STS-63: A Bunch of Sketches

Hey everyone! A slight change of pace in this post, as this is full of Graham's art instead of Caroline's. It happens, and hopefully there'll be more of both to show soon as we work on finishing our first Of Stars and Swords story and start to develop some new things.

For now though, here's a bunch of sketches Graham has been doing to get back into the groove of drawing again. There's a good chance these will get inked in the future (maybe even by Caroline), as well.

The first batch is a group of Marvel's cosmic characters: Captain Marvel, Nova, Mantis, and Gamora.

Second group are all X-Men: Cyclops, X-23, Kitty Pryde and Lockheed, and Storm.

Third group are all Spider-Man related: Peter Parker, Miles Morales (Ultimate Spider-Man), Gwen Stacy (Spider-Woman), and Anya Corazon (Spider-Girl).

STS-60: The Mad Lord

The newest Of Stars and Swords page features the return of the main villain for the first story arc, the Mad Lord. We're over a hundred pages into the comic, but we've only seen him TWICE! And both times were in the Issue 0, back in 2012! Since it's been so long and we actually needed him for the current scene, Caroline did a proper design for him. So here's Caroline's design sketches for the Mad Lord. Enjoy!

STS-59: Of Stars and Swords Cameo Concepts

Of Stars and Swords is, right now, in the home stretch for the first arc. We're going to be done in around ten pages! It's exciting and we're having a ton of fun reaching the point in the story we've been aiming for, and not expecting to really ever get to, since the very beginning. And in the lead up to the end of our first story arc, we decided to have some fun with background characters by inserting the likenesses of some of our comic creator friends.

While we've done four cameos, only two of them received design sketches. Why? Because we're weird that way. Or mean. So to make up for being mean, first I'll plug our two friends that didn't get concepts drawn.

First is Sarah Roarke, creator of the comic After Daylight. She's on this page, in the second to last panel...dead center with pink hair!

Second is Larry Watts, currently the penciller on Robyn Hood for Zenescope. He's on the last panel on this page, being grabbed by Seren and looking appropriately terrified.

Now, on to the concept art!

First up here are two characters that aren't cameos at all! Just updated designs for the Elf and Dwarf Commanders since we hadn't seen them in so long. But the third headshot here is of Jules Rivera, creator of the comics Valkyrie Squadron and Misfortune High! She first showed up on this page and managed to return in the most recent one!



And last we have Gustav Carlson, creator of Backwood Folk and Eve of the Ozarks! He appeared first on this page and then came running back again! Caroline had to design what the Elf mages would look like for him, so there's also some work on that design here, as well.

STS-56: More Scifi Sketches

I promise this will have a name beyond "scifi comic" eventually, but for now, that's all it is. Most of what you see are my (Graham) sketches and designs, since I'm doing the pencils on this project, but every so often Caroline does a sketch of her own, and that's what we're showing today. A couple of sketches Caroline did of one of the main characters of the comic, one in pencil and the other just in pen.



No updates yet on when, exactly, you'll get to see the comic pages, but I promise you they're coming! Until then, as always, our webcomic Of Stars and Swords continues to update weekly and is nearing the end of Issue 4 of the story! And you can catch up there on the website or on Comixology!

STS-53: Demon Designs

What would a fantasy story be without monsters? Of Stars and Swords has been a slow burn in that direction, but now we've got demons! There's not much to see in the comic pages just yet, so how about a look at Caroline's design sketches?

In other Of Stars and Swords news, you can now buy Issue 0 on Comixology! The other issues are coming, as well! Speaking of that, Issue 4 begins on June 26!

STS-50: Goblin Design Sketch

Look at that! Finally up to fifty blog posts!

For this one, I give you how Goblins look in Of Stars and Swords. Caroline and I talked this one through a lot before she tackled the design, but we both came from the same direction. The idea was to make this a recognizably goblin-like design, but not to copy what, say, Lord of the Rings had already done. So we've still got the big head, small body setup, but Caroline went with a few different ideas here: three fingers and toes, legs that reverse slightly at the knee, and somewhat bat-like ears.

And, of course, Caroline made him cute.

