Saturday, December 31, 2011

STS-33: Looking Ahead at 2012

Welcome to another art-less update! Yes, that's a pun and no, it's not funny. It's art-less.

Ha.

So it's December 31st and there hasn't been much for us to show here and I figured now is as good a time as any to look ahead. Of course, like any good attempt at looking ahead, I'm going to look back first.

For us, 2011 has been a hell of a year. We're finally off of our asses and trying to get out there and get noticed. This site was the first real push. Of Stars and Swords also launched back in October, and while the pages are old for us, they're new for everyone else! This past year has basically been the two of us finally sticking our necks out and having a look around.

2012 is, hopefully, the year we really make things happen. So here's a look at some things to expect in the coming year.

Of Stars and Swords will continue to update weekly, of course. We're just over halfway through the Issue 0 story, and things will really kick off come the start of Issue 1. Tweaks to that website will keep happening as we figure out ways to make things flow better, and the weekly blog posts that fill out world details and other bits of prose will keep hitting with each new page.

We've got a second webcomic that should get started this year. This one's been in the works for quite a few years with an old friend of mine, and we're working on promo art right now to put together for a Kickstarter. If all goes well, you'll get to see something closer to traditional superhero work from us soon!

Sort of Secret Project #1. It's possible that Caroline and I are looking at a way to release that first comic we made together, The End, in a format with other, newer works of similar content and length. Possibly. Maybe. If you haven't read The End, you can right here: http://seriousturtlestudio.blogspot.com/2011/10/sts-18-end-complete.html

Sort of Secret Project #2. I'll admit to having a creative 'problem'. I write too much at times. Ideas come, I flesh them out until I find something that can be done with it or shelve it for later. That means, at any one time, while Caroline is focused on one or two things we're working on, my headspace is in about ten. Because of this, Caroline has encouraged me to tackle something almost entirely on my own. She wants to ink it and color it (if it needs color), but not pull the weight of penciling as she's already shouldering enough of that. So right now, I've taken one of those fleshed out ideas and am trying to get my own penciling up to a good quality that she can ink. If all goes well, my favorite phrase these days, you'll see the results of this before the year's out!

Sort of Secret Project #3. For two years now, Caroline and I have been bouncing a story around between us. It's taken a lot of fighting it, but I'm fairly sure we've found the best way to handle this project. This one is iffy for release at all this year, but it's likely to be worked on. How do I know that? Well, the full plot outline is just about done. My goal, once that is done, is to have the script's first draft done in the coming months and edit it as necessary until it's in a state we're both happy with. After that...well, things will get interesting.

And then who knows what else! Hopefully this blog will get more regular updates in terms of art and sketches and in-progress work! Maybe something crazy will happen and push other things to the wayside! That's the fun of a whole new year, especially when we're crazy enough to work on so much at once!

I do want to thank everyone that has followed us this past year, too! Getting started is rough, and we need all the support we can get, no matter how small it is. All I can ask is to keep with us, don't be afraid to tell us what you think, and definitely don't be afraid to tell your friends!

So there it is, a text-filled preview of things to come! Hope everyone has a safe and fun New Years Eve and that the world doesn't suddenly end at midnight in your specific time zone!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

STS-32: Of Stars and Swords Flyer - Final

So here it is, finally. Our flyer/poster for our webcomic. I'll be getting prints of this in decent size and taking a stack to our local comic shop. Hopefully some people will see it and take interest, but even if it isn't many, I'm just happy to be able to give it a shot.

And coming soon here on the blog shall be a few small previews of something else we're working on...

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

STS-31: Another Headshot

This is another headshot for one of our comics that won't see the light of day for a while. Admittedly, many character designs for it will evolve and change, but this one, in particular, likely won't much at all.

Coming soon: The finalized colors for the flyer we've shown previous and some character designs for another project that's nearly off the ground!

And, as always, every Wednesday sees a new page over at Of Stars and Swords. If you're liking what you're seeing, let us know! And if you REALLY like it, well...hopefully sometime in the near future we might have things like t-shirts, posters, and other random things like that.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

STS-30: Flyer - Inks and Process

Okay, so here's a little bit more than just art. This is the same flyer we showed the pencils on a few days back, but this time, it's inked! Here's the usual straight-blacks that one normally gets with these kinds of things. Now, there aren't a lot of heavy blacks here. They're mostly being used to pull Seren out from the background elements. But the other reason is this isn't the last step for inking when it comes to Of Stars and Swords.

