This page came together ultra-fast. I really wanted to get away from direct representation as there's been a lot of that lately. While I have done a similar kind of pose eariler in the comic, it was done with Digby and it was a totally different idea, or rather, it was a similar idea done for different reasons. Digby was all about the money, the merch. Silas is trying to hold onto a feeling of self worth, accomplishment. I don't know, I really like this comic. It might speak to no one but me but I really like it. The dream, besides some kind of publishing deal and people reading it would be to have a gallery show with the pages just laid out against all the walls. One can dream, can't one?

 

I did change my mind. And I'm glad I did. I'd also forgotten to erase the registration marks for the text, so I did that, too. Oops.

 Put in a lot of thought on this one as it's supposed to represent a turning point in emotion and outlook for Silas. This is where he's broken free from the City and feels his work is not only his own but that he likes it, it's successful. Might be it should be even brighter than this. For the moment, it's done and I'm moving on.

The 'script,' such as it is, for "The City Silent" is just lyrics, tracks or songs written out, something I did about eight years ago now. It's the only structure I have in place for the story. Every time I open that PDF, Adobe Reader, now equipped with AI (which I hate) keeps poking me, stating that 'this looks like a long document. Would you like me to summarize it for you?' I ignore it because why would I want that? But a few days ago, I thought, "You know, I WOULD like to see you make head or tails out of this." So I pressed the button.

The AI nailed it. I don't know if I'm pleased that what I thought was possibly a needlessly complex and unclear story was properly 'understood' by this fake brain and that my points were coming across or deep disappointed that something I put so much work into was just a few seconds' work for this thing. I can't tell. But I guess it does give me hope that someday someone will read it and get it and that the story will have done what I wanted it to.

I still hate AI.

 Finished this page yesterday but forgot to post it. Already at work on the next one though it's a bit dramatic and I need to make sure it fits stylistically with the rest of the track. A common problem working the way I do.

This is where it stands as of now. I was channeling some more of "Singin' in the Rain" for this one and remembering some of the stuff I saw in some Will Eisner comics recently.

I've also been posting some of my old cubist/abstract furry work to Bluesky to surprising reaction. One of the more popular paintings I ever did looked more or less like this and was called, "Miko." It was acrylic on canvas, I think, but was sold over 20 years ago. I don''t have a good photo of it at all. Documenting my work back then wasn't nearly as easy as it is now. A lot of paintings are lost in that way, either because they sold or were tossed and never properly photographed. So I tried to digitally recreate the image and that, too got some decent attention.

 Had some time before work to finally get started on the next page of City Silent. Luckily, from the taking of reference photos to sketching and inking, it all came together rather quickly AND I left room for the text! Should be able to finish this sometime this weekend.

 Threw some color on this and ended up rather liking it, even if there's no 'proper' tones. Quick studies can sometimes just be fun. This is one of those.

 Also did a little quick sketching this morning. The top one just a selfie so I could draw something before work. My portrait output has been a lot smaller lately and I miss doing them. I did the freehand sketch above then did a quick and dirty in Procreate. There was an inked layer but I deleted it after deciding I didn't need it.

The bottom image was from a portrait I'd utterly forgotten. It's another of British comedian Joe Wilkinson, whom I've done twice before. I was trying to do a more detailed approach. I don't know why I stopped doing it; I honestly don't remember working on it that much but I obviously did. Perhaps I'll come back to it later.

 I finalized these two pages this morning. Hadn't changed them, just decided they were done. The bottom page does rely on people reading the right hand side first, which is awkward I guess, though that text is higher up. It's ok; likely not the first time I've done that in the comic. And if that's the hardest thing for folks, I'm batting 1,000. Haven't drawn much of anything for over a week. Work has been scheduling me way too heavily for my tastes though that's changing next week. Also had a thick head cold which sapped what remaining energy I had. Also, just too damned busy. When I have time to myself, I want to just do almost nothing, which is sad but I'm drained. Here's hoping I can get back on the horse.

 I have been working on two pages in the background, not sure if I like them well enough in the sequence. So I made a spread of the track so far and decided that they work fine. That being said, I need to try for something new here as I'm going to get stuck in a rut very soon if I don't. Visually I don't think the comic  is as interesting as it could be. Playing with style and color is all well and good but if I can't keep growing in other ways, it's going to fall stale. So, I'll add the copyright to the last two and post them but know that I have to keep pushing the visual metaphor from now on.

 I haven't drawn anything in a long while. I haven't felt it. Between work and depression about the world situation, I just don't feel the fire. But today, I managed to get myself into the headspace and went in a totally different direction than I was. I still have the other drawings and will likely use them later on. This is as far as I got today from scratch. I'm also not feeling well and, as of midnight, have lost my voice. Glad it was AFTER I did some auditions this week. Anyway, still here, still drawing.

Working on stuff for the next page. I haven't got a composition in mind as of yet but I'm really enjoying the drawing process. I often forget how much I like to draw. I really want some section of the comic to be just black and white. I don't know how I'll justify it but the simplicity of black lines on white background really sing to me. For right now, the top and bottom images are my favorites. We'll see how it goes.
 

