Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:03:23 GMT
Hey, everybody-- guess what we finished'
Uniques #4: Karaoke Night is wrapped and off to press, and will be released in digital form next weekend! You may commence with the flailing of your arms in a Kermit the Frog like fashion whilst whooping and hollering to the degree of your preference. We know that we will.
Now we're packing up and heading off to Reading, Pennsylvania for the CGS Super Show this weekend. After listening to their pre-show podcast, we're really excited for the goings-on over there. After the whirlwind production to wrap Uniques #4, this con is actually going to be almost like a vacation for us - which is different, because we haven't had a convention like a vacation in something like five years.
Seriously, the wrap-up on this book took forever. There were so many delays that there were times we doubted ourselves, but we still fought through. There were costs, oh yes there were costs. Just look at Adam's 'production scruff':
Yes, he calls it scruff-- mostly because it's far too sparse and patchy to be a genuine beard. He hasn't been able to squeeze in time far a shave, that's how busy we've been. But now that the issue is off, we can get back to proper personal grooming and hygiene and feel better about ourselves.
So if you're heading to the Super-Show, stop by our table! We'd love to see you. If not, just watch this space and you'll see all the sketches and fun we'll be having when we file our Con Report.
Until next week-
Adam & Comfort
Comments
Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:40:36 GMT
What a time we’ve had. It seems like everything that can go wrong has been going wrong over the last little while—as if somebody out there just doesn’t want Uniques #4 to come out on time. Well nuts to you, pal! We’re getting this friggin’ issue done, consarn it!
This is how we feel, some days - like we're trapped in a slow-field
cast by some moody goth dude, and hard as we try we just can't
get our fire started. A scene from Uniques #4.
So we already lost our letterer, we told you about that one. And while it slowed us up, we were still trucking along toward our goal. Conventions on either week of our deadline' Tricky, but surmountable. Then Thursday night, Adam’s computer suddenly shut down for no discernable reason. Upon restarting, Photoshop wouldn’t run. Huh. He’d backed up all his important stuff to an external hard drive on Wednesday, as luck would have it, but just to be safe he wanted to update those files with the newer versions he’d been working on all day. All but pg. 19 crossed over fine, and it looked like that one might have been corrupted and lost. Still… it’s just one page, and we had a previous version on the portable HD. By the end of the night, after a defrag, some cleanup and general maintenance stuff, Photoshop was running again, pg. 19 was opening again, and all seemed well with the universe.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop, from Uniques #4
Until Friday morning, when the computer wouldn’t boot up at all. Long story short, the only way he could get the blasted thing to run was a complete system restore, costing him every program and system tweak he’d done in the last 4-5 years. Yes, it’s an older computer – but it’s a good old computer!
So he reinstalled Photoshop, but lost all his actions, custom brushes, fonts and so forth. With a friend’s help we got the updated drivers for his wacom tablet (thanks, Chris!) and it was back to work. The only problem is that we can NOT get the internet to run on his machine. Which is particularly problematic, as his is the only net-running compy we have.
Computers! Are we right, people' Motherboard's messy workspace, from Uniques #4
So here we are, having swapped our DSL setup from the big, nice, fast computer to our little laptop (which we only got for script writing on the road to conventions). It’ll work in a pinch, but it might be well into next week before Adam’s computer is on the interwebs once more.
All this, and we STILL have coloring to finish for Uniques #4! But thanks to that portable HD, all of Adam's files are safe and we’re up to 16/28 pages totally finished, and Comfort has 5 more pages done for her end that await backgrounds. It’s going to be a hard few days, but we’re going to get this thing done and on time. That’s Adam & Comfort folks, more professional than the professionals. Heh.
--Today’s Tidbits --
Possibly the only people less happy about our stress levels and work schedule than we are are our cats.
Poor babies. Obi-Wan is particularly displeased, bugging us at regular intervals about his lack of play-time. When we’re drawing in the living room he’s a happy camper, but he hates it when we’re working in the study. Annie-kin is much easier to please, as she just wanders into your lap every hour or two for some pets and cuddles. She gets in the way a bit, but at least she isn’t messing with stuff to get our attention.
We’re really looking forward to next week, both because we get to take some time off, and because we’re going to the Comic Geek Speak Super Show next weekend in Reading, PA! It’s a two-day show that looks to be a blast. We have a bunch of Con-Friends we’re looking forward to seeing again, and the fans are an enthusiastic, happy bunch.
Anyway, we’re back to work now. Next time you hear from us the comic will be done and we’ll be well rested. Hopefully. Not about the comic-- that is getting done, dangit. Just the rested part. It might take more than a few days for us to catch back up on our rest.
Catch you again soon-
Adam & Comfort
Comments
Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:26:37 GMT
Well, things have been tight here at Uniques central. A deadline looms and things have come up in production that cut away all of our safety net. Basically, that means we're working hard, long days to try and get this issue done on time when we thought we were going to be able to sail in relatively stress-free.
The good news is that Uniques #4 is looking great. We feel really confident about this one, and are enjoying the continuing trend of topping ourselves with each release. Issue #4 was always looked on as the golden moment in the first volume of our story. Even from the script phase, it was the first issue that all our proofreaders and editors got genuinely excited about. The excitement has carried through for us, and the pages are looking as nice as we'd hoped.
The bad news is that we won't be able to have copies of Uniques #4 on-hand for any convention before possibly the Baltimore Comic Con. We're crossing our fingers and busting our butts to make that happen, but we'll see. We don't want to give the lovely people at Ka-Blam a collective coronary'
Understand that this won't affect the release schedule of the book! Repeat: This will not affect the release of Uniques #4. It'll only affect which conventions we'll be able to have copies on-hand for. Still a shame, but we're doing all we can, friends. And speaking of conventions...