After the blacks are in, all the pages get a nice wash of grey. Caroline uses this to help define subtler tones and shading. It also adds something to the overall feel of the finished pages, giving them an older, rougher look that helps the mood of a fantasy comic. Plus, as great as the black always look when she's done with that step, the greys just pull everything together. Here, especially, you can start to see what's going to happen with the background and where the logo/text is going to go.

Fully colored and text-filled version to come soon! Hope you like it and I hope you're keeping up with the comic, too!

Thursday, November 17, 2011

STS-29: Of Stars and Swords Flyer - Pencil


So here are the pencils for a flyer/poster/cover image we've put together for Of Stars and Swords. We originally had a much simpler idea, something only focused on Seren and then the logo along with some text, but we couldn't find a good way to do it. So it quickly developed into a movie poster-styled image with all of the main cast for the first arc of the comic.

The layout took some time, but it's come together wonderfully. While I helped with the planning and making sure things looked right, this real weight here is, again, pulled by Caroline. I'm especially happy with Chloe there, on the bottom right. And it all looks even better in color!

Oh, and those arrows? Light sources.

Monday, November 14, 2011

STS-28: Character Design Sketches

Today's update consists of two things! Amazing!

The first is Caroline's base sketch for our redesign of Aram. The importance here was in the clothing, as we needed to start basically from scratch. We worked with the idea of the heavy shoulders and a longer coat, with Caroline really working out how the bracers and ankles would look. The staff gave us some trouble, as we didn't want to be too boring or flashy...so Caroline came up with the little bend in it with the spherical top.


The next sketch is our attempt to design some robes for Baldur. You can see the three basic ideas we put together for styles at the top. In all honesty, there was really no contest with what was the strongest, but it was good to work others out on paper to see. Colors took some thinking, as we wanted a sun motif without being too much. And, as you can see, Caroline loved designing the shoes. I just had to look at them and say "They look great."


Thursday, November 10, 2011

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

STS-26: Aram, Inks


Look! We have art again!

So here is yet another character design for Of Stars and Swords. This is one of the main cast, Aram, and a character that we realized needed a heavy redesign from our initial take. So Caroline and I planned out his new outfit together and then she made this. In all honesty, this design is one of my favorites and I'm glad we took the time to do it.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

STS-25: To Caroline

There is no art here. Unless you consider the words to follow art, and I'm not arrogant enough at this exact moment to consider them that good. However, there is something more important than art here.

One year ago today, Caroline and I were married. It was a very small wedding that we handled all ourselves, an insane thing that I would never recommend anyone do. At the same time, when I proposed to her months before, I really did nothing special beyond the traditional down-on-one-knee thing. The point I'm dancing around is this: I've yet to publicly embarrass her in relation to us, and I think our one year anniversary is the perfect time.

Not that this is hugely public. Not a ton of people read this blog, but enough people do that I've decided this counts.

And that's enough explanation.


Caroline,

First off, there is no way in any hell it has been a year. I can still clearly remember everything from the chaos of planning to the blur of our wedding. Okay, the blur was just that. I'm...still not too sure what all happened, but I'm fairly sure we were there and things did, in fact, happen. The real point is, time is going by far too fast and I felt like starting with a generic complaint that neither of us can do anything about would be a nice microcosm of me for you to read!

It has been an amazing year, though. We talk about it all the time, but that makes it no less true. We have a webcomic that everyone reading this should be reading, too. We have another in the works. We have a graphic novel in the early stages of development. We have a couple of other things that are in even earlier stages. We're both getting better, too. Your art is miles ahead of where it was months ago, and it is an amazing thing to watch you bring these stories to life. There really isn't a word to describe it well, but you do it in ways I could never dream. No matter how much I say it's not how I imagined things, trust me, it's better.

None of this would have happened without you. And I mean that not in the literal way since we're working together. What I mean is this:

I could not do any of these things without you.

I am a different person because of you. I know in some ways, you know that, but there are some things that are impossible to articulate that are different. You give me a confidence that I have never had before. You make me truly believe in what we're trying to do. You make me believe in myself in a way that I never dreamed of. This crazy dream of actually making comics and telling stories for a living only exists because you have taught me that we can, in fact, do it.

