The Northern Territory

A map, as promised! I love making maps.



Specifically, it is a map of the Northern Territory, part of the Nordguard universe and where most of the fun in the books will take place. For a "real world" point of reference, Kuuvik (down at the bottom) is in relation to Churchill, Manitoba. The map is based on period maps (late 1800s/early 1900s) and the charted arctic region of the era. Some of the topographical features of the map are different in the Nordguard universe (namely there's a few additional mountain ranges, which slightly effect climate and the treeline) but the coastline is roughly the same.

It was a nice, brain dead break from painting pages--and now I can stop using the scribbled bar-napkin map I was referencing before. ;]

Photo details:



Painting the Map:

The map has been soaked and stretched on a board to prevent wrinkling. All the text and coastlines are done in pencil, but when the paper is soaked, it will "seal" them so then won't smudge or bleed while I paint.
I put down a very wet wash with a large brush, then while the paper was wet, started applying watercolor to build up color.


After the brown base had dried, I started painting the waterline and the then coast.



There's a few more "in-progress" photos of the map on www.nordguard.com, in the development art section, for anyone curious!

Now, back to painting pages!

Pages 13 & 19

Paint has been poured!
Here a couple finished (well, that is until I see another hundred little things to tweak) pages, Page 13 and Page 19, respectively. I actually painted Page 19 a few months ago but figured I might as well put it online since the sketched page was up. (See the sketch here)




I took some progress photos of page 13. There are a ton more on www.nordguard.com, since I re-tooled the development section of the site. I've been updating it on the sly every few days with progress photos of various pages, pretty much as I go.

Page 13, In Progress:

Before starting the scene, I did a little thumbnail watercolor study of the room, and a floor diagram with the windows/characters/stuff's location.



The first photo is the virgin sketched page, which has been soaked, stretched and stapled on a board, which prevents it from wrinkling when I paint. The second photo is my ink set-up. I use a small paintbrush and Sennelier ink. Empty screw-tops off cheap wine bottles make for excellent ink holders (the wine isn't bad for artistic moral, either.)

Stretched and Started Inking:


Inking:


Painting:

I resisted the common sense idea of making maquette heads for the longest time. I convinced myself they would take too long and wouldn't be that useful--but, one day I needed a break from drawing and sculpted a few. They've proved to be easy and fast to make and almost indispensable when it comes to tricky lighting.








For tomorrow: another page or two and maps.

April Snows

It's been a productive month! I have nearly 70 pages down on paper and I'm in the home stretch--as far as pencil lines go, at least. After that, I embark on the whole new daunting task of painting it all...but all in due time.

I've been jumping around working on various scenes, touching up things, reworking them as needed, etc. None of these pages are what I'd call 100% done--some have one or two tweaks, others more (lacking a background, for instance). It's nice to have the luxury of letting them sit around for a few days so I can return to it with a critical eye.

The sketched page 11:



Here's a couple disjointed pages from a later scene:

Page 58, 60 & 63:


Page 65 & 66:



These are a few warm-up raven studies I did before working on the birds from the scene above.


On a related note--Does anyone have a photo of a raven flying from above/an overview? Not surprisingly, it's proven a tough subject and angle to get good reference shots of. If you do or know of one, I'd love to see it! My email's screwbald@gmail.com :]

Last but not least, here's a partially painted page.
It still has a way to go towards being finished, lots of little things to fix up.

Pages and Dog Heads

Here's a couple sketched pages, pending a couple small revisions--for instance, the other day I realized I drafted the door frame differently in a couple panels. Goes to show it's best to work one scene completely through without jumping around. ;]

Pages 12 &14:



Also, in an effort to get back into the art-groove after travel, I spent some time warming up sketching dogs and various other things. Most of the dogs are referenced from photos I took at this year's Iditarod Start last week in Alaska.

The Last Great Race

Here I am, just returned from a somewhat impromptu trip to Alaska for the Iditarod dog sled race. The Iditarod is a 1,100 mile dogsled race that begins just north of Anchorage, AK, and ends in Nome. The race route is modeled after the famous "serum run," run by the equally famous lead dog, Balto.

Just to give an idea of scale, the Iditarod route is equal the distance of Tijuana to Portland or Minneapolis to New York. It's no easy task for the serious competitors and their teams. The average time to run it is 9-10 days--we're just now into the 7th day of the race, so it's getting down to the wire!












And now, fresh from real snow, ice and bitter cold and onto the blues and splattered white paint of the page.
I'm back to work on the comic this morning, fresh pot of coffee in one hand and a pencil in the other.
I've got a few things to post over the next couple days, so keep an eye out!

Stay warm!