Long Distance

[Charles Jones]

I'm no stranger to running a low-key webcomic, though I tended to keep its following limited mostly to a relatively small circle of friends. Honestly, I think I'm more comfortable running things like that in such a way, especially since I seem to have all the attention span of a dead goldfish, and sometimes jump off to another project while the one I'm already working on is going full-steam. Still, a few years back, my good friends Ben and Fio encouraged my wild flight of fancy regarding the serialization of an online comic strip based on a rather old story idea of mine entitled "Long Distance". I was further encouraged to share the works-in-progress here at CCS. After some consideration... why not?

I'll use this space as an area in which to share what I'm working on for Long Distance, posting processes as well as end results with respect to the artwork that goes into it. I welcome (and encourage) questions, comments and critiques!

To start with, I'll put up a portion of a page I've been working on; one panel in particular which has taken some time for me to be happy with. Thankfully, I got a lot of good suggestions.

When I first began working on this panel, I started by drawing out a grid. I had a specific reference picture I wished to use for the pose of the character, and had a great deal of trouble getting it down freehand. Therefore, I gave myself some assistance in going from A to B. The assistance helped immensely. Unfortunately, the 'model' I used was quite heavily clothed, and even with the use of a grid, I still had to do my best to proportion her not only the way I wanted, but realistically so, when taken down to a spaghetti strap tanktop. I wasn't going for full realism, as the art style I'd chosen was more along the lines of an anime and manga style, but you can tell by my notes that I was already looking for ways to cover mistakes with things like clothing and hair once I'd realized I couldn't figure out how to fix them.

[Charles Jones]

I LOVE the term, "super doodle-o-matic," and may now be forced to integrate it into my personal vocabulary.

I need a new super doodle-o-matic. I'd planned to use my old one for this project, but it apparently chose death over servitude, poor old thing.

[Barbara Ann Storrier]

Ah Ronco ... I remember them from when I used to watch TV :)
I have one of those old models too. Shadow was a young puppy at the time and decided that since I had dropped the stylus on the floor, it was his. It took about an hour for it to dawn on me what it was, when I found it the next day ... all that was left was a bunch of wires and transistor type thingies. I heaved a heavy sigh and put the tablet away.

[Jules]

Sorry to hear about the demise of your tablet.
I have yet to get one...I still have to do the click dance with my mouse.