I know this is me talking about work and that might not be what is expected, but you know how important this is to me. A very strong part of me needs to tell these stories. I need to get them out. I hope others will enjoy them, and you constantly have to remind me that people do, in fact, enjoy them beyond just us. But this need to tell these stories and to truly do it would be nothing without you. You have, quite literally, helped me to be the person I know I need to be.

Now, for the likely more expected things that are no less important.

You have made me a better person on the whole. I am happier than I have ever been, more confident in decisions, and actually able to look forward to the insane challenges we put before us to do what we dream of. I never tire of having been around you nearly 24/7 for the last year. In fact, whenever I am home without you something feels wrong. In all honesty, it is a feeling I never want to go away. I think one of our greatest things that we have is that we can be around each other all the time and love every second of it. Alone time isn't really needed or wanted.

You really are my better (and shorter) half. In our work and in every moment of the day, it applies. I would have it no other way. All of the difficult things are worth it. I have no doubts in that, which is saying something.

This is what life should be. We do this together. And by this, I mean everything. The fact that we share hobbies, interests, and damn near everything else is wonderful. Screw those idiots that say it's unhealthy. They have no idea what they're missing.

I'm already going in circles, as I'm honestly bad at articulating these things because I feel like they're all known quantities already. But I wanted them here, right here, for a reason. I want those people that see our art to see this and understand who we are.

Right now, you're asleep...or you should be. I've just watched time shift backwards and give me this extra hour in the day to write this. You probably won't even be able to read it until the afternoon. But speed isn't necessary, because you do know all of this. So I'll stop trying so hard and simply leave this with one last thing.

I love you, Caroline. You are, without a doubt, the best thing in my life.

And I just wanted to have all of this here for you to both remind you, embarrass you just slightly, and to put a smile on your face.

Because that smile never, ever gets old.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

STS-24: Baldur, Complete



 And here is the finished piece, fully colored! Our take on a usually-brutish type of character, a Half-Orc, that is instead an intelligent priest. Of course, in the webcomic, you'll be seeing him more in heavy armor, but hey.

Monday, October 31, 2011

STS-23: Baldur, Inks

So for today's piece of art, it's one of our major characters for Of Stars and Swords, Baldur. Normally he's wearing heavy armor, but as that isn't practical to wear 24/7, we needed to design some more casual clothes. As he's a priest, robes made sense. Caroline put this one together herself, and we'll have the color version to show a little later in the week, along with the design sketches that got us to this point.

Monday, October 24, 2011

STS-22: Hawk Studies


Today's update is a series of hawk studies that Caroline put together. Of Stars and Swords will be featuring such a bird after the first story we have finishes, so we wanted to get a handle on how things should look.

More art coming here soon, and Wednesday marks the uploading of page two of the webcomic!

Friday, October 21, 2011

STS-21: Some Thoughts on Our Short Comic, The End 2

Or: Things I wish I knew then.

Hi, this is Caroline! I usually don't mind letting Graham do all the talking here, but after seeing his response to our 8-pager I wanted to talk about the art end of the project.

While this was our first comic we did together, I had been making comics for about 5 years prior, though nothing really worth sharing now. It was a hobby, and thus I was used to short-cutting. The End was the first comic I aimed to handle professionally, and I was using a whole new set of tools and materials:
-pre-lined 11x17 bristol, instead of drawing paper cut down to 8x10
-acrylic ink and nibs, instead of whatever pen was lying around

I got to play with new ideas that never popped up in my manga-esque comic from my teens: hatching, perspective, full backgrounds, light source.

But I was still fumbling in the dark really. I was mimicking what I saw professionals do. I lacked the confidence to push things a little further. And I was still too lazy to put in that little extra bit of work to really pull things together.

So here it is, my list of things I know now, that I wish I had known then:

Rulers are your friend! I didn't think it was possible to use a nib AND a ruler and I didn't really care to try. The result, sloppy hatching, squiggly lines, and hours trying to correct as much as possible in Photoshop.

Don't half-ass your hatching! Hatching should be tight and run in the same direction as your planes, not at an angle to them!

Line-width variation is key! That thing wayyyy back there should not be outlined as thickly as this thing right in front of the camera.

Don't be afraid of color! I still have to yell at myself over this. Desaturation is great when it is intended, and stands out even more when your colors have confidence elsewhere. Bright colors are nothing to fear as long as you have-

Global color unification! Light is always tinted. You can have wildly variating colors as long as you apply the same tint or filter to them all. Photoshop even has built-in tools for this (with I rely on heavily now).

