Here comes the good part. It’s part three of the four-part series counting down to MoCCA Fest and the debut of my anthology, Oak & Linden. You can read part 1 and part 2 if you’re into tracing paper sketches, and I’ll also make one composite post on June 6th, the day of MoCCA Fest. – Prolongin’ Pat

I tend to work at “half up,” which I learned from How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. In other words, the original art is one and a half times the size of the printed graphics. The shrinking makes the lines tighter and disguises inconsistencies and little stray marks and the like. The standard for comics is to work on 11″×17″ paper and print at about 6½”×10″ and that’s the size I’ve been working. For a wraparound cover with bleed space at this same scale, I needed to work on some 18″×24″ paper. As I said a few weeks ago, I hadn’t done that since in the days of art school. I feel like a big boy again.

Here you can see the daintily traced pencil line on the right half of the page.

Now, it should be said that I’m very bad at drawing lightly. I’ve compensated by using blue pencils (specifically the Copy-Not Non-Photo Blue and Col-Erase Light Blue, both from Prismacolor, and both with an eraser on the end) that don’t reproduce in black & white. For this project I knew I wanted to use colored ink washes instead of my typical Photoshop colors and I didn’t want blue lines everywhere so I I had to compensate for my pencil mashing some other way. So I drew everything with regular pencils on a piece of drawing paper left over from sophomore drawing class, then lightboxed the lines onto a sheet of bristol for the final product. I usually leave my pencils pretty rough and finish the drawing while I’m inking. Well, this case is different, again, because of those ink washes. I figured I wouldn’t have as much leeway as I normally do to throw white (if you’re wondering, right now I use Pro White opaque watercolor) over all the lines I don’t like, because of how the colors would react on top of the paint. Thus, I drew some pretty tight pencils. I even used a ruler for the perspective lines! Almost worthy of being inked by somebody else, like a superhero comic.

But it was inked by me. I ain’t no sellout! (With Rapidographs—if you’re in the market for these technical drawing pens, wait for the back to school sales to get the the seven piece set. Every art store in New York majorly slashes the price at the beginning of each semester.) I didn’t fill in any major black areas because I’m totally into doing that with Windsor & Newton Designer’s Black right now. It comes out really, really black, like black hole black, but unfortunately it’s a guasch, not an ink, which means it’s water soluble. So yet again, I’m compromising for those goddamn colored inks:

At last, part two of the four-part series counting down to MoCCA Fest and the debut of my anthology, Oak & Linden. You can read part 1 first, and I’ll also make one composite post on June 6th, the day of MoCCA Fest. – Protractin’ Pat

Having settled on the title design, I realized I just might need to draw something on the cover. I turned for inspiration to a dream journal I kept fastidiously when I slept alone, but have mostly ignored ever since I moved in with Caitlin.

What, you can't tell what's going on here?

I was most on my dream writing game when I lived in Bushwick, which is very much like living in the Caribbean, and lots of my dreams involved Carnival or block parties or fairs. There was also a running theme of small rodenty animals whose heads I needed to crush with my shoe. One time I looked closer and the beast was be a cute kitten and I loved it and gave it a drink of water. Once it was a baby panda with human hands. Usually, though, it was a hideous rat-weasel with matted fur and I really wanted to smash it. I guess what I’m saying is, I landed on a Coney Island wrap-around cover with lots of dream elements on the front, and all the characters that appear within the book on the back.

I realized that with all these foreground elements, I’d need to first get a handle on the background:

Then I put on some tracing paper and placed all the people:

Here it is: the post you’ve all been waiting for. The previously promised process post. Okay, so it’s a part of it. I’m counting down to the debut of my upcoming awesome anthology, Oak & Linden, with a four-part series showing you how I made the cover. I’ll make one composite post on June 6th, the day of MoCCA Fest, wherein O&L will drop. – Pat “Patience!” Mac Bar

I should say right from the get-go that you can click on all these pictures to see what’s going on a lil’ better. In the beginning all I had was a title, and I needed to make it a type treatment, or a logo, or whateva. As I often do when I want to make a logo, I started playing with Sharpie on tracing paper. This is a sketching technique I learned through Caitlin from her favorite prof ever, Charles Goslin. It really works because you stay loose, you have a really easy time seeing the balance of black and white, and you can also make changes quickly by laying on another piece of tracing paper.

