hey cats and kittens! Hard to believe there's only 9 days to Halloween! I hope everyone's plans for the big night are going swimmingly. While there's going to be an entry dedicated to early concept art and sketches for Drop Dead Vince sometime this week, tonight is dedicated to Vince's very first promo pinup! 

The top left was some sketches I scratched out for ideas. At the time I really liked the bottom two but eventually I decided to go with the bottom left. I then sketched out a larger and more fleshed out version of it, went over the lines with PaintTool SAI and worked some magic in Photoshop. This was pretty exciting for me since it was my first "official" illustration with Vince and Betty together and I really enjoyed how it turned out. It was the start of a pretty crazy ride and even after two and a half years I'm thankful that it's still going, even despite the bumps in the road. 

Thank you everyone for your support! Take care and stay spooky! 

Day 21 of 31: Drop Dead Sketchbook Sketchdump Coming Soon!

Hey cats and kittens! How is everyone doing? I hope you're all doing well and getting your Halloween plans taken care of since the clock is winding down.

It's another short entry I'm afraid but I have some news for you: one, I'll be working again soon so that will affect my blog updates depending on my work schedule. And two, there's going to be a BIG entry of sketches and concept art for Drop Dead Vince very soon! I'll be gathering my sketchbooks and scanning them this week so stay tuned!

Thank you everyone for being so patient and for your support. Take care and stay spooky!

Day 20 of 31: Drop Dead Sketchbook - Designing the Logo

Hey cats and kittens! I know it's been a few days and I'd like to apologize for being inactive over the past few days, I've been working on the last few pages for Vince's first chapter and whenever I suddenly remember I had to update the production blog I look at the clock on my computer and it's midnight. Oops. But I promise that I'll make it up to everyone, in fact I'm going to be scanning some material from my sketchbooks to upload for the blog for you to take a gander at. This is the first batch: Designing the Drop Dead Vince logo! 

I do freelance graphic design work and I can tell you that designing a good logo takes a lot of thought even before you put it to paper; although sometimes little things like the doodle I did in the top left of the scans above can inspire a big design or concept. The text was a challenge since while I am experience in graphic design I'm not quite experienced in typography (designing text and typefaces/fonts), but I think it turned out pretty well despite my inexperience. Originally when I was setting up the tombstone I thought of using the broken heart design, but I liked the pompadour skull the best since it represented the main character Vince the best and was much more iconic. I tinted the sketch red in Photoshop and printed it out to go over with multiliner ink and brush pens (the grass was done with a brush pen) and then rescanned it to touch up and color in Photoshop again. And the last image is the end result of the logo!

Thank you every one for your support and for being so patient with me. I hope you're having a great Halloween season and have your plans for the 31st underway, there's only 11 days left until the big night! Take care everyone, and stay spooky!

Day 15 of 31: Drop Dead Sketchbook - Brush Pen Betty Doodles

Hey cats and kittens! I hope everyone's been well and having a good week so far. I know a while back I promised that you would be able to see some special sketches and doodles for Drop Dead vince, but now the wait is over! This is Drop Dead Sketchbook, where I pull out a few sketches of concepts, page thumbnails, or any doodles that might stir some interest.

This here was an experiment around the time I was first starting out the comic, trying to figure out if I wanted to do the comic traditionally with ink or digitally. Unfortunately I still need some practice with brush pens and brush inking and eventually I decided to draw the pages digitally. But these doodles of Betty were so cute I colored them in Photoshop and added the halftones to it (I think this was around the same time I was trying to figure out her color scheme as well).

Expect more artwork and sketchbook goodies very soon! Take care and stay spooky!

Day 12 of 31: A Sketch Just For You!

Hey cats and kittens! I hope everyone's having a nice weekend so far. Unfortunately this is going to be another short entry again for Betty and Vince month. Today was a crazy day for me, I had to do a lot of work but I sadly didn't get anything Vince-related done. Hopefully soon I'll be able to get this project finished and get back to the comic as well as the Halloween print for this year. 

In the meantime, here's a special sketch just for you guys! Take care and stay spooky!