Alex and Lauren is Winner!

Alex and I have just returned from the Thought Bubble Convention in Leeds. We had a brilliant day, beginning with a talk by Nigel Dobbyn about the way comic art has moved from traditional to digital, with the pros and cons of each. We also attended the cosplay event, to see what everyone had come up with. It wasn't quite to the same standard as the London MCM show, but we still has a great time. My personal favourite was Laguna from Final Fantasy VIII, who began shouting the fanfare and the whole room joined in. Alex and I were able to meet Jim "Kronos City"/"Quarantine" Campbell for the first time, which was brilliant. The Karl pictures collected for the Kronos City competition were brought along in a portfolio and shown off. We'll definitely have to run another of those at some point!
In the evening we attended the after show party with friends and went to the Dr Sketchy Leeds Burlesque Life Drawing. It was incredibly fun, beginning with 5 quick sketches and leading into two competitions. The first was a left handed (or right handed if you are left handed) competition, which Alex won! The next competition was drawing in the style of your favourite artist. As I didn't have acrylics, canvas and varnish and a good few days I decided to go with the event and draw in the style of whoever drew Jessica Rabbit. On telling my friend Lou this, she asked if that was Beatrix Potter, so that's what I ended up with. I was given second place for my efforts and was awarded with a balloon dog, which Alex and I named Dogsvin.

Overall? A brilliant weekend!

How Kronos City is Made

Hi folks! It's Alex here. We thought we'd post a blog outlining the Kronos City art process. Above is the base of operations for Lauren and myself. On the right hand side is our lovely little Macbook which I use to view the script and find the odd reference image. (Also, note the lovely comic page by Nigel Dobbyn hanging above my desk - a continuing source of inspiration for me).

Anyway, on this side of the desk I take Andrew's script and from that make a quick sketch (too shameful to picture) to plan composition, flow etc. Once this is done I rough out the composition on the actual page. Once I'm happy with the sketch, I neaten it up with a mechanical pencil, scan it and zip it over to Andrew for approval (see below image).

In this instance Andrew had a few ideas about the page.

"Can you add in a couple of different shapes, like hexagons and rhombuses, rhombusususes, um, rhombi? Apart from that, this is good to go!"

Good idea Andrew - the page looks much nicer for it! Pictured below is the inked up version complete with background shapes!

The inking is done with a Pentel Pocket Brush. This lovely little brush pen was reduced from £12 to £6 and I LOVE IT! It may not be the most expensive brush pen in the world but it does the job just fine! It's really nice to use - much nicer than the cheap disposable brushes I used to use at uni! The finer details like the bubbles and shapes are done with a 0.3 and 0.1 fineliner.

Once the page is inked, I usually scan it, arrange it on the digital page and then Lauren does her thing. This page however is set under water and the colouring technique for water in Kronos City is a little different than straight forward digital colour. At this stage we need to take a trip to Staples - which is actually really far away! Here we get the page photocopied onto heavy weight matt paper. This is so that when Lauren adds the water colour the ink doesn't run.

I'll hand over to Lauren to talk about the colouring.

In Kronos City I used two different styles of watercolouring, messy and neat. In this scene Sally is fully in the water so I use a style that I hope shows this. It's done in the same way that the first few pages of the book are painted, as here all the images are formed from the water. In other scenes the Kronos water is just part of the images, for example page five of Chapter One, so the water colour is quite neat and contained.
When it came to this page, I already knew what colours I would be using as this page preceded a scene I had already coloured. So the blue and yellow? So far I've been told that the Kronos City colour seems to be brown/red. As this scene and the ones after are set after a huge storm I decided to give the next seems some fresh colours, to show how a storm can really change and cleanse things. I like to layer up colours to create more depth in the picture, which is something that can be seem in the bubbles and shapes in the water.

Back to Alex.

So there we have it, from pencils to coloured page!

And on that note, I'm off to pencil page 6 of chapter 3.

By for now,

Alex x

Catch The Red Eye on PSP!

In the blackest hours before dawn, when all good comic readers were tucked up in bed, the Insomniacs crawled into their dreams.

What were they whispering into the darkness? What did they wish for, lost in the sleep of the innocent?

No less than:

• To be able read Insomnia comics anywhere, at any time
• Take their entire comics collections wherever they went
• To listen to their own music while reading
• To navigate pages their own way
• To find and buy comics easily and access content instantly from the PlayStation®Store

All this will be on offer for PSP owners in December 2009, with the opening of the Digital Comics Store on the PlayStation®Network.

Red Eyed and bushy tailed, Insomnia Publications will be standing proud on launch day as our critically acclaimed books take their place on the virtual shelves, next to world famous names in comic book publishing.

Insomnia Publications’ graphic novels will be presented in the store as single-issue length chapters, following the publication of the book. The first chapter of every book will be offered free to readers as a “taster” of the story.

Crawford Coutts, Managing Director of Insomnia Publications, says:

“We are incredibly excited to be partnering with Sony in the launch of the Digital Comics Service. 

Insomnia is committed to nurturing the very best new art, new writing and new concepts in its original graphic novels and the unprecedented scope of this Comics Store will connect independent publishers and readers around the globe.

The help and guidance we have received from Sony throughout truly demonstrates their commitment to support the medium, the publishers, the readers and the comics industry itself. 

Many of our creators are gamers themselves and so were delighted to hear that their work will be offered through PlayStation Network.”

With the first Insomnia titles available right from the December launch, you will be able to:

• Unlock Cages
  
• Fall into Cancertown
  
• Dissect the bloody history of the notorious Burke and Hare
  

With a growing range of titles to choose from and the phenomenal scope of the Digital Comics Store, this is just the beginning.

Come and visit our stand at the MCM Expo on 24th to 25th of October to learn more.

Notes:

• The Comics Store will launch on the PlayStation Network for PSP in December 2009
  
  
• Official Sony Press Release and video demo
  
  
• For further information, interviews and comments please contact Crawford Coutts, MD 
  
  
• Insomnia Publications can be found online at:
  Website: www.insomniapublications.com
  Blog: www.theredeye.co.uk

Chapter One of Kronos City

For the past few months Alex and I have been working on the graphic novel Kronos City, by Andrew Croskery. And as we get stuck into chapter two of the novel, the first chapter, and preview to the book, has gone online. Hope you enjoy

Paranormal Magazine

Illustrations for Paranormal Magazine - August Issue

B&W Art - Alex Willmore
Colour - Lauren Anne Sharp
Article - Nick Redfern

Sci-Fi Comics and Cards Fair

On the the 4th of July Alex and I will be attending the Birmingham Sci-Fi Comics and Cards Fair. We aren't on a stand, but we'll be milling about the place, handing out Kronos City postcards. If you see us about we'll be happy to talk about the progress of the book etc. Hopefully the fair will be good fun, and we wont return bankrupt!

Wolf Like Me Investigations

In anticipation of beginning the next pages of Michael Moreci's Wolf Like Me, Alex and I took a trip to the Beamish, the open air museum. The museum shows the life of people in 1825, and 1913 (not so suitable for the Victoriana Anthology, but still fascinating). It was brilliant entering Beamish town and seeing the exact lamp posts used in page 1 of Wolf Like Me. 

We're hoping to get into London soon to visit the locations in the strip, which will really give us a feel for the comic.