WIP

Ink

Inktober is here and this year I’m participating for the first time.
Of course, one could day In creating as I am busy inking Lady Phantom anyway – but hopefully I will manage to share some other things as well!

Ink is a medium I have fairly limited experience in.

I’ve always preferred pencils and various colour mediums and when I  accepted the Lady Phantom project I had to think long and hard about whether or not I wanted to do traditional inks or take another approach. As you can see I chose ink. I figured my first proper comics project should include as much as possible of the craft.

And inking is a valuable skill to have as an illustrator.

As with everything, I’m trying to approach inking from a very personal angle – learning from but trying not to copy what others do, and still adapting my technique to the requirements of whatever I am working on.

You can follow my progress for inktober on instagram: @rallwin

Lady Phantom

Dear Reader –

I haven’t been posting much lately, and there are three reasons for that:

  • First and foremost, having a baby boy (he just turned 5 months old) takes a lot of time and effort.
  • Second, with the advent of our child. me and my girlfriend are busy planning our future and working toward finding a home for our family.
  • Third, the project I’m working on – the one I have been teasing here and elsewhere:

ladyphantomtitlewhite

So what is Lady Phantom, you may wonder?

Lady Phantom is the title and main character of an upcoming superhero comic, written by Julie K. Taylor and drawn by R. Thomas Allwin (that’s right – me!). Now, don’t run off and try to find it quite yet, though – we are just starting out. For the past six months, we have been busy refining the original concept, working out the script, doing concept art and storyboards – now, we have all the preparations done and we are ready to start in earnest.

It’s going to be a while before the first issue is available.

I am just now putting pen to paper and starting the actual interior art, and between my day job and my family there’s only so much time to put it. Our plan is to start with a six-issue mini series and go from there.

Everything else will be in your hands, as readers and critics.

You will be able to follow our progress on the facebook page:

Lady Phantom

We will post updates, teasers, news and information about ourselves there – though of course there will be updates on here as well – so if you want the latest info as it happens, swing by and follow us there. Who knows, there may even be some surprises popping up there later on!

lpcoverpictwitter2

Welcome to Costa City!

November…

“When you are writing, you’re conjuring. It’s a ritual, and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you’re inviting into the room.”
―Tom Waits

EyeSketch

…is just around the corner, Dear Reader, and with it: NaNoWriMo!

If you are unfamiliar with the phenomenon, it’s about writing an entire novel in one month – 50,000 words, to be exact – about the lower limit for what can be called a novel – and the abbreviation stands for “National Novel Writing Month”. This year I plan on making an honest attempt to pen down those 50,000 words before November’s end and the end of my 30s – and I do mean pen! Doing this in long hand will bring both benefits and drawbacks:

  • It will be slower, but I can resist the urge to edit as I go.
  • I can write anywhere without losing continuity, but it will be more difficult to keep an accurate word count.
  • I’ll have to lug two notebooks and at least one pen around all the time, but I’ll be able to use any extra time I get!

The past three years I’ve done increasingly worse at NaNoWriMo. 2012 I fell short by about 12,000 words due to stupidly deleting an entire chapter and then coming down with a high fever the final week. 2013 I made a mistake in research which invalidated three quarters of the first 6-7,000 words, and I spent the rest of the month (and then some) stuck in re-research. 2014 I just said ‘fuck it’ and jumped onto the Movember band wagon instead, producing facial hair instead of words.

This year, I come better prepared and more determined.

I doubt 50K will see me through the entire story, and I’m far from certain my notebook will fit even half the words I need. I’m not even sure I can manage to hand-write 1,667 words a day between my day job and the drawing I need to get done.

But at least I will try.

My aim is to keep you up updated on my progress so you can rejoice in my success or take pity in my failure (or vice versa). Really though, regardless of my exact word count I will be further along in a month than I am today.

So: NaNoWriMo, here I come!