Great, now it starts to rain!
I’ve just returned from a two week vacation with my family in the German Eiffel area. And I can only say: what a beautiful area it is! Lots of nature, nice towns and good food! I’ve made a few very nice pictures I’ll try to post any time soon.
In my vacation the work on page 19 of Semmie the Forest Gnome continued of course. Like the previous page was an imported one story wise because Sem and Bear both went their own way, is this an important page art wise. On this page it becomes dark and starts to rain, and dark it will be for almost the entire length off the final part off the story. So I tried very hard to make the transition from light to dark a graduate one but still in a way that I can maintain for the rest of the “Dark Pages”.
Like I said Sem and Bear lost track off each other and thunderclouds come rolling into the story. And while it starts to rain Sem realizes he doesn’t like being in the forest anymore.
Have fun with page 19!
PS. I submitted an illustration for Jason Brubaker’s reMIND PIN-UP Contest, the winner of this contest is printed in the grahic novell. I’ll post my illustration here on the website in the next couple of days so keep checking back!
Confusion of tongues
Bear explains it all so clearly and yet Sem doesn’t quite understand what he’s talking about. Sem should know better, the mushroom isn’t his real home, the house off the doll maker is. There will be some tea and maybe cookies and Bear know it.
This is an important point in the story. From here the overall tone will become a bit grimmer, Bear and Sem lose sight of one another and Sem will re…
Sorry, I’ve said too much already!
In any case have fun with page 18!
End of chapter one
I like to take the time to promote a web comic made by fellow comic artist Mathieu Moyen. This week’s post on the 6-commando website is the final page for chapter one, I want to congratulate Mathieu with reaching this milestone. Because chapter one can now be read online in his entirety, this would be the best time to read the whole story from the beginning and get drawn into the conflict between the UNA (United Nations Alliance) and the FSR (Federative Socialist Republic).
For the few people who haven’t heard of 6-commando yet, here’s a little summary. The story takes place in 1997 in an alternate history, which has only seen one big world war and left the world with 3 major super powers, being UNA, FSR and a collaboration of the South American Coalition and the Arab League. In this setting we follow the lives of the people assigned to the 6-commando unit from UNA located in Kinshasa, Africa.
One of these people is actually a supersized robotic tank named Mike-1-Echo (see the picture on the right). When one of his colleagues, the lovely Major Sarah Bronniford is kidnapped by FSR soldiers, Mike goes in pursuit to rescue her, ignoring all other commands.
I have followed this story from the beginning and I loved it ever since. So I suggest you all go over to the website of 6-commando and be submerged in this thrilling war story with some of the most amazing art of this moment.
It will take a little time before the first pages of chapter two will be finished, but until then the artist has promised to post artwork on the regular schedule so don’t forget to return every Monday to read the latest installment.
Enjoy!
Joost.
START HERE
Strawberries!
Is it that Sem and Bear are so small or are these strawberries so big? I guess these strawberries are just big, this is after all a forest where the puppet gnomes wander freely and the bears talk in pictures. It just can’t be something else than mega large strawberries!
This page worked out soooooo good, I’m really pleased with it! Especially panel 3 and 6 are my favorite, I finally succeeded in showing the depth of a scene the way I wanted. In particular panel 3, where the objects in the foreground are placed in the shadow and the background in less saturated colors (atmospheric perspective for the artists among us), very pleased indeed.
Have fun with page 17!
Leapfrog
Bear and Sem are completely lost in their game, Bear jumping over Sem and in turn Sem is jumping over Bear. Pretty soon they are panting for air from al the exertion and from al that exercise you will get hungry…
I am very pleased with this page, the action is good, the colors look good (on my monitor) and I like Bear’s “iconspeech” more and more with each page.
The sound effects on this page are drawn/written by hand instead of the typed effects from the previous pages and those add another something special. All and all a very successful page.
Have fun with page 16!
