Location, Location, Location!

In a variety of our comic series we have locations that are drawn from real life. It is these locations that help give our fictional worlds life.

In the second issue of HERO we are immediately taken to a location called Mitchel Airforce Base. This was a real airforce base out in Long Island, NY. While it was viewed as a strategic launching point by the Germans during WWII the base was never really more than a distraction.

Another location featured was in the draft of WOW Signal issue 1. In it, there is a landscape that includes spaceport America in the middle of New Mexico, and behind it a fictional city called Branson City that grew up nearby. The writer felt that if asteroid mining took off it would cause a wave of industry and for people to travel there like they would any other port city.

It's interesting to note that on the day of the writing of this article that Richard Branson talked about delays in Virgin Galactic's first commercial space flight.

Part of the writers goal with the WOW Signal, is to create a book not so far in the future so that readers can become excited but technology featured in it that is in present just theory.

Finally the last book I am going to talk about today is Felix & Saw. This sci-fi, comedy, has one of the protagonist's emerge in a water reservoir by Kensico Dam. This doesn't play a huge role in the book except for the writers giving a nod to an area, and a landmark in which they grew up nearby.

You can read more about any of these locations by clicking on the links!

WOW! Signal Rebirth

WOW Signal was a fun title to create. I may have mentioned before that I started it to force myself to learn how to draw and color digitally. I started working on the computer about 8 months ago using both adobe photoshop and Illustrator.

Since then, from trial and error and watching tutorial videos online I've had great leaps in my ability. I finished work on the first issue of the Wow Signal which ended up being 15 pages long. I then started work on the second issue. Those first 3 pages of the second issue looked so much better then the first that I decided that I wanted to go back and re-illustrate the first issue of the WOW! Signal so that the style and the images were consistent. I also decided to tweak some of the story telling.

April 2013

If you check the images on the right you can see the difference from the first time I drew the starship Namalsadirah and the second. I also have become better at creating space locales and planets.

A lot of what I learned was often details can help create a complete and realistic image.

December 2013

Taking time to recreate the first issue, has helped me appreciate the amount of growth I've experienced and enjoy the new work that I have been creating.

You can see more of my artwork @ http://sirgryphon.deviantart.com/art/Rebirth-of-the-Namalsadirah-420593958

You can also read my book WOW! SIGNAL and other free comics at http://www.gryphonknights.com/

By George He's Got it

By George He's Got it

     So after 14 pages of creating a digital comic "WOW SIGNAL!"  I finally got a hang of the program I am working on. I have been using a mix of an Adobe Illustrator CS 3 (Which is very old at this point) and Adobe Photoshop Elements. 

1st page of Wow Signal

<<< So here is where I started out with the first page I created. It was kinda tough when I had never drawn directly on a computer before (I have colored pieces on the computer before). In fact the first panel of this page was a test to see what I could do when I transferred my pen and ink stills to the pixel realm.

     I was pretty surprised as to what I could do and decided that I would like to keep up with it. I started to create a story to help push me to craft images to go with the tale. Each page I kept adding to my ability of working with these two programs, until I was more adept at creating a more professional piece on the computer.

Page 1 of Issue 2

     After I got to this level I decided to evolve my style so it would stand out and add to the level of professionalism. I was heavily influenced by the artwork of Brandon Graham as well as other artists who worked on his book Prophet  which is a sci-fi tale that was adapted from Rob Liefeld's original story. What I ended up with I truly liked and after a few sketches I made two covers and then the first page of the second issue with this technique. It took me a long time to find a style that I was really confident and proud of, but now that I have you can look forward to some awesome updates of GryphonKnights free webcomics!

I have some demo and instructional videos on the Gryphonknights Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC44OoVir28whelh38eNrnHA

EVOLUTION: Uniforms

First page created on computer

When I first started Wow! Signal, I had a very good concept of what I wanted to write about and where I wanted to go with it. What I didn't have was any designs for the book, and very little experience drawing on the computer.

My first attempt at a page was alright and in fact this page was a test to see how my abilities reflected to the computer and was later integrated in the story. My control was really thrown off as I was used to working with pen paper and marker and paint. However,  having a story that continued and a deadline that I was supposed to meet pushed me to keep creating pages.

The one thing I decided, since this was a free comic was that I would allow the design of certain elements to evolve. The most major example was in the uniforms. In the book the uniforms were a different shades of purple and that was it. I understand that consistency is great to have, but evolution I feel is also good. I feel like sometimes books can get stuck, and some books retcon too much. All I wanted to do was allow my designs to grow with my ability. As you can see, I really got the knack at working on the computer, and not only that, but I allowed myself to refine and improve the designs of the uniforms.adding a mix of the violet, and a Gray-blue color for the majority of it as well as cybernetic boots. My feelings were that I wanted the uniforms to be more modular so you could equip them with whatever you needed for the task at hand.

I've been playing around with growing from this as well but I don't think its necessary at this time. The ship the Namalsadirah also changed over time but I will talk about that another time. I hope you continue to enjoy The Wow! Signal.

An Introduction & a WIZARD

So I've been an artist with this team of Gryphon Knights Comics for about a few months now and we've gotten some cool stuff done.

We've redesigned an old site, we've got a Twitter up and running, we have a vibrant facebook with lots of extras and images, and then of course there is our website for Gryphon Knights Comics, to which we have recently added another comic. All in all its a fun gig. I feel like the coolest thing about our site is that we offer most of our books for free to readers with the exception of Greasers in Greece.

My contribution to the site is illustration for the book HERO, and I write and draw the Wow! Signal and I co-write and illustrate the Meanwhile books. You can also find a bunch of my other artwork on my deviantART page.

So introductions aside this blog will be run by the three owners of the company to talk about it, their influences on their art especially what has helped inspire them to create the books they have.

With that said let me impart on you a little advice the Simpsons once gave me: If you are ever in trouble, just blame The Wizard...

Tom Gryphon

"A WIZARD DID IT!"