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Showing posts with label Lauren. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lauren. Show all posts

Wolf's Head Book 1 Trailer



I’ve very pleased to share this, though it took quite a bit of work to get ‘er done. So! This a short trailer I created for my ongoing comic book series WOLF’S HEAD, specifically for the first hardcover collection. It took some doing, mainly because there are some short animated sequences; since I’m definitely not an animator, I had to learn some new tools to make it work. That’s the challenge of creating anything, but perhaps especially art, but it’s also part of the fun, too. It’s also really neat to see my art presented in this way. Still me, but different.

This is really a narrative trailer, for lack of a better phrase. I wanted to avoid just “throwing” artwork at viewers and try, as elegantly and succinctly as possible, to get to the heart of the story. I think the trailer does that, but of course, you will be the ultimate judge. ‘Course, if you like it, please do share it far and wide.

For those interested, I used Blender to create the animations and then put the whole thing together using OpenShot. Both software packages are free and are very powerful. Blender, in particular, is remarkable. Folks have made full length 3D animated films using it, but I was really taken with Blender’s 2D options.

The video is embedded below, but if you can’t see it, you can view it directly on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1llp9chMzw

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Wolf’s Head Issue 18 Page 1 Process


I thought it would be fun to share some of the ol’ “process” behind a recent page from WOLF’S HEAD. In this case, it’s the first page to issue 18. And hey, 18 issues in for an indy comic book series is not too shabby, folks.

This page features Lauren Greene and Super Bob Sanchez chit-chatting in a diner in Alberta. The page also builds off of issue 17 and the various struggles that Lauren is currently going through. While I don’t think there’s any “right” or “correct” way of starting a comic, I’ve long been partial to opening with a splash page to get things going. This is especially useful here because the preceding panel in the previous issue was actually very small. So if one is reading these issues in sequential order, it should be fun to leave off last ish with a tiny panel and then start this one with a biggie.

I’ll start with the final coloured and lettered page and we can work backwards to the initial layouts. Oh, one important caveat: while some pages take a bit of visual brainstorming, in this case I knew exactly where I was going (building from last issue, right?) so I didn’t need to do that. That’s often not the case and many pages take a bit of thumbnailing (usually tiny thumbnails) to work out mentally how I want to approach a page. This is often especially true for covers; considerations of logos and whatnot influence how the page might look. In other words, sketching and “mucking about with page design” is a tried and true way to go.

WOLF'S HEAD issue 18 Page 1 Final Page illustrated by Von Allan

Next are the final inks, including screen tones (or, if you will, Ben Day dots or what I long called “zipatones”). Generally I do not include the lettering in the final inks (well, at least for colour work) and that is reflected here. Inking is one of my favourite things to do and this page was a blast to work on!

WOLF'S HEAD issue 18 Page 1 Final Inks illustrated by Von Allan


Next up are the final tight pencils. There is a bit of visual cheating going on here. I actually rarely rough out a page like this as one individual unit. Rather, I actually do various pencil sketches (and sometimes even inked sketches) on different sheets of paper, scanning them into my computer and finalizing the pencil layout that way. I like that approach, mainly because it allows me to isolate various parts of the illustration and work on that. In this case, the diner is a good example: isolating the perspective drawing from the figure drawing allowed me to play around with some ideas, something a bit harder to do if everything was on one sheet of Bristol board.

WOLF'S HEAD issue 18 Page 1 Tight Pencils illustrated by Von Allan


The next two illustrations showcase more of what I mean. First is the tighter pencilled perspective sketch of the diner and that’s followed by the very loose sketch (this time with my trusty Tombow brush pen) as I loosely laid down some ideas. These actually follow part of the same process I described here, but in this case I did do a round of tighter pencils rather than just go into final inks because I needed to be sure of a few different things. The trade-off is time, but I felt it was worth it in this case.

WOLF'S HEAD issue 18 Page 1 Tight Background Pencils illustrated by Von Allan


WOLF'S HEAD issue 18 Page 1 Loose Background Pencils illustrated by Von Allan


Not included here are the separate figure sketches. I generally do loose little gestures, often in ink, and then scan, check, print out, and tighten into final pencils. You can see the final result in that first sketch above.

