Independent Comic Books & Podcasts

Schlock Works

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Duplicity - Complete

Plastic bullets

Brock Beauchamp
March 20, 2012

I’m really happy with this page, particularly the upper panel. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’ve been really focusing on making Variables backgrounds better and I think this page shows the payoff for some of that work. It’s still not perfect but it’s getting closer to where I want the book to be visually. This page was written about 20 times, five of them completely differently. Every time I looked at it, I wanted to tear my hair out and start over (so I did). While right now I merely grumble at it, this page has the potential to be ret-conned... View Article

Super lens flares

Brock Beauchamp
March 15, 2012

I’ve been playing with different lighting effects lately. Some work better than others but I’m going to keep plugging away. I may have mentioned it earlier but I loved Abrams’ Star Trek movie. Many people made fun of its lighting effects and crazy lens flares everywhere but I thought it added a cool dimension of super-clean-white sci-fi to the film, where everything off-screen was so bright and glow-y that the camera picked up trace elements of the shine. Obviously, Variables isn’t quite that bright but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try to incorporate certain elements of an exaggerated... View Article

Sloppy coloring

Brock Beauchamp
March 13, 2012

In another evolution of my coloring style, I’ve decided to try loosening up the colors to see how it looks. The overall effect is slightly painter-ly, with splotches of highlights and shadows scattered around the page. I can’t decide whether I like it or not but without a doubt, it saves a little time over precisely laying down highlights with the brush tool in Photoshop. I’m going to keep experimenting in this style for another page or two and then decide whether to keep it or revert to the cleaner style I was using before this point. In this page,... View Article

Intro to the final scene

Brock Beauchamp
March 8, 2012

As I’ve mentioned earlier, the last scene is a long one. In these panels, Karter is getting ready to head out after getting the page from Henri and the last panel (one you can’t see yet) is one of my favorites so far in the book. Usually, I show black & white panels or fully rendered panels in my art previews; this week I did something a little different and I’m posting the flat colors instead. “Flats” are the first step of the coloring process; before I can go in and add shadows or highlights, I need to first lay... View Article

The last scene

Brock Beauchamp
March 6, 2012

The quite lengthy last scene of this issue begins now. Karter gets a page from Henri and then proceeds to head off to Neos Kosmos to try to save the remnants of 17 November from discovery. Writing Karter has been a challenge. I wanted to put more humor in Variables (not a bunch, but a little) but every time I’d write something in, it just didn’t fit the character. This last scene is a perfect example of why that wasn’t really possible. While Karter has a good side, his bad side is really the one that controls his motives and... View Article

The next flashback

Brock Beauchamp
March 2, 2012

Yep, another silent film style flashback is coming… This time, it’s only 3/4 of a page (a full page if you include the previous 1/4 of a page), and shows Karter a few years after the first flashback (brining us to 1994 for those of you counting at home). At this point, he’s wheelchair-bound. Why? Well, it has to do with the police grenades in 1991. It’s not so much that his legs don’t work as it is the respirator system you see mounted to the back of his chair. Anyway, this is the last flashback of this issue, though... View Article