STS-49: OSAS Underground Designs

Half of the group of heroes in Of Stars and Swords has journeyed into a fairly standard fantasy location: underground tunnels and roads. For reference, the scene at the waypoint begins here, Issue 3 - Page 5.

The location where most of the action would take place was a waypoint, like a small village between cities to provide a place for travelers to rest. For reference, one of the first things Caroline did was to put together a nice little overhead view of the waypoint so we knew the area.

Overall, it's really just a simple crossroads with buildings carved into the four corners. So it didn't get too boring, we put a huge column in the center, carved with runes as a road sign of sorts. You can see the height and shape of the column at the bottom of this page of sketches.

We also didn't want things to just be boring rock and columns, so Caroline and I talked things over a little bit, and then she went crazy designing creatures of various kinds and tons of plant life for the environment. The sad thing is, a lot of these little guys we just don't have a chance to show, but it helped to get a feel for what the underground world is like.

STS-47: OSAS Dwarf Designs

At the end of the Issue 2 for Of Stars and Swords, we finally had our heroes encounter a fantasy staple: Dwarves. So here's a look at Caroline's design sketches for the two main Dwarves in the comic at the moment.

On the left is the Dwarf Commander, who never got a name because I never bothered with it. Maybe later. But he's much more our standard Dwarf, beard and all. Even then, Caroline made sure to keep him with a closer-cropped, dignified looking beard to help his military look. The armor he wears became the standard for the Dwarves, so any background Dwarves you see tend to be wearing the same design, though usually with helmets.

On the right is Algvi, the scout that joins up with the characters to lead them underground. With him, I gave Caroline only two suggestions: Make him bald and give him some kind of tattoo on his head. She ran with that, added the wonderful mutton chops, a nice nose scar, and roughed him up in a way that gave him a lot of character. His armor is, essentially, the same as the Dwarf Commander's, but leather rather than plate.

STS-42: OSAS Splash Page Layout

Hey, everyone! Last week's Of Stars and Swords page was a big splash page that Caroline nearly killed her hand and eyes on. It's only fair to give you a look at the layout she put together, since this is one of the rare times she put together every step of the art. So here's her layout sketches which you can compare with the actual page by clicking this link!

STS-41: OSAS Horse Studies

Hello again! So this week's Of Stars and Swords page is full of horses! Before getting going on the page, though, Caroline did a bunch of studies and sketches on the layouts we put together. And here they are for you to enjoy, along with another look at how the layout for this page began to compare against where it ended up!

STS-39: Scifi Comic Preview - Headshots

Hey, everyone! We've been a little quiet on the blog due to chugging along on Of Stars and Swords. Hope you're reading and enjoying it, but this post is about another project we're working on.

Unlike Of Stars and Swords, I'll be handling the heavy lifting on the art, with Caroline only inking me and doing some basic colors (unless the plan changes on that end). So that means I've been spending a lot of time forcing my own art skills back into shape. It's rough, and I'm getting quite a lot of assistance from Caroline to have work that's actually presentable, but it's finally paying off.

So as a little preview of things, here are the headshots of four major characters for an upcoming Science Fiction comic. I'm in the process of putting together an 8 page short comic to get this off the ground, and the pencils on that should start coming along soon. After that, a full launch is to come!

STS-37: Preview

A panel from page 3 of the new issue. Trying to loosen up the pencils to save time and make inking less tedious. It's nice to leave some decisions open for inking, instead of just having to straight trace my pencils exactly.

STS-36: Preview of the Week

No preview last week because Graham and I decided to share this snapshot of a couple pages in-progress on Twitter:



This week's panel comes from that first page, finally finished.


The straw roofing has won me over.

STS-35: Preview of the Week

Another Of Stars and Swords panel. I'm trying to remember that everyone carries around weapons and they don't just pull them out of thin air at the beginning of a fight.



I've been looking foward to drawing more character interaction and it definitely picks up after issue 0.

STS-34: Preview of the Week

I wanted to start sharing weekly previews of stuff in-progress. Mainly peeks at pages I'm working on in earlier stages. This week, I share with you a panel from page one of the next issue of Of Stars and Swords.


It's simple, but it came together nicely and didn't fight me too much. My pencils aren't as clean and finalized as they could be, but I'll fix the line weight and other problems when I ink.

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.