One of my favorite podcasts (The WebComic Beacon) asks during the show, for different artists to create “covers” for the episodes. I emailed Fes, the host, that I was interested after the 1st of September (once the comic officially debuted). Well, when it was nearing that time, Fes offered me the chance to draw the cover for the 40th episode. 

All I had to do was the figure work, and he took care of the rest.

The background color and text was all done by Fes. If any of you that are into webcomics and become fans of the Beacon, let them know I sent you. While it’s fun to get a little artistic exposure, the sad truth sometimes, is not getting credit for your work. Not only did Fes put my name on the strip, but he also personally made an ad for me on his website, advertising STC for the week this episode is out.  Now that’s customer service with a smile.

Webcomic Beacon has really been improving every episode and the hosts don’t come across as untouchable. The only problem I have with the show is when there are guests. Sometimes they can be good, but other times the guests can come across as people with little to no people skills.  The 40th episode, unfortunately suffers a bit from this. But, never-the-less, Fes, Aaron, and Tanya are a great team and work well off each other. This show also has some innovative ideas in regards to the young comic artist wanting to know how to improve. 

Feel free to give my favorite episode a listen. About 1 hour and 1 minute into the show, they discuss Steal This Comic, as I had sent in an email requesting the do “the Beacon Searchlight” on me.  They were very honest toward how they felt about my strip. It’s all you can ask for as an artist.

Okay onto the good stuff. (well, I hope you feel that way) Below I’ve attached the step by step process of how I drew the cover. The first is the pencilled, followed by the inks (done in Illustrator), and finally, the colors (done in photoshop). Feel free to comment below, if you have any other questions about my process. If you like seeing the steps it takes to get to a finished piece, I can do more in the future.

-C.

I believe there’s a good percentage of people visiting STC, not only enjoy the comic, but also create comics themselves. I came across a pretty good podcast today. It’s an interview of Tyler Martin done by Scott Kurtz. Without these two guys having done what they’ve done, STC probably wouldn’t be on your computer screens right now. 

Scott Kurtz, of PVPOnline, has one of the most deservingly successful webcomics on the web.  His strip has been around about 2 months after Al Gore invented the internet. If you haven’t followed his work, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Scott is part of Halfpixel, and their podcast (Webcomics Weekly) was what got me into making the serious commitment into doing a comic strip. I blame my passion/artistic direction on them.

If Scott Kurtz and the rest of the Half Pixel crew are the red, yellow, blue, and green lions, then Tyler Martin would have to be the black lion that would form my webcomic’s Voltron.

While Tyler Martin has a very good webcomic ( Wally and Osborne ), he has brought a gift to the online comic creator that I happen to feel is without peer. Comicpress. Comicpress is a customizable theme that when used with Wordpress makes producing sequential art online, much easier. While you don’t need comicpress to produce a successful strip, it sure don’t hurt. Many of the most tech savy guys in the field have made the switch, and I believe more and more will. Scott happens to be a fan of both Comicpress and Tyler Martin, as Tyler did the most recent site redesign for PVP.

Having established my well deserved respect for these two individuals, it should be no surprise how delighted I was to come across this podcast. As I previously stated, Scott conducts an interview with Tyler, talking about his creative process, personal life, and of course Comicpress. If you’re someone creating comics, or you love to read them, there’s some interesting stuff here for you to consume.

-C.

Well if you didn’t already know, I’ll be making my first public appearance as a guest at this weekend’s Webcomics Weekend. Activities start this Saturday and finish up on Sunday leaving us time to bar hop Friday evening. What I’m most happy about, next to getting the chance to meet and network with some of the net’s most prolific cartoonists, is that I’ll finally get the opportunity to meet TL (Bullfinch) and Dgriff (ZF Comics). I’ve made a friendship with each of them and I consider these guys two of the best strippers not to have yet made it big. So it’ll be an honor to get to know them better.

Let me know if any of you will be there. If so, I’ll be happy to trade you a sketch for a beer. See you guys there!