So, I felt that it was about time someone posted something. You know… considering it has been about 8 MONTHS since anyone posted… I am so sorry people, so sorry.

As some of you may know, Jayme went to England a while ago. He posted a couple of comments on Facebook before giving up, cause he’s rubbish like that. He twitted quite a bit, though. The first trip had a few complications so Jay decided to come back and go back to London at a later date, when things could be organized with more ease. Either way, he is currently in London again! And is still rubbish at posting. Also emails.

He’s been doing some adverts for radio an did the soundtrack for a T.V advert in Andalucia He will be coming back for Christmas and then returning to London at some point afterwards.

Joe! has been busy with various videos, and on Monday he will be filming the first division Granada F.C. He doesn’t yet know if he’ll be putting the results on youtube yet. Him and The Tall One have been setting up their own website which you can look at here: www.luxvideo.es You can see his new Hombres Solos music video, also the controversial (in Andalucia) UPA advert. Go check it out, he’s been a busy boy

I have become a little batman fixated on deviantart

And that brings us to a section I like to call: What Jayme Missed Out On…

…because he doesn’t send emails. Or Skype.

Yey! I’ve done another pair of shoes. This time a special someone asked me if I’d paint them a pair, they gave me the shoes and after doing a couple designs they chose the one they liked best.

Here’s a quick look at what was done and how. Huzzah!

First catch your shoes. You’ll find them grazing in high street shops in matching pairs. Approach slowly and with caution. Mind you don’t damage them as you wrestle them to the ground.

Here are the two fine young specimens I used.

Once I had a basic idea of what was wanted I drew the pattern to be painted to the actual size. Here’s a picture of the two designs that I prepared.

I used a white pencil so the lines would show nicely when I traced the pattern onto the shoes.

I then painted them with the fabric paints that Joe! and the Tall One bought me.

Ironed them and Finito!

(Notice how I just flung the ironing thing in there? Like it’s not all that complicated? Iron a shoe? No worries! They taught me in Girl Guides…)

As for who the shoes are for, well I’m not going to mention any names, but…

Yey! Another comic! And it only took me absolutely-ages-because-I-keep-forgetting-to-draw-them. Hurrah!

Yey! I´ve finally done another comic! Go me! A little sample of what a day in Joe!s life around Jayme is like.

Ahoy!

Joe! and the Tall one have had to change their plans today as it´s started raining and so they can´t do their outside filming. Jayme is busy getting frustrated with this project he´s currently working on and I´m messing about with more things I bought in England. Mainly ribbons and the felt (which I already had) At the moment I´m wanting to make a hairclip, with a plain hairclip that I´m going to stick or sew something on.  I´m just trying out different elements for the time being until I find something I like. No sequins this time but I´m seeing bunnies again… Or maybe one bunny.

I get really annoyed with the prices in shops for nice hairslides and hairgrips and this opinion just got worse at a recent shopping trip. All I wanted was something simple and at a reasonable price, it was crazy! 2.50 minimum to five euro for an adverage hairclip! And then they were either really tacky or just incredibly boring.  That´s why I want to give this a go.

I went to various material shops and craft shops in England with that idea in mind. I bought a load of nicely coloured ribbon, buttons and fabric glue and I´m now setting to work. Wish me luck! XD

Once again I shower you with photos, something Jayme doesn´t do because he´s too boring. Yey!

Hello! For anyone who didn´t know I´ve been in England for the past couple weeks and have recently returned home. Jayme is holed up in his studio, the weather´s on the turn and Joe! and the Tall One are apparently painting meteorites.
I bought myself a pair of plain black deck shoes whilst I was there and have since then been decorating them. They´ve turned into an awsome pair of shoes, even if I do say so myself.
I started with silver fabric paint and a vague idea of what I wanted, I did a quick sketch and promtly ditched it. The shoes were cheap and I was impatient so I just leapt into the deep end. I decided on the bunnies and started painting outlines. I filled a couple in with paint and drew the eyes on others.
I then decided that the shoes needed a bit of colour and shine. I can´t help it, I mostly wear plain colours with no patterns but I like my shoes flashy.
Deep pinks and purples are my ´base´ colours (meaning here; the colours I most enjoy using) so I decided on magenta and pink sequins and began the painstaking task of attaching them one by one with fabric glue. And then ironing the shoes to attach them properly and fix the fabric paint. Yeah, that proved interesting.
Voilá, a cool pair of shoes for under 5 pound. I did already have the fabric paint, the sequins and the glue however.
Behold! Photos!

