In the late hours of night Glyf a lone graffiti writer searches the subway tunnels hoping to find a place to practice his street art. Little does he know he will be meeting up with his enemy in "The Terror of Tusk"

Finally my first comic! I've been wanting to make comics for over 20 years and now i have finally finished the first in hopefully a long line of comics down the road.

"Glyf and the Terror of Tusk" is a mini comic 6" x 5.5" containing 15 pages that are mostly black and white in a traditional action comic style. This comic is suitable for all ages with no profanity and mild comic book style action sequences. You can get your copy today at the Plex Hop Shop or on my Etsy Shop!
Thanks for stopping by!

God Bless,
-Marshall aka Calmplex

Also Find me on Twitter, Facebook,and YouTube

Making Comics

Aaaaah How satisfying is it to finally get to this stage of my first comic book! I've been wanting to make comics since the early 90's and i can't believe it took me this long to actually buckle down and do it. So all 15 pages are pencilled and im 4 pages into the inking. It's really starting to come together!

Don't be too Precious

I've been learning some things along the way with this project. First and formost don't be too precious. I've approached this project giving myself a TON of leeway meaning i'm approaching it in the spirit of fun knowing i'm going to be far from perfect and I'm ok with that. The deadline coming closer and closer has helped with that as well. The temptation to lose traction because of obstacles has definitely come and because my time is extremely limited i have been forced to push through.

Next Time

This brings me to another point. This project has made me very aware of my artistic weaknesses and has pointed me in the direction of some area's that i need to practice before my next comic project. In all honesty the amount of improvement i need is a little overwhelming but I have some ideas of how i can make some progress in the near future. First of all i think i need to get into the habit of drawing at least 5 minutes everyday. Figure drawing and still life's of things i'm interested in drawing I think will help. Second I think I will begin to blog about it on a daily basis even if it's just an image to keep me motivated and to have more accountability.

Tightening the Process

Also I've noticed a few more things more specific to comics. One thing is i'd like to have each stage of the early process developed a little tighter next time. My Thumbs we're real loose. So much in some spots that i had to make a lot of changes eliminating and adding panels and pages as i penciled each page. Even the dialogue changed dramatically at the pencil stage. I do like the freedom this approach afforded me but it seems the more work you do on the early stages the less work you will have to do on the later stages fixing problems. Same thing with the penciling. I penciled these pages so loose in some spots that i am having to re draw some things as i go with the inking process. It can get very frustrating to say the least.

Also I'm learning what kind of tools i prefer. I'm definitely digging the brush tools and would like to get better at using them for sure! I do however need to buy one bigger brush to fill in large black spaces so it doesn't take so long and it looks less blotchy. I really like the look of using a combination of brush and crow quill with the tight lines and the loose lines but i'm struggling with knowing where to use which tool and the crow quill is a bit difficult. When i use the crow quill it feels like I'm digging into the board when and I also don't like only being able to move the quill in one direction. But like i said i do like the look of the mix of brush and quill so im going to have to practice more for sure.

So yea that's about it for now. I'm hoping to get a few more pages out this week. I only have about 6 more weeks to finish the art, scan the pages and set them up to be printed and put together. Plus i have to draw a killer cover ;) And did i mention ive never put a book together like this before so that will be a bit of a learning curve as well. So wish me luck LOL.

Thanks for stopping by!

God Bless,
-Marshall aka Calmplex

Also Find me on Twitter, Facebook,and YouTube

With The Quickness

Another quick update today. The world is eating my life!

I made this art card this past weekend of my character Glyf and his nemesis Tusk behind him. These are the two characters from the mini comic im working on for the Art & Story Supreme Mini Comic challenge. I'm currently working on penciling page 10 of 16 and am hoping to get to the inking stage very shortly. I'm learning a ton through this challenge with a lot of help from the Art & Story Podcast and community.