 Ok, finally, FINALLY done with this five page sequence. Had to go back and fix what is now page 238 (second one in frame) because no only did it not match the series before, the missing middle tail feather on Silas was driving me nuts. Originally, the title for track 11 was on the back of his hoodie so I justified its being missing on that. With the title no longer there, I had to either draw it in or move him back down to the level he was in the page before. So I did the latter. There's still a little bit of a jump from 238 to what is now 239 but that's ok. It's far less jarring than it was, and this isn't animation. All of this messing about really screwed up the page numbering and I had to go back and forth to get it finally right. Since I don't feel like going back and renumbering all the relevant files, this is going to be a nightmare when it comes time to put the comic together. I'm not sure there actually IS a page 234. Somehow. Whatever. But here's a screenshot of the sequence as it is now and I think it works. Gah.

 Not much to show because I worked an extra long shift yesterday but at least all the pages of the new track that have been done have now been redone and fit the mold. So that's something.

 More back and forth. Because I like the style of the page I'd just done, I had to go back and add a page between the one with the title on Silas' back and what ended up being the new title page. Then, I re-inked the page after tat, re-lettered it and am now in the process of re-lettering the page I posted yesterday. But FINALLY the whole things looks cohesive.

Here's the current four together. I think they go together much better than before.

 And with the work on this page tonight, I've gone in a different direction again. Which means I'll probably have to re-ink the previous pages so that they fit better, re-letter them as well. Which is fine. I'll sit on this overnight to see if I still like it, but so far, I'm happy with the roughness of this and especially like the expression in the top Silas.

 Not the smoothest transition in the comic but I had to get something in there or be stuck for far too long. This would be a bigger number in the show and he should perhaps burst out from a quiet moment. I'm going to go with that and if it continues to bother me later on, I'll do something then. This project has gone on so long, I really just want to go on as smoothly and quickly as possible. So for now, here's the beginning of track 11.

 Did this little self sketch tonight. Nasa posted a photo of Mars with uncorrected light and color and I was fascinated. I took the photo and made a palette from it in Procreate, knowing I'd want to do something with it. Turns out it was this. Just a quickie, no drawing, just 'painting.' I think it came out reasonably well.

Managed this today. Finally figured out how to both get Silas where I needed him to be and get the whole mural shown as well. This is more or less what I did with the Tamino mural, which makes a good bracket. I think the next page, the one with both murals will be from Silas' back and will have the track title on the reverse of his hoodie. And then, THEN I can move on to track 11 in full. I make my own problems.

 

 Speaking of that mural, here it is, the final version. I had a LOT of fun loosening way up, looking at screen grabs from "Singin' in the Rain" as inspiration. The figures are scribbly but have a lot of movement and, like Silas, I'm really pleased with them.

So the next thing to do was to get a shot with both murals in them so we can lead up to Silas gesturing with the paint all over his fingers. So I wrangled the two of them and made this as a starting point:

I finally made my new Mac spin its little beachball when converting the Tamino mural to curves. That was asking a lot. I really want this to be a 'Broadway' kind of moment; I haven't referenced the stage in a long time in this comic and really then, only when Howard's doing his narration. I did it a couple times in Tamino. Sometimes, linking two pages is the hardest part of this comic. No, getting anyone to READ it is the hardest part.

On a totally unrelated note, I've starting auditioning online for some voice acting jobs. So far, I've applied for about 20 of them, most of them to the same company for the same game. Haven't heard back but it appears I've been shortlisted for one of them. Not sure if that means anything or not, but it's a little green check. So who knows?

 I left a whole bunch of things out. I worked on a transition from the ream sequence to the end of the track where we see Silas in the waking world having finished the mural. It felt too jarring without it. I'm still working on the dead space between the two tracks as we haven't yet seen the full mural as we did with the first one of Tamino. So more work, but hopefully no more drawing. Or not much.

 So, we have a problem. Well, -I- have a problem. I forgot that I was thinking of doing a section of the comic in black and white to highlight the ink as I do love black ink on white paper. So I first greyed the colors out of Silas. And that was fine, especially if I left the background in color. Then I also remembered that I wanted to add splotches of color on his fingertips to subtly suggest the two murals he just painted. So now I can't quite decide which direction to go. I think I'm going to go with the colors, but those greys work well, too...hmmm.

 Did a whole bunch of work on this page today and now consider it done. That being said, I realize I need a spread for the second mural Silas did or this won't make sense. So don't know what this page number REALLY is, probably about four later than it's numbered. Such is life.

 Working a little on the next track of City Silent. As usual, I want to change things up again. I've been looking at some other cartoonists' work and thought I'd try and add a little texture to the figures. Also I want to keep the distortion but do it in a kind of different way. So, this. Digitizing the more textured brushes is a little bit of a challenge but I think it's going to work ok. 

 Oh right, and I finished this today as well. Added some props up front and considered it done. But there needs to be a transition page before it. Ah, well.

 I utterly changed my mind. I didn't like the color version of this at all, but the black and white was somewhat appealing. So I went back to grayscale and will leave it at that. Not a serious portrait but a bit of fun. I think that's what it's best left as.

 Tried to make another sketch for the head. And while the sketch turned out ok, I couldn't get a painted version to work. Will try again tomorrow or will scrap this portrait. No big deal.

 Finally vectorized this and set about doing some color. And...I'm not happy with the pose. Will take another stab at this tomorrow, trying to make it less stiff and more natural. But it was still fun and worthwhile to do this way.

 Small but significant changes on the portrait. If I have time tonight, I might try and go for some colors. We'll see. Still thinking about splitting some of the current tones out. But I like it better than I did. Still feels very solid.

 Did some more work on this. Getting there. I'm worried it's too posed? Don't know. Might or might not put words behind it. We'll see. It is fun to do, though.