-- Convention Stuff --
Next weekend we'll be in Toronto for the Canada Fan Expo. We're quite excited about it, as it's a packed show with a lot of great talent, and also because it'll be our first time leaving the country in a decade. It also counts as our first trip across national borders as a couple, so that's fun in the 'Awww' idn' that sweeeet'' kind of way.
So we're really looking forward to seeing Toronto in specific and Canada in general - we've always been fans of our Northern Neighbor. And a couple weeks after that trip, we have another con to go to-- this time it's the Comic Geek Speak Super-Show. The guys at CGS have been big supporters of our work and our comic for a long time and though we may regret another show so close to our deadline, we won't regret the chance to pal around with the fine people in attendance - or the chance to visit sunny Pennsylvania once more, the home of fictional Madison, PA where The Uniques takes place!
The end of September brings the Baltimore Comic Con, and after that we have the Mid-Ohio Con in October. Man, this is a lot of driving! But it will be worth it, no matter how upset with us our car will be.
We'll blog again next week, but until then we remain-
Adam & Comfort
Comments
Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:40:56 GMT
We are pluggin' along today as Comfort colors 7 pages simultaneously and Adam finishes page 24 and moves onto 25. We still actually have the first few pages of the book to finish because we do them out of sequence, but we're getting closer to being finished with the drawing and that's awesome! Another week like this and we'll have the pencils wrapped up for sure.
So today we're putting up one of the first (half) colored pages of issue #4. As with issues 2 and 3, we open with a flashback to the day of the New York Disaster, this time from Motherboard's perspective. It's simple and straightforward, much like Motherboard herself. It was fun drawing a 15-year-old MB and reminiscing about the early 90's fashions. We might make her shirt plaid before it's done, and how about that hat' Remember those soft, swim-trunk fabric ball caps' Good lord was that a rough time for hotness. Blech.
Comfort has the foreground colors mostly wrapped up, but Adam has yet to add any
background color or textures. The page will likely change a lot before you see it again...
One last note: We use photo-reference for all our major players, and several of our backups. It helps keep them consistent and individual looking. Early on in Motherboard's illustrated history, people kept telling us she looked like Rosie O'Donnell. Well, she wasn't supposed to be, and we actually had several conversations between ourselves about what that said about our society - that there's only room for one overweight brunette gal with a sardonic sense of humor and sharp wit.
So anyway, when it came time for 'casting' Motherboard's parents, we chose - you guessed it - Rosie O'Donnell for her mom and John Hodgman for her dad. Yes, John 'I'm a PC' Hodgman. Because Motherboard would definitely be a PC.
-- Today's Tidbits --
Took a beautiful bike ride this afternoon. It's cool for August today, which is a nice change of pace. The wooded path was beautiful and there was a nice breeze. All in all a wonderful time, and we recommend that everybody get out and enjoy nature while we still have it. Winter is coming faster than you might think, and you'll wish it was early August again!
Going out to see some of Comfort's old family friends tonight, along with her brother and sisters. Should be good for a few laughs, and we'll have our drawing boards with us so to keep the work flowing. Boy howdy are we dedicated people!
See you next week-
Adam & Comfort
Comments
Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:57:24 GMT
Hey again, friends. This week we wrapped up our big summer teaching sessions, which means two things: First, we can finally get enough sleep in a night. Second, our days are again filled with drawing and coloring for The Uniques. Issue #4 is coming along pretty nicely, and we're feeling quite good about it. We'll probably even meet our self-imposed deadline, meaning a September release is likely as of now.
We titled Uniques #4 'Karaoke Night,' so you can imagine what goes on for at least some of this issue. Karaoke actually holds a kind of special place in our hearts; see, back in college we went out with a group of friends almost every Thursday to a local dive that had great Karaoke. We'd sing all night until they kicked us out' well, between the two of us Adam did most of the singing. He was in a band way back when, and can actually sing pretty nicely. Comfort mostly just talked and drew with her ever-present art board and/or sketchbook. Always working, that Comfy.
Anyway, we and our friends had a blast. Catch-phrases were coined, inside jokes were hatched, and we look back on that time as being very special. It eventually wound down and we stopped going, and haven't gotten to do more than the barest smattering of public singing since. Oh, for the days.
All of which is why we thought it would be fun to take the group of friends that are central to The Uniques out for a night of singing and silliness. It's what friends do, dang it! And it's a rare opportunity for people to act totally ridiculous in a very public spectacle and be totally fine with it. People normally shy and reserved get up on that stage and all of a sudden they're going nuts for three and a half minutes.
So yeah, that's part of what you have to look forward to in Uniques #4. There's also revelations regarding a certain ongoing sub-plot that leads into our first serious multi-issue story arc. We're looking forward to seeing what people think of it, especially as it leads into #5 which is a real doozy of an issue and has some very heavy stuff inside.
See you next week with more!
-Adam & Comfort
Comments
Sat, 26 Jul 2008 02:00:33 GMT
Hey again, gang. Today we looked at our calendar and gauged our deadline for Uniques #4. Let us tell you - it's tighter than we thought. It's eminently doable, but tight. Thankfully, we've got five pages of penciled pages finished, Adam's got about a third of his penciling done, and we're a mere two pages from having all the thumbnails done.
Some of you might not know what our thumbnails look like. See, we work these little buggers really precise. The cleaner and nicer the rough thumbnails are, the faster the final pages go. We do these things at a scale of four to an 8"x10" page and then scan them, blow 'em up and print them on the final 10"x15" board in a light, nearly transparent blue. Tighten those with insanely clean pencils and boom shakka-lakka! Page done.
Anywho, here are a couple thumbnails for your perusal-- now just imagine them only being a few inches high. Enjoy!
Until Next Time-
Adam & Comfort
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