Atland #216 - Revenge Follows the Wicked

You knew this was coming... but, lordy, I love drawing Nodd when he's being evil. I practically chuckle like a psychotic killer while hunched over the drafting board (it helps).

The whole "grandma let me out of the bag" thing is an old inside joke from when I was in high school. (I may have even used it elsewhere in ATLAND...) Some friends and I used to write serialized comedies (one would leave a cliffhanger and the other would continue) just to make each other laugh. This line stems from those. And that's all the explanation you'll get out of me.

You may have already read, but I screwed up the pagination of ATLAND book 8. If not, go see what happened. Luckily, we're still on schedule.

if anyone cares (and I'd be shocked if you finished the whole thing without falling asleep), I finished a new article about the grammar and tradition of comic book lettering: http://www.blambot.com/grammar.shtml

Next week...our heroes are divided...is Inky missing...or is he a traitor?

~N

Happy New Year!

Zyn Dweomer Eleven

Sunday

Well, I'm well into the teens on page count and the comic is still rolling along. What's great about the beginnings of any project is that shy, but barely restrained sense of lust you feel in getting to know it better. Kind of like fooling around with that girl in 8th grade. Heh.

Each page tells me something more about the characters and their world even as I try to reveal what I already know to be true.

The fun never ends.

Zyn Dweomer Ten

Hey, page 10 and I've killed two characters! I'm on a roll.

Una Pastiche 2

Here's the other page I'm doing for the Cloudscape book.

back from vacay in the UK

I'm not going to post all the Pewfell's that ran whiel I was away, because most of them were re-runs anyway, but here's one page that I did a new splash image for:

Una preview (in colour!)

Here's a little preview of a Prince Valiant-style pastiche I'm doing for the next Cloudscape book. The theme is newspaper strips, so I'm doing an adventure strip with descriptive text instead of speech balloons. Colour by the very talented Mike Birkhofer.

Atland #215 - The Trail is Marked

Figured I'd update a little early since you guys have been so patient for 2 weeks.

I had a ball drawing this one. I love drawing snow, and I like having the opportunity to do episodes that don't feature our main cast.

I hope you like the female dwarven Captain. In the script all I wrote was "dwarven captain" but when I sat down to draw I started playing with the idea (I drew her close up before her full body shot in panel 1) and first made her a woman. Then I shaved her head. Then I added the scar and eye patch. You'll be seeing her again.

In Season 2 news:
- I've finalized concept design for two new, important characters that I can't wait to show you.
- During the break between seasons 1 and 2, I'm going to do weekly previews of new concept art for the people/places/things which will be important in the new season. I'll put up a new set every Weds. night/Thursday, just like the regular update. That's the good news. The bad news is I'm witholding all new concepts until then.

Next week, our heroes arrive in Nilfang and survival becomes an immidiate problem...

~N

Zyn Dweomer Nine

Zyn Dweomer Eight

Well, last day of my holiday break. I feel good, though. I really accomplished a ton of work while I was off. I left 2008 with a terrific feeling of inspiration and accomplishment and that feeling is carrying over into 2009. The family is good, baby girl is rising and getting ready to turn golden brown, and the comics are flowing like cheap wine. Zyn Dweomer got off to a good bangin' start and I'm loving it so much it feels illegal.

Stay cool everyone. Remember da Bode's words:

"BE YOU, YOUR WAY, WHAT YOU ARE NOW IS FUNKIN'-A, right on, Ok; WE IS ALL things AT THE SAME TIME."

Seven Days of Zyn Dweomer: Seven

Bam! Seven days, seven pages.

Zyn Dweomer is now live. The site is WordPress-based with the ComicPress theme. So basically, it works like a regular blog. Right now it is still very rough and mostly out-of-the-box, so I'll need some time to tweak it. But the posting works fine and I'm more concerned with keeping the schedule than anything else.

Out of the gate I'm going for a Monday and Friday update schedule. Based on how long it took to do the first seven pages I think I can knock out two pages a week, even with my regular working schedule and family stuff. We'll see how that pans out. Eventually I might drop it down to one page per week.

Anyway, it's live and the comic is going strong. I'm having a great deal of fun with it. Being off work and focusing on doing pages really reminds me that the old saying "strike while the iron is hot" is very, very true.

