We're Gonna Have a Good Time

Here's one of the first promo pieces for The Homeless G-Men, I'm doing them to lock in main character designs, this is Swinnerton Hale. I grabbed the name Swinnerton from my friend Jay Swinnerton who is the force behind the band Tarantuela. It's such a great name and I think it fits the character perfectly.

I'm using "We're Gonna Have A Good Time" as the catchphrase/slogan for the series I want readers to instantly know that they are in for a fun run with this book.

The only drag with designing these is trying to make the figures fit in a way that reveals what is written behind them, there are nine Homeless G-Men that we meet in the first book so I have eight more chances to get it right.

I also screwed up that left leg so badly that I may have to redo this whole thing, which is fine, I have lots of time.

I have been working like mad on pages, I was going to post a lot of work in progress shots but I have too many photos on the go to keep track of them all so I'll just be posting work like this and successful or unsuccessful panels.

Don't forget Free Comic Book Day is Saturday so be sure to head out buy some comics and get some free ones - comics are fun - we're gonna have a good time

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

Homeless G-Men Drawings and Plotting

Here's an updated shot of what is still available for sale at the Press Club 850 Dundas West, Toronto head on over for a tasty pint and some live music. All drawings are $25.00 each and the proceeds go to the printing of the Homeless G-Men graphic novel.

I've finished plotting the first story, "Jawbonin" in rough and just have a couple of weak story points that I want to clear up before I push ahead with more pages, the story is alot of fun, it's a revenge story filtered through Good Fellas and Deep Blue Sea, I think you'll enjoy.

You can buy direct from the bartenders at the Press Club, drawings are framed and $25.00 each

cheers,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com



Workloads and Wise Decisions

 

Really happy that I chose to go back to the standard comic format, I started blocking in the first Homeless G-Men story "Jawbonin" and have four roughed in pages today that I'm very happy with. I like the concept for the story, the humour and how each page intros the characters in the story. This first one will be the learning curve, there is some improvisation involved with this one as I didn't write a script but I know the story and just need to block it in correctly, the total for the whole thing may only be 16pages, but it will be a fun run full of mobsters, mad scientists and aquatic fisticuffs.

The Homeless G-Men is starting to feel a lot like Eric Powell's series, "the Goon" of which I am a fan but I know the arc of the characters is very different, more on that later.

Ordered some sample books from Print Ninja so I'll be able to get a handle on the size I want for the book, I will admit I'm not great with numbers so getting some of their books will really help me nail down how many stories I want to tell in the first book.

Happy Earth day, do something nice for the planet

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 



More Thoughts on Printing and Poor Service

 

 

Hey there I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend, I decided to get the studio set up today and now it's cleaner than it has been since I first set up over two years ago. I feel pretty good about working downstairs now and everything is just where I need it.

This was the highlight of my day unfortunately I am now rethinking doing a "landscape" style book, the printer that I wanted to use in Toronto is not really delivering on customer service, I was trying to get a postcard (a simple postcard) printed by them and since their website is having problems I would have to pay for them to set it up for me on their end - that's just wrong - it's your problem I shouldn't have to pay for it, you just lost a customer.

 Glad I did a trial run through them instead of taking my book their to be printed and getting the same response.

I am now looking into "PrintNinja" doing the book, if my calculations are correct I can get 1000, 60 page black and white glossy paper with a colour cover graphic novels for around $2000.00 US dollars, that is a pretty great price per unit and worth exploring and to make it less complicated I am going to switch to a standard comic/graphic novel format in order to make the process easier along the way. I have decided to go with a colour cover and do some colour prints but do the interior of the book in black and white, I know that I won't be able to do the whole back in colour while learning to use the program so best to just hold back and do some colour work and the rest in black and white and grey tones - this decision took a huge weight off of my shoulders. I would rather concentrate on drawing and story.