The first scene with the monks in a smoky room was actually one of the last scenes we filmed (there were a few more, but close enough) It was certainly the last scene I appeared in. I was the monk who´s sat down, Jayme did the voice over later. He was actually the second monk. The scene proved surprisingly difficult to film due to the smoke machine, which was half broken and temperamental to begin with. The preparation took a lot longer then we thought it would and new problems kept arising, just after the smoke machine had let out another belch of head-lightening smoke. There wasn´t much ventilation in that room and we had to shut the door to get the cloudy atmosphere.
The cigarette that I stub out is actually a dog-end we had to scavenge around for as only our older brother smokes, and by the time we final got the take I nearly burnt my fingertips. Joe was behind the camera at that point as well as directing the whole thing, which actually means “make sure Jayme doesn´t get distracted” something that was very dificult considering Jayme was on a skateboard for part of the scene. Then the smoke machine died, only to come back to life at inconvenient moments, the table was at the wrong height, was the wrong size, the legs got in the way of the camera, the hoods of the cloaks were never in the right positions, the box kept clipping the edge of the table, the candles were melting away and Jayme was still messing about on the skateboard. Oh, Joe! how my heart bleeds for you at times…

Okay, taking a cue from the tall one I´m going to give you all some info on the filming of the pilot episode. The street scenes were filmed in the town near us. We couldn´t cut off the street so we´d have to film whenever there was a lull in the noise. We´d have to stop filming to let cars go by. Standing around in a bunny suit attracts a lot of attention and our town is small so by the next day everyone knew we were up to something. Some would stand on their balconies to watch The night time scenes we did really late, to avoid cars and noise. The tall one was filming and I was on the boom mic. It was so cold and we were shaking so badly, we really had to concentrate hard to not mess up the take. Poor Joe! was only in a windbreaker.
The police officer´s uniform was put together with a belt, walkie talkie, a cap and a jumper. Joe! printed out the word “police” on a couple of pieces of paper and we stuck them to the clothing with pins. The reflective jacket was what really sold it. Rachel, who played the police officer was really good about the whole thing especially considering her son´s english teacher walked past us as we were filming and had a good look at her. The next day everyone knew that too.
In most scenes with the Bunny I was the one under the mask. The mask itself was made by Joe! and Jayme with papier mache and covered with fur, which came from the lower half of the curadell bunny suit. The eye holes were covered with gauze to make them look white. The result was an amazing looking mask.
I couldn´t actually see much out of the eye holes, I could just about make out the edges of things if I tilted my head, this was made worse by the fact that i wear glasses. It was winter and the mask´s only breathing holes were the eyes, needless to say it got pretty hot in there so much so that my glasses would steam up. So I´d take them off; didn´t really help much considering I´m short-sighted. In the battery scene Jayme had to call out when I was near the door so I would know when to turn. And they laughed themselves sick when I missed. Come to think of it I hit into the wall more whenever I listened to Jayme…
Here´s a couple of photos of the mask and of the view from inside it.

Okay, I´m back for the second post. I´m going to talk about layout
Keep in mind how many pages you have to fill and try to separate these pages in to scenes. An example; your characters meet, find a stray dog and take it home with them. Assign pages to the plot points. Say you have 5 pages; break up your story. The two first two could introduce the characters and show what they´re doing, one page to find the dog and the two last for them to make a decision and show them taking the dog home.
Once you have that, you need to decide what you want each page to look like. Wide margins, thin ones, none? Do you want big drawings to cover the page or lots of small panels? The more modern comics or graphic novels go for the bigger panels often filling the whole page, the advange is that it gives you a lot of space to do your drawing, you can be more artistic with it, rather than representing exactly what´s happening. Use the layout and contents of the panels to your advantage, you can transmit a lot of emotion though perspective, angles and even the spacing between panels. Do quick scketches of your page with what drawings you want to appear on it, write out the text for that page nearby so you can work out what needs to be seen in that panel.
You may decide to change the drawing inside the panels themselves when you come to draw the actual comic, but it just the basic idea and look that you´re going for, a little like a storyboard for a film.
Carry on sketching until you´re happy with you layout and it isn´t confusing, from there you can start drawing the final pages.
It´s best to use 2h or 4h pencils when doing the final pages and don´t press hard, the pencil is just a guideline for the pen and it you make it to hard it will show even after rubbing out and will cause the penlines to smear and blotch. Underneath the text is an example of page layout and final product. As you will be able to see, there are quite a few changes but the basic idea is there. Okay, that´s all for now!

