Sneak Peek #15: Carsplosions and Shinies

Sorry for the delay since our last 'Behind the Scenes' - yes, we're still alive. Rumors of our death, and of Prelude postings being performed by automated Cartoon Drones (TM), have been highly exaggerated. (Although if you know where I can find any of those Drones, drop me a line.)

Things in life, like cars, and friends, have been exploding lately, and that can be distracting. Not the cool ball-o-flame movie explosions, but the "Oh, this car isn't moving anymore" kind. Well, it was inevitable - we'd just put the finishing touches on our custom duct-tape decals.

The style was such an affront to all that is holy and good that I suppose divine vengeance was unavoidable. Oh - the extra panel of buttons on the dashboard were, of course, birdcalls. To think they didn't come standard. We had to install the mini disco-light too. Here's one final salute to our little car, on which someone wrote in majestically irremovable material "Your Car Is Win!," and which improbably got us to and from many a convention. Here's to you, car.

But on to more mobile things! Despite our lack of postings, we've still been moving forward on V3 work - in fact, if we're not posting, it usually means we're that much more absorbed in our coloring. Pages and scenes are continuing to come together:

The lighting setup in our nightclub scene has been especially challenging and fun! It's always a good day when I'm debating how many laser-effects to include in an image. Though there are still some tweaks to make, the strip club scene is nearly complete.

Now that conventions are cleared out and real-life imploding fun-time is over, I'm hoping to really move on the remaining pencils in Chapter 7. If I work fast enough, maybe I could have all the pages drawn sometime in September. That might be a bit ambitious, but we'll see! Updates should be happening a little more on schedule here in the meantime.

Dammit Indi, have some patience! We're only human - okay, fine. Have some "moar" - a random square of snakes. That's what pushiness gets you - this. You're welcome.

Anthrocon Blitzkrieg

Liz & I are back from Anthrocon, and all I can say is, WOW! What a convention!

Actually, I can say lots more stuff - watch me go!

For starters, we sold more graphic novels than I'd expected. I figured, last year we had Volumes 1 & 2. And the year before that we had Volumes 1 & 2. By now, pretty much everyone's had a chance to pick up a Volume 1 & 2, case closed.

Apparently not - Dreamkeepers books were selling like hotcakes! And I have never seen hotcakes being sold, nor do I know what they really are, and I'm now feeling curious and a little hungry. But we sold out of books by Saturday, began sending people over to the 'M&T Comics' booth where our books are carried - and then THEY sold out of books!

We were trying to give out free posters at the time, and being disrupted by selling things was somewhat distracting. But despite our tragic difficulties, we succeeded in the epic 'give away a shitload of free posters' quest, aided by a +5 attack minion. The world now has that much more random color floating about in it.

And Volume 3 - goodness, it turns out people really want it. It seems like everyone and their dog (or everyone as their dog) was inquiring about whether it was finished. On the one hand, it's fantastic that people like our stuff and want more: but on the other hand, it felt like going to school and having no homework to turn in. But instead of just one teacher expecting & asking for the assignment, it's every single person in the entire school. Students, faculty, and life-size spectacularly neon classroom pets.

It feels great to be back at home, and primed for more V3 production. Though we've got a solid start, it's a huge project that won't be done any time soon. But there's only one way to finish an ambitious task - and that's to get crackin'.

This photo inflicted on you compliments of sleep - deprived convention shenanigans and Liz's quick reflexes with the camera. It should serve to dispel the pervasive myth that I am not a jackass.

Sneak Peek #14: 30 pages of progress

I've been drawing fast and furious over the last week or two, and 30 full pages of Volume 3 pencils are finally finished and in various stages of color!

Now, in a NORMAL Dreamkeepers book, 30 pages would be an entire Chapter. One down, two to go. But this is no normal book. Crammed to the brim with story, action, and (soon to be) full color, Volume 3's chapters are a bit more formidable to tackle. At the 30-page mark, Chapter 7 is still only about 2/3rds of the way there.

But fear not - We're on a roll, so the progress should be strong 'n steady from here on out. Plus, we've found a color assistant willing to work with us for free.

Oddly enough, it doesn't seem to be speeding things along much at all.

But despite our lackluster cohort, Liz and I are now working to get some color and glitz layered into the first run of pages. In the coming weeks, keep an eye out for some new finished colors and pencils as we work to complete the Mega-Chapter.

We'll be taking a quick break later in June for Anthrocon - if you're around Pittsburgh, be sure to check us out! We'll have 1,000 posters in need of a good home for anyone that wants them. This'll be your last chance to snag a poster for free, so be sure to show up or send a delegate whom you trust implicitly.

Sneak Peek #13: Demonic Gorgeousness

Finished art, at last! Here, have some evil:

It feels great to finally have some Volume 3 pages complete. We've got over 30 pages of Chapter 7 in various stages of production; Blue sketches, pencils, panel layouts, color blocking. But nothing quite satisfies like seeing a page polished, pretty, and done.

