would you still love me if the clocks could go backwards?

[turtlesoup]

The other day I got an email from an awesome CCS alum friend of mine that opened with "HI KLEEBS! DON'T DIE OF THESIS!" (And if you know her you can probably guess who would call me that. ♥) It's a pretty serious condition to be in, I can't lie. I'm surviving ... I've basically become a comics hermit (or maybe an anchorite, for that extra devotional feel), but if that makes me a bit strange, well. I'm writing about fairly strange circumstances?

So here are two (non-concurrent) pages from the first chapter of my thesis/eventual book:


Ash arrives at the mysterious derelict hospital. Probably going to shuffle that caption text a little.


Ash meets Jane! I love the way the panel layout for this page turned out. Had tons of issues getting the pose in the middle of the bottom tier, so my very tolerant friends Laurel and Alexis did a bit of modeling for me, patiently holding onto some tricky balancing while I fumbled to take their picture!

Also! A whole month and a half ago was Hourly Comics Day! I don't usually take part in these sorts of events, because speed is my demon and I find the whole thing kind of stressful ... not too many years ago I struggled to get four-to-six panel strips out more often than a couple times a month, and even now I can't really imagine taking on 24-Hour Comic Day. But I've been at CCS for almost two years, I'm much faster than I've ever been, and taking a day off from thesis to draw my own life was actually looking like a break. SO. I gave it a shot.




I have to be honest ... I spent most of the next day inking these, even if it was a bit messy/fast. And many of these were not drawn during the actual hour they depict. But still, I was proud. You can see some notes/links regarding content and guest appearances by other toonies in this tumblr post!

Also check out some other awesome CCSers' (often more polished) hourlies: Sophie, Alexis, Carl, and Melanie Part 1/Part 2! There's some crossover. :)

The other big news in my SO EXCITING life is that I have started using ... and fallen in love with ... Zebra brushpens. They are perfect for me ... some of that gorgeous brush line variation, but all the control and portability of archival ink pens. I'm using them on my thesis in concert with some of my old Microns & Copics, and I'm NEVER GOING BACK.

Here's me practicing with them on characters from a couple of other, future projects (the sort of thing you daydream of when you're locked into one story):


The dress Evangeline's wearing at the lower right is adapted from this AMAZING collection.

Well, back (forever) to the drawing board as always (with my Dark Is Rising audiobooks and Veronica Mars rewatch-in-progress, hurrah). But here's a little doodly comparison to remind myself of how far I've come ...

I was idly messing around with a couple of old, old characters in my sketchbook. This is Seraph, a heavily anime-inspired character from my high school days (long white hair, eyes nothing but pools of stars, pointy ears ... hooked up to wires and some kind of wing-shaped metal contraption ...):


Here are some renditions of her from high school and, a few years later, college (in a similar fit of nostalgia). We keep moving forward ...

More previews and doodles soonish, no doubt! And maybe even the beginnings of a convention schedule!