Well I spent from noon on Saturday April 23, to noon on April 24 drawing a 24-page comic book from scratch. It’s called 24 Hour Comic Book Day!

Be sure to check out the gallery of pictures I took HERE.

Read the story HERE.

START
When I arrived at Comic Relief (Berkeley, CA) at 11 am on Saturday I was greeted by a drawing desk set up in the window. (PIC) this would be a popular spot to those who needed some late night quite to get some work done. (PIC)

By noon we had all set up our materials and grab some drinks as well as a burger for lunch. (PIC) The store representative, Stephen, told us the rules and then we started this amazing challenge.

What is the challenge?
To create an original 24 page comic book in 24 hours with a non-thought out, non-planned out idea from scratch. Now this does not mean that you can’t have specific goal of what to get out of it. It might be working on drawing the human figure, a coherent story, detailed inking, etc. One-way to do this is to use Random elements that you don’t know of till the project starts.

For me the goal was to complete the challenge and to include at least one sexy woman, something I am not good at drawing. It was also big for me to not be such a perfectionist, to accept what I did and not try to keep fixing it. To learn from what I had done.

For the idea I had lot of paper scraps with printed Random Elements from different websites (LINK and another LINK). I ended up picking a superhero name and a character description:

the Synthetic Owl
(random generate hero names HERE)an Intergalactic Inquisitor

So I developed the story of a mystical, plastic made, owl shaped construct; that has to deal with the sexy agent of the intergalactic inquisition.

I started by doing sketches of the two main characters and some other elements, and then tackled a thumbnail of all the pages.

For me it was important to have a coherent beginning and an ending, but I did leave two areas empty. I was so worried about getting it done, I hated to even spend the first hour doing the planning.

About 1:15 I started penciling the pages on velum Bristol board. I had made a template ahead of time of the standard page size that made it easy to get going. I drew two pages per sheet of Bristol board. I used a color-erase blue pencil to draw the pictures. The blue lines are dropped out when scanned into Photoshop in color and selecting the blue channel, then converting it to grayscale.

I figured that if I got all the penciling done by 12 mid-night I would be doing ok. I was very stressed out.

I was actually done with the penciling by 10:30 pm.

After a nice break, I started inking the pages. (PIC) When I penciled the pages, I had left some details out, since I had not finalized the characters costumes. The inking is where a lot of the art’s life comes from.

Many of the folks had diffrent takes on the final art. Meridith liked to use her super paint thumb (PIC) to create some amazingly painterly effects.

I finished in time with a 24-page story (with a few spelling/grammar mistakes that I was too tired to notice or correct) and was pleased to say I succeeded in the challenge.

Throughout 24 Hour Comic Book Day, Comic Relief treated us very awesomely and treated us too a dinner of Pizza, Coffee, energy drinks and snacks, and Crepes for Breakfast. The store will be putting a book together that will included everyone’s work.

RESULTS

I am pleased with my final results, mistakes and all. For my goal of working with out being a perfectionest, I feel very pleased, but I still am worried that everyone will only see the mistakes I have made. Make sure you check it out HERE

Here is the final result from the store as posted on the official blog:

In the closing moments of 24 Hour Comics Event Horizon, the crest of the comics Everest has been conquered. It’s not unlike the mad dash to the classroom, 5 minutes before your thesis paper’s due. Of our mighty crew, four threw in the proverbial towel, four completed early and are now sleeping soundly, and 7 stayed ’til the bitter end. Thanks again to everyone participating in this test of stamina and sanity. Sponsors, facilitators, hosts, moral supporters, and of course, our brave artists worked in tandem to pull off an amazing hullabaloo. In the words of Nick Finch, one of the survivors, “I couldn’t think of an idea, so I killed off all my characters, zombified them, and killed them again.” I think, at this point, we all kind of feel like one of Nick’s zombies. Sweet Dreams & Pleasant Nightmares!

To see more blog entrees on the official site from Comic Relief, click HERE

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Visit http://www.atomicbearpress.com/comics/log/ to see my
production art for my comic book, Beyond the Great Chimney
as well as other art, sketches and drawings.