The character design has begun!

Last week I finished the analysis! Which feels great. To my surprise it became quite the bundle of drawings. Even though I was the one doing all the drawing, it dawned on me just last week, how many there were!

During the design of the characters, I don’t think I will post scans of the pages; because I don’t want to disturb the process. But when they are done, scans will be posted!

Take care!

How to make apple mash, the comic!

It might be some months ago, that I got a tip that a comics publisher were going to put out a book with recipes from comics artists. At first I didn’t know if I had an idea strong enough for a book like that. To my surprise I did! Unfortunately the deadline came fast and I was out of town that very week. So I decided to do my pages the week after, and so I did! Because I thought that they had a few weeks to put it all together and so on... to my surprise they had already sent it to the printers!

So what have I learned from this? A deadline, is a deadline, is a deadline!

So here are my comics pages about apple mash! Although I think it’s kind of self explanatory I will provide a translation under the pages.

Take care!

How to make apple mash by P-G Lidström

Wash up jars!

Peal, take away the pips and cut the apples into small pieces.

Pour a small amount of water...

...and jam sugar!

Boil!

Well, boil asunder then you wretched pieces!!!!!!!!!

Aouch!!!

Pour the apple mash into the clean jars.

Put the lid on!
Boiling hot apple mash + jar of glass + lid =

Aaaaaooouch!! Raaaaaaahhh!!!!

Recipe
- Lots of jars.
- Lots of apples.
- Jam sugar, that you can mix with castor sugar, if you would like a looser mash.
- Put the apple pieces in water with lemon juice, (or a vitamin C-tablet) so they won’t turn brown.
- I tend to rough or play it by ear, the amount of kilos of apples and jam sugar, it makes it more thrilling...!!
- Good luck!

The final piece of analysis!

Finally I’m done with the analysis! Here is the last scan.

I’ve continued with the Spirou album Drömfabriken/Machine qui rêve. Sadly the binding of the album gave way, so some of the pages are now loose... The grade of the album went from very fine to (kind of) poor quite quickly!! (By grading I mean the scale that the comics collectors use...)

Sometimes it’s hard to estimate how long something will take, for this analysis I had estimated about 3-4 weeks... Lets just say it took longer than that...! But hopefully I’m going to benefit from it later on...I hope!

Next up is character design!

Take care!

Yet more analysis.

The analysis here has continued and I start to feel like a copy machine...!

Here are some new scans! This time around I’ve concentrated on a motorcycle because in one of my scripts, there is one... I’ve noticed that the motorcycle as on object is quite hard to get right...

On top is a drawing from the comic Joe Bar Team by Bar2 and Stéphane Deteindre, it’s a Ducati as I’ve scribbled beside it. Below that one and for the rest, are drawings from the Spirou album "Drömfabriken"/"Machine qui rêve", by Tome & Janry. This album is, according to me, by far the best looking and story wise it’s great! The story stays with you... It’s one of my favorite Spirou albums!

If my eyes don’t deceive me, the make of the motorcycle is Kawasaki, I haven’t yet looked up what kind of model it is, mainly it’s because it’s another make in my comic...

Below is a drawing from the front cover of the album.

Four year anniversary!!!!

Today I was thinking that I needn’t do any update because I wasn’t done with the analysis yet... But then I realized that it’s the four year anniversary today! It’s cliché but time really does fly away!

Since the last anniversary I finished my first longer comic (Pilgrim), which fills me with great pride! Since then I’ve finished three more scripts. Currently I’m analyzing some drawing styles that I like, to prepare me for the design process that will start soon.

To have a blog like this is a process, and I do some thinking about which direction I want it to have. These past months I’ve been thinking about if I should start writing about things I like that is already out there, like everyone else does... But I decided to keep it simple and about my own creativity, this blog will continue to be a place where I can show stuff, for those who are interested.

Take care!

Some more analysis.

The analysis continues here, below are some scans of the drawings so far. I'm getting closer and closer to the end of the analysis. It will be very interesting to see if something has stuck from the analysis to the character design or if I’ve been wasting my time... I think it will bear some fruit, I just don’t no what kind yet...

The woman on the left are from an album cover, from the comic Roco Vargas by Daniel Torres. I liked this one because it was in the clear line style/ligne claire. The bathing beauty and the following pages are characters from a blog which features drawings by Bruce Timm.

These drawings are analyzed from the comic Theos Ockulta kuriositeter/The Occult Curiosities of Theo by Ola Skogäng. I like his style because it is in the clear line style in a contemporary setting.

Writing about the clear line style, it would be impossible to not include Tintin by Hergé. Funny note, the Tintin character seems to be fairly easy to draw, but as you see on the second one, the character isn’t quite there...

Two women from the Skogäng universe and one from Hergé.

These two gentlemen are from the Hergé universe, I made these quite fast, hence their sketchiness...

The Analysis continues! Redux!

Well, what can I say, I felt bad to post stuff with photography of sub quality, so I scanned the suckers instead! For information of the drawings read the post below, it’s the same drawings! I’ve focused here on the style of Bruce Timm, save the first page which is from Wizard magazine.

As I’ve written below I’m analyzing/copying various styles to see what makes them great. When I do get to do my own character design I hope that it will be of a good mixture of inspirational material and my own creativity. Even though it would be kind of cool to be a Bruce Timm-copy, I don’t think he would think that would be as great as I would... But to tell you the truth I don’t know how the actual character design process will be like. So stay tuned!

One last thing, when I started this process I made a time schedule to help me be on track. That worked for a week or so... According to that schedule I would be in the middle of the character design process by now... but I think thusly, it’s better to let this phase take it’s time, and make sure that the quality will be as high as I can muster. Instead of hurrying something forward that will be of poorer quality.

Take care!

As I’ve written below, for the drawings below I paused my dvd-player and tried to get the character right for a limited period of time, so that is the reason why they are a bit more sketchy!