I’m not sure if it’s quite there yet, but I feel I’m getting closer to knowing how she looks now. I’m having to go back to the haircut that she sports in the early stages because I’ve written up the first seven pages properly and I’m gonna finish them up as samples to get off to a publisher.

Here’s an example of the thumbnails I do when planning out pages, they just help me get a rough idea of layout, pacing etc. Next up I layout the panels in photoshop & letter the whole page before I start any drawing, that way I know just how much space I’ve really got.

In order to celebrate my evening at The Bridge last night, here’s an update on some of the boards I’ve been doing recently, as you can see, one of them has a football theme & the other is an aftershave commercial. As always I’ve edited them down… so the storytelling isn’t quite complete, but you get the idea. 

In The Nao of Brown, there is going to be a few opportunities for me to work in different styles because Nao herself is a struggling illustrator/designer. I don’t really want to give too much away… but this isn’t one of hers, it’s some character designs from a children’s book she gets given called ‘girl&bird’.

In Japan, red is a traditional color for a heroic figure

These are the roughs for the finished piece below. The brief was nice and loose, it just had to be a view of the Château and there had to be some seagulls visible. I was in Dieppe last weekend & was able to get a few different angles on it, I really wanted to avoid any postcard cliches, both in composition & mood.

I actually think there’s something much nicer about these roughs than the finished piece, (as is often the case). 

I’ve been so busy recently doing ‘pay the mortgage work’, but today & yesterday I did this, which gave me a little respite from the Storyboarding seam I’ve been mining recently.

It’s for a small bande dessinée book about the town of Dieppe, which just so happens to be where my father in law lives.

I’ll post more info about it’s publication nearer the time. But it was a nice diversion from the current daily grind.

I’m hoping there’ll be another window of opportunity soon, with regards my writing. I’ve been getting out of bed in the middle of the night in order to jot down notes, knowing that if I don’t, they’ll be gone by morning. I’m looking forward to getting a few days in a row to myself, so I can catch up a bit with all the new ‘Nao’ developments.