Search and Research #143

We now bring you the next chapter in the blockbuster "Evil Copier" saga. I suppose it's pretty short for a chapter, but I don't want to rewrite the beginning, so we'll just have to go with that. I'm particularly pleased with the shot of SCOM running here. I always have a sort of difficult time drawing him at angles (despite the fact that he's essentially a box) but I really pushed myself to make this work. Enjoy!

Search and Research #142

As the saying goes, "Beware the copier which has leverage!" Enjoy!

Search and Research #141 *Update*

I just couldn't stand it...that copy machine was driving me crazy!!! I just HAD to fix the coloring on that thing, so I've updated the coloring on the machine to the way I wish I had colored it. I left the previous version up for the purposes of comparison. After all, this strip is still an outlet for my ongoing artistic development, and is the record of that development. Thank you all for reading, leaving comments, and (if you enjoy it) telling your friends.

eli

Search and Research #141

It's always nice to get another one of these done and up after an extended absence. I'm going to admit up front that having finished it, I do not like the way I colored this copier. I hope nobody will be upset when that coloring changes in future strips. Enjoy!

Warm up sketch...

As you may have noticed, it's been a while since I've done any strips. Part of this is because I sort of ran out of ideas for a while, and I wanted to take a break from the little "one off" kinds of strips and try to tell a story. Since I'm a better artist than I am a writer, I need help from Jason to try to make these longer story arcs fit together, but as he wrote in the previous post, he's been super busy. The other part is that I was doing a lot of other art projects, mostly for work related stuff.

Anyway, this post is to let you know that we've written scripts for the next 10 strips, and I've started working on the first one. I hope to have it up on Sunday night or Monday. Because it has been a while since I've drawn the characters, I'm presenting for your viewing pleasure a warm up sketch I did of Elsie to remember how to draw her.



See you in a few!

Is it' a new strip!?! Oh. Never mind. False alarm.

La dee daaaa da dee... Oh! Hey there. I didn't see you there... What's that you say? New strip? Well, Eli and I are staying pretty busy right now. He's got at least one commissioned project going on right now that's consuming his free time. I also am pretty busy. We've been chatting a bit about trying to get another multi-strip story arc going, possibly culminating at or before the next color one (#150). So as soon as we can "sit down" and get to writing, we'll get some more strips coming your way! Thanks for poppin' in.
-Jason

Search and Research #140

I have very nice handwriting these days, but as recently as my time in highschool it wasn't as nice. My handwriting was something that I had developed for my own use, and it wasn't really intended for others to have to read. I used to work at a pizza place run by a Turkish man who was very big on clear handwriting. It seemed like every couple days he and I would have a little meeting about my handwriting and he would show me the parts of my handwriting that were hard to read, and then threaten to make me fold boxes all day the next day if it wasn't corrected. I have also worked with people who could use a handwriting intervention but I have never been inclined to give one. Enjoy!

Search and Research #139

Another one that is inspired by my real life. Something happened to the water pressure on my street, and I couldn't shower before work, and the only hat I had was a stocking cap kind of hat. I wore that thing all day, feeling super self-conscious and hoping my boss didn't see me. When I took it off at the end of the day, my hair looked like Marc's. I had fun drawing that hair. Enjoy!

Search and Research #138

I have found pens in our laptop bags upon their return to the desk. I have found keys. Once I found $11. I think it must be the pockets...people are trained to put things in pockets, no matter which pockets they are. Usually the pockets around us belong to us, and when we check out a laptop and a bag to a person, it feels like that bag is now theirs, which includes the pockets by default. I dunno, just thinking out loud here. Anyone else found weird stuff in laptop bags when they're returned?

Search and Research #137

We actually did get a request from a guy who accidentally "mailed" a letter in our book drop. Anybody else get weird stuff in the book drop accidentally? Also, I'm pretty proud of these word balloons...they're less misshapen then usual. Enjoy!

Search and Research #136

This strip was completely written by my buddy Jason. That is a rare occurrence because he is a computer programmer and doesn't spend much time in libraries. He'd like to spend more, but the library in his town had the roof collapse over the summer, rendering the town library-less. True story. Due to the fact that I work in a library, I usually come up with scripts about library situations and then shoot them over to Jason who adds a zing to the dialogue that I don't naturally possess.

That's when the movie Avatar came on the scene (heh heh...scene...bad joke. And...cut!) and blew both of us away with the awesomeness of the 3-D and the general sophistication of the computer animation. If you have not seen Avatar yet, please make plans to do so with all haste. Avatar succeeded in inspiring Jason in a way that library's never have, and the result was quite enjoyable. Thanks for reading!!

Search and Research #135

Ok! Here it is! Thanks again to everyone for waiting patiently while I worked this one out. I really stretched myself in coloring this, and I'll go ahead and admit that I'm very pleased with the result. I've done some photoshop coloring of individual pictures, but never tried to tie multiple panels together with similar colors and other stuff. I don't think I could have achieved these results with my markers, so I'm glad I went with the computer coloring route. I do like the process of coloring by hand though, so I will probably revert back to hand coloring with the next color strip unless I just really come up with something that would be better on the computer.

A couple things that may be of interest to the nerds/film buffs out there. I shamelessly stole the design of the "machine" from The Princess Bride, particularly the little headgear thing, but we'll call it a 'homage'. I also colored the "Facebook Angel" in the facebook colors on purpose, although she is very blue looking because I wanted to add some shading to her body, so there isn't much white on her. The "M" on Monotonoy's shirt is there on purpose, and his costume is colored in gray tones on purpose as well to accentuate his character. I presumed that Monotony would have stolen Super Marc's cape, so it doesn't make an appearance here.

