Professional Wordage

More talking cats for you! These three got their words courtesy of several professors here in the SEQA department at SCAD. Never a dull moment. :) I now have strips for three books of talking cats; be looking for them if I make it to a convention near you!!

Adventures in screenprinting

Okay... If you've been around me in the past several weeks, you'll know that I've been screenprinting an entire book, like a good little masochist. now that I'm near the end of production on these things, I thought I'd share a bit about them!

The book is called "That's Amoure!" and is based on a true story. Elves included. So, I got the idea to screenprint the whole thing from Duncan last quarter - it's all his fault.

The biggest problem was getting this:


successfully onto a sheet of brown paper; two colors. my biggest trouble arose from just getting the two colors lined up. by the bye, a HUGE thank you to SCAD's working class studio for letting me use their pressure washer and exposure table!!

I went through a LOT of transparencies for the guts of this book, as you may well imagine.


And, having THIS happen to my scanner while I was printing;


courtesy of THIS silly creature:


complicated things, but TO NO AVAIL!!! I was able to complete enough good pages for 29 copies of the book. here are the covers, laid out to dry:

Just seeing that monster stack here is enough to make me proud, but once they're really finished...

Ah! it is a lovely feeling. Mind you, I still have 15 copies of this to board and bind, but they'll get done. hooray for PVA glue! and THANK YOU to my awesome roommate Renee for letting me borrow her drill!!!

And nooooooow my brain is shutting down. If you'd like to buy a copy of the book, shoot me an email at Laurendsparks (at) gmail (dot) com. woooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhooooooooooooozzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Cats Talking

So, for many, many years I have been in the habit of writing words down that my friends have said. Words are a recording of a person's brain! and, when taken out of context, can be sometimes amusing.

So lately I've been listening to my friends, writing down their words and making cats say them. because somehow, to me, this is funny. I'll be making a series of minicomics out of these; very short and fast. so that I can sell them at a low price. :) I've already got enough panels for two books, so why not have a sample? Why not two? :D



Also here's a journal comic.

Book of Elf, Vol. 2

This blog has been neglected this last month, and I am sorry readers! Whomever you may be! ;___; This is my last quarter at SCAD, and it has been hectic, to say the least. but nonetheless, I am still producing work for page and screen, and hope to not neglect posting any more.

Here are a couple journal comics from what will be The Book of Elf, Vol. 2. Hopefully I'll find some cons up in the Ohio/Indiana and Northeast area that I'll be able to sell at once i graduate and move back north. :)

Band Quest!

...Is a webcomic that I am working on! It is an episodic quest story that combines elements of fantasy, action and the idiosyncrasies of being a modern musician. I thought I'd make a pitch-post for it. :D

I had another Webcomic idea that I planned on pursuing, but I think this one will be better for starting out with. Right now, I have finished the script for the introduction and have begun drawing it; the introduction should be all drawn by the end of May! And, it will have a short cameo of the guys of Walk the Moon.

The script for the first chapter is also underway; it's probably about 80% finished. In short, Band Quest! will be episode/chapter-based - each chapter will have its own set of main characters. This will allow me a bit of freedom to explore the dynamics in personality between very different sets of characters. It will be drawn in a Sunday-strip layout, and the first chapter will feature a band with a lineup inspired by the great music of the Seedy Seeds.

If you all haven't had the chance to meet me at one of the Conventions I've been to in the past couple months, then you won't have had the pleasure of seeing this little book yet:


I had the idea for this band-questing concept over a year ago, and it first manifested itself in this little book. And I was planning on starting a webcomic up, but with a different story - however, when my friend Pranas read the Radical-Righteous Band Hippie comic, he suggested that I develop THAT concept further. And indeed, when I polled my friends between the two stories, there was much more interest in this Band Hippie story. So, I decided to roll with it. :) THANK YOU PRANAS!!!



Above are my original Band hippie concepts - he'll look most like the top center drawing.

As for technical stuff, the comic will be drawn, as said, in a strip-format similar to newspaper Sundays. The final artwork will be drawn traditionally in graphite and sketchwash/watercolor pencil, and then monochomatically toned in Photoshop. My main reasons for making the artwork traditionally are A. it looks better, and B. so that perhaps later on, I can make that artwork available for readers to buy and have a piece of the story as their own.

I'm working right now on the website design... ooooh, Comicpress is a doozy. But the overall design of the webpage is inspired by the old Bill Graham poster art for bands in the 60s-70s; weird-beautiful stuff!

SO, I will continue to post progress up here under the tag "band quest"; and I hope whoever's reading will stay along for the story. :D

sketchbook pages and coming attractions!

Well, this has been a hellish uninteresting month for updates! But here are some sketchbook pages - the faces are from my last day in Professional Development for Animation class; the animals and tree are from a trip to the Oatland Wildlife Preserve during spring break (spent a considerable lot more time on that tree than any of the animals I saw). Said spring break was incredibly, wonderfully uneventful! And this week begins my very last quarter at SCAD. Cue introspection, sadness, happiness, and general emotional upheaval.






In other news, after discussing and polling my friends, I have decided to develop The Quest for the Radical-Righteous Band Hippie as a webcomic. It will be laid out in chapters, with virtually no recurring characters between chapters except for the Band Hippie himself. I will be putting considerable more meat into the stories of each band (in the original minicomic, each band's story was only two strips long).

I very much like the idea of this episodic, chapter-by-chapter setup - it'll give me a lot of wiggle room to explore into this world of action, adventure, fantasy, and the idiosyncrasies of being a modern musician. If all goes well, expect to see visual development for this project up here in the coming months; and if I plan correctly, a website with some initial content in June. HERE I GO!!!!

February Journals

The SCAD Minicomics Expo today: SUCCESS!!! I would have come out with more money if I hadn't spent it on comics before I left, haha. But how could I pass up original art by Pranas, a super-awesome book and screenprinted poster by Ralph, and a dinotopia-esque compendium by Nate Marsh? ANSWER: I COULDN'T. :)

I still came out in the positive, though! I learned that a lot more people enjoy sketchbooks than I anticipated, because I completely RAN OUT. I will have to be sure and print more before Captain's Comic Expo in a couple weeks.

and now, in celebration of this first artist alley, a few of my favorite journal comics from The Book of Elf Vol. 1 (which I sold and traded a few of today!) I've done a fair amount of journal comics before, but i never nailed down a consistent size or medium so that they would feel as though they had some kind of continuity. But anyway... now you can know just how much of a dork I am. :D







Updated Con Schedule:
3/19: Captain's Comic Expo - EXHIBITING
4/23: Fluke Con - Exhibiting (if I get there early enough)
6/5: Heroes Con - Maybe attending... it's the day after graduation. Blar.
9/10: Small Press Expo - Attending (mostly so I can bother Pranas, Renee and Kyle.) :D