March Update: Enter the Dragon

March.
The month of breaks (if you are a student) and Irish booze-ups (if you are everyone interested in that sort of thing).

We are hard at work.

Dave arts nonstop. He arts so much that we have to use the word art as a verb.
Tim is, as usual, mired in editing/rewriting/revising while working on other short stories and the outline of a book. Business as usual.

With regards to our monumental undertaking, Dave has finished several pages, full colour and all, and they look stellar. We are hoping to have the first part of the first book (about thirty pages) done in March or April.

As usual, here are a couple of samples some of you may have already seen. The pictures below don't actually have anything to do with our graphic novel, but hey... who doesn't love dragons?

Continue on to see a near-finished version of the same work!

One Week Later

 

Well, it's been a week since we got the Wacom Cintiq, and I think because of that, it's also been a week since Dave has seen natural light.

 

 

Over the past seven days, Dave has created a surprising number of pieces. I'm sure we can chalk part of that up to how the Cintiq can streamline the creative process, but I should point out that I firmly believe, despite what Dave says, that he hasn't removed himself from the screen for seven days.

 

In short, he's on a roll. The muse is there, so why deny it?

 

 

 

 

But there's more that's new and noteworthy. Read on!

Wacom Unboxing and Our First Digital Portrait

What's this?
Two posts in one month? When was the last time that happened?

It's been a while, to be certain. Earlier this month, we brought to light that we would soon have our very own Wacom Cintiq 22HD. Update: We have it. And it is glorious.
It was in October that we got to test drive the larger 24HD Cintiq, and we were pretty blown away.

So we got one.

And there was much rejoicing, in the form of mead.



Getting the Cintiq and setting it up was an experience. It was draining, but incredibly exciting at the same time, because we didn't know, and as of this writing, still don't know the potential that this device will afford us.

Well, it was almost immediately necessary for Dave to take it for a test drive. How did it turn out?

Below you'll see two images: one of which is a work in progress, the other is the finished product. Also worth noting is that this was Dave's first attempt with the Cintiq. Both images are 100% digital. At no point did pencil touch paper.

Halfway through:

Finished!

Perhaps within the next few weeks we'll have another post to give some background info on the above character, who looks like he doesn't take guff from anyone (spoiler: he really doesn't).

So what does everyone think? Please leave comments below! And check out our other posts for more artwork!

A Step Forward

Happy 2013 to everyone!

I'd like to start off by wishing everyone all the best for this year, and to thank anyone who has taken even a passing interest in our progress over the past two years. We're going to get things started with a few updates.

You may notice the title of the blog has changed. Yes, I did start it off under the moniker "offblue harvest", which was a slight nod to Blue Harvest, George Lucas' code name for Star Wars when it was in production. But as time marches on, some adjustments are needed, and a code name is no longer appropriate at this stage.
The title Carthaniss Keep is not the title of our novel, but it does refer to an important location. If you want to take it as a sign of progress, we won't stop you.

Secondly, as far as the progress of the writing goes (Tim's constant challenge), we're about 30-40% complete. However, seeing as how we're still in a position to make creative changes, this number could change as well. As the scribe, Tim has found a more comfortable footing in terms of pacing, scene writing, etc, and as such will make changes to some major segments in parts of the book we had already thought of as complete.

Third and thirdmostly (thanks Bobby Bottleservice) we are less than a month away from obtaining our very own Wacom Cintiq, which will make the creation of the artwork much more fluid for Dave. When we actually do get the Cintiq, we're going to nerd out with D&D-esque board games and lots of mead (pictures will be provided).

As always, here is some sample artwork. What you see below is the actual layout of one of our very first scenes, and I think you'll agree with me that the quality of the artwork we've seen is always increasing.



Feel free to leave comments, and look for more posts! They should be coming more frequently in the days to come.

Cheers.

(Click here to check out some of our other posts!)



Hands-On with Cintiq

Today was a great day.
Today we got to test-drive the 24HD Wacom Cintiq tablet. And is it ever beautiful.

I was initially concerned that it might be unnatural to draw on compared to paper, but that concern was soon negated as Dave was able to sit down and effortlessly sketch out faces as though he'd been using it for years.


We're hoping we aren't too broke can afford the slightly-cheaper-just-as-awesome 22 HD some time this year so that we can have the first two books out in 2013.

Yes, we're playing the long game, but that's the only way to make sure the end product reaches its full potential.

Check out the Wacom Cintiq demo video, below.