Give your backgrounds the same attention you give your figures! Bad backgrounds were steps above the no-backgrounds I was used to doing, but I regret not spending more time on them now.

EDIT: and one last thing I forgot, always be mindful of where your text and bubbles need to go and how much room they will need. Pull the camera back in text-heavy panels. Try to root your figures to one side or the other to make room for text, instead of plopping them in the center with very little space on both sides. I now make notes in the margins of the bristol board if there is a lot of text for a panel or anything special like that.

STS-20: Some Thoughts on Our Short Comic, The End

First, an apology. This is the second post here with no art. It won't happen much, but hey, you get to read me ramble on and that's just as good, right? Okay, it really isn't, but this could be just as insightful, especially for others wanting to make some comics or just learn about how Caroline and I work.

Everything here refers to the mini comic we did about a year ago now, which we just recently finished showing off here on the internet, an 8-page story called The End. You can see it all right here if you haven't already.

First, the genesis of the story. A while ago, a competition for new comic creators appeared called the Eagle Initiative. They wanted a max of ten pages for an original story, and if one was picked as the top three by a panel of jurors, the story would be published. Now, sadly, the Eagle Initiative didn't happen due to a lack of entries. Seems that not enough people had the, excuse the pun, initiative to actually finish a short project for the competition. But we did, and while disappointed that the competition fell through, we were glad we could finally release this thing into the wild.

I spent a couple of days brainstorming ideas of what we could do in a short story. It's a struggle, as I tend towards longer, more complicated ideas, so I really had to take the time to figure out a plot that could be interesting and yet worked out in, at most, 10 pages. Somehow, in my looking for inspiration, I found myself doing what I tend to do when I want to think: casually trolling through wikipedia articles and learning. The subject I had somehow gotten myself on began with just generally looking at the structure of the universe and what we know, then lead to black holes and physics behind them, and eventually into the possible futures for the universe itself.

The concept that really grabbed me was the heat death of the universe. It's something that has always fascinated me, so it was easy to latch onto again. The concept is complicated, but here it is in brief: The universe is expanding. At some point, far, far in the future (trillions and trillions of years), the expansion of the universe coupled with stars and black holes and similar stellar masses use up all the available energy. Stars die, but no more are created. The universe literally goes dark, and over time, black holes eventually disappear, too. Everything gets cold as matter slows down, atoms themselves even stop moving over time. After all of that, there's just nothing left. Real nothing. In some ways, it can be a terrifying idea.

But I knew I'd read something about this before, so did some research into stories that might hit on the idea so as not to copy something without meaning to. That's when I found the story I was looking for, Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question", which you can read for free here: http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html. It's a short story and a wonderful read. After reading it, I realized I had, indeed, read it years before, but the ideas that Asimov's expertly tackled were a bit different than where my mind was going with the concept. Incidently, our main character is named Isaac as a tribute to the inspiration for the story. So I figured we were safe, and ran it by Caroline who absolutely loved it.

When it came to the script itself, the idea had gelled solidly around my own question: If humans lived long enough to see the head death of the universe, how could they survive? The idea of a computer simulation, similar to what was done in the movie The Matrix, immediately sprung to mind, but that alone wasn't enough. So more research went into the nature of time and, again, black holes. This led to the key concept of The End: relative time. If time ran at a different rate inside a digital universe than the real universe, humans could experience an infinite amount of lifetimes before the real universe died.

So we set to it, and somehow the story ended up not needing to even be 10 pages. After writing the script and having Caroline give it a look, I threw down the page layouts in light pencil. This is basically me blocking out shapes of the panels, where the figures will go, the camera angle, etc. After that, Caroline came in and did the finished pencils. She then inked it by hand, we scanned it in, and she colored all the pages digitally. Really, this is where the brunt of the work happened and Caroline definitely nailed it. The last step was me again, lettering the pages, which simply amounts to placing the word balloons and all the other text.

Bam. Finished comic.

It was the first full story we'd done, and altogether, those 8 pages took us close to five months to do, in between work and us planning our wedding. We had good reasons for the slowness, obviously.

So with that long-winded look at where this all came from, it's time for a look at what I think we did well and what we (mainly me) stumbled on.

