Brock Beauchamp

Seven days late, but here it is…

Brock Beauchamp
November 29, 2011

Initially, this page was going to be four panels and should have taken just a day or two to finish. Instead, I ended up redrafting the the layout about ten times and the page ended up getting completely out of hand. The end product is okay once I was able to add greyscale to separate the portions of the page I wanted to highlight/recede but overall, it’s still just too much crap fighting for space. I wanted the page to (silently) convey panic and in some ways it succeeded while sacrificing readability. I definitely learned a lot from this page,... View Article

#OccupyVariables

Brock Beauchamp
November 28, 2011

I didn’t really notice that this scene felt very Occupy-ish until I started laying it out. The fact that the protagonist was a protester and faced the cops back in the day was a very organic decision that came about given this character’s background, where he goes in the future, and the state of early 1990s Greece. I ended up reading a fair amount about recent Greek history before I started this arc (a necessity, given my extremely limited knowledge of the country) and damn, the word of the day over there is “unrest”. The Greeks love a good protest... View Article

Don’t stop me now

Brock Beauchamp
November 18, 2011

Because I’m on a roll. Here is page two of Variables. Expect to see page three’s preview early next week, maybe even on Monday. I’m pretty happy with this page, though I got a little “halo happy” with a lot of the objects and next time I draw a cityscape like this, I need to use a ruler (or maybe at least get a more reliable set of Rapidograph pens that will actually draw a consistent line on paper (grrrr). Using a quill is great for humans and close objects, since a lot of line variation is wanted for organic... View Article

Perspective from hell

Brock Beauchamp
November 17, 2011

It may be hard to see it but this is the most difficult page I’ve drawn for Variables… by a long shot, actually. In it, we have a wide shot of Athens and a crowd gathering at the Polytechnic University. The Athens cityscape was obnoxious and once it has been finished, you can’t even tell why. Because of the mish-mash of streets that is Athens without the aid of modern city planning agencies, nothing is on a grid. It goes in every direction. It seems as if you can’t find a street that goes in one direction for more than... View Article

Variables 2002, page one

Brock Beauchamp
November 15, 2011

Here’s the first page of the 2002 story arc. I’ve changed my inking style and coloring technique (again). I keep playing with different ideas to see what I like best. Instead of using gradients for shadows and highlights, I used gradients in the backgrounds with solid highlights and shadows. I’m not entirely sold on the style but I’ll need more practice before I figure out if I really like it or not. Another big difference between this arc and 1992 is that this story will rely heavily on journal entries by the main characters (or, basically, a narrator) while the... View Article

Preview of Variables 2002

Brock Beauchamp
November 10, 2011

Here’s the first sample page of my new inking/drawing style and while I’m a fan of how these pages are turning out, I’m not a fan of the 1-2 hours of additional time it takes to ink each one of these pages. In the end I think the effect make it worth while but it’d be nice if I found ways to decrease the amount of time I spend on each page, not increase it. Well, I always knew that I could pump out 2-3 pages of Variables every week if I copped out on the art but I decided... View Article