Airlock is the 11″ x 17″ poster comic I’ve been kicking around for way too long. But hey, it’s printed and there’s no turning back 😉  It will debut at SPACE 2017 at table W43
Airlock is the tale of a deep-space scientific mission gone wrong. The long survivor is only left with bad choices. What will his fate be?
Come visit us in Columbus and find out!
Thanks for reading!
BF
BD
Airlock is finished-ish! Finally, right? At least I’m through with the illustration, coloring and lettering stages. I just have a bit of massaging and prepress stuff to complete before sending it off to the printers. Here’s what the first few panels look like…
Airlock is my love note of sorts to all of the sci-fi media I loved growing up, including the movies Blade Runner, Aliens, and Tremors; a few choice Justice League comics; and the Metroid video game series, among other things. There’s quite a bit of world-building here that I’m hoping to continue on in another story. But that will have to wait…I have the second issue of Twisted Tales of Two-Fisted Justice just calling my name! I’m excited to have something new to work on for a change 😉  And Brent has a good jump on the third and fourth issues, so I better get my butt in gear!
Thanks for reading!
BF
Hello, my name is Brandon and I am bad at blogging and social media.
Seriously though, it has been far too long between posts, and I aim to rectify this situation. Let’s get started with another update on Airlock!
Here’s a closeup of the mystery spaceman…
…and here’s a doodad showing what he looks like under the helmet. This part is an ID card of sorts that needs some more lettering…
…and here’s the whole can of worms. Pay no attention to the left side.
Picture this: a panoramic comic that is folded to reveal only certain elements as you go. That’s what the goal is here. Imagine that the left half (the one full of Space Unicorns) is folded behind the right half, which is then folded in half with the top behind the bottom, which is then folded in half like a wee book. Believe it or not, Mr. Spaceman will appear on the front of the “book” and will act as a sort of self-cover. Boom. Easy, right? 😉
There’s still lots to complete here, and a few other things that I’m intentionally hiding so as not to spoil the story, but it’s coming along nicely and should be done in the foreseeable future. If anything, this comic has taught me one important lesson: NEVER. EVER. EVER. COLOR MY OWN COMIC. AGAIN. EVER. :-O
In other news, Brent delivered an awesome script to me for the second issue of Twisted Tales of Two-Fisted Justice. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve received it and I am a giant slacker. On the plus side, I’ve started sketching out the pages and Brent has given me some truly epic scenes to illustrate.
Super excited!
That’s all for now…thanks for reading!
BF
BD
Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but that just means we’re staying extra busy making comics 😉 I’ll try to do as little talking here and hopefully the images will speak for themselves. Here’s a bunch of layers I’ve created for Airlock, and at the end you can start to see them come together…
And here’s an image I’ve started for the other side of the poster. Nothing but stars here, but if I show you much more I’ll give it all away…
FUN FACT: I was really dreading drawing a bazillion stars, so I did some Googling and found that NASA has royalty free imagery you can use for artistic purposes.
So, I used this guy, found here…
And also this guy, found here…
…because NASA can do stars way better than I can 😉
That’s all for now…thanks for stopping by!
BF
So…I finally finished inking the background of “Airlock” (unofficially the official name of the comic) and started adding flat colors. The funny thing is, I have a ton of imagery to draw over the background, probably covering it by about 50% or so, but these elements will be scattered randomly, so it was just easier to illustrate the whole background now and then draw the new elements on a layer above.
And before you ask…yes, these images are intended to be upside down. Because…something something something story. You’ll get it when you read it 😉
This comic is intended to be a folded 11″ x 17″ that you read as you unfold it. Nifty. When I get a little further, I should be able to show you how that works…
And I’m either a genius or an idiot, I’m not sure which, but I’m trying something new and inking this piece at 200% size (34″ x 22″). Most comics are created at about 166% finished size and then reduced to smooth out the inked lines. I’m hoping that the extra bit of size will help hide the fact that my current digital inking setup doesn’t allow me to use a ruler, so there’s not a true straight line in the whole thing.
Yep, I’ve decided…I’m an idiot. But this idiot is happy with how this is turning out 🙂
Thanks for reading!
BF
Elemental P Press 