Of course, there will be some minor tweaks on these pages before publication. Occasionally a particular line of dialogue will be difficult to nail down. But rather than bring the entire project to a screeching halt, we use a placeholder phrase and keep moving. To make sure we don't forget and publish drivel, (unintended drivel), the dialogue is highlighted in red.

More pencils and pages are in the near future.

Also for your reading pleasure, we have Miscellaneous News - the best kind!

NEWS! The page comparing contest will happen - I haven't forgotten! I'm just ignoring it right now because A) I forgot about it for awhile, B) We still haven't started printing second editions, and C) I'm happily distracted by Volume 3. Hang in there, I'll announce it on DA, FA, Twitter, and here when I finally set it up.

NEWS! Islamic extremists must now wage jihad against Facebook for it's "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" page. ...This news doesn't really have any bearing on me, I just get a huge kick from watching people issue death threats to Facebook while simultaneously taking themselves seriously.

NEWS! This weekend at ACEN was a smashing success - we actually were able to give away all 1,000 posters packs! I wasn't certain we could - we couldn't even roll & wrap the posters until we were at the con table. 1,000 rolled posters would have ballooned far beyond the confines of our bitty car. The result of these circulating DK posters is still up in the air, but I think it will gradually pull in some fresh readers.

NEWS! Domestic alligator attacks against empty milk jugs escalated by 100% this week... I told you it was miscellaneous news time...

NEWS! DK Posters will be up for sale online sometime after Anthrocon this summer.

NEWS! Prelude is officially in the top 100 of the 'Top Webcomics' site. Thanks to everyone for voting us there!

That's it for now - we're plugging away at Volume 3, so new Sneak Peeks shouldn't be too far off.

V3 Sneak Peek #12: Window, window, window, FAKE!

Returning to pencils, the first scene out the gate was quite the doozy - a big, sprawling establishing shot in the Calypsa district. Liz and I got a lot of inspiration for the buildings from our wanderings in downtown Pittsburgh - I’ve been using a lot of our photos, like the one below, for reference.


It’s actually the first time I’ve sketched the architecture in Calypsa, so I got to have a lot of fun. That fun soon transformed into lots and lots of painstaking perspective drawing. You have no idea how difficult it is to meticulously draw everything constructed in flawlessly perfect perspective -

- And neither do I! That drawing may have some perfection in there by accident, but none on purpose. Faking perspective is one of my mainstay artistic tricks. Sure it would be possible to make everything entirely accurate - but the next page calls. The book wants to be finished someday, so I can’t dither on one drawing forever. Just long enough to make it *look* like I dithered on it forever. It’s a definite asset to know the perspective tricks which make a scene look convincing. Don’t look for it any time soon, but I’m planning on using this very drawing in my next Youtube tutorial: How to Fake Perspective.

But first - more Volume 3 pages. Some nice, rolling hills. Nice, easy, non-geometric hills. What a relief. …It’s way easier to fake perspective when there isn’t any.

4-20-2010 V3 Sneak Peek #11: Rolling

Purgatory is cleared - time to go to hell!



As the colors above hint, all distractions have been quietly assassinated, and Volume 3 production is once again our sole creative focus.

And boy, does it feel good! Within a week, I’ll have some new pencils to show in here - and after I get a scene or so sketched up, I can resume shading & complete the opening pages. Finally, some finished work will begin piling up.

It was a longer than expected road getting to this point, but there were a few artistic errands we wanted to run before settling permanently into book-mode. For instance, we’ve been wanting to make Dreamkeepers posters available for a long time now, so we went ahead and finished a nice pair for release this summer. They’ll be 11x17, and filled with sparkles:

Of course, the sparkles are not yet in evidence on the lineart above. But trust me, they’ll be there. We’ll post final art a bit closer to the printing date.

So in closing, thanks go everyone for being so patient with us while we’ve been working behind the scenes getting things set up! From here on out, the wait for Volume 3 will be spiced with behind-the-scenes art, as well as the knowledge that it actually is getting done. To signify our promise of more to come, enjoy below some of our meticulously drafted concept work created in the process of developing the book:



I’m not certain, but I *think* it’s Scinter and Igrath… Partying with the popper from the ‘Trouble’ game.

…I forget which scene this is for.

In Your Facebook.

Dreamkeepers now has an official Facebook page! If you're a facebook user, look us up - and don't miss the Dreamkeepers Fan Group on facebook, either. We're aiming to link our twitter account to the facebook page, which would then drop up-to-date info conveniently into your lap. Hopefully, as our ability to keep up with all e-mails has been sadly reduced, this will be another way to help keep folks informed and up-to-date on what we're doing while helping us streamline our workflow.

As long as we don't stumble into Farmville, that is. Once that happens, everything that is good in the world vanishes like a mirage... Leaving only Cold, Dark, Farmlands. Tread carefully, o facebook users, lest you too be consumed by That Which Shall Not Be Gamed.