The Darkest Hour, 48-50

So here we are, at page 50, and the less-than-nice beginning of the Arthurian epic. It's probably not much of a consolation, but Ygraine will have her revenge one day.

Hm. In the first panel, Ygraine is a giant, and in the second she is a giraffe. But it gets better from the third on :-).

As always, click the pictures for a readable view.

The Darkest Hour 45-47

There was a time when I posted three pages in an update. Then I posted more. Now I'm back to three :-). Mind you, there may be more next time - it depends on how I tell the story. Today's set of three happens to fill the last three pages of my current notebook. And next week's update will include page 50! That's quite a milestone for me :-).

Oh, I must add a correction: on the second page, in the last speech bubble, please replace the second "battle" with "fighting". I didn't notice this until I was cleaning up the scan :/.

We are getting to the ugly crux of the story. I wish it were more cheerful, but it isn't. We have to wait for Gawain to get to the fun bits of my tale.

As always, constructive criticism is very welcome!

(Click the images for a readable view.)

The Darkest Hour 41-44

The (more than usually) lamentable quality of the art on the second page is entirely to blame on the Belgian railways, who saw fit to give the commuters on the way to Antwerp a very old, very shaky train in the morning. It was impossible to do any decent work and I had to give up entirely because my lettering wasn't legible. Fortunately in the evening we got a different train and I could finish this instalment on time :-).

Oh, and Merlin has a beard now. I decided that he really looked better with some hair on his chin.

As always, click the images for a readable view!

Ballpoint pen studies

Have some sketchies :-).

I usen't to like drawing with ballpoint pens, but if I have paper that is smooth enough, I enjoy it.

The Darkest Hour 36-40

Five pages today! I have been unusually prolific last week. Actually I haven't been posting in batches of three for a while now... Hm. Better not get used to this pace though :-).

Anyway. This week's update features some remarkably cute battle scenes. Unintentionally. Clearly I need to work on my blood and gore :P. Will do when I get round to the definitive version. I guess that's one more item on my already long list of necessary improvements, heh.

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the update. As usual, click the pictures for readable versions.

The Darkest Hour 32-35

Brilliant! Google makes me look like an idiot. First I announce my next update a fortnight in advance, then I don't make it. It wasn't for lack of trying either. Somehow my old computer and Google are conspiring against me: Google Accounts doesn't load, and via my blog I can't sign in either. Blogger also appears to have eaten my replies to comments. Terribly annoying :-(. I cleared my browser's cache, and I can sign in now, but I still can't post from my own computer - Google says it can't make a connection, which is weird as I have no such problems for any other sites. It's a mean, nasty boycot intended to smother my creative urges! I won't stand for it. If needs must, I'll shop for a new computer - one that can run Photoshop, for example.

*grinds teeth*

Fine. I'd better post while Blogspot lets me.

At this point in the story, I have added a slightly comical interlude - it's a way of combating the gloom. It's such a horrible tale I'm telling; fortunately it's not from my own imagination but from a 13th-century cleric's :-).

As usual, click the small versions for readable pages.

Quick update

A very short, and very quick post before I leave, just to announce this:

Next update of The Darkest Hour on Saturday 11 July.

There will be four pages!

(I can promise that because I've already drawn them :D...)

The Darkest Hour 28-31

Four pages this time instead of three! There are two reasons:
1) it would have been awkward to break off after page 30;
and
2) I wanted to do a little extra because I won't be posting for two weeks in a row. I will be travelling and won't have access to a scanner.

I'm feeling a bit apprehensive about the coming pages because they will contain battle scenes and horsemen... Not easy.

Meanwhile I'm re-reading Vagabond and trying to study Takehiko Inoué's way of using the space of a small manga page. I keep getting distracted by the story, though :P.

The Darkest Hour, 25-27

This week the story came rather more fluently than the last. In terms of drawing, page 25 was actually intended to look quite different from the way it does now, but as usual the perspective went spectacularly wrong and so I had to make everything much simpler to avoid the page looking utterly and completely inept. ...Yes, well. Page 26, then, is basically Talking Heads in Funny Places, but then sometimes I do need to pass on some information at short notice :-). Will be made to look right in the final version, never fear. Page 27, finally, is rather more pleasing to the eye, or so I like to think. I used pencils instead of ink, by way of experiment. I don't intend to start pencilling the storyboard from now on. It's just that I have been thinking about rendered pencils for the final version of The Darkest Hour, and I used this page as a kind of try-out. It doesn't have any backgrounds or anything, but it does allow me to assess what clean pencils might look like scanned, and what the contrast can be like.

Please let me know what you think!

As usual, click for readable pages :-).

The Darkest Hour 22-24

I don't know why, but this week's pages were difficult. They will need some work for the final version. Story-wise, I think they are mostly okay, but graphically... *sigh*

Next week better?

Click for readable text.