Things are moving fast
One of three of [REDACTED] done.
Hello from Castrum Lusitania, my fortress in northern Portugal. Welcome to another edition of our weekly newsletter.
First of all: NO NEWSLETTER NEXT WEEK. I’ll be at CoimbraBD, a comic convention here in Portugal.
In regards to the what’s going on my desk, a quick catch-up if you missed the last few weeks:
After wrapping Phenomena, I’ll be doing a new creator owned book with Rick Remender. We already started some of the design work, some of the wirting etc, but before we properly start it, I’m doing a three issue run on another book.
What book is that?
Patience. The announcement is coming very soon. What I can tell you is that I started it immediately after Phenomena Book 3 as it was not a planned thing, but a very nice surprise. Because it was an existing book, I managed to hit the ground running and issue 1 (of 3) is now done. One down, two to go.
You’ve already seen some hints of it in the last couple of weeks, but I have a couple more for you today.
I’m exploring new textures and ways of doing things as a preparation for what’s coming, but also because I felt this current assignment needed it. I’m using a bit more of brush, as you can see below, where I do a first pass just with the brush (first image) and then go in with the nib to add some hatching and details (second image).
I’ve also extended the texture idea to grey tones, so I’m applying now a watercolor brush to match the inking, instead of the flat tones I’ve used in the past.
I spent a few hours yesterday going through brushes until I found one the satisfied me - it’s one from DAUB watercolor brushes that you can find right here, but I’ll write more extensively about both the inking and the tones in the future, once I can show some complete images.
New Podcast
Last week I forgot to tell you about my latest podcast, an in-depth talk with
about storytelling in general and comics in particular. It was a great conversation (J. Alex is very knowledgeable) and you should give it a listen and explore other episodes:
Recommendations
If you don’t know TEX, it is a huge western comic series from Italy. It has been written and drawn by some of the best through the decades, but I had never read any volume of it despite all of that.
That recently changed once I saw published in Portuguese two stories drawn by two of my favorites: Corrado Mastantuono and R. M. Guéra. I could type 2000 words on each of them, but I’ll let the images do the talking:
I have no idea if Tex is translated or sold in the US, but… it should. Because, I mean, look at that. Worth every cent. Comics are the best.
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I’ll see you in a couple of weeks,
André
I try to guess the three issue project you are working on: a story of “The Witcher” 😁