Rod and Kate

Dave sent me a whole rake Rodney Tentakle script pages over the past few days, so I'm currently working out the niggly thumbnail stuff so I can try and figure out what way the pages will be laid out once drawn. 

Anyways, I did some sketches while I was doing this. Note the freakishly over-long legs in the Rodney pic.

Doc Tentakle Logo

Just a quick update tonight (my nose is like an open tap right now, thanks to this bloody cold I have. Lovely).

This here is the logo that shows up quite a bit in Rodney Tentakle, it's basically the symbol that Doc Tentakle used quite a bit during his super villain heyday. Dave and I are talking about doing up a kid's version as well, something that looks like Rod took his dad's symbol and messed around with it. I'm still trying to figure that part out but I'm hoping to get a flash of inspiration.

Also, here's some sketches I did while trying to figure out some things.

Rogue Hands

I spent today sketching up various designs for some of the Rodney Tentakle Rogue's Gallery. I'll be doing a pinup piece that will feature quite a few of the dastardly fiends, so I wanted to get their designs clear in my head before I get started on that picture.




Oh, I also did some sketches of my hand. If there's one thing that stumps me in drawing, it's hands. I'm ok at drawing them, for the most part, but I definitely could be a hell of a lot better. So, for the next while, I'm going to try and do at least one hand sketch per day.

MMMM

In my various updates related to Rodney Tentakle, I haven't really touched upon the extensive rogue's gallery that Dave has put together for the story's universe. They are an interesting bunch to say the least! Encompassing everything from ancient gods, to sentient humvees right down to electric cat ladies.

One of my favourite of the bunch, though (their description, in particular, was of the things that turned me on to the comic when Dave pitched it to me) are the 'Mechamechamangamen,' hyper-cute automatons that hide a majorly mean streak beneath their sugar-coated exterior. Basically, like an M&M that has a hidden layer of explosions and death instead of chocolate.

With a name like the (deep breath) Mechamechamangamen, I couldn't help but give these little guys a heavily Japanese animated look. I took inspiration from classic Japanese creations such as Tezuka's famous Astro Boy, to the not dissimilar videogame character Megaman.


My design process is pretty clear on these two pages. I tend to begin with a page of doodles and messy sketches as I try to figure out what the character will look like. Sometimes it'll take quite a few pages to strike upon a design I like, other times (like in this case) I sort out a design pretty quickly.

Once that's done, I do a page with a more refined version of the character. I try to find out as I go along certain little details (such as, in this case, the underlying robotic-skeletal structure of the character). I might also do an animation-esque turnaround of the character, just to get a good idea in my head of how the character will look in 3D space.

And here. We. GO.

With only a few weeks until the New York Comic Con, I decided it was high time to shift my arse in gear and get some Rodney Tentakle pinups done. The pages I have done for the comic are all well and good, but there's something about some nice looking pinups/cover art that just sort of fleshes out the package, you know?

As you can see, my process is pretty sketchy - I keep things loose and just let myself go with the flow. Sometimes this works, other times no. In the first image, I had a pretty concrete idea in my head that I simply transferred to paper. The second page, on the other hand, is a lot looser, with me basically putting pen to paper and seeing what happens (you'll notice as well that I've messed around with a possible new design for the story's Yeti characters).



Oh, also, while I have your attention, a certain someone is colouring one of my drawings. I'm not going to tell you who's doing the work or which piece they're colouring just yet buuuuut...let's just say I've seen a work-in-progress and have been blown away! Watch this space!

Tentakle Redux

Long time no see, eh?
Apologies for my long, lonnnnng absence...long story short: I had major art block. It's gone now.

In preparation for my trip to the New York comic con next month, I decided to go back over my character designs for Rodney Tentakle and give them a spit and polish, bring them up to date with where my style is at right now. Of course, the first characters I laid my hands on were Rodney and his dad, Doctor Tentakle. I didn't do anything too drastic, I just tried to simplify and streamline their designs -- some of my previous choices were overly busy, so I toned those elements back.

I'll be working on the various other characters over the next few days, so keep your eyes peeled for updates!

Right, on to the pics:

Someone to watch over me...

After a bit of a hiccup a while back (ie. Zuda stopped taking submissions until the end of the summer), I'm finally putting the finishing touches to Dave and I's Rodney Tentakle pages. I've most of the hard work done on the final three pages and it's just a matter of adding some lighting effects to the pages in order to give them that extra bit of polish. Knowing me, I'll give pages 1 to 5 a once-over and redo a few things I may have missed, otherwise it's plain sailing from here on in.

So, to tide you lot over, here's a panel from page 8. I'm particularly proud of this one as it just looks...nice. I'm sure that in a year's time, I'll look back on it and go 'bleeeurgh,' but for now, I'm quite happy with it.

ARGH

This page should have been a doddle, it should have been plain sailing but noooooo, my Mac decided it was going to crash the hell out of Photoshop when I least needed it, resulting in me turning the air a particularly cruel shade of blue. I bought this bloody machine so I wouldn't have to deal with shite like this. Ah well, I gain some satisfaction knowing that getting these pages completed on my other laptop would have been nigh-on impossible, not without taking major shortcuts anyways.

