Hello from Japan! I'm writing this in Freshness Burger in Tokyo's Shinjuku area, having just enjoyed a delicious shiitake mushroom burger. After this, I head back to Sekaido Shinjuku, the best art supply store I've found in Tokyo so far, to browse and buy gifts for my artsy friends.
I have about 3 days left in Japan and I'm using these to relax as much as possible. The past few weeks since San Diego Comic Con have been a relentless gauntlet: I got COVID, the apartment blew up with black mold, necessitating an emergency move, all while I juggled my day job at the League, my teaching at PI Art Center, and a DC deadline for the 2023 holiday special, "'Twas the Mite Before Christmas."
I'm very excited for that, and for the whole October to come. Looking forward, I've got a new apartment to move to, a new studio space to set up and a whole new neighborhood to explore (hello Queens, NY!) Mid-October is New York Comic Con, which I just got my first pro badge for, and Iām really looking forward to going.
Beyond that, I'm just excited to settle down and dig into upcoming projects. Secret Heart Attack issue 2 is way behind schedule and needs a lot more love than I've given it these past few months. As soon as Iām moved in, my YouTube channel will undergo a big revamp -- I'm planning to do some animations with the upcoming Procreate Dreams app to help with that. And I have a feeling another DC project or two is around the corner. Fingers crossed for more awesome stuff!
I just submitted final pages for this year's DC holiday special. It's a short comic with Josh Trujillo where I revamp a fan-favorite character introduced in 2011's Teen Titans: Bunker! More on this as we get closer to the release (December 12, 2023!)
One big change that I implemented for this gig: I switched over to Clip Studio for the inking stage. Previously I'd done all the pages in Procreate, but I wanted to achieve some of the polish I was seeing in other modern mainstream comics (Pepe Larraz, Jorge Jimenez, Travis Mercer and more use Clip Studio for their stuff.)
Image from Clip Studio Official
The switch coincided with Clip's new iPad feature: Simple Mode. It strips down the interface to be more Procreate-like, which is much-appreciated given the program's Photoshop-like proclivity for covering the screen with toolbars and windows. I'm also loving Clip's brush engine so far, and I'm enjoying their perspective tools as well.
Okay, I finished my burger. Here's what it looked like BEFORE I ate it:
Note the healthy amount of mushrooms in this. The fries were boring but the burger was excellent.
Off to the art supply store now. Next time I update will be in New York. Stay safe, talk soon! š