As I mentioned before, I'm already done with the next strip, so be on the look-out for it next week. Because the image above is really, really large, I'm including a smaller resolution image for anyone viewing this on a phone or something. Enjoy!

More teasers...

Ok, so maybe the updates weren't as frequent as I had previously envisioned. Sorry about that. Every time that I thought about posting something I got nervous, as if any of the inked images would give too much away about the strip or something. It seems sort of silly now. So, just to prove that I am actually making progress on this strip, I'm posting a panel that I've finished coloring. I've removed the text, but clearly this is one of the characters that appeared in my previous post, now appearing in his inked, and colored final form.

This strip is really too large to color with markers, as I have done in the past, so I'm venturing into the arena of computer coloring. I think that so far it's looking okay. I'm not sure when I'll have it ready to post. Ironically, I've got a couple more strips that are already inked and ready to go after I get done with this one. It seems that inking the regular strip is far less intimidating to me than a super large one. I say that because this color strip sat on my desk, penciled and un-inked, for about a month while holiday visitors and the busyness of my library work kept me from finding the initiative to ink it.

Thanks to those of you who have been following along. Regular viewers are probably aware that my library work gets so busy at the beginning of each semester that I'm not able to find the mental energy to draw this strip once I get home, and thus there is a lag in January and August. I'm going to do my best to not let this lag extend too far into February.

- Eli

Teasers...

Just to let you know that I haven't forgotten about this strip, and to whet you appetites a little bit, I'm posting a couple of teaser images related to the next color strip that I'm working on. Those of you who have been following for a while know that often these color strips take a bit more time than usual, and the fact that I've had art projects related to the Christmas holidays and got my hand bitten by a squirrel (yes, you're reading that right!) haven't helped at all. However, the question remains, what possible relationship could there be between this image: and this image?And, what could either of them have to do with a library? Keep mulling on that and I'll try to post more teasers as this color strip progresses!

eli

Wai Fai sketches...

Well, I'm really really late in posting this, but here's my sketch of Wai Fai in her Trinity costume. I really like how this turned out, and yes, that's a tape gun in her hand. The Matrix had tons of guns in it, and so I initially thought it would be funny for her to have a tape gun, but I'm glad that didn't make it into the final strip. Below is that same sketch colorized with Photoshop.More sketches to come this week...keep your eyes peeled!

- eli

Search and Research #134

Well, between preparations for the Thanksgiving holidays and then throwing my back out while raking the yard the day after Thanksgiving, I haven't had much time to draw the past couple weeks. It happens. At least, it happens to me. :0)

Today's strip is based on an actual interaction one of my co-workers had with a student. In real life, the student had spread all is stuff out on my friend's desk while she had stepped out. He was apparently pretty angry to be asked to move.

The more I try to put in background elements I seem to have to either make them very detailed and risk cluttering up the design and putting in hours carrying the details on through all the panels, or I put in general shapes to sort of seem like background elements and I never know what to do with them. The cross hatching on the background elements this time around was an experiment, and I have to say that it's not exactly what I had in mind, but I didn't know what else to do with it. Oh well. Enjoy!

*Edit - I decided that the cross-hatched background elements in panels 1 and 4 were too confusing and so I just edited them out, and re-uploaded the image. For those of you who are interesting in seeing the old version, here it is:

Search and Research #133

Welcome back! I'm afraid that to fully appreciate this comic you will need to have seen Terminator, Terminator 2, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Salvation, or The Sarah Connor Chronicles. If you've seen none of these, please go see T2 immediately. Thank you. Also, there is no www.smartlibrarymachines.scom, so please don't spend time looking. Enjoy!

Ayvee sketches...

Here is my black and white sketch of Ayvee as Lisa Simpson as well as my colorized version. She was a lot of fun to draw in this costume. I think I made the mistake of trying to make her legs a little too muscular looking, or put a little too much detail in her knees or something, but overall I like how this design came out. The red dress with the triangle fringe, the pearls, and the spiky yellow hair were the details that I hoped would make this costume work. Doesn't she look like she's having fun? More sketches later this week. Enjoy!

Opal sketches

Here is the sketch I did of Opal as an MiB agent. The first sketch is the version I did with gray markers. The second image is colored with Photoshop by selecting certain areas and then playing with the hue. This was in response to a request by frequent commenter Angie, who suggested she'd like to see Opal decked out as a secret agent a few months ago. Angie, these are for you. I had to do detailed research on the design of the "flashy thing". And yes, she is carrying the noisy cricket in her other hand. More character sketches to follow. Enjoy!

Comps and Costume sketches...

My wife is in the last semester of her MLS and this means that she is taking her comps this Friday!!! Which means that we are going to Knoxville, TN for this weekend, and I'm not planning to have a new strip ready for this next week. I do however plan to post some interesting things on the blog that I have already drawn.

As many of you are aware we recently did a comic strip which featured the staff of the library dressed in their Halloween costumes. If you haven't seen it go check it out. Based on a post from an anonymous reader, I've confirmed the costume identities of 6 of the 8 characters, but there are still two characters for you to figure out!!! Who are they and who are they dressed as? Comment if you know or at least want to guess!

In the meantime, I'm going to start posting some of the sketches I did in preparation for this strip. I did these to figure out the costume and look for each character after Jason and I decided who each staff member would dress up as. I'm almost embarrassed to say that I think these design sketches look better than the renderings in the actual strip. Probably because I could draw these ones at a larger size. Oh well. First we have Elsie as Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars. This was pretty fun for me. I'm posting my inked lines and then my color version. I colored her with my gray markers and then changed some of the hues in Photoshop. As always, you can click on these pictures to see them at a higher resolution. Enjoy!