Blog

First Variables page

Brock Beauchamp
February 14, 2011

I think this is the point where I tell a bit about Variables: the comic begins in 1992 when, for the sake of the story, two people are suddenly aware of two strange abilities they now possess and how the people around them, the government, and the powered beings themselves react to these changes. It's a kind of origin story but not in the conventional sense because these characters are not the main characters in Variables, for there are no "main characters", per se. You will see recurring characters that play prominent roles in the universe but the story arcs deal with the universe, not one protagonist and/or antagonist. In this regard, it's similar to Frank Miller's Sin City series with a touch of conventional "superheroes", though superheroes are few and far between in the universe. To put it simply, someone donning a cape and fighting crime wouldn't last very long in the real world.

Preview – Page 2 inks

Brock Beauchamp
February 11, 2011

Initially, I was expecting to post some sketches of for the good of the people in the preview for this week and while I started initial character sketches last night, they are nowhere near the point where I’m comfortable posting the concepts. I nailed the dog character immediately but half an hour into the sketching session, I realized that I had absolutely no freakin’ idea what a frog looks like in real life. You take animals for granted, thinking that you know what they look like but when it comes time to actually put pencil to paper, you realize that... View Article

Website revisions

Brock Beauchamp
February 9, 2011

I’ve spent the past two weeks wracking my brain on how to improve navigation for the site. It’s been a long and at times, frustrating road to cleaning up the navigation, links, comic reader, and almost every other aspect of the site. I’ve done about as much as I can for the time being and while there are small problems whose fixes still escape me, I have to step back for a few days and let the dust settle on the current design. After awhile, it just feels as if I’m changing elements for the sake of changing them and... View Article

First page!

Brock Beauchamp
February 7, 2011

Over the weekend, I was able to dedicate large blocks of time to the main book, allowing me to skip ahead and post the cover this morning on schedule. I think it turned out well and while I’m not crazy about cell shading, the time saved allows me to shave the time allotted for coloring in half. Coloring is far and away my weakest point in this process so I’m hoping that I can improve quickly on what I consider to be a rather lackluster part of the comic. This week, I think I’m going to try to stick to... View Article

First page inks

Brock Beauchamp
February 4, 2011

I took a few hours to finish up inks for the first page of the book so I thought I’d post it up here for a preview… It’s basically just a re-working of a page that I did three or four months ago that I felt was below my standards for sequential layout. Artistically, it was acceptable but the layout didn’t convey the images I wanted to portray on the first page. This one is a huge improvement over that piece and I don’t feel bad for spending the time to draw the first page again. Anyway, I’ve been hashing... View Article

Ecaterina – final page

Brock Beauchamp
February 1, 2011

Well, it’s time to wrap up the second Variables short story in preparation for the upcoming main book, which should release next week. I’ve been dealing with the fallout from a house fire that consumed most of my father’s possessions in the past week and that will probably continue several weeks into the future. As a result, my update schedule may vary slightly as I fall behind due to other personal obligations. Other than that mess, it’s great to see the second short story come together. It’s a non-stop learning process, as I see mistakes pop up on every page.... View Article

Art preview – Variables cover

Brock Beauchamp
January 27, 2011

After what seems like an eternity, I finally have line art ready to post. This is the cover for the first issue, which *should* be colored, lettered, and posted on February 7th. It was a breath of fresh air to sit down on a full size comic board and use my ol’ Hunt #102 quill on a piece instead of the all-Prismacolor setup I use for the short stories. As you can see, the art is considerably cleaner than my previous work. I briefly considered sticking with the Prismacolor brush pen to do even the main book after seeing how... View Article

Cat, page three

Brock Beauchamp
January 24, 2011

Here’s the second-to-last page of the Cat short story. One more Monday and then I’m dedicating my full efforts to the main book. These short stories have been great for several things: they’ve helped me get a better idea of how I want to represent the Variables universe, they’ve forced me to brush up on my sequential layouts, and most importantly, they’ve forced me to re-think how much space I allot to dialogue bubbles. Before this point, I was used to hand-lettering pieces, meaning that they were an integral part of every step of the drawing process. I roughed out... View Article

Trucking toward Feb 7…

Brock Beauchamp
January 20, 2011

That’s the date I plan to release the first few pages of the main book. Progress has been slow since I’m also working on the short story pages, which eat into most of my allotted time to work on the book. The Cat story will be wrapped up on January 31st so I’ll have one full week of working on the main book to wrap up any finishing touches I need to complete on the cover and first few pages. Right now, I have the pencils finished for the cover, the first page, and about half of the second page... View Article

Ecaterina, page two

Brock Beauchamp
January 18, 2011

It’s a day late but here is the second page of the Cat story. I’m playing around with different styles for these short stories; the Arnaud story had solid black backgrounds with solid panels while the Cat story is more open and colorful to reflect the more upbeat nature of the story and the carnival atmosphere. Hopefully it works… I was questioning how empty these panels were but it turned out to be barely enough because of the wall of text spoken on this page. I’m still getting used to computer lettering, having hand-lettered most of my old work. That... View Article

Understanding Comics

Brock Beauchamp
January 13, 2011

A week or so ago, I realized that I hadn’t read Understanding Comics in almost 20 years, just shortly after it released. To remedy this disaster and to reacquaint myself with the musings of Scott McCloud, I ordered a copy of the book and a copy of Reinventing Comics, a follow-up book by the same author. I was hoping to spend some time this weekend relaxing and casually pouring over these books but it looks like the USPS is going to thwart this plan by delivering the package on Saturday, the day after I leave. Then again, it’s the USPS.... View Article

New short story – Ecaterina

Brock Beauchamp
January 10, 2011

After wrapping up the Arnaud short story last week, I had two options for the next short story and decided to go with something completely different. It’s more upbeat than the last story and is considerably more graphically intense, particularly the first page. This one will be another four pager so I should have it wrapped up around the end of January, which is also the time I hope to launch the main book. Progress is chugging along on that side of things and this page ate up far more time than I expected this weekend, meaning the core book... View Article

Workin’ all the live-long day

Brock Beauchamp
January 6, 2011

The first issue of the book is proceeding nicely. I’ve finished the first page’s pencils and roughed out the second page. I’ve also started up a new short story so there is a lot of content just waiting for my left hand to get around to drawing it. Sooner or later, I think I’m going to have to find a colorist to speed up the process. It’d be nice to spend 10-12 hours on a full page instead of 20 or more on each of them. Ideas for the first cover are still coming rather slowly… I have the entire... View Article

Arnaud short story, final page

Brock Beauchamp
January 3, 2011

The first short story is finally complete. It’s great to not only get more content on the site but actually see one small piece of it finished so I can move on to something else and add more content around different parts of the site. I think the story turned out moderately well and it definitely challenged me to work on backgrounds and placement a lot before I start on the main book. I spent a fair amount of time looking up and referencing Scottish architecture, landscape, road signs, etc., which is fun because it makes everything a little more... View Article