I am glad that I am taking my time with this, there is a lot to learn.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

 

Lion Robot, Mal and The Horror

Top to Bottom, The Horror From the Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba

Lion Robot from Kill All Monsters by Michael May and Jason Copland

Mal from Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson and Grace Ellis

Every morning I'm doing at least one warm up before getting to the Homeless G-Men pages that I'm working on, so here are three characters from three great series that I hope you check out, I only bought the first issue of the Umbrella Academy and then something must have happened to me because I didn't get the rest when the series was published in 2007, it's a fun, edgy read and Gabriel Ba is one of the best artists out there, I have even chosen a little police car that he drew for one of my next tattoos.

The Lion Robot is from Kill All Monsters are great trade that I picked up last week (see post below) and Mal is character from a new comic that I think is a lot of fun called "Lumberjanes" which I think has huge all ages appeal.

Alright time to walk the dog and then get back to "Champin" and the other stories

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

don't forget my show is still up at the Press Club until the end of the month (850 Dundas West) proceeds from sales of drawings go to the printing costs of Homeless G-Men

 

One of the Pages and Character Intro

This is what I assume is about the third page of one of the "Homeless G-Men" stories, I'm old so I like when comics have the cast featured in the sidebars. I think I'll keep that device for every story in the first HG book. I didn't really plan who was going to be in the story I just knew that I should start with something fun so I chose Axe-Celsior, because the name cracks me up.

The Boy Scout is in some of the first pages that I drew (see older entries) and he has a cool back story as does Blackstrap, so I wanted to have both of them around, the rest were pulled from the HG sketches that I did for the Press Club show. The final character is Flopsy Bunny who is a dog in a bunny suit - more on that later.

I think the page turned out pretty well, still a learning curve for getting my lines correct and firmed up, I'm just improvising pages right now this one begins with an arm wrestling match between Axe and Turduchen but I think will spin off into a zombie story.

Why would it do that?

Because yesterday I received the third collection in the FUBAR series of zombie books, which is a whole bunch of five page zombie stories collected in a volume it's a cool looking book.

Here's a link to their site http://fubarpress.com/news/

Alright back to the boards

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 



Inking A Man With A Big Fish

Inking is where I still have a lot of learning to do, general page plotting is huge as well but I am going to be posting some single panel and page work for a little while as I get comfortable with using light and shadow. I wish I'd shot the non-photo blue pencils first so you could see the image evolve but there will be lots of these coming in the next few months so no worries.

Looking forward to hitting the comic shop and grabbing the newest issue of Manifest Destiny, my favourite new book.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

Kill All Monsters and Lettering and Formats

I'd originally planned to do the comics in the same format as David Petersen's "Mouseguard" which is published in a 10x10inch format, then I considered just going with a standard comic size and for awhile I was trying to think of a way to make that format more interesting.

After a few days of looking I came across "Kill All Monsters" which is published by Alterna Press, I instantly ordered the book, it's great, giant robots fighting monsters (if you can't see the cover). I want my book to be short on words and big on panels and I love the layout that Michael May and Jason Copland chose for their book.

I was also turned on to an upcoming book called "Mother Russia" by Jeff McComsey but more on that later.

So I spent a good part of the day blocking in the title bar for the book using a drop shadow film noir kind of type, it looks pretty good, I've never been good at lettering and I think I should be able to tidy it up a little more in Manga Studio.

I also have changed the story of the first book, I had originally intended to do an origin story for the H.G's but that just bored my ass to tears to what I'm doing is three short illustrated stories featuring different citizens of Gull City and their interactions will inform the reader of the background of the Homeless G-Men.

I didn't accomplish much on paper but my mind is very happy with what I checked off in my head.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

The Homeless G-Men At The Press Club

 

The show is up and looks great, many thanks to all who came out last night to celebrate and to listen to the music of the Ron Leary Sextet. The Sardi's Style hanging looks good but big not to self I probably had to do twice the number of drawings to really give it the full effect I was looking for. It still looks great don't get me wrong.

The only thing that doesn't look great is the photo that includes me, I was too rushed after the hanging to just calm down and have my photo taken properly but oh well. I'm wearing a great Tshirt from Tee Villain a Tshirt shop based out of New Orleans.

Head on down to the Press Club (850 Dundas West) and have a look, drawings are framed, $25.00 each and can be purchased from the staff.

cheers,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com