Brock BeauchampI’ll keep this morning’s update short. Here’s the new page! I’m pretty happy with it and given that I’m already close to halfway done with the next page, expect to see the preview for that on Monday morning and the page itself on Tuesday! That is all! Click through the image below to jump to the first issue of Variables 2002.
Brock BeauchampPage layouts have been a real challenge for me lately. I mean, really a challenge. Most of the time, I rough out one or two thumbnail concepts, take the best from each, and start outlining the page. Within half an hour, I’m boxing out the page on a bristol board and a few minutes after that, I’m drawing the page. It hasn’t been happening like that for me lately. At any given point in the comic, I focus on one part of my creation process and push hard to improve it. Right now, it’s my layouts. I feel that my... View Article
Brock BeauchampWell, you probably knew it was coming. Karter finally shoots somebody. Two police officers were impolite and got in the way of his mission. It’s unlikely that the kill count stops at two, though… Which brings up violence in Variables. You’ll notice that you don’t see the police actually get shot. I won’t use this “turn the camera away” trick every time but I’m not crazy about drawing super-violent scenes. I’m not totally against it when it’s necessary but I’ve always been of the opinion that the imagination is far more vivid than anything a creator can draw, film, or... View Article
Brock BeauchampLet me tell you, Karter loves his alleyways. How much of this comic has he spent in alleys? 1/2? It’s his preferred method of getting around (well, that and rooftops). In this preview, he’s sneaking into another alley, this time with his MP5 ready for action. Tomorrow when the full page is released, you’ll see why… Over the next few weeks, I’ll be updating often, sometimes twice a week. I have to finish this issue (24 pages) before the end of April, so I can format the issue and print it for SpringCon in May. It takes at least three... View Article
Brock BeauchampIt’s been awhile but I’m happy to say that for the foreseeable future, I’ll be back on track with Variables and updating more than ever. The next page should be ready by Tuesday, just like normal. This page was really hard to draw. My continued efforts to improve my background work are bearing fruit and the multiple perspective angles in the first panel were a challenge to draw correctly, as was getting the correct size on all the objects on the page. It’s really easy to draw the humans out of size perspective versus the cars and street or vice... View Article
Brock BeauchampI’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