Some pages are slow, some go surprisingly quick, and this one was somewhere in the middle. It was a lot of fun to do and hopefully starts off issue 18 in an engaging, intriguing, and beautiful way.

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Smash Fascism!


Since apparently this still needs to be said, fascism and nazism are never cool. Never have been and never will be. Or, as Professor Henry Jones (!) once said, nazis are the “slime of humanity.” I decided to do a pin-up of Lauren from WOLF’S HEAD making the point… clearly. Art speaks for itself, right?

Lauren from the ongoing comic book series Wolf's Head tearing apart a Nazi swatiska flag by Von Allan

Pencils and Inks for the cover of Wolf's Head 13


One of the things I'm not great at is showing work in progress, especially for my ongoing comics project WOLF'S HEAD. Here is a small effort to change that!

Up first is a cell phone photo of the tight pencils of the cover. In general, for interiors, I don't pencil this tightly. That's mainly because I ink my own work and I prefer to do some of the "drawing" in ink.

The pencils are followed by the inked illustration. This obviously doesn't have the cover logo and whatnot on it, but it's complete aside from that. I used to do all of my inking by hand, using a brush, but I found that the scanning process required a lot of very fussy work. Nowadays I digitally ink, in Manga Studio (now known as Clip Studio Paint), and that completely side-steps all of that pesky scanning and corrections. I do still ink "traditionally" from time to time, but I have to admit I really prefer digitally inking. Faster, cleaner, no scanning, and digital inking has the lovely advantage of "take-backsies" if I screw up. Nice!

And you'll actually notice I did screw up, so the inks also show a few corrections.

Photo of tight pencils of the cover for WOLF'S HEAD issue 13 by Von Allan

Wolf's Head Issue 6 by Von Allan

Wolf's Head Launches Today on Kindle


Teaser image featuring Lauren Greene, her mom Patty Greene, and their dog Sanko from Wolf's HeadI'm very pleased to announced that the digital comic book version of WOLF’S HEAD has now launched on Kindle. The link to the first issue is at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089V1DVY7

I should add that Kindle has received and approved issues 2 through 10, so I expect that subsequent issues will be released regularly. The link to the series is at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MTGCS49

What's it about? WOLF’S HEAD is the story of Lauren Greene, a young woman who quits her job as a police officer in Detroit and consequently struggles to pick up the pieces and find her place in society. After her mom makes an astounding discovery at a research facility, Lauren must fight for their lives against forces that will stop at nothing to stop them. I think the series is a great deal of fun and also contains the best writing and comic book art I've ever created.

The print editions of WOLF’S HEAD have been making their way to bookstores and comic book shops (both online and off) for awhile now, but this is the first time that WOLF’S HEAD will be available in a digital version. For those who don't know, each volume of the print version contains two issues (making each volume approximately 60 pages in length). The digital version is a single issue and that means the page count for each digital issue is approximately 25 to 30 pages in length.

There's a dedicated website for the series at https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/. This site includes previews, frequently asked questions, a complete media kit, links to the print editions, and more! https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/ will also be updated in the near future with Kindle links to each issue, too.

I think that covers it! I'm very pleased to have WOLF’S HEAD out in this format. It's going to be a great deal of fun to have the series roll out on Kindle. Come with me, won't you?

Wolf's Head launches on ComiXology April 22!


Big news, folks! I'm very pleased to announce that the first issue of WOLF'S HEAD will launch on ComiXology on April 22nd, 2020! While the specific ComiXology WOLF'S HEAD link is not live yet, you can certainly keep track by visiting the Von Allan Studio ComiXology page. And, of course, I'll update links when I have them.

You can also preview the first issue of the series at https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/p/wolfs-head-issue-1.html. A press kit for the series can be found at https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/p/media-kit.html.

Teaser image by Von Allan announcing the launch of WOLF'S HEAD on ComiXology

Cross-posted from https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/2020/04/Wolfs-Head-launches-on-ComiXology.html

Wolf's Head by Von Allan

Link to Von Allan's Wolf's Head comic book series

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