This Art Card was colored with my new Copic Markers which was suggested to me through an A&S Podcast by Mark Rudolph. Definately enjoying the new tool! I will be posting this card up for sale at my Etsy Shop tonight if your interested.
Art & Story http://www.artandstorypodcast.com
Mark Rudolph http://www.markrudolph.com
My Etsy Shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/Calmplex

Thanks for stopping by!

God Bless,
-Marshall aka Calmplex

Also Find me on Twitter, Facebook,and YouTube or email me at Plex@PlexHop.com

Hey Everyone! Just wanted to give you an update on the Mini Comic I'm doing for the Art & Story Supreme Mini Comic Challenge. In the last update i talked about the fact that i needed to re boot with a quicker and simpler idea for the comic and I shared some character designs i did for the new Glyf project. Next step was to get to the thumb nailing stage.

All Thumbs

Now this is my first ever comic im creating but from what Jerzy Drozd (from ComicsAreGreat.com) says thumb nailing can prove to be the most critical stage of comic making for the independent creator. It becomes the blueprint for everything else and is in fact where much of the storytelling gets layed out. So here goes nuthin!

The Spark

Now even before i went into the character design I actually did a real rough version of some thumbs and script. The image to the left shows my note book where i sort of scrawled out the loose idea of what this mini comic would be from sudden inspiration which conveniently happened one work night right before bed when i should have been getting my beauty snooze! Typical ;) Anyway in this inspiration session I discovered that I could do a pretty cool story with just two characters with a simple plot and, most importantly, a gnarly fight scene!!!!! Basically I built this ship from the outside in.   Yep an amateur  move but hey what do you expect? I'm an amateur.

Fleshing it out

After I did a little character design I then turned back into the all important thumb nailing stage. I decided not to make this too complicated and gave myself a lot of leeway. My 10 page simple thumbs turned into 18 pages and much more dialogue was added. I also expanded on the all important fight scene!

There were points I came to where I felt like I may need to do more research or where I could go a few different directions with the story but I resolved to not dwell too long on these things and I forced myself to be decisive. I can't learn from my mistakes if I never give myself a chance to make them U suppose.

I also kept the thumbs extremely small using mostly stick figure type design and a permanent marker so i wouldn't get sucked into drawing pretty pictures. I suppose if you take the time to examine my thumbs these images spoil the whole story but that's ok. Just promise you'll give me lots of money next time you see me ;)

Penciling Paradise

So whats next? Finally the moment we've all been waiting for. Or at least the moment I've been waiting for for most of my life. Penciling some comic pages!!!! Below is my progress so far. A half penciled first page. Get Excited!!!!! :)

Stay Tuned....  more coming soon!

And Thanks for stopping by!

God Bless,
-Marshall aka Calmplex

Also Find me on Twitter, Facebook,and YouTube or email me at Plex@PlexHop.com

Alright it's on again!!! Was inspired by all the talk on the Art and Story Supreme Forums of putting a big project into smaller steps and now i got my whole mini comic mapped out!!! well roughly mapped out.

Ditching my initial idea for something simpler.

I'm not 100% sure of the title of the comic but its going to be featuring a character ive loosly created called Glyf (to the left). The comic may just be called called Glyf and the episode is going to be titled "Elephant in the room". The main dialogue is written. Literally 8 small lines. There will be a 2 to 3 page fight scene YES!!!! :) where there may be some small dialogue added.

There are only two characters. So that should help with simplifying things!

I guess the next step is some character design turn arounds and thumbnailing. Then i think I'll attack actually drawing it. I can't remember which podcast it was but somebody explained the way they attacked there comic was all the pencils first for all the pages and then all the inks then colors and digital clean up etc. instead of doing it a page at a time start to finish. I think that's how im going to try it out. Can't wait!!!! :)

Also below is some sketches for the villain of the story "Tusk". Still not settled on a final design but its enough to move forward onto the thumbnailing stages.

Very excited to get this progress going on my mini comic. The due date is coming up in less than three months and there's a lot that goes into creating a comic from start to finish so i better get crackin!!!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my progress!

God Bless,
-Calmplex

Also Find Calmplex on Twitter, Facebook,and YouTube or email me at Plex@PlexHop.com