I swear it seemed like there were differences between these at the time.

The title comes from a Greek myth about a couple that takes in Zeus and Hermes, who are disguised as bums. The couple is rewarded for their hospitality by being linked together even after death, as intertwined oak and linden trees. There definitely had to be some wrapping and braiding kinda stuff going on. I landed on a basic concept, and I kept redrawing and refining on various pieces of tracing paper. Then, when I finally liked one of those, I used a lightbox to trace it on bristol with a Rapidograph pen. I scanned that, blew it up, printed it out and traced it again. That’s when I realized I didn’t need to do that last part, and I could just trace directly from the print out onto the big board, which you’ll see soon.

Like so (okay, actually youse can’t blow this one up):

Ooohh, yipes, my friends. Things are moving and shaking in the world of your old friend Pat. I gave notice at my copy shop job so I can do a short-term video game graphics job during the summer. I’m really glad to be getting out of this. In the meantime I’m working like a madman to get my anthology together for MoCCA Fest, which is mere weeks away. I haven’t been keeping up with my workout regimen, and the Wii Fit balance board is admonishing me hard. Still, I’m finding time to go to Star Trek, which was basically the funnest summer action blockbuster since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and to draw naked ladies.

What an adventure my love dove/co-writer and I had at Natural History on Monday! That place is the best. We were researching for Petrified Girlfriend locations, she with her camera and I with my sketchbook. Mostly we she took pictures. I offended Caitlin’s sensibilities by making her take pictures that look terrible as photographs but are useful for aiding a drawing. So there we were, making tasteless images with flash reflections on glass and blown out light areas that served no purpose but reproducing the displays placed in front of us. Like a couple of tourists. In the dim exhibition halls the camera’s flash was too weak to capture the room and we didn’t have a tripod for some long exposures, so I dashed off a couple drawings to get down the two best spaces while Cait drew plants and animals.

This isn’t to say that Caitlin didn’t get some really cool shots – hell, any of em that she really set up totally beat my drawings. Like check this out (in a Frog Blog first – photography):

I’ve gotta say, though, the dinosaurs have stopped doing it for me. I think ever since they remodeled that whole floor. Maybe it’s just a coincidence and I got old at the same time that happened, but I’m thinking maybe all the clinical, modern glass, and the layout built around evolutionary lineage rather than dramatic impact had an effect. I mean, I’m glad they have the T-Rex standing properly and they’re doing more to teach evolution and all. I just think the ocean life redesign works better because it retains the mysterious cavern atmosphere that the older mammal exhibits still have – plus it has those cool aquatic sounds!

Anyhow, I’m glad I’m not Craig Thompson, and I don’t consider taking reference photos to be cheating. Cause if I was, it would take me a really long time to make a comic that takes place anywhere specific. And I wouldn’t get this snapshot:

Or this cover for Caitlin’s 1978 solo album, Amethyst:

I realized I should let y’all know there have been a whole slew of updates at PB dot C recently. Not only is there the Abraham Lincoln comic, but there’s also one about a robot R&B star (which is also for applying to cartoon school), plus, like, three illustrations from The Big Money.

I’ve been thinking about doing one of those conception-to-finish blog posts that are so popular with illustrators these days. Would that be lame? Does anybody care what how some kid’s thought process/drawing process works? Is it really any different from anybody else’s? They only ever differ in the details. I guess I’m talking myself out of it. I dunno. I’m working on a wrap-around cover for the first issue of my comics anthology I’m calling Oak & Linden. And it’s pretty awesome. And it’s on much bigger paper than I’ve used since, like, sophomore year at Pratt. I was thinking maybe I’d post the process. Is that so lame???

