The Absence #5 - AVAILABLE NOW

 There were a couple of minor quibbles in the first proofs I received so I've tided up those up and now the fifth issue of The Absence is available online from Lulu.com. Here's a link:

PURCHASE THE ABSENCE #5 HERE

It's £3.50 for 52 pages (50 pages of strip, plus another two page essay thingy I wrote about the origins of the story).

The Absence is a six issue miniseries, so only more issue to go! Script is written, thumbnails are done. Nearly there…

"How many people have you killed, Dr Temple?"

Huzzah! Issue 5 of The Absence is done, and at the printers! It's 52 pages long and took about 5 months which makes it the quickest issue (in terms of size to speed) EVAH! Which is just as well, since I now have to squeeze out the sixth and final issue before October… Thankfully the last issue will be a little shorter. I've been head down and working (both on The Absence, and, at, well, work) which explains the lack of blog udpates.

Where issue 4 examined Marwood's history, issue 5 takes a look at the past of the enigmatic Dr. Temple. Here's the blurb from the back:

Following the horrifying discovery of a massive chasm beneath his home and in an attempt to help save the village from certain collapse, Dr. Temple enlists the help of an old friend from his time in a military experimental science unit. 

But with Irvine Pink’s arrival also come memories of Temple’s tragic childhood and recruitment by the enigmatic and dangerous Taylor, a man whose motives are never quite what they seem and should never be trusted. 

Meanwhile, as the doctor and Pink race to discover the truth behind the missing villagers, Marwood’s suspicion of Temple continues to grow...

And here's the cover.

That's Taylor on the front there. He's already made a couple of appearances in The Absence (most notably in issue #2) and he gets a little more screen time in this issue. 

In other news, a story I drew and painted a couple of years ago has made it into this month's CLiNT magazine! Written by JP Rutter it's a short tale of haute cuisine, absolute desperation and crushing horror. A bit like the Great British Bake Off, then. Here's a photo, now go and buy it.

SketchUp

Yes, I know it's been fricking ages since my last post. I've been manically busy with one thing or another and it seems more important to actually get the comic finished (it's going well, thanks for asking) than it does to talk about it, but it's Sunday night and I'm too knackered to draw so I thought I'd post something instead.

I used Google's (now Trimble's) SketchUp briefly at work a few years ago to create 3D packshots of books I was designing. I never used it much, and so I never really 'mastered' it (in fact most of my time was spent going, 'Oh now why has that happened? Don't move that there, I didn't… OH FOR GOD'S SAKE').

I'd read how some artists use it to create a 3D environment which they can immerse themselves in to help ensure their backgrounds and scenes look authentic. I discovered it's possible to download 3D sculpts created by other people and when working on issue #3 I found a great model of a Messerschmitt which I used as reference for the upended plane on the cliff edge. To be able to spin the thing round and find the perfect angle was a revelation but still I shied away from actually creating my own sculpts because it always seemed so complicated.

But I continued to fiddle with it over the next year or so, and now, on issue #5, I've used it to create a couple of environments. Here's some screengrabs of the models:

The Falling Moon pub interior

Edward Temple's house (Who he? Wait and find out…)

They're pretty coarse, very simple and a bit clunky but they enable me to move around inside the two spaces and find the perfect angle. I do a 2D export, stick it into my page layout and basically 'trace' the geometric lines. All the detail I put in by hand afterwards, safe in the knowledge that my vanishing points and perspective are bang on.

With Edward Temple's house I imported other elements I downloaded from the SketchUp database (the staircase is actually a model someone created of the Titanic's staircase - I put it in then pulled it apart a bit while the chandelier is really just there for positional reference for me).

So SketchUp is proving to be really useful - and I'm spending less time arguing with it as well, which is nice. And the best thing about it? It's totally free to download. You can't argue with that...

ISSUE FOUR! AVAILABLE NOW!

Well crikey, it's taken slightly over a year but I've finally navigated the torrid waters of a busy work and home life to finish issue four (of six, oh god still two more to go!) of The Absence! I have it in my sweaty little hand, look:

If you're so inclined, you can buy a copy here. It's £3.50, and 68 pages long (SIXTY! EIGHT!). Thanks in advance and please do let me know what you think!

Grumpy Marwood

Seen it done before by others, but there's something about photographing your artwork in Instragram that adds a real depth and warmth to it. Well, I think so anyway. Obviously once the inevitable Instagram backlash occurs and we all think it's terribly passé I'll revise my opinion accordingly...

In other news, I'm one page - ONE SOLITARY, INKED PAGE - away from finishing all of the artwork for issue 4. And then it's just a bit of lettering, some redrawing here and there, then a final proof read and it'll be off to printers... Oh thank god.

Pearl Clay

Issue #4 update

God, December?! It's been bloody ages since I posted on here. I started a graphic design business back in February (check us out at amazing15.com) and life has been INSANE since then (which is great, obviously, but it's left precious little time to work on the comic).

That said, work does continue – I'm about 30 pages into #4 and it'll be about 45 pages in total so should be done early in the new year I reckon. Which'll make it over a year since #3. To those that give a crap I'm really sorry. Must do better.

Still, I'm pleased with how #4 is shaping up. It's a big issue with lots of 'answers' (and a few new questions, naturally...), lots of talking (I've just done a two page sequence that sees two people passing each other the time of day in a country lane), lots of flashbacks and lots of stuff which required some hefty military research. Military research? Wait and see.

Here's the cover.



I finished a first pass on this ages ago but wasn't 100% happy with it so I've been tinkering for a while. Done now though. \

Until, you know, I fiddle with it again.