After crossing the 100 page mark a while ago, I've been reluctant to signal the final countdown for the inks. Now that there is only 15 pages left, I think it's safe to say I'm on the home stretch. But hark there's more! Oh yes, this is only one leg of the journey! Stay tooned for colors and lettering! Oh, and don't forget to hand me a cup of water now and then, too.
MARATHON: 100 Pages Inked!
It's still way premature to say I'm on the home stretch but 100 pages sure feels like a significant landmark. At the very least, I'm over half way there and at my current pace should finish this leg of the journey in about a month. See you then!
Lunedi Loony Sharpie Doodles!
These doodles seem to be the best so far. It's been a bit of an experimental journey getting here but I think these drawings are sort of the culmination of the evolution up until now. Take a look at the rest below the cut and let me know what you think.
THIS IS MARATHON!
I'll be making that joke many times before this project is done but this is definitely one of those moments. Enjoy!
Looky Looky! Loony Sharpie Doodles!
Once again, here's another batch of my noxious nocturnal noodling. These pages represent a certain synthesis of all the previous drawings and I think they are perhaps the most successful drawings so far. They've become palimpsestical accumulations of various drawing styles and languages including pure abstraction, flat color, text and representation. Who knew they were such smarty pants!? Even more aristocratic artistry below the cut!
More Loony Sharpie Doodles!
Now we're getting somewhere! After a few doodles where I started to incorporate larger areas of color, this one takes it to its logical conclusion and makes the whole drawing a patchwork of color. That then becomes a ground on which I do a bunch of doodles in darker marker. Those doodles themselves merge to form some sort of skull! Pretty nifty! The other doodle like this is below the cut.
In this drawing I've taken the same approach but this time I included the dark blue marker as part of the color patches. The other line drawings over top are done in brown, black and silver markers. I think the skull drawing ties first one together in way that isn't happening here. This is just a rather random assortment of motifs and elements. I probably had to do this drawing before I could go ahead with the next batch. They are more successful that this and I'll be posting them up very soon. Thanks for reading!
Marathon Full Page Color Test
So here's the first fully inked, colored and lettered page of Marathon! The book will be black with one color throughout and for this test I used a warm ochre. I'm currently leaning toward this area of the spectrum but until I'm coloring the book in earnest, that decision is still not final. Thanks for visiting and stay tooned for more previews and process posts!
Loony Sharpie Doodle MEGAPOST!
MEGAPOST! I'm including a number of these now so I can start to chart an evolution here. These few doodles get to a place just before they take a big leap visually. It's important to bear in mind that these drawings are revelatory for me. They really are doodles done without the impediment of a controlling or censoring voice so when I look at them later, the results can be surprising. I'll comment on each after the cut…
This one's a maximalist approach where I just keep adding to the drawing. Of note here is that I'm starting to ad elements from diagrams, anatomical drawings and even writing (in this case a letter 'R'). Besides the obvious drawings of hands, you'll also find an ape portrait, a tree trunk, some teeth and a design for an impossible finger puppet.
This drawing is probably a reaction to the last since it's less congested. I might have felt that the last one went too far and so jumped off this one a little early. Perhaps the most interesting element is the double ended foot and the cloud cookies. Besides that, this one's pretty conservative.
Formally this drawing is interesting because I'm filling in areas with color. In general these drawings tend to be latticeworks of line drawings but this one seems to be introducing color patterns and shapes. This one has a lighter, a smoking toe, a toe that appears to be squishing someone, duck feet, shackles hands, peacock feathers and an Egyptian pyramid. With enough imaginative effort, I'm sure I can start to weave a narrative through these elements.
This drawing is important because I'm starting to incorporate words into the pictures. In this case something about 'best' meant that I should include it. It might have been something Jason was saying that inspired this.
I feel that this is a fairly successful drawing. It has many of the new elements that I've added to these and it seems to do it in a pleasing arrangement. What does it all mean? Your guess is as good as mine but I can appreciate it for its formal qualities.
I've saved the best for last! This is my favorite of this run of drawings. This drawing started with a light green portrait inspired by Jason talking about 'Burritoman'. I think I added the sports jersey with the number 12 to indicate that Burritoman was part of a team (probably with 12 members). From there some randomness ensues with the tentacles, the club arm, the mouth and bacon strips. Our conversation must have come to Doc Savage at one point because he's given mention as is the quote, "Hot Foamy Flouride Bullets". I'm sure that was a actually spoken.