Music Cupboard

Yep! The blog is back for 2 weeks of page previews from the new anthology, Mixtape. I like to upload these in order they appear in the book so this first page comes from Sarah Fogg's super cute Poppet comic. If you're interested in asking Poppet a question for her regular zine feature there is information on WTTMW?'s tumblr here.

Thanks
Sammy  

Prefer Tumblr? www.inspiredcomics.tumblr.com

Prefer Blogger? www.inspiredcomics.blogspot.com

Music Cupboard by Sarah Fogg - Design and Development

Poppet! Sarah has worked hard this year and created 2 comics for our anthology. Her second story is about Poppet and her fairy friends causing mischief! These are Sarah's character sheets for the comic. Poppet also runs her own regular 'ask poppet' question feature in What's The Time Mrs. Woolf? (quarterly zine created by Sarah and Lily)

This is the last of the design and development posts. We have sent our comic files to the printers so I have the 'playlist' order ready to give you 1 page sneak peaks of everyone's work.

The anthology should be ready in time to take to Bristol Expo and London MCM Expo in May followed by Manchester MCM Expo in July.

Thanks!!

Sammy  

 

Prefer Tumblr? www.inspiredcomics.tumblr.com

Prefer Blogger? www.inspiredcomics.blogspot.com

Post Comica Comiket 2013

 

   

 

 

Sarah and I had a great time at comica comiket yesterday. Thanks to everyone who said hello or bought something from the table. I think Furby was having fun like Snoopy trying to be The World Famous Grocery Clerk. It was lovely sharing the table with EdieOP and her cute but secretly scary comics.

Thank you for reading! Now back to making comics! :D

Sammy  

 

Prefer Tumblr? www.inspiredcomics.tumblr.com

Prefer Blogger? www.inspiredcomics.blogspot.com

Team Sammy and Sarah at Comiket

Sarah and I booked a last minute little table at Comica Comiket independent comics fair this Saturday. We'll be taking highlights of our most recent solo comics plus our collaborative music zine and Inspired's Eat Me! anthology!!

Thanks and see you there!

Sammy  

 

Prefer Tumblr? www.inspiredcomics.tumblr.com

Prefer Blogger? www.inspiredcomics.blogspot.com

Mixtape Cover by Sarah Fogg

We're now able to announce that the anthology we're working on is called Mixtape and the cover has been illustrated by Sarah Fogg. The comics don't have a theme this year so the variety reminds me of a playlist of songs from different genres.

There are more behind the scenes blogs to post this week. It's getting very exciting because we're near to our print deadline. 

Thanks!

Sammy 

Prefer Tumblr? www.inspiredcomics.tumblr.com

Prefer Blogger? www.inspiredcomics.blogspot.com

Music Wars by Sammy Borras - Design and Development

 

Music Wars is a new comic staring teenage twins Ted and Tim. In previous stories they have tried their best in food based competitions but this time they will have a go at entering a battle of the bands. Ted has been practising his stylophone solo and Tim is in charge of programming the drum machine. They're keeping their new robot creation a secret.

The characters first appeared in Smoothie Wars which is available to buy as a mini comic but originally ran as a webcomic for free. Food Wars featured in our Eat Me! food themed group anthology last year.

Thanks

Sammy 

Prefer Tumblr? www.inspiredcomics.tumblr.com

Prefer Blogger? www.inspiredcomics.blogspot.com

A Ghost Story by Sarah Fogg - Design and Development

Hello! Sarah Fogg sent me some media tests she did for her comic.It looks great and really fits well with the mood of the story. Instead of guessing I asked Sarah to talk through how she got this effect:

I didn't do much development work for this comic as the idea came together very quickly, but I did have to do some media tests. In university I did a longer comic by drawing in water-soluble ink and then spreading it around the page with a paint brush. I thought the floaty effect would be good for a ghost story (the original project was a ghost story too), but I'd long since lost the pen I used, so I did a few doodles of the characters using new pens, on a couple of different kinds of paper. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for the blog, the first combination of a cheap cartridge pen on bristol board worked fine, so I only did these few little pictures before starting the comic itself.

 I do have at least 1 more design and development blog left for you so keep a eye out this weekend. Next week I'm hoping we can show you the cover submissions and let you know which has been picked by the group. 

Thanks

Sammy 

Prefer Tumblr? www.inspiredcomics.tumblr.com

Prefer Blogger? www.inspiredcomics.blogspot.com

Alex Short Story 2 by Jack Davies - Design and Development

These photos were sent to me from Jack Davies. He is working on a new short story about Alex - who also appeared in our anthology last year! It's always interesting to see the original pencil and ink work for comic pages. Jack's using a light blue pencil which can be erased digitally.

Jack is also planning to release a compilation of full colour stories about Alex - so keep an eye out on his blog. (we'll make sure to let you know here too) 

Thanks!
Sammy

The Melody of Life by Laura McNulty and Sammy Borras - Design and Development

Hello!

Between my posts Inspired have confirmed a table at Manchester MCM Expo 2013! I had a great time there last year so I'm really looking forward to attending again. 

Inspired are working hard on sorting our next anthology ready to be released in May. I'm hoping I can get some interesting comic making posts together over the next week or 2.We should be able to announce the cover (and book title?) shortly too.

The Melody of Life is a 5 page short story written by Laura McNulty and illustrated by myself. I really love that the Inspired anthologies have given me a lot of opportunities to work with a writer on types of stories I would normally avoid because I don't find them easy to tell.

 

Because the comic has a music theme I decided to start the layout using sheet music. Each bar is a different aspect of what music is often compared to. I used the digital thumbnails to explain what I meant to Laura.

 

This is the final ink work. I think this is the first comic page I've ever drawn which doesn't feature any figures. It's also very difficult to draw objects like clouds with just line work because they don't really have outlines. I will probably try colouring some of the lines grey to soften the images and make them read clearer.

 

 

This is the only main character in the comic. Laura has told me before that she imagines her stories like watching an anime so I tried to add more 'manga' style elements to the figures.

Thanks
hopefully I'll be back with some more interesting stuff in the week
Sammy