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Cosplay Ball

What a great night was had at the Grand Cosplay Ball!

I had a fab time, and the the costumes were all jaw dropping. ^__^
It was great getting to chat to people that I don't normally have time to at events I'm working, though I know I still missed people. You all looked amazing!

Something we'd kept a little quiet in the leadup was thatsonia_leong and I were planning to do a duet at the event. Neither of us had performed in public for years, and never together...and extra fun was added when we weren't able to do a rehearsal because of time restrictions (these things happen), haha. Despite that, we had a great time with it! We sang the song 'For Good' from Wicked, and - so we've been told - it didn't sound shit! yay!


Thanks to Chi ming Lai for the photo!
It's a shame Sonia's mostly in shadow for this one, check her LJ for a better shot of her (with me kind of peeking in at the side, haha) but even then you can see how amazing her outfit looked :)

I don't know if there's a video of it anywhere, but if anyone has one - do let us know. We couldn't hear much from where we were ^_~

The rest of the evening's entertainment was just amazing. Some fantasic voices and some phenomenal skills and personalities. Good show, all! Lovely to meet Yaya and Johnny Laser, who - even in our very short conversations - proved themselves to be people I'd love to talk to more. ^_^
I recommend this event next year. Even if you're not a cosplayer (and I'm certainly not), it's a chance to dress up to the nines and be part of a magical evening. Where else can you be in lush surroundings in a ball gown and yet still be bouncing around to the portal song? XD

How to order Ben Templesmith's CHOKER

Ben's knocked up a nifty form to help your local retailer get your comics to you...it's genius. As, I'm sure, the comic will be!

Get it here
Support independent comics and make the lovely Ben smile ^_^

The final cover.

Oh yeah ...!



This was the cover that ended up being used in the final book design! The image is cropped a little bit on the cover, and it's a veerrrry slightly different colour (more yellow in the shadows, I seem to remember), but this is basically the picture ^_^

Oh my god, I drew this about ... three or four months ago now? I cain't remember. I do remember it was a couple of pages [of comic] before I started on the section with Bottom with his animal head, so I wasn't used to drawing the donkey ... as such, this image took about two hours to edit together so that the problems I had with the head were sorted into a more or less convincing ... er, image. Originally, Titania was leaning on him, but now she's ... er, not. Um!

I learned during this comic why, in most illustrations of Donkey-Bottom, he is really rather well-built ... and it's because trying to fit a huge head onto a skinny body really doesn't work. Of course, MY Bottom is quite thin (never thought I'd be able to say that in context, hahaha). So I had a lot of problems!

.............. p194

... finished.

p177

I've .... I've just drawn an amphitheatre. *cough-hack-die*

To those who don't know - which I'm guessing will be about 100% of you - my absolute pet hates in drawing are (in order of lowest to highest Hate): feet-and-toes, chairs, curving scenery/things that involve circles, and stairs. So obviously, a ROUNDISH theatre COMPOSED OF STAIRS is not high on my list of likes. Oh god. Oh god. I haven't pencilled the lines yet, it's still at rough stage. IT COULD ALL GO VERY WRONG.

I had a count-down to the day I had to draw Bottom with his animal head (it was called D-Day, hur hur hurrrr), but THIS one sneaked up on me. I only realised today was Amphitheatre Day when I sat down to draw.

At any rate, all I can hope for is something that resembles an amphitheatre to some degree ... whine, moan, etc.

I have HOWEVER thumbnailed the entirity of the sequentials now. I finshed the buggers off (I hate thumbnailing too) the other week and now feel much better for it.

I'M NEARLY DONE I'VE NEARLY DONE THE WHOLE THING OMG.

The Book is Here!!

The Tempest has been printed! :D I received a copy in the post a few days ago, and it's looking great! It's amazing to actually see and hold a book that's filled with your own illustrations, I'm pretty excited!
It's also good to be able to read it through in its intended format. I'm quite pleased with the pace of the read, although I can't really comment objectively, since I know the story inside out now. Well, next step, release date! The launch event is later this month :)

It's in the trees! It's coming!

