This first one is me working on a page of the comic, throughout the various stages - roughs, pencils, inking, and some digital coloring. It is beautifully filmed, and as I’ve quipped before, uncannily makes me look like I know what I’m doing.

One Swoop Fell - Never the Task at Hand from David Dutton on Vimeo.

The second one is an animation made up entirely of stuff from my sketchbooks over the past four years. Very fun to watch. It also features the music of my other brother, Henry.  I believe this is the first time all three of us have worked on a creative project together… at least since our childhood days, doing activity books and parody-style magazines (that were actually pretty funny, even now).

Cartoon Characters from David Dutton on Vimeo.

Another background test for my story.  Was able to traditionally paint this and some other backgrounds rather quickly — faster than it would be for me to paint digitally — but the scans came out terribly. I’m picking up way too much paper texture, and when I blast it out in the levels adjustment I eliminate all the subtle lighter values as well.  So I end up having to do a lot of Photoshop retouching on top of the digital finishes I already have to do… not an efficient way to work!

I might use a tripod and camera next time.

The Three Main Characters.Color Sample. Going for a 2D animated feature look, with cell characters on top of rendered backgrounds.

Sample background. Still playing with approaches. It needs to be fast since I’ll be doing so many of them, but also look relatively finished (without overpowering the story or characters).

I’m very excited about the story since it combines a lot of ideas I’ve been toying around with for a couple years but didn’t have the know-how on putting it all together. I’ll try to update the progress whenever possible!

Been wanting to write a new journal entry, but I must admit I’ve self-imposed some high expectations on what I should write and draw, having done such a long, ambitious post previously. As a result, I’ve scared myself away from posting anything at all! At the same time, my current goals, both professionally and personally, seem to have led me in a different direction over the last few months. So I find it fitting to post this sketch of a carved wooden cowboy  in front of a pioneer’s wagon - and a traffic light. This was outside of a motel I stayed at several months ago, when Alex and I were on a road trip through the great Southwest. I dunno, there’s a sense of adventure, and yet some of the mundane as well. Life in a nutshell, maybe? “Well, heck,” I imagine the wooden cowboy might say, all Sam Elliottly.

Suffice to say, I’ll try to update the journals more frequently.

Here’s a sketch I did a little earlier in the year. Happy Tooth Fairy Day folks.