Monday, September 13, 2010

V3 Sneak Peek #17: Graphite Milestone

All the pencils for Chapter 7 are finished! Weighing in at 43 pages, it's our heftiest stretch of story to date. Why 43? Because the significance of 42 was too intimidating.



It's a fantastic relief to finally hit a major milestone on the production of this book - it's been long overdue. It's 2010, after all. Volume 2 released in 2008. Why in the hell did it take us this long just to draw the 1st chapter of the next book?
Well, for those of you who don't obsessively read and memorize my every keystroke in this blog, let me refer you to our 'Box 'o Excuses'. For those interested more in results than excuses, feel free to skip past it, we've got some pretty pictures up.


And, voila! I hope you enjoyed the excuses. None of those will be bogging us down now - we're not getting married again for awhile, commissions are of course closed, the website and the second edition downloads are done and staying put, and plus it's more fun to draw than continue fabricating excuses.

So without further ado, here are some samples from Chapter 7!




You may notice that some of these are still lineart, and some are in various stages of coloring. That's thanks to Liz, who has been hard at work blocking in colors the entire time I've been penciling. With such a strong head start on the colors, we're hoping to completely finish Chapter 7 in time for Midwest Furfest this November. It's something to shoot for, anyways.

Currently, I'm getting some Dreamkeepers Halloween art ready for the coming season, as I work on Chapter 8 page thumbnails and gear up for Chapter 7 final shading.

Well, that's it for now! Thanks again to everyone for being patient with us while we've been laying the foundation for global cartoon conquest.

Things to look forward to: A finished Chapter 7 this fall, and of course coming up very soon we'll be posting prizes and rules for the 5th annual Dreamkeepers Halloween Fanart Contest!

10 comments:

Unknown said...

First off: Congrats on getting married.

Second: Looks great! Can't wait to read it!

Anonymous said...

Awesome! Have to say that guy in the bottom-right-hand corner of the last image looks a little like Mordecai from Lackadaisy Cats... scary :-)

Is the intent to have the next book cover chapters 5, 6 and 7?

Chris said...

Rugby shirt. gg

Anonymous said...

HANDS IN THE PANTS! HANDS IN THE PANTS!

Anonymous said...

Awesome art!

Rycr said...

Anon1: Actually, since volume 2 covered chapters 4-6, the next book will probably cover 7-9.

Anyway, the pictures look great so far. I can't wait to read the next book!!!

Anonymous said...

If you avoided 42 for its intimidating significance, you'd want to avoid 2012 too and get Volume 3 ready for next year.

Anonymous said...

Woohoo! Pencils!

Also, what the name of the children's book you did illustrations for?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, you know, that darn gator. I'm always dealing with the gator's mischief myself. Spending my hard-earned money, scrambling up my Rubik's Cube so I can't solve it anymore, stealing the occasional doomsday device and unleashing it on the world. You know how I deal with the gator? Belly rubs. And all the popcorn he can eat.

Congrats on the marriage! I hope that you two have enjoyed it thus far, and will continue to do so far down the line. You two seemed very nice to me, and honestly, it seemed as if you two were a couple already when we met. So kudos on that. :)

Glad to see some new pictures of Book 3, I can hardly wait to pick it up and begin reading to discover the fates of Mace, Whip, Namah, Lilith, and Bast! Hopefully they won't have to deal with any more tongue-beasts in the future.

I see that you mentioned cutting back on going to conventions; will you be making an effort to make it to FCN next year? Would love to see you there, and I would also like to commission some work from you of your characters in an amusing situation.

Also, your picture with the streams running down the stone bannister of the staircase? Brilliant. Absolutely stunning.

Coelacanth said...

I don't know whether I should be happy to see that RANDY is wearing the almost EXACTLY SAME shirt I'm wearing now...I mean, it's not THAT bad, isn't it...