I'm out of the woods! I'm out of the woods!! I DON'T HAVE TO DRAW ANY MORE TREES OMG so happy. *headdesk*

Fnurgle.

OOOooooh. Coffee and F-Zero X for breakfast does not a steady hand make. Urrrgh.

... page 138 ....

Off To Print!

Proofing on The Tempest is now finished! Hopefully every last spelling mistake and image-based error has been found and sorted out. It should be a few weeks at the printer, and then I get to see the finished thing :D I can't wait! It's going to be my first complete book!
I'll check back when the finished thing is ready.

Proofing

I guess it's common opinion that once you've finished working on all the pages that's it! You're done, the comic is finished and the printer just needs to print it (or at least that's what I naively thought XD).

But no!

Proofing turns out to be quite an extensive and intense process! So far about 6 or 7 people (including me - many times) have read The Tempest through, making notes and suggestions that will help the final product to be at 110% quality.
In this process, all sorts of things are picked up on, such as inconsistency in images or characters, page order and page numbers, confusion about speech bubbles and who they belong to, page flow, legibility of text etc etc.

So far, more than 20 pages have been tweaked and edited. It's amazing how many mistakes a fine-tooth comb can pick out! However, this process has gone quite smoothly, and is now almost over... the day that the book goes to print is truly growing near, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it printed and bound!

Thanks to Kate, Charlie & Simon for taking time out to have a look over it :)

Lysander is a meanie

To be honest, Lysander is my least favourite character in Midsummer Night's Dream. It always shocks me how awful he becomes when under the influence of the flower (just say no, kids). Like, ACTUALLY horrible. Look how upset he makes Hermia:




Of course, it's not really Lysander's fault. The dear couldn't have done ANYTHING wrong, really. So with feminine lightning-quick recovery, Hermia beats on her best friend instead:




Haha! Hmm. Well, regardless of his nastiness, I'm not keen on Lysander. There was something about him that left a bad taste in my mouth from the beginning, and although my opinions of each of the characters has changed variously as I've worked with them, he's ... still way at the bottom of my scale of Likeness. Mm.

My most favouritist character is Helena. She's genuinely wonderful :D She's so ... kind of ... flappy! I don't know how to describe her. I think her edit for the Manga Shakespeare version has worked really well, too.

The character interactions are very delicate in general, especially during the long scenes in the wood ... I really appreciate these parts. It's been really cool breaking them down and deciding (as fast as possible, hur hur), what to do and how to place the couples and etc.

I am just about to start thumbnails for 130 - 161! It involves more screaming and shouting and Oberon.

FINIIISHED

Wahey! I've finished The Tempest! That's 193 b/w pages and 9 colour pages, plus a cover illustration and various revisions/tweaks.
It feels great to have completed something so large, and I'm really excited to see it go to the printers. I'll be getting a copy of the proofs in a few days, and after all the checking has been done, it'll be a month or two before the actual shop release date. There's already a provisional page for it up on amazon.

I have to say, having completed the project, I now respect/appreciate Shakespeare in a whole new light. Previously, I'd only studied his plays for educational purposes, and never really enjoyed it properly, but the act of constantly referencing the edited version with the full version, and trying to deconstruct the prose and verse into images and solid meaning is a real eye-opener. If you want to do well on a Shakespeare-based exam, I suggest trying to edit down and illustrate a few famous passages! You won't forget those bloody quotes after you've had to create a character to deliver them! And you'll really appreciate the poetry of the language when you're bashing your head on the table thinking 'how can I create an image meaningful enough to replace this bit of what I previously though was just meaningless embellishment!?'.

Anyways XD I digress... I'm finished! And taking a short break from work, which is a pleasurable relief after 12 hour days 7 days a week for months.

Ball.

Win. Tired. Hurting. STILL.

Obviously = SUCCESS.

More later XD

Oh, lookie this (photo by bento_dan)