Happy New Year!

Seven Days of Zyn Dweomer: Six

Seven Days of Zyn Dweomer: Five

It's weird how some characters morph and evolve right on the page as you draw them. Looking back at just these 5 pages I can see where the Curator changes a little here and there. I think that's because he only has/had an amorphous nature in my mind. Hurke, on the other hand, seemed pretty clear from the start. Even still I guess you can see him changing a little bit with each page.

Don't you love that part of the relationship between artist and creation? Those teasing, fleeting, romantic early moments?

I need to sleep a bit.

Seven Days of Zyn Dweomer: Four

Seven Days of Zyn Dweomer: Three

Seven Days of Zyn Dweomer: Two

I was sketching the character Hurke as a human barbarian looking guy. When I decided to change my approach and use animal characters I wanted to keep that classic barbarian look. The black mane of hair, the leather headband, no armor, loincloth, and a big fat sword...I'm pleased with the design because it taps into that archetypal character we all know so well.

Naturally I have plans for Hurke's character that will add more depth than that archetype's surface features provide.

Seven Days of Zyn Dweomer: One

‘Tis the season of giving and in that spirit I give you a brand new webcomic called Zyn Dweomer. Starting today and for the six days that follow I’ll post a new page of the comic. On the seventh day of this little marathon I’ll put all the pages on www.zyndweomer.com and give the whole thing a proper little kick off.

So without further spanking the simian here is Zyn Dweomer, a dungeon fantasy! Enjoy.

Merry Christmas everyone, Happy Holidays, and be well and wonderful!

Wizard's of Ur Holiday Wish List

During this much loved… and equally… much loathed season of the Big Two (holidays), I thought that I would set aside my humbug attitude to share a few holiday wishes for my brothers here at Wizard central. Yes, despite all this, I will be visited by three ghosts on Kringus Eve.

So here we go:

For the “very animated” Steve LeCouillard:
I wish for much more of Much the Miller’s Son; much more opportunities to draw characters from Much the Miller’s Son and much more time in 2009 to get to know and love the much beloved creator of Much the Miller’s Son, Mr. LeCouillard. That was a bit much, eh?

For the “My house is gonna’ get crowded” James Van West:
I wish much creative joy in his pursuit of webcomic greatness with the forthcoming Zyn Dweomer. He’s been teasing us far too long. Also, I wish the Van West family much love in 2009 for their upcoming new arrival and for the Missus, may the new arrival not come out holding a pencil like her daddy! Ouch!

For the “I draw clouds like it’s no one’s business” Travis Hanson:
I wish for a healthy, confident foray back into the world of sequential art. You can’t deny us anymore, Mr. Hanson! Also, selfishly, I wish for more volumes of fantasy goodness from Travis and his lovely cohort, Aimee Duncun.

For the “Tell me how you really feel” Nat Piekos:
I wish…hmmm? He has a popular webcomic called Atland that is not only loved by many but loved by me. He runs a successful business called Blambot Fonts which I steal most of my comic fonts from. He, without hesitation will tell me I suck, when I suck. He letters about 900 comics from major publishers in the business and is still a nice guy. Hmmm…I wish nothing for Nate. Well, that's not the X-Mas spirit. Ok, I wish for Nate, a lifetime subscription to the Suicide Girls Website!

For the “I rode a camel up the Nile bitch “ Chuck Whelon:
I wish for him to grow an extra set of arms so he can continue to handle all those freelance jobs, give us more Pewfell, tip a cold one and still gloat while he sends me 8x10’s of his wife dressed as Tina. My wife is getting jealous.

For me, I wish for another awesome year of incredible eye candy, behind the curtain frivolity and inspirational banter from the Wizard’s of Ur! You guys rock!

Play Nice!

The City

Some of you astute and loyal aficionados will recognize this basic drawing. It's an oldie. I think I did it around 1999 or something. It's a city I've been tossing around in my head and in a handful of old RPG sessions. Since it was gathering dust and since it fits perfectly into the new project I decided to muck with it and noodle the possibilities.

Zyn Dweomer stuff. Back to noodlin' and doodlin'.