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So this week I thought I’d take a look back on the artwork of the comic and talk about the changes I’ve made since it began.  Mike and I were recently discussing how Lead Paint is relatively close to its one-year anniversary, ever since we re-launched some time in 2009. As some of you may know, we originally started back in 2007 or 2008, but we ended up taking a nearly year-long hiatus to reevaluate what we were doing and see what we could do to suck less. As a result, you’ll notice a pretty big shift in art between this strip and this one.

During this hiatus, my personal goal as the artist was to just make the art look not not-so-shitty.  I focused my energy on redesigning Colin and Avery, so that their look would basically dictate the style for the rest of the comic. After a few weeks  of struggling I came up with designs that I thought were okay, but I wasn’t entirely thrilled with them. I was stuck for a while after that, until I suddenly came up with these designs:

This is obviously the look that stuck, although the style continues to evolve as I draw more and more. One of the things that began to bother me after I overhauled the designs was Colin’s eyes, which were just too simple and not expressive enough for a main character of the comic. So I made a slight adjustment, and here’s a very rough sketch of what they look like now:

Not a huge change, but his eyes are much more expressive and you can actually see what direction he’s looking in.

Just for fun, here’s a visual timeline of Colin and Avery over the past couple of years (the last shots of Colin and Avery are a sneak peek at next Sunday’s comic):

(man, Avery is angry like all the time.)

Looking back at a lot of those older strips can sometimes be embarrassing and cringe-inducing, but on the other hand it’s nice to see the progression. It’ll be interesting to see what the comic looks like 5 years from now, especially since Mike and I have tons of ideas for both the short-term and long-term future. Hope you guys stick around!

-Dana

MUSIC TIME:

• “A Mighty Sparrow” –Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. The first song to Ted Leo’s new album “Brutalist Bricks.” Someone was kind enough to send me an advance copy of the album after reading my last blog post (Thanks again Todd, if you’re reading this), so it’s basically all I’ve been listening to since then.  I think it’s easily his best album yet.
• “Written in Reverse” –Spoon. From the new Spoon album, which I had been listening to prior to getting the new Ted Leo.  Nothing too different from what they had done previously, but I really like their minimalistic sound and this album’s rougher production quality.
• “Ex-Girl Collection” –The Wrens. The Wrens are notorious for taking an insanely long time to release albums. It’s been almost 8 years since they released “The Meadowlands,” and as far as I know they’re still actively working towards putting out another album. I’m sure they’re fully aware of how ridiculous this is, since the tagline on their website is “Keeping folks waiting since 1989.”

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1. Ted Leo

Mike mentioned this in last week’s blog about Pancake Mountain, and he wasn’t lying. Ted Leo is probably my favorite musician, and he’s got his first album in over 2 years coming out on March 9th. Matador Records released two of the new songs on their blog, which means that I’ve just been listening to them over and over again (and you can too).

His official website is currently down, but should be up soon with a fancy new design and everything. In the meantime, just watch that Pancake Mountain video again with the creepy kid who stares at him the whole time.

2. Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington

I’m sure a lot of people are familiar with Ricky Gervais at this point, but I personally think he’s much funnier when combined with Steve and Karl. Stephen Merchant is his writing partner on shows like The Office and Extras, while Karl is their old radio producer and one of the most hilarious and fascinating people I’ve ever heard.

They started out doing a show on XFM (which is now available on iTunes), but then moved on to do a series of podcasts and now audiobooks. Mostly they just make fun of Karl, probe his brain, and try to get him to do humiliating things like rub Ricky’s feet and break the world record for eating hamburgers, but Steve and Ricky will also occasionally tell some good stories as well.

I’m not doing a very good job of describing how amazing Karl is, but just listen to the free samples on iTunes and see for yourself. Oh, and if you have HBO you can also watch the new Ricky Gervais Show (which is just their podcast recordings made into a cartoon, but still pretty entertaining):

3. Knitting

Mike actually wanted me to write an entire blog entry about knitting, but I didn’t want to risk boring the shit out of most of our readers. As if I needed another reason to be compared to an old woman, I took up knitting a little over a year ago when I was visiting my good friend Sunny in New Zealand.

I honestly had no idea how insane people are when it comes to knitting, but now I can totally relate to it. It’s like some sort of (very sad) addiction. I haven’t started pawning off family heirlooms for yarn, so I guess it hasn’t reached the point of intervention yet.

If anyone’s really interested in knitting or learning how to, I can do a more in-depth talk like Mike suggested next time (I won’t hold my breath though).

4. Don Hertzfeldt

Yes I blogged about him last time, but Don Hertzfeldt is probably my favorite independent animator. His work is consistently hilarious, but his later films have become strangely moving as well. He also works with Mike Judge (you know, this guy) every year to curate the Animation Show. If you’re near any of the major cities it stops in, I would recommend checking it out.

5. Arrested Development

I know it’s been off the air for years now, but Arrested Development will always have a special place in my heart. Especially since I was one of the few people who watched it while it was still on TV, and I’m usually behind on that sort of shit.

Tell me this isn’t the best thing you’ve ever seen:

I hope the movie actually happens and it’s not just a huge tease like when they couldn’t reach a deal to have the show moved to Showtime. That had me depressed for weeks.

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Welcome to our Wednesday blog post. I thought I’d start off by showing some of the sketches for this week’s comic and talk a little about what goes on in my head as I work (besides my usual rage and blood lust).

Obviously, I’m pretty sloppy with the first pass. At this point, I’m just trying to work out the basic action and overall layout, so I don’t feel the need to draw very coherently. If it’s a simpler comic (like the one last week) then I usually skip this step altogether.

Next I do a second pass where I attempt to make sense of my earlier scribbles. In this particular comic, I changed the second to last panel before inking it. The perspective was not nearly as effective as I wanted it to be, so I went back and fiddled with it until it was right.

After that, it’s inking and coloring, which are pretty straightforward. I use Flash for drawing and Photoshop for coloring, although most of the earlier comics are done entirely in Flash. I’m toying with other software, but as I’m currently both lazy and poor, I don’t know if I’ll end up changing my methods at the moment.

AND, in case you don’t give a shit about any of that, here are some of my music picks this week:

“Heavy Metal Drummer” –Wilco. My taste in music has gotten significantly wimpier since college.

“Massive Nights” –The Hold Steady. One of my favorite bands. Apparently Craig Finn is working on a screenplay based on a Chuck Klosterman book.

“Animal Minds” –Radio Lab. So it’s a podcast, not music. But if you consider yourself the least bit nerdy, then you’ll probably like it. “Animal Minds” is the latest episode, there are a ton of others and they’re all free. Click here to download them.

I also wanted to thank everyone for their continued support. Mike and I have lots of plans for the comic this year, we’re very excited about them and you should be too. Oh, and if there’s anything specific you’d like me to write about, please let me know.  See you guys Sunday!

xoxo,

Dana

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