Friday, May 25, 2012

Ezra bust sculpture update 2

A picture is worth a thousand words but a 360 degree turn around is way better. 

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Ezra bust sculpture

 I've been sculpting a bust of Ezra my favorite hitchhiking ghosts from the haunted mansion. Although I've always been a huge fan of Blaine Gibson's original sculpture there is obviously a lot of visible shorthand in the paint job as the sculpt is not as textured and detailed as you would think. So much in fact that Disney  recently created new sculpts of the ghostly trio's dapper mugs when they gave the famous hitch hikers a modern day make over. (As seen here)
Now don't think that I'm doing Blaine a disservice by saying his original is not all that detailed. They were exactly as detailed as he want'ed them to be especially when you remember that the Ezra Head is used many times throughout the attraction. You need only look at a pop up ghost or the fabled hat box ghost to appreciate the flexibly of the original He made so many years ago.
My goal is not to make an exact replica the original but to make something that can capture the look and feel of the original while being a piece that can stand on it's own.

Here's how it's going so far.

This was the first stage. 
I mostly had everything down and artistically it's close to where I would consider it finished a few years ago.

Stage 2
 A Lot more detail but It feels off. By this point I decided I should sleep on it and come back with a fresh pair of eyes.

Stage 3
Bleck! stage 2 had some serious derpy-ness going on.
I had to cut out the eyes with a craft razor and re-sculpt the lower jaw. 

Stage 4
A lot of little tweaks this time. I added the eye's and I fleshed out the neck and brow. I'm fairly happy with how it's turning out.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Jackanapes the comic news







There is no denying that I've had a few hiccups over the past year of doing the comic and I’ve learned a lot of lessons as a result. One such lesson Is keeping in touch with my readers.
As some of you can tell I am drawing the line art by hand again. Let's be honest I draw way better sans Wacom tablet and that means a prettier comic and more importantly one that was drawn in less time.
So what have I been doing with my once a week release schedule? Mostly planing drawing and trying to bring the comic up to a new level. I've just finished the nicest looking league of extraordinary dead historical figures and the work and planing I've done on the main comic has been very enjoyable. I can't wait for you all to see it.
Another thing I will be making happen is a change to the release days of the comic. Did you catch that? Yes, I said “days” meaning that I'll be posting more often. Ideally I would like to post MWF but I know that is not going to happen just yet so the plan is to move the release date from Sunday to Monday. Don't panic I'll make damn sure you know when it's going to happen and as a bonus I'll post two days in a row rather than skip the last Sunday post!
Keeping in line with a MWF schedule for the added days of release, stage two will add Friday and then Wednesday on stage three, again I'll let you know when I'm going to make the switch.
Finally I'm considering different ways to interact with my comic readers maybe a mail bag or a forum spring or some other third thing I can't think of right now.

Hers a preview of Sundays comic