Random Thoughts for November

I worked a lot on the outside of the house this month.  We put the kids to work and cleared out a bunch of the brush and cleaned it up a lot, so maybe grass can grow there now and we can have a normal yard.  It’s turning out nice and really opened up a lot of space.

I’ve been setting up the laptop in the back room after work in the evenings, and getting some work done there.  My work ethic has slipped in the past few months, and I need to get it back.  I don’t really have a living room at the moment, so I’m enjoying a quiet place I can slip away and put my music on and just focus on my work.  This particular day has started out much better than yesterday, so I’m going to try and write some this morning, and then maybe knock some artwork out later in the evening if I can.  Tomorrow is going to be filled with family and chaos, so I doubt I’ll get anything done then.  Hopefully I can keep the vibe going over the weekend.

I’ve been talking with quite a few people I knew from my time in the comics industry recently, and it’s starting to really make me want to get back into it.  Carreer-wise, my days at Malibu Comics were the best time of my life.  I loved working with such creative people and getting to go to conventions and just being a part of all that was a blast.  I’ve always maintained my hand in doing artwork, and have my own brand of comics down to a science now, but it’s not the same on the web as it was in print.

My art has progressed a lot over the years.  I started playing with 3D software back in 1995 with Poser 1 and Bryce.  I pushed it through several versions and caught the attention of Steve Cooper at MetaCreations, who was very supportive of my efforts to publish a comic using the software, and they purchased an ad in the book and sent me some new versions.  I self-published Shanghai- Big Machine (which was a follow up to a full color hand drawn comic I published a year earlier) in 1998.  Looking back at the art now, it looks very primitive.  Both the software and the models it uses have advanced so much, and they allow me to choose the kind of look I want.  Some of my art now is almost hyper-realism, while other pieces are “tooned” in Photoshop and make them appear hand drawn.  I’ve actually posted a few pieces on my DeviantART account and gotten compliments on my line work.  I still dabble in traditional art, but my specialty is the 3D work.

I have a few websites in the works which pay for the software and models, but I would love to try and self-publish another book again.  I doubt I would find a publisher to do the project for me, but I’m keeping my eyes open.  I look back at the last book I did and I don’t want that to be my last entry in the printed world.  The biggest cost is printing.  I’m hoping to launch a web-comic that I can generate some interest, and then be able to spin off a printed version and at least have it pay for itself.  All my digital work is gone as soon as I turn the computer off, so another actual book I could hold in my hands has become kind of an upspoken goal of mine (until now).  Maybe actually declaring the goal here will be what I need to spark the fire in me.

I’d love to work with other people again, but the 3D world is very different.  It’s a lot like movie making.  If you write a scene, you have to have models, props and sets.  If you don’t have it in stock, you either have to buy it from one of the online vendors or make it yourself, which is time and money.  So I tend to write based on what I have in my library (which is huge after 10 years).   It’s very hard to render artwork based on things other people write.

So, just off the top of my head, that’s it.  I’m going to go and make some pictures now. J

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Jeff Whiting
November 2008