Just a quick Wordsmith update. I'm doing the pages in batches, and here's one of the painted ones - unlettered as yet.

Wordsmith Issue One

Wordsmith, Issue One

This is one of the penciled pages from the upcoming Iron Age Productions' mini-series Wordsmith.

Please excuse my rather wobbly pencils - there's a reason I don't post my pencil work very often!

Alan Po discovers speaking his poetry has dark and powerful effects on the world around him. By Santana and Wyke. Coming late fall from Iron Age Productions.
Wordsmith is ©2011 Iron Age Productions. Writer Jon Santana. Artist Jonathan Wyke

Iron Age Productions site http://www.ironagecomics.com/ (under construction)
Facebook Page http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/pages/Iron-Age-Productions/11345501205


MangaStudio Pencils

Wordsmith

I've recently been contacted by Iron Age Productions to work on a six issue mini-series with them.

Wordsmith, written by Jon Santana, with art by me, is scheduled for late autumn publication, and follows Alan Po, who discovers that speaking his poetry aloud has a dark, powerful and very real effect on the world around him.

I'll be posting bits and pieces here of the development of the art - starting with some of the initial character designs, and going all the way through to the final, if un-lettered, pages.

Iron Age Productions are here on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/pages/Iron-Age-Productions/11345501205

Some doodling

I've recently been playing with some new software, and this is part of that process. I'm enjoying using MangaStudio and my Wacom as a sort of fancy digital sketch book, and these hand studies are part of the learning curve I'm on.

Idiot Wind continues

Here's the next page of my Idiot Wind. I realise that it makes little sense at the moment; the current absence of text in a non-linear story is, of course, not helping, but I'll be adding the text when I've done a few more pages.

What I'm attempting to do here is to show both a shift in character focus in the story (the shading moves from colouring both where the characters are together, to just on her as she leaves), and a physical and emotional withdrawl as the female lead leaves.

It's been correctly pointed out, by much, much better writers and artists than me, that I'm not quite hitting it correctly yet, so when I go back in for a final pass on these pages, I'll make some changes, and slightly re-do some elements of the page.

New story

This is really just fiddling about. It's being fit in and around other things and, as usual, I'm hoping rather than expecting to be able to bring it to some sort of conclusion.

At the moment, I'm thinking that the final work won't be much more polished than this, in an attempt to get away from the tightness of my work. I may add a wash to it once the background's working in, but I may also wait until more pages are done so I can see if it's needed.

New software, Booo

I hate new software, it never does what I want it to do, and forces me to learn.

I brought a copy of MangaStudio, mostly for it's inking properties, but have started to play with penciling directly in. It's tricky, and certainly it's The Future, but I suspect I'll stick to unsing dead trees for a good while yet.

Steampunk Commission

I don't often do commissions - mostly as no bugger is daft enough to want one, but this piece started out as one. I got stiffed on the fee, so it ended up as being just for fun.

More Idiot Wind

A couple more pages from Idiot Wind. It's about relationships, sex and mistakes really, and is non-linear, so will make sod-all sense until more pages are up (and the text is dropped in).