First, what I think we did well. Overall, I am insanely proud of this simple story. I'd like to think that we told a short, compelling story in comic form that works very well in the medium, even without the need for action. As stiff as the script was at times, I feel that it fit the piece and the character. The panel layout is, overall, solid and the lettering leads one through most of the panels well. The art isn't our best, but for where we were then, it was our best. I firmly believe that, for us diving in headfirst on this, everything came together shockingly well. The coloring, especially, makes this. The brightness of the first pages contrasted with the greys and softer glows of the last pages does exactly what we'd hoped it would.

But...

But. Always that with us artists. Art wise, the only real problem I can see is that we just didn't have a handle on things just yet. The stiffness of some of the poses bothers me, as today they would have so much more life to them.

The panel layout works overall, but somehow I don't think they served the emotional concept they should have. As it was scripted and worked on, the first three pages were all within the digital universe. Thus, I wanted the panels to hint at that structure by forcing the pages into a solid, 9-panel grid without any variation. After that, with the latter pages, the panels would go wilder, with bleeds and odd shapes to imply the real world. Yet, I think this being shown in digital loses this emotional transition as the pages aren't seen next to each other. A page turn really would have made the Page 3 to 4 transition perfect in my mind, with the last panel of Page 3 and the first of Page 4 retaining the same shape and size.

The rest, visually, I'm fine with. That leaves the last, and definitely largest, problem. As I posted these weekly, I reread them one at a time as everyone else did. I found that, upon rereading them, the story wasn't nearly as clear as I'd hoped. There are quite a lot of very heavy concepts being played with here in just 8 pages, so there was rarely more than enough space for a sentence or two to explain things. Sadly, my inexperience at writing such things caught up to me there. Chiefly, I just don't think the idea that time flows slower inside the simulation than in real life, and the implications of that, were clear.

It's kind of a vital point to the story, and I feel like I missed that one. But we live and learn, and if anyone really wants to see me continue on like this, ask me what it should have said and I'll make a post even longer than this one just about how time works in the digital universe!

But that's it! There's nothing else to say, from me at least, on The End, other than hoping you enjoyed the read despite the flaws. We definitely learned a lot from those 8 pages alone, and hopefully anyone that follows our work will see that as we our next projects continue forward. So thanks for reading this long post, and hey, if Caroline wants to add anything to make it longer, she is perfectly free to!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

STS-19: Of Stars and Swords Launches!

Of Stars and Swords is Live!

That's right, after weeks of talking about it here and months everywhere else, our fantasy webcomic is live! Please head over there and check it out!

Updates will be weekly at the moment, every Wednesday, with a prose piece to go with it. It's possible that, in the future, we might speed up the updates to twice a week, but for now it's going to stay as it is for our own sanity.

I've said this everywhere, so I apologize if you keep reading this, but please spread the word. We need all the help we can get to be noticed and read, and we really think we've got a good story to tell with good art! Besides, a story isn't a story if no one reads it!

So head over there and enjoy our first page. Should have some art to show here in a few days!

Monday, October 17, 2011

STS-18: The End, Complete

So for easier reading, here is all of our mini-comic, The End, compiled in one post and in order. In the next couple of days, I'll be posting some thoughts on the creation process, what we could have done better, what I think we did well, etc. Many people say it's not good to talk negatively about one's own work in public, but I want to do some honest, public critique of our early work to show how we go about working and to maybe help others not run into the same issues we have.


I hope you enjoy the comic, and it definitely does read better in one stretch rather than a page at a time!








Wednesday, October 12, 2011

STS-17: The End, Page 8



And that's it! All eight pages of our short comic. In a couple of days, I'll compile these all together in a more easily readable format (i.e. in correct order rather than cascading) and also talk about some thoughts on what we've learned since this, etc. Hope you enjoyed it!

Monday, October 3, 2011

STS-15: Nika



This is Nika, another of the characters for our webcomic. Caroline decided she wanted to play with our earlier design for her and simplify it, so this is the result! This is another piece that's all Caroline and no me involved beyond voicing opinion, and it's also something she did fully digitally!

Saturday, September 24, 2011

STS-13: Seren


We've already shown Seren, the main character from our soon-to-launch webcomic, a few times here, but why not another? Unlike everything else we've shown so far, this image has the distinction of not being a joint effort at all! While all the other art so far has been the work of both myself and Caroline, this one is all her.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

STS-11: OSAS, Kieran and Maeira


Kieran(left) and Maeira(right) are a pair of characters that will appear later on in Of Stars and Swords. For now, the details of who they are can wait, but expect to see more shots like these pop up here over time!