De acuerdo, estoy de vuelta para el segundo post. Voy a hablar del croquis.

Tened en cuenta cuantas páginas vais a rellenar para intentar separar estás páginas en escenas. Un ejemplo; vuestros personajes se conocen, encuentran un perro descarriado y se lo llevan a casa. Asignad páginas a los puntos de argumento. Digamos que tenéis 5 páginas; dividid vuestra historia. Los dos primeros podrían presentar a los personajes y mostrar lo que están haciendo, una página para encontrar al perro y las dos últimas para para tomar una decisión y mostrarles llevando el perro a casa.

Una vez que tengáis eso, necesitáis decidir qué queréis que parezca cada página. ¿Márgenes anchos, finos, ninguno? ¿Queréis dibujos grandes para cubrir la página o montones de paneles pequeños? Los cómics más modernos o novelas gráficas optan a menudo por paneles más grandes para rellenar toda la página, la ventaja es que da mucho espacio para hacer el dibujo, puedes ser más artístico, más que presentarlo exactamente como está ocurriendo. Usad el croquis y los contenidos de los paneles para vuestra ventaja, podéis transmitir un montón de emociones a través de perspectivas, ángulos e incluso espacios entre paneles. Haced scketches rápidos de vuestra página con los dibujos que queréis que aparezcan, escribid el texto que queréis que aparezca cerca para que podáis averiguar qué tiene que verse en el panel.

Podéis decidir cambiar el dibujo dentro de los paneles cuando vais a dibujar el cómic definitivo, pero sólo vais a por la idea básica y el aspecto, es un poco como un storyboard para una película.

Continuad el sketching hasta que estéis contentos con vuestro croquis y no sea confuso, de ahí podéis empezar a dibujar las páginas definitivas.

Es mejor usar lápices de 2h o 4h, cuando hagáis las páginas definitivas no apretéis mucho, el lápiz hace de guía para el bolígrafo y si lo apretáis mucho aparecerá incluso después de borrarlo y provocará que las líneas de boli se manchen y embarrunen. Bajo el texto es un ejemplo de croquis de página y del producto final. Como podréis ver, hay muy pocos cambios pero la idea básica está ahí. ¡De acuerdo, eso es todo por ahora!.

Hello everyone!
My cousin recently asked me for a few tips on a graphic novel he has to do for a project. I thought I´d post them here incase they were helpful to anyone else. I´ll be posting about planning the story first and later add more tips on different points of the process. These tips are more for graphic novels than for comic strips.
The story- Before you can start, you really need to have your story clear in you head. You need to know exactly how it starts and ends and what information you need to give. Work out you characters carefully whilst you design them, they´re just as important as the plot. You need to know what they can and can´t do, what their reactions would be and what knowledge they´d have to be able to develop the story around them. For example, if your story involves the characters using greek mythology at some point it´s good to have a character who is involved with that or maybe would have access to that information. If you don´t then tweek a charater so that they do.
This will help fill any plot holes or dodgy leaps in the storytelling.
Think Hermione or Dumbledore in Harry Potter; the group needs to know something? Hermione is the fountain of all knowledge.

The design of your characters needs to fit the story, so keep that in mind as you create them. Should they be wearing a certain style of clothing? Do they have scars? Do they look like they fit in the story you´re telling?

Work out how much you can say through the drawings and try to keep text to the minimum. If, for example, your character is in a prison, you can just draw the prison as backgroud instead of having to explain in text that they´ve been captured and put in a prison.
Obviously many graphic novels have lots of text but the page will seem much clearer and less confusing the less text you have. I always think that the text should be used only for things that you can´t imply in the drawing or, if you´re having trouble with space, to save yourself a couple of panels.
Okay I´ve strayed a bit from the original point but these are all things that need thinking about early on. If you´ve only got a few pages you can´t make your story too complicated or it won´t be understood.
In the next post I´ll give some tips for laying out the comic.
Until next time, I´ll continue stalking Joe! and Jayme and doodling comics about their shenanigans