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050 (wherein maybe it is friendly, and then thunk)
Father isn’t prejudiced to big-ass tentacled monsters.
Wow, fifty strips (not counting the bonus ones)! I don’t know whether to feel proud for having gotten so far, or cry in shame for taking so long to get here. I guess I’ll split the difference and just be glad I was able to make them at all. Hopefully the remaining strips will be done faster.
Hit the jump for further whining, and some pics.
It was an interesting couple of weeks, if only because my computer kept EXPLODING on me. Initially, this gave me more time to work on this strip. I almost released it a week after the previous one (aah… to remember those times when I was able to publish a strip per week!) But then I was caught under an avalanche of work, so… yeah.
Well, that’s enough whining, I think! I’m quite satisfied with the strip, and I hope you like it as well. The next ones will be even better, and action-packed to boot!
Addendum: here are a couple of photos of my “process”. I’m actually testing “WordPress for iPhone“.
Edit: didn’t quite work, as the pics needed to be rotated 
Let’s try the old-fashioned way.
Thumbnails
The strip starts with the thumbnails. There were two versions for #50. Below you can see the thumbs fopr the next three strips – censored, of course 
Have fun deciphering them!
Thumbnail close up
I forgot to take a picture of the pencil stage, so just imagine this but bigger.
Inks
This is the inked drawing once it’s been scanned in.
Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator makes vectorizing the inks a cinch. I keep these for later.
Painting
Here I’ve just started painting. You can see the watercolors to the right. I use pencils and those little tablets which are expensive as all hell, so mostly pencils.
More Painting
Further adventures in painting.
Panel detail
Panel detail, as I hold the brush and pretend to paint. The iPhone’s camera caught some interference here 
Nearly finished
Here the painting is almost finished.
Nearly finished
Made a bit of a mess there. It gets much worse sometimes.
Uh Oh
“What… what are you doing with those scissors?”, asks Osaka.
Mwahahaha!
I need to cut the final drawing to scan it in properly, as the paper I use is just too big for the scanner. It’s also difficult to store otherwise.
Composed
And now the previously vectorized inks and the colors are composed in Photoshop. This is important because the inks get covered with paint, so the vectors allow me to achieve perfect blacks. I know I could just add the scanned blacks in another layer and multiply it, but the vectors also allow extremely easy selections. Here’s a tip for you artists out there (if you have access to Illustrator, that is.)
Black
I fill in the blacks in Photoshop.
White
I fill in the white (inside the balloons and between the panels) in Photoshop. Aaaand that’s about it, except for the Creative Commons notice and the creation of the small version for publishing (the one you see here; the original artwork is something like 3000×4400 pixels), and then the thumbnail you see at the top of this page.
You can learn a few dirty secrets of mine here. For instance, I don’t fill in full black areas (I do it digitally later), I don’t bother painting “inside the lines” (remove it later), and I have desktop toys from the 80’s.
I hope you forgive my newbieness, but while it is clear what you mean with `I don’t fill in full black areas (I do it digitally later),’ I do not understand what you mean with `I don’t bother painting “inside the lines” (remove it later).’
Nice strip.
Ah, I just added more pics and now it should become clearer. If you take a look at the “nearly finished” pics, you’ll see I painted outside the panels and inside the balloons. Now check the difference between the last two pictures, where this has been corrected through the magic of Photoshop
LOL for him trying to be brave if that were me I would run the hell out of there
Well, he already has some experience facing potentially dreadful unknown creatures
Let me guess … his parents, a girl (at his age) , bullies from high school
Ooooh aaaaah!
It’s always a nice treat to see the creative process at work. Everybody usually has their own way of doing things and you can always learn something.
Yep, I’ve learned a lot from watching the way other people do this
I love this comic… I don’t even know why.
I’ve been reading this for a while but I never said a word. Excellent work dude, even the fillers.
And I didn’t really mind the drawing quality “irregularities” so to say…
I wonder what’ll happen next…
Thank you for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy this comic.! I love drawing it, and I don’t even know why either
As for what will happen next, you could just try deciphering the series of pixelated thumbnails that contain the next three strips
I find this comic by reading other webcomics so far this would make a good web toon but that takes much longer then making pages for a webcomic just question is there any ref pics of the main characters of this comic ?
Yeah, I already took long enough as is
For references, check the incentives section
About this question: `I don’t know whether to feel proud for having gotten so far, or cry in shame for taking so long to get here.’
The answer is `Feel proud for having gotten so far with a such fine quality.’
Really, I sometime think you are too hard with yourself (and yes, I read the comics in the `enter at your risk zone’).
Hehe, thanks, but don’t take me too seriously there. I am proud of my work, even if I’m still working to try and make it better – and perhaps make the strips come faster