After all that, I decided today I'd show you the full page rather than the usual one panel preview. Eh, I'm feeling generous!

DOCTOR TENTAKLE!!!

Page 4's colours are done. So, as per usual, here's a panel taken from the page for your viewing pleasure.

This was definitely my favourite page to colour so far. I'm sure the fact that my art on this page was a tad more refined than the previous ones (thus making colouring the page easier) had a major part to play. Then again, this page has some kick arse moments too -- I mean, who wouldn't enjoy colouring a panel involving a pissed off, multi-tentacled fella with lots of science type doo-hickies in the background? Exactly.

Anyways, enjoy!

Page 3.

No boobs though.

The colours for page 3 of Rodney Tentakle are finito. I must say that I surprised myself with this one, I'm looking forward to seeing how the other pages turn out!

Birdbrained

A bit of a treat for you lot today!

I've just finished up the colours on page 2 of Rodney Tentakle and, instead of showing you a snippet of the page, I'm putting up the entire thing. I've yet to add text and crop it down to size but the finished article shouldn't be drastically different to what you see here.

First off, for comparison, here are the original inks:

And here are the (pretty much) final colours:

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that the original inks have been edited down quite a bit. The art was a bit too busy in places so I decided to bite the bullet and edit the flack out (not fun) -- if anything, it's taught me to be far more economic with my linework in future.

Anyways, I feel like I'm about to pass out...so I think I'll do just that. G'night all!

School Daze

While I love how my work looks when coloured it is a very slow, slow process. Well, for me it is anyways.

So far, I've moved on to doing the colours for page 2 of Rodney Tentakle and am about halfway done. Ish. To tide you lot over, here's a little peek at one of the panels (with the original inks included for comparison). Keep in mind that it's not entirely finished just yet, although the stuff I've to do is so subtle that it may not even be noticeable.

Anyways, less talk more pick-shur!

e x c i t e

HELLO.

My 'net has finally returned. Huzzah! In the time since my last update, I've got the inking for Rodney Tentakle completed and have moved on to colouring. So far, I've got page one pretty much done (aside from a few things that need editing) and it is looking very spiffy indeed!

While I won't be showing you the full page juuuust yet, I've cropped out one of the panels for you to look at:

In other news, it turns out that my name (along with my writer buddy, Mike Lynch) are listed over on the Eagle Awards nominations page for...well...you lot to nominate. Don't ask me how that happened but I'm certainly not one to complain! So, be a dear and head on over to the nominations page and nominate the following:

1: Favourite Newcomer Writer: Mike Lynch
2: Favourite Newcomer Artist: John Cullen
3: Favourite New Comicbook: Rí Rá

Speaking of Rír, I picked up a few copies of the second issue last week and it is looking very dapper indeed. Congrats to everyone involved! If you've got a spare bit of cash laying about you could do far worse than buying a copy, let this link do the work for you.

t h e C o u n c i l

'lo all.

My updates will be few and far between for the next week or two due to me being stupid enough to go over my download limit on my current service. Bah!

Moving on from that, Rodney Tentakle is nearing completion every day. Currently, I've only one and a half pages left to ink and then I can move on to doing the colouring and lettering. Page 5 has proven to be the busiest page yet with lots of explosions and general chaos going on. While I won't be bringing you the full page juuuust yet, I will show you a sneak peek of one of the panels.

Enjoy!

s u p e r P r e v i e w T i m e

I've just finished the pencils for page 8 of Rodney Tentakle, meaning that everyrthing is finally down on paper. All that needs to be done now is three pages of inking and then a heckuva lot of colouring. Still, I always find the penciling to be the most difficult part -- after that it's mostly plain sailing.

Until I have more to show you, here's a preview of some elements from pages 5, 6 and 8. Enjoy!

d e a t h R a y

A quick sneak peek of the pencils for panel one of page five of Rodney Tentakle. This panel depicts the nefarious and nasty Doc Tentakle reeking havoc upon unsuspecting innocents in his heyday.

The utter cad.

s c r a t c h y M e s s y S k e t c h e s

I thought I'd put more sketchy stuff up here for a change, as much as I love super-clean inks and shiny CGs, there's something I love about scratchy, messy, sketches.

These are designs for Rodney Tentakle, most of them are redesigns of characters I already had down on paper but wasn't entirely happy with (in hindsight). Enjoy!

Skip to the end...

Right, this is my final page of inks before I move on to penciling and inking the final three pages. This is page 7 (the penultimate page), would you believe. Why the jump in pages? Well, I tend to work out of sequence at times. Simple as.


Oh, also, if you live in the sunny climes of Oireland then be sure to watch me make an arse of myself on RTE1 tomorrow at 7pm.

TABOCD

Acronyms! Hurrah! What does the title mean? Well, you'll just have to wait until the finished version of Rodney Tentakle to find out now, won't you?

Anyhoo, here's the page 4 inks:

Enter: TENTAKLE!

Here's the inks for page 3. On this page, we get our first introduction in the story to Rodney's father (and my personal fave character in the story), DR. TENTAKLE!!!


I'm really looking forward to inking the next page as it has some panels that were really fun to do in penciled form. The added inks should really make them pop!