Saturday, April 17, 2010

City of Cards: Ghosts of Samsara First Print Run

All right folks, first I'll psyche you up with another sample inking from this project. Final cleaned up version with text will be appearing in the book.



Seriously, this is the best thing I have done to date and I've been working on it almost non-stop for almost two months now trying to get it to reach my personal standards.

I'll be printing a first run for my final project assignment at the beginning of May, before May 4th, and if there's anyone that wants to order a copy please send a request to tereyachan@gmail.com

Cost: $5 in person, $6 shipped

What do you get for your money? Well, you get to own a first issue run of City of Cards, 24 pages of black and white comic with color cover, and I'll personally sign each copy as well. You'll also get my unending gratitude for supporting me as I begin the biggest project I have ever undertaken, and I don't just mean this comic, but my venture into City of Cards as a universe on whole.

Order now because one day this comic might actually be worth something. That, or when the world ends you'll have plenty of kindling.

To finish up, I've gone through my sketch book and pulled some of my favorite CoC related sketches that I've done throughout this past semester during classes.

Rick the lawyer:



Various sketches of Alex:





And Candy taking Plato to task for being a dork:



All art copyright CJ Joughin 2010. I'm already excited to get started on the rest of this project.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

City of Cards: Plato, the Ace of Hearts

One of my classmates Paul has been saying we should share old embarassing artwork to, I dunno, give each other some idea of where we're coming from and maybe give each other and ourselves something to laugh about? I guess I'm just starting early on that.

Okay, even moreso than Ace, you may want to avert your eyes because Plato has made an even bigger character change than Ace.



Oof, uh, well I don't honestly know when I drew that picture so I'm guessing some time in 2003 and it must be one of the earlier pictures of him because I quickly realized that something needed to change. Ugh, okay, let's move on...




Plato is definitely starting to live up to his name these days. In fact, when I started to redesign his character I did a lot more research about the philosopher Plato when thinking about what direction to go. Seeing as the original Plato's name meant "broad" as in big physically I decided to add a couple of inches to Plato's height and even more to his girth. He's definitely got a bit of the gentle giant thing going on.

Also, you can definitely start to see the big shift in direction I've been slowly pushing my art style towards and the look I've been developing here at CCS.

Plato is a much more straightforward character than Ace. This isn't to say he's blunt, more that his moral compass and philosophy on life doesn't tend to switch around much on itself. This makes him a great counterpart to Ace's constant mental imbalance.



Comics are better with friends. I drew that picture a few months ago, but it's still one of my favorites. Bill and Ted would be proud.

So, that's the first two main characters I'll be touching on for now as they're the two that will be appearing in my pre-thesis project that I'm working on. I'll continue to introduce the world of City of Cards and the people in it as I begin the main chapters following Ghosts of Samsara.

Next update I'll be putting up information for anyone that might be interested in ordering a first run copy of this comic and maybe some more sample work for you guys. I may take a break from scouring the archives for old art, though.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Comics You Should Know 2

Brew for Breakfast by Nomi Kane

Time for another installment from Comics You Should Know! This week we'll be looking at something a little different in that it's not a webcomic in the sense that Mermaid Hostel is a webcomic but more of a blog with weekly diary comics by my talented classmate Nomi Kane:

Brew for Breakfast

Nomi's comics are honest and she has a great natural observational wit that comes across clearly in her work. She's got a punk rocker heart too and that's awesome. She's also the talented editor behind Tales from San Papel and is amazing at putting fantastic mini comics at a crazy pace.

Check her out and be sure to give all the Comics You Should Know a look as I post them!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

City of Cards: The Ace of Spades

This week I'll be introducing the guy I consider my main protagonist, Ace. I'm going to do my best to keep this spoiler free but I can't make full promises. Also, this week you get a bonus sample finished inked page from the upcoming comic Ghosts of Samsara!

First, ready for some true horror? I dug up one of my earliest sketches I did of Ace back in 2004.



The boy definitely has come a long way since then. Here's an updated version of him for comparison.



Originally Ace was designed to be some kind of street magician character but I can safely say that as much as I love magicians, that just wasn't in the cards for Ace. (oh man, the puns are already starting...)

I always had a couple of goals with his character that have definitely cemented themselves even more over time. Most importantly, I wanted him to be a ball of contradictions both physically and mentally. Physically, he's average height, somewhat average build though pretty built in part due to his work, and if you wrote down a description of him on paper he'd match a significant portion of the population. Off paper, he's definitely something else.

And finally, a sample inked page of Ace in the pages of City of Cards: Ghosts of Samsara:



I definitely think I'm striking the right mood with this page. Final version will have blacked out panel gutters and text added.

Next week I'm hoping to get to Plato so stay tuned!