Also, the title here is the first use of the very obvious abbreviation for our webcomic, so expect to see it popping up when we're cramped for space or just not feeling long-winded. More on the comic very, very soon.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

STS-10: Of Stars and Swords Preview



This time the preview for our upcoming webcomic is not a panel at all! Here is a look at the logo Caroline put together on top of an image we originally designed as a cover, but decided worked better like this. And hey, this is digital, who needs covers?

Friday, September 9, 2011

STS-8: Headshot


Not a huge update today, just a simple headshot. This is a character for a project we're working on that will likely be in the works for quite a while, but likely to show off bits and pieces as we move along on it. Enjoy the weekend, everyone, and next week we'll have a great Of Stars and Swords image to show!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

STS-6: Of Stars and Swords Preview

Photobucket










Here's another panel from our upcoming webcomic! We're nearing full on launch, with some slight tweaks to the original plan. Until then, we'll keep showing off bits and pieces.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

STS-5: Of Stars and Swords Preview

As I mentioned earlier, we're planning on posting a few panels and sections of panels here and there from the fantasy webcomic we're working on, Of Stars and Swords, while we gear up for fully launching it. So...here's our first panel to show off in full color!
Photobucket

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

STS-4: The End, Page 2



And here's page 2 of our short story. As a heads up, if you want to read this without any interruptions from other posts in the way, just click on the tag on this post "The End" and only these pages will show up!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

STS-3: Fantasy Webcomic Announcement!

For the last year, if you've followed Caroline or I, you've seen us talking about a fantasy comic we're working on. Well, not only are we well ahead on the work, but it now has a title and its time to talk about it in a real capacity finally!

Of Stars and Swords is a fantasy webcomic we'll be launching very soon. It follows a young Half-Elf girl, Seren, as she deals with the usual troubles of a high fantasy world: Magic, zombies, monsters, and of course, other greedy adventurer types. There will be a fairly good sized rotating cast of other characters through the comic, and we'll be launching with a story all about Seren's history and back story before diving into everything else.

Once we go live with the comic, we'll be updating twice a week. The main update day will consist of the page for that week, and the second update each week will be background information, development sketches, and other bits and pieces of world building info.

Until the full on launch, I'll be posting preview panels and other pieces of art here. To kick that off, here's our first, and still main, design for Seren. Enjoy!


Wednesday, August 24, 2011

STS-2: The End, Page 1



Here is the first page of an 8 page comic Caroline and I put together for the Eagle Initiative competition that, sadly, ended up not happening. I'll be uploading a page of it every Wednesday for the next few weeks until it's done, and looking through them, they stand well enough on their own to deal with the slower pace. And, clearly, you'll want to click the image to make it readable.

I have a lot to say about this story, but for now, I'll keep it short. I might talk about this in more detail once the whole thing is done or over in the other blog. But put simply, these pages are now well over a year old. While they definitely aren't the best work in the world, I'm proud of them as these are the first full pages Caroline and I did completely ourselves. Script, pencils, inks, colors, letters, you name it, we did it. It was a great deal of work and we have learned quite a lot from it.

So, again, I hope others can enjoy this, too.

EDIT: And now fixed so that it's a full size image without having to click on it! Hooray!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

STS-1: Ready for Launch

So here we are, Serious Turtle Studio.

This is the soon to grow art home of Graham and Caroline Johnson. We're a husband and wife art team, and our focus is on comics. Which, of course, means that most of what will soon be here will be focused on the comic projects we're working on, plus random odds and ends here and there.

I'll make the rest of this short, as this is just an introduction that's likely only to be seen by few and then never gone back to by anyone that discovers this place after...and that's fine.

At this point, here's our plan for this blog. For the next few weeks, every Wednesday, we'll be posting a single page from a comic short story we created together for the Eagle Initiative. Sadly, the competition failed to happen, but we still want to show the work off. I'll talk more about it tomorrow when I post the first page, but suffice to say, the story is the first comic we've worked on fully together, and while it definitely isn't perfect, we're both proud of it on the whole.

Beyond that, there will be some irregular updates in the form of small previews of what we're currently working on and possibly random doodles.

Lastly, you can check out more of Caroline's previous work over at her Deviantart page. She'll likely be crossposting much of what ends up here over there, but I know there will also be things on that page that never make it to this blog. So definitely follow her there, too. As for me, you can find my musing on comics and sometimes other topics over at my other blog, The Next Panel. I tend to babble, clearly, so you've been warned.