SAT, JAN 12, 2008

Ha haaaaa! So, what do you think?

What do you think I mean? Yes, about the color!

Happy New Year to all. Sorry I was a week later posting than I said I would be, but I had several things going on last weekend - probably the most important being that my girlfriend was sick, and I had to take care of her.

But I've also been working on the animated trailer (you know, like a movie preview you see in the theaters?) to promote the book. And the trailer's in color.

When I started the comic about 2 1/2 years ago, I only went as far as my abilities at the time allowed me. Things were in black and white because, heck, that was hard enough! (YOU'VE seen the early drawings...YOU know how bad I was at the time.)

Eventually I started using photos because I HATED drawing backgrounds, and I wasn't any good at it. It was a stroke of luck - I believe that choice came to define the comic's visual style more than anything I've done since the initial character designs.

But I've been wanting to do color for awhile...and now that I'm working on the trailer, I've come to see that it's not that much harder than what I'm doing now.

More time-consuming, yes. Oh, hell yes. A good 50% more so. But I personally think it looks better. And since I plan to start doing color graphics for PETER AND THE VAMPIRES soon (not a web comic, just some drawings), it just makes sense that I graduate to the next level overall. I need the practice, that's for certain.

Anyway, let me know what you think. I'm not entirely sure I'm going to keep doing IMAGINARY FRIENDS this way...but for now, it's certainly an interesting experiment.

And I'll post some stills from the trailer in the weeks ahead!

By the way, while I work on the trailer, posting of the comic will be sporadic. I'll try for two comics a week, like before, but don't count on it. The sales for the book have been a lot lower than I'd anticipated (cough cough...EVERYBODY BOUGHT THEIR COPY YET?...cough cough), so I'm going to be putting a lot of my energy in 2008 to promoting the novel. Thanks to everybody who's bought it so far (like Jess, Bia, and Bethan)!