Oy. Did I let another week slip by without posting anything? What kind of blog is this, anyhow? Lots has been going on. Buddy Colin and I are exquisite corpsing a comic for our table at MoCCA Fest (which is coming right up on June 6th, by the by). Oy vey ismir! Did I just say June 6th? I’ve got to print up my comics before then! To back up a thought, going back and forth on a comic is so much fun. I’d love to get a group of us passing things around in a circle some day and making up hilarious stories.

What else, what else? I sent in my application for cartoon school this past Saturday. But oy gevalt, I think I’ll have to wait a year even if they’re begging for me to come. Du-udes! I need to get some scholarships! They don’t have federal accreditation yet, so I’ll have to put the whole tuition on a private loan. I’ve got to try to lessen the burden a bit, nais pas? In the meantime I’m hoping to get laid off and live off the social safety net for a while – omg, jaykaying!…sort of. Odds are looking up since the copier is empty after 8:00 every night.

Leaf Boy!

It’s Passover and it’s Easter, and Easter includes my favorite exclamation of all, as seen above. I thought I’d switch things up a bit this week and do more showing and less telling. Maybe you’ll like this drawing some stoner kid did in his notebook in highschool…

OK, actually there was a guy on the L train platform playing the blues b’jesus out of Amazing Grace and had me literally on the verge of tears. I didn’t have any dollars, though! Only change! I emptied my pocket, but he totally deserved better. So I guess maybe I thought I could make it up to him by drawing him on the ride home? Annnnd, (that’s the Obama speaking delay) how about this? I don’t know if Cait’s melancholy is rubbing off on me, or maybe I’m just overwhelmingly frustrated right now. I’ve been fighting customers at work and generally going around moping. Anyhow, He is risen!

I’ve broken my covenant with the Internet! A whole week without a post! I’m into regimens and routines right now. At least one blog every week, doing ‘shups even after my going clazy day. Also yesterday I got Wii Fit and the talking balance board told me to set goals for myself, with specific deadlines, so I can achieve! I’m a change agent! Speaking of which, I’m serious about the cartoon school thing, at least I think I am. At the very least I’m seriously sending off my materials next week. One of the application requirements is a comic featuring yourself, a robot, a snowman and a piece of fruit. It’s turning out pretty well; two out of three pages are done-zo. Not to brag or anything.

Golly, this might need to be scanned again, but on a real scanner. This green pen never scans well, I guess. Hell, it’s sorta hard to read on the actual paper. Nonetheless, I give you 2 Models:

This ship is turning around, this new leaf is turned, this bird has flown, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! Friends of the internet, I think I’m gonna go to grad school. I’m gonna try to go this fall. That might not happen. I think I need to be at the Center for Cartoon Studies. They’re not full yet and I’m trying to get in an application in the next couple of weeks. Yesterday I was going through what I’d send in my portfolio and I was confronted with the fact that my comics output since school has been running at about four pages a year. This has fortified my resolve!

Don’t you see? I’ve been going at things all wrong! It’s crazy to try to make a freelance illustration career that can support a comics career – I’m going at it bass ackwards! First you write a hit comic and direct it, then you feed yourself by drawing.

Now I know what you’re thinking: OK Pat, why not just draw comics instead of spending all your time building websites and promoting yourself to art directors in dying media? The answer is I’m just too fed up with how things are moving now. I don’t think I can hold out much longer doing what I’m doing, and there isn’t much else that sounds too appealing.

That, and I never got a satisfying critique out of my classmates at Pratt. They’d look at blue pencil lines under black ink and say if I added red, it would be like 3-D glasses. This isn’t to say that my friends haven’t been both supportive and constructive, but I’m yearning for a workshop environment and for classes on literature and writing and the comics medium and guest critiques by real -deal cartoonists. Does this make any sense? I don’t know, but it’s what’s happening now.

And I drew this semi-Phallic, World Snake-ish whale: