Quick howdy!

First off, this is about a month out from C2E2, the Comic Con in Chicago happening April 25-27.  I'll be there for the first time, set up in Artist's Alley. I'll have copies of all 3 books and some prints and stuffed Farlaines!


Second, Studio Farlaine is excited to announce that we're going to be taking part in Free Comic Book Day on May 3rd! New England Comics, great bastion of Massachusetts comic-dom, will be the exclusive chain to get your Free Comic Book Day Edition of Book 3: The Racelands!

There will be 200 copies signed and numbered books and spread amongst the stores. 30 of the books have little doodles in them.


Here's a quick shot of my current workstation. To put it's location in context - this is midway down the living room wall in a 1BR. If this were a normal tenant, a family would be sitting on the couch here.

Book 4 - The Drawing Begins

And so I begin...

It's been a while since I drew an issue of Farlaine.

The last page of book 3 was drawn around August/September 2012. Since then I've drawn the covers and published the book, but no other sequential pages.

Now I'm trying to do it with a full time day job and a 2 hour commute.

To say it's slow would be fair.

But after a few months hammering on the script, I finally started drawing again a week or two ago. I'm up to about page 3. About.

It's interesting having to re-learn all the tricks and approaches I'd used back then and haven't touched since. I forgot how I worked towards the end, doing lots of sketches on other paper first to establish poses and compose shots. The first page of book 4 I wasn't happy with, but next page I like. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was a dozen pages before I'd gotten back to form and remember all the other things I'm forgetting.

I'm also jumping around trying different inks and paper to start off with. I had some frustrations last time with different kinds. I'd tried Strathmore pads and Blue Line sheets and even some random pieces I found buried away. None of them were great. All had issues. I am trying some of the Eon boards now, and will try single sheet strathmore at different plys. Maybe I'll find something I like.

Inkwise I ended up using Speedball towards the end of book 3 and generally liked it, although for me it dried out and didn't rejuvenate well at one point, so the last cover I did involved lots of nib cleaning. I just bought two new kinds to try, a Japanese sumi ink, and a bottle of Perle Noire. Maybe one will be cooler.

The fourth issue is looking to be a bit longer than the others, currently around 40. We'll see how it goes. Could shorten or lengthen as I go!

Here are a few of the early prelim pieces and sketches I'm using to build up a panel.

OK, now back to work...