Explosion Proof

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Explosion Proof 2 - Page 2

mattchee

on Oct. 27, 2009

Hey all!

Well it seems its been harder getting the old Mastorism fans on board with this one than I thought. Oh well. I think this is where it really starts picking up– we'll see.

Anyhow, this was a fun page. I think it was the first one I drew in this story. You may notice I made a little jab at my Earthbound cohort Ben Ferrari on this page. Luckily, he was pretty amused at being killed off by page two (and actually, the character doesn't resemble him at all, just used his name). There was a "Lt. Grant" in his first Souverain story (from the first issue of Lady Fight), so thought it was only appropriate to pay him back!

If you are interested in the toning/inkwash technique, I talk a little bit about it my comment replies (see below). If I do it again, I'll probably cover it more in depth on my blog.

Speak of which… I put a preview of the next EP story there, the one I'm currently working on. Its actually in the context of a post about ANOTHER story I'm sort of developing on the side of the new Mastorism stuff. So that might be interesting too, I dunno. The blog, of course, is http://inkoutsidethebottle.blogspot.com

And hey everyone, I'm trying really hard to keep up with all of my favorite web comics, but my family and I have kinda gotten a bit of a curveball here, so I'm tending toward catching up at the end of every week instead of following them all every day. So if I seem absent, I'm not, I've just changed my reading habits. I'm just grateful that everything that's going on is happening at a time where I'm on a hiatus from Mastorism, and don't have any huge impending deadlines for other stories. Whew. Thanks for understanding, though everyone.

Matt

and now some comment replies:

mushroom - Thanks… I was inspired. EP is kind of my excuse to try new things. It wouldn't really fly if I suddenly busted out something like that in Mastorism, but here, every story I treat as a clean slate. As you'll see with this story, and probably so on with the next one.

repoman - Glad you like the wash effect. Let me know what you think as the story progresses. I really stressed about it. There was a lot of experimentation involved, but I was fairly happy with the end results on this story. Not sure if I'm going to do it again or not. Since I know you may be curious, yep, the wash is all digital. I did the drawing/inking all in Manga Studio, and the wash I did in Painter X. If you're really curious: I think I lettered this story in Illustrator (which is abnormal for me– I usually just do it in MS). I do a lot of lettering for other folks in Illustrator though.

DAJB - That's kinda what I was